Steel Beach

by John Varley

  It did, and the surface was crawling with soldiers.

  I ducked back in, thankful for the mirror camouflage I was wearing. Where had they all come from?

  There were not regiments, or divisions, or anything like that. But I could see three from my hiding place, and they seemed to be patrolling except for one who was standing around near the entrance I'd just exited. Guarding it, I presumed. Perhaps he just meant to take captives, but I'd seen people shooting to kill and wanted no part of finding out his intentions.

  One of the other things I'd been lucky about was in seeing the man in the square who'd been hit by bullets while wearing his null-suit. Otherwise I might have wrongly concluded the suit, through which nothing could pass, could render me immune to bullets. Which it would… but only at a cost.

  This was explained to me later. Maybe you already figured it out; Smith said "as should be intuitively obvious," but he talks like that.

  Bullets possess kinetic energy. When you stop one dead in its tracks, that energy has to go somewhere. Some of it is transferred to your body: e.g., the bullet knocks you over. But most of the energy is absorbed by the suit, which promptly freezes stiff, and then has to do something with all that energy. There's no place to store it in the null-generator. Smith tried that, and the generators overheated or, in extreme cases, exploded. Not a pretty thought, considering where it's implanted.

  So what the field does is radiate the heat away. From both surfaces of the field.

  "I'm sure it's a symmetry we can defeat, given time," Smith told me. "The math is tricky. But what a bulletproof jacket it will make, eh?"

  It sure would. In the meantime, what happened is you got parboiled. Getting rid of excess heat was already your biggest problem in a null-suit. You could survive one hit in a suit (several people did), but usually only if you could turn it off pretty quickly and cool yourself. With two or more hits your internal temperature would soar and your brain would cook.

  The suit was supposed to turn itself off in that case, automatically. But naturally it wouldn't turn off if there was vacuum outside. It won't do that no matter how extreme conditions inside got; vacuum is always the worst of any set of evils.

  If I got shot now, I'd cook, from the skin inwards.

  ***

  I didn't start out singing hosannas to the name of A.G. Bell. For the first hour I wanted to dig him up and roast him slowly. Not his fault, of course, but in the state I was in, who cared?

  After filling my tank again I made my way to the top of the junk pile. This was possible-though by no means easy-because where I was, near the Heinlein, the thickness of the planetary dump was not great. By squirming, making myself small, picking my way carefully I was soon able to stick my head out of the mess. Any of a thousand passing satellites ought to have a good line of sight at me from there, so I started dialing as fast as my tongue could hit the switchboard on the insides of my teeth. I figured I'd call Cricket, because he…

  …could not be reached at that number. According to my head-up, which is seldom wrong about these things. Neither could Brenda, or Liz. I was about to try another number when I finally realized nobody could be reached, because my internal phone relied, when out on the surface, on a booster unit that's standard equipment in a pressure suit.

  How could I be expected to think of these things? You tap your teeth, and pretty soon you hear somebody's voice in your ear. That's how a fucking telephone works. It's as natural as shouting.

  I sure as hell thought about it then, and soon realized I had another problem. The signal from my phone wouldn't get through my null-suit field. The Heinleiners used the field itself to generate a signal in another wave band entirely, so they could communicate with each other, suit-to-suit, and nobody, not even the CC, could overhear them. I was screwed by their security.

  I thought about this a long time, keeping one eye on the oxygen gauge. Then I went back to the dark corridor and sneaked up on the body of the man I had killed.

  He was still there, though shoved over to one side of the passage. I managed to get his helmet off and lose myself back in the maze, where I used my light and a few bits of metal that came to hand to pry out what I hoped was the booster for his suit radio. I had done my work better than I knew; there was a bullet hole punched through it.

  I held on to it anyway. I got another charge of air and went back to the surface, where I used a length of wire to connect my pressure fitting to the radio itself, on the theory that this was the only way for anything to get out of the suit. I switched it on, was rewarded with a little red light going on in a display on the radio. I dialed Cricket again, and got nothing.

  So I brought all my vast and subtle technological skills to bear on repairing the radio. Translation: I whanged the sumbitch on the dashboard of the junk rover I was sitting in, and I dialed again. Nothing. Whang. Still not a peep. So I WHANGED it again and Cricket said "Yeah, what the hell do you want?"

  My tongue had been leading a life of its own, nervously dialing and re-dialing Cricket's number as I worked my engineering magic on the radio. And now, when I needed it, I couldn't get the damn tongue to work at all, so overwhelmed was I at hearing a familiar voice.

  "I haven't got time to dick around here," Cricket warned.

  "Cricket, it's me, Hildy, and I-"

  "Yeah, Hildy, you cover it your way and I'll cover it mine."

  "Cover what?"

  "Just the biggest damn story that ever…" I heard the sound of mental brakes being applied with the burning of much mental rubber; after the clashing of mental gears Cricket said, sweetly, "No story, Hildy. Nothing at all. Forget I said anything."

  "Damn it, Cricket, is the shit coming down out there, too? What's happened? All I know is-"

  "You can figure it out for yourself, just like I did," he said.

  "Figure what out? I don't know what you're-"

  "Sure, sure, I know. It won't work, Hildy. You've conned me out of a big story for the last time."

  "Cricket, I don't even work for the Nipple anymore."

  "Once a reporter, always a reporter. It's in your blood, Hildy, and you could no more ignore this one than a whore could keep her legs together when the doorbell rings."

  "Cricket, listen to me, I'm in big trouble. I'm trapped-"

  "Ah ha!" he crowed, confusing me completely. "A lot of folks are trapped, old buddy. I think it's the best place for you. Read about it in a few hours in the Shit." And he hung up.

  I almost threw the radio out across the horizon, but sanity returned just in time. With it came caution, as my eyes, following the would-be trajectory, saw two figures clambering up the junk. They were headed for me, probably on the scent of my transmission. I ducked over the side of the junked rover and dived back into the maze.

  ***

  I still haven't entirely forgiven Cricket, but I've got to say that love died during that phone call. Sure, I deserved some of it; I'd tricked him often enough in the past. And in his defense, he thought I was trapped in an elevator, as thousands of Lunarians were at that moment, and he didn't think I'd be in any particular danger, and if I was, there wasn't anything he could have done about it.

  Yeah, sure. And your momma would have fucked pigs, Cricket, if she could have found any who'd have her. You didn't give me time to explain.

  What really high-gravved me was that, when I finally got back in position to call him again, he'd set his phone to refuse calls from me. I risked my neck ducking in for more air then finding a new place to transmit from, and what I got for my efforts was a busy signal.

  I got a lot of those in quick succession. Brenda didn't answer. Neither did anybody at the Nipple, which worried me no end. Think about it. A major metropolitan newspad, and nobody's answering the phone?

  I knew it had to do with the big story Cricket mentioned. Impossible visions flitted through my head, from a city-wide blowout to thousands upon thousands of soldiers like the ones I'd seen laying waste to the whole planet.

  But I had to ke
ep trying. So I went back down into the maze and sought out my favorite airing hole. And two big guys in suits were camped out there, weapons ready.

  ***

  I'd had ten minutes of air when I first backed into the pile of chrome pipes to hide from the soldiers. That had been seven minutes earlier.

  The first thing I'd done was cut back the oxygen dissemination rate in my artificial lung to a level just short of unconsciousness. Ditto the cooling rate. I figured that would stretch the ten minutes into fifteen if I didn't have to move around too much. So far I hadn't moved at all. The blinking red light I was watching was telling me my blood oxygen level was low. Another gauge, normally dormant, had lit up as well, and this one assured me my body temperature stood at 39.1 degrees and was rising slowly. I knew I couldn't take much more without becoming delirious; anything over forty was dangerous territory.

  I'm a miserable tactician, I'll admit it, at least in a situation like that. I could see the elements of the problem, but all I could do was stew about it. Those guys topside, for instance. Could they communicate my position to the gorillas guarding the air tank? They were no more than thirty meters above me; if they had any kind of generalship at all a message would soon be arriving to the guards to be on the lookout for a roly-poly, out-of-breath football trophy, known to associate with lengths of chrome-plated pipe.

  If so, what could I do about it? There was no hope of making my way through the maze to the next air station-which might well be guarded, anyway. So if these guys didn't find somewhere else to go in the next eight minutes, it was going to be a dead heat (terrible choice of words there) as to whether I died of suffocation or boiled in my own sweat. I didn't really have a preference in the matter; it's something only a coroner could care about.

  Brenda Starr, comic-strip reporter, would surely have thought up some clever ruse, some diversion, something to lure those freaking soldiers away from the air tank long enough for her to re-fuel. Hildy Johnson, scared-shitless schoolteacher and former inkster, didn't have the first notion of how to go about it without drawing attention to herself.

  There was one bit of good news in the mix. My tongue had continued its independent ways as I crouched in hiding, and soon I was startled by the sound of a busy signal in my ear. I didn't even know who I'd called, much less how the signal got out. I eventually surmised (and later found out it was true) that something in the junk pile was acting as an antenna, relaying my calls to the surface, and thence to a satellite.

  So I tried Brenda again (still no answer), and the Nipple (still nothing), and then I dialed Liz.

  "Buckingham Palace, Her Majesty speaking," came a slurred voice.

  "Liz, Liz, this is Hildy. I'm in big trouble."

  There was a long, somehow boozy silence. I wondered if she'd fallen asleep. Then there was a sob.

  "Liz? Are you still there?"

  "Hildy. Hildy. Oh, god, I didn't want to do it."

  "Didn't want to do what? Liz, I don't have time for-"

  "I'm a drunk, Hildy. A goddam drunk."

  This was neither news, nor a well-kept secret. I didn't say anything, but listened to the sound of wracking sobs and watched the seconds tick off on my personal clock and waited for her to talk.

  "They said they could put me away for a long time, Hildy. A long, long time. I was scared, and I felt really awful. I was shaking and I was throwing up, only nothing came up, and they wouldn't let me have a drink."

  "What are you talking about? Who's 'they?'"

  "They, they, dammit! The CC."

  By then I had more or less figured it out. She stammered disconnected parts to me then, and I learned the complete story later, and it went something like this:

  Even before the Bicentennial celebration Liz had been firmly in the employ of the CC. At some point she had been arrested, taken in, and charged with many counts of weapons violations. (So were a lot of others; the invasion of Heinlein Town had been armed with weapons confiscated during a huge crackdown-an event that never made the news.)

  "They said I could go to jail for eighty years, Hildy. And then they left me alone, and the CC spoke to me and told me if I did a few little things for him, here and there, the charges might be dropped."

  "What happened, Liz? Did you get careless?"

  "What? Oh, I don't know, Hildy. They never showed me the evidence they had against me. They said it would all come out in the trial. I don't know if it was obtained illegally or not. But when the CC started talking I figured out pretty quick that it didn't matter. We talked about that; you know that, if he ever wanted to, he could frame every person on Luna for something or other. All I could see was when we got to court, it'd be an airtight case. I was afraid to let it get that far."

  "So you sold me out."

  There was silence for a long time. A few more minutes had gone by. The guards hadn't moved. There wasn't anything else to do but listen.

  "Tell me the rest of it," I said.

  It seemed there was this group of people out around Delambre that the CC wanted to know more about. He suggested Liz get me out there and see what happened.

  I should have been flattered. The CC's estimate of my bloodhound instincts must have been pretty high. I suppose if I hadn't seen anything during that first trip, something else would have been arranged, until I was on the scent. After that, I could be relied on to bring the story to ground.

  "He was real interested when you brought in that tape of the little girl. I… by that time I was a wholly-owned subsidiary, Hildy. I told him I could find some way of getting you to tell me what was going on. I'd have done about anything by then."

  "The hostage syndrome," I said. The guards were still there.

  "What? Oh. Yeah, probably. Or sheer lack of character. Anyway, he told me to hold back or you'd get suspicious. So I did, and you finally invited me in."

  And on that first visit she'd stolen a null-field generator. She didn't say how, but it probably wasn't too hard. They're not dangerous unless you try to open them up.

  I could put the rest of it together myself. During the next week the CC had learned enough null-field technology to make something to get his troops through the barriers, if not to equip them with null-suits or fields of their own.

  "And that's pretty much it," she said, and sighed. "So I guess he arrested you, and probably all those other folks, too, right? Where have they got you? Have they set bail yet?"

  "Are you serious?"

  "Hell, Hildy, I don't think he could have anything serious on you."

  "Liz… what's going on out there?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Cricket said all hell was breaking loose, somehow or other."

  "You got me, Hildy. I was just… ah, sleeping, until you called. I'm here in my apartment. Come to think of it, the lights are flickering. But that could be just my head."

  She was in the dark as much as I was. A lot of people were. If you didn't leave your apartment and you didn't live in one of the sectors where the oxygen service was interrupted, the chances of your having missed the early stages of the Big Glitch were excellent. Liz had been in an alcoholic stupor, with her phone set to take calls only from me.

  "Liz. Why?"

  There was a long pause. Then, "Hildy, I'm a drunk. Don't ever trust a drunk. If it comes to a choice between you and the next drink… it's not really a choice."

  "Ever thought of taking the cure?"

  "Babe, I like drinking. It's the only thing I do like. That, and Winston."

  Maybe I would have hit her right in the belly at that point; I don't know. I know I was filled with rage at her. Telling her the dog was fried and vac-dried wouldn't have begun to get back at her for what she'd done to me.

  But just then I suddenly got real, real hot. I'd already been too warm, you understand; now, in an instant, my skin was so hot I wanted to peel it off and there was a burning ache on the left side of my chest.

  The null-suit did what it could. I watched in growing alarm as the indicator that ha
d been telling me how many minutes I had to live took a nose dive. I thought it wasn't going to stop. Hell, it was almost worth it. With the falling gauge came a cooling blast of air all over my body. At least I wasn't going to fry.

  I'd finally put together what was happening, though. For almost a minute I'd been feeling short, sharp shocks through the metal pipes I leaned against and the metal brace I had my feet on. Then I saw a bullet hit a pipe. That's the only thing it could have been, I reasoned. It left a dent, a dull place on the metal. Somebody was standing on top of the junk pile and shooting down into it at random. It had to be blind shooting, because I couldn't see the shooter. But the bullets were ricocheting and one had finally struck me. I couldn't afford another hit.

  So I grabbed a length of pipe and started toward the corridor. I didn't think I could do much good against the tough pressure suits, but if I swung for the faceplates I might get one of them, and at least I'd go down fighting. I owed it to Winston, if to no one else, to do that much.

  Getting to the corridor was like reaching for that top step that isn't there. I stepped out, pipe cocked like the clean-up batter coming to the plate. And nobody was there.

  I saw their retreating backs outlined by the light of their helmet lamps. They were jogging toward the exit.

  I'll never know for sure, but it seems likely they'd been summoned to the top to help in the search for me. How were they to know the guys on top of the pile were only a few meters directly above them? Anyway, if they'd stayed in place, I'd have been dead in ninety seconds, tops. So I gave them ten seconds to get beyond the point where they could possible see me, and I reached for the ALU adapter hose.

  It wasn't there.

  It made me mad. I couldn't think of anything more foolish than getting this close to salvation and then suffocating with about a ton of compressed oxygen at my fingertips. I slammed my hand against the tank, then got my flashlight and cast about on the ground. I was sure they'd taken it with them. It's what I would have done, in their place.