Analog SFF, July-August 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “A botanist on the Moon?” said Adrian with a chuckle.

  “Oh, I run an occasional low-gravitation seed experiment,” she said, “but mainly I'm in charge of the hydroponic vegetable farm. I'm also the town's medical staff.”

  Ralph placed a hand on the control stick. “Sorry to have to put you guys to work so soon, but . . .” He gestured toward the falling drop-container. “We have to bring in the mail while we can still find it. Damn inconvenient, not being allowed radio beacons.” He pointed to the rear set of seats. “Hop in.” He made a sound half way between a laugh and a grunt. “As an Australian, hopping should be second nature to you.”

  Adrian gave a wan smile. As he and Victor swung into the rear seats, he said, “I gather you're not completely wild about the Lunaroo idea.”

  “As usual,” said Ralph as he pushed the stick and the buggy lurched forward, “it's another case of politics triumphing over engineering.”

  “Why don't we defer politics for awhile?” Kimberly broke in. She moved her body slightly, as if to look over her shoulder. In a spacesuit, it was an impossible gesture. “Your first time on the Moon, Dr. Clarke, isn't it?”

  “It is. But ever since I was a kid in Melbourne, I've looked at it a lot.” Adrian pointed at the Earth. “With a good imagination, you can just make out Melbourne.” He paused. “Pretty place . . . Earth, I mean. Nice to see it shining down on us.”

  “It doesn't always,” said Kimberly. “Lunar libration keeps it below the horizon much of the time.”

  “That's actually why the Silent Earth Radio Telescope was built here on Smythii,” said Victor. “When the Earth is below the horizon, the telescope is shielded from its radio interference. And at night, this is the most radio-quiet place in the solar system.”

  “I have been prepped for this trip, you know,” said Adrian.

  “SERT's a damned nuisance,” said Ralph. “Only low-power radio equipment is allowed on the base.” He gave a short grunt. “Which is why we have to chase after the drop-container at night, using only its light beacons. A right damned nuisance.”

  Adrian, thinking that the mayor had probably been on the Moon too long, didn't talk until they'd reached the drop-container. Nobody talked.

  * * * *

  With their helmet lights providing illumination, the four set to work disassembling the container. When they'd gotten the front panel off, Ralph peered inside.

  “My god!” Ralph, even in a spacesuit, visibly stiffened. "That is Australia's contribution to the space program? It looks like the kangaroo from hell wearing snowshoes.”

  The Lunaroo did look kangaroolike, despite having a door on one side seemingly lifted from a convertible sports car and an interior like an old open-cockpit aircraft, but where the riders sat abreast. It had a head with two spiky radio antennas where ears might have been expected and headlights for eyes. The tail was articulated and the feet were huge. On the door was stenciled the name “Skippy.”

  “We need another vehicle, and they send us this,” said Ralph. “This is crazy.”

  “Why?” said Adrian. “With 18 percent Earth-normal gravity and the rough ground, a hopping transport vehicle makes a lot of sense.”

  “Crazy,” Ralph repeated, as if to himself, his eyes on the Lunaroo.

  “Well,” said Kimberly, “if Canada can have its robot arm, then Australia can have its robot . . . kangaroo.”

  In addition to the Lunaroo, the container held a smaller box. Ralph opened it and his mood brightened. “Frozen meat,” he said, “and a few cylinders of precious nitrogen.” He and Adrian moved the box to the trailer. “Precious nitrogen?” said Adrian. “I'd have thought it was oxygen that was precious.”

  “Oxygen is necessary,” said Ralph, “but not necessarily precious. Heating the lunar basalt in the furnace releases all we need. But for nitrogen, we've got to rely on Earth.” He laughed. “But why am I telling you all this? You're the geologist.”

  “And I'm also the roo wrangler.” Adrian went to the Lunaroo. While the others finished disassembling the container around it, he untethered the vehicle. He'd trained with one back home, and he looked forward to riding a roo in the lunar gravity it was designed for. He got into the vehicle, strapped himself in, then hopped it off the base of the container. “Hey, this is great!” At low horizontal and vertical throttles he hopped the craft a few times around the buggy and was amazed how high and smooth the Lunaroo moved. “Really great! Spiffy!”

  “All right, all right,” said Ralph. “Come on and help us get the panels in the trailer.”

  “Yeah, fine.” Adrian pulled back the throttles and the hops became shorter and lower until the metal beast came to a stop. Adrian jumped out. “But afterward, I'd like to inspect the oxygen furnace.”

  “After we take care of the container,” said Ralph in a tired voice. “Then you can hop that thing to the FLO. We'll follow you in the buggy.” He sighed. “After that, you can take the buggy to examine the furnace. Damn! I wish we had that second moon buggy.”

  “No worries,” said Adrian as he helped lift a panel, “I'll use the Skippy here to go to the furnace.”

  “Can't allow it,” said Ralph. “No solo outside work is allowed. It's a rule that all vehicles must have two or more people in them.” He blew out a breath, sounding like a hurricane in Adrian's helmet. "All vehicles . . . all one of them.”

  “The Lunaroo is a two-seater, you know.”

  “I do know,” said Ralph. “The problem will be getting someone to occupy that second seat.”

  “I'll go,” offered Victor.

  * * * *

  When they'd finished loading the trailer, Adrian took Victor for a set of training hops. Kimberly and Ralph watched from the buggy.

  Adrian hopped the roo away at low throttles. “Best not to go too fast. The ground is rough here.”

  “How does it turn?” Victor asked.

  “It swings its tail in mid hop.” Adrian executed a change of direction. “Conservation of angular momentum and all that.” He leaned to the side and the roo banked slightly to that side. “And body English helps.” Adrian sat upright again. “It takes some getting used to, though . . . like turning on a motorcycle. The thing to remember is, turning is hard, but braking is impossible.”

  After a few minutes, Adrian hopped to a stop and called to Ralph. “I think things are good here. We'll go to the furnace now, if it's okay with you.”

  “All right,” said Ralph. “But careful. Our high-point radio relay is down and the furnace isn't in line of sight with the base. You won't be able to reach us by radio . . . not with your low-power spacesuit radios at any rate.”

  “Ah, but the roo radio is a high-power unit,” said Adrian. “We should be able to contact you by crater wall bounce if we get into trouble.”

  “Good,” said Ralph. “I'd hoped as much.”

  Adrian watched as the moon buggy started away, then, with Victor navigating, he hopped the roo toward the furnace. As they progressed, Adrian taught Victor the controls. But suddenly, Adrian hopped the Lunaroo to a halt. “I'm an idiot!”

  “If you insist,” said Victor. “But why, in particular?”

  “It's a solar furnace,” said Adrian. “I can't tell much about it at night.” He shrugged—a purely private gesture in a spacesuit. “When's sunrise?”

  “In a couple of hours.” Victor slapped a gloved hand gently against the roo's control panel. “Tell you what. Why don't we go to the telescope first? I have a few adjustments to make on the secondary focus. And the focus is not a nice place to be when the sun is up. After that, we can swing over to the furnace.” He paused. “But SERT's about twenty-five kilometers away. I wouldn't want to spend forever getting there and back.”

  “No worries,” said Adrian. “Skippy here can go a hell of a lot faster than you might think.”

  “Okay,” said Victor, pointing. “The scope's off that way.”

  “Hang on.” Adrian started the roo and pushed the throttles forward. “I saw SE
RT from the lander. It looked huge.”

  “It's seven hundred meters across . . . the size of its crater.”

  “Impressive!” said Adrian.

  “Yeah.” With a short pause each time the roo's feet hit the lunar surface, Victor went on to describe the telescope. “Something like a sheet of aluminized silk is hung from—a hoop around the rim. The material has varying density so it hangs as a true spherical surface. And with no atmosphere it doesn't move. Even small meteors can pierce the fabric without disfiguring the mirror.”

  “Hmm,” said Adrian, to show he was listening.

  “Gregorian secondary optics sit near the focus. They correct for the spherical aberration and allow some pointing. Three cables from the rim hold the secondary and the detector array.”

  “Very impressive,” said Adrian, impressed most of all by Victor's bubbly enthusiasm.

  “When the Earth's below the horizon we do radio astronomy, and when it's above, it does automated SETI observations.” Victor patted a hand on the roo's door. “Hey, you know, this hopping is okay.”

  “Yeah, it is,” said Adrian, distantly, his eyes drawn to the wonders of the lunar landscape. He'd be happy if the trip went on for hours.

  At length, Victor snapped forward. “There it is,” he said. “SERT. At eleven o'clock.”

  Adrian turned the roo gently toward the nondescript crater. “Could have used some advanced warning. Roos don't turn on a dime.”

  “Stop there,” said Victor, pointing to a hole in the crater wall. “The service entrance.”

  As the crater went by on Victor's left, he leaned out toward it.

  “Don't lean!” Adrian called out. He leaned in the other direction to keep the roo stable.

  “Sorry!” Victor pushed sharply against the roo structure, forcing his body upright. But his sideways motion continued until he was leaning against Adrian.

  “Bloody hell!” Adrian tried to sit upright, but couldn't with Victor pressing against him. The roo also leaned. Adrian tried to turn into the direction of lean, but it was too late. The slow-turning Lunaroo banked awkwardly, landing on but one of its snowshoelike feet. Adrian pulled sharply down on the throttles but not quickly enough. The roo began another hop. It went up and came immediately down—horizontally, landing hard on its side, spinning against the SERT crater and throwing up a spray of rocks and fine powder from the regolith.

  Adrian suppressed a grunt of pain as Victor fell on him, twisting his leg under the edge of Victor's life-support module.

  Victor released his harness, crawled off onto the surface, and scrambled to his feet. Adrian clutched his knee and let out a moan.

  “What's wrong?” Victor shouted.

  “I hope just a seriously sprained knee,” said Adrian through clenched teeth.

  “Jeez!” said Victor. “I'd have thought it impossible to injure oneself in this light gravity.”

  “Well, mate, it seems I've done the impossible.”

  “Hold on. I'll get you out of there.” Victor released Adrian's harness and pulled him free. “We'll have to get you back so Kimberly can look at you.”

  “See if you can get Skippy upright,” said Adrian, massaging his knee with heavy gloved hands, “so we can use its radio.”

  “Right.” Victor walked to the downed vehicle and managed to raise it to its feet. “Uh-oh,” he said. “One of the antennas has snapped off.”

  “Let's hope it was the dummy,” said Adrian. “One of the antennas is only for show.” Slowly and accompanied by much pain, he straightened his leg. “See if you can fire it up.”

  Victor climbed into the roo and threw a switch. “We have power.”

  “Great! Now flip the radio switch to Relay.”

  Adrian waited anxiously as Victor's hand hovered over the roo console, and then found the radio controls.

  “Damn it,” said Victor. “No carrier. Nothing.”

  “Try your suit radio, then. Command it to High Strength.” Adrian would have tried his, but he knew from experience that Baby, NASA's speech recognition system, sometimes had trouble with Australian accents—not to mention Australian accents under duress.

  “Baby,” came Victor's voice. “Radio gain high. Set.”

  “Set radio gain high. Yes, no,” came a synthesized woman's voice.

  “Yes,” said Victor.

  “Radio gain high.”

  Adrian winced as, even with the suit's auto-gain-control in operation, the synthesized voice rang almost painfully loud in Adrian's helmet.

  Victor spent the next quarter hour sending an emergency call, waiting a few seconds for an answer, and then trying again. Finally, he commanded the radio gain back to low and looked over at Adrian. “No dice.”

  Adrian nodded to himself. “I'm not too crazy about riding a roo with a busted knee. But there doesn't seem much choice. Take a spin in her. See if the controls all work.”

  Victor hit a few buttons and pushed forward a throttle. The roo started hopping vertically. “So far, so good.” He pushed the other throttle, moved it a few more times, and then said, “Not good. Vertical motion works, forward motion doesn't.”

  “Lean with the hops,” said Adrian. “Try body English.”

  Victor tried again. The roo hopped but only progressed forward a few inches per hop. “No good,” he said, switching off the power. He stepped out of the roo. “We have a real problem. We're stuck here.”

  “When they find we're overdue,” said Adrian, “I imagine they'll come looking for us.” He gestured, expansively. “Might as well just sit back and enjoy the scenery.”

  “But how will they find us?” Victor sounded very serious. “They thought we'd gone to the furnace.”

  Adrian shivered as the situation became clear to him. “Eventually they'll go back to the drop zone and follow the roo tracks.”

  “Eventually,” said Victor under his breath.

  Adrian didn't need it spelled out. What was the chance they'd be found before their oxygen ran out? He thought hard for a plan. Focus, Adrian. Focus! Then he noticed the warning light on his heads-up display. “I'm afraid we . . . I have another problem,” he said, forcing his voice calm.

  Victor turned to him. “Tell me.”

  “My refrigeration unit. It's failed.” Adrian examined all the status lights. “Heater's fine, though. Everything else, okay.” He knew that as long as they were in the lunar night, he'd be just fine—no need for refrigeration. Adrian asked the crucial question. “How long,” he said in a voice made calm by his NASA training, “until sunrise?”

  “I don't know,” said Victor with a heavy voice. “Not long. Half-hour, maybe. But the Sun comes up very slowly on the Moon. As long as you're in shadow, the Sun can't get to you.”

  “Just as well,” said Adrian with forced cheerfulness. “I'm not really in the mood to work on my tan.” Victor didn't laugh. He didn't make any answer. “Victor,” said Adrian after a few seconds, “what's the matter?”

  “The refrigeration unit. We've seen them fail before. Temperature sensor failure.”

  “So?”

  “The problem is that the same failure locks the heater on. The suit temperature keeps going up.”

  Adrian fought down a surge of panic. “Baby. Display detail on.”

  “Unrecognized command,” came Baby's voice. “Command must end with query or set.”

  Damn! Adrian fought to keep his voice steady. “Baby. Display detail on. Set.”

  “Set display detail on. Yes, No.”

  “Yes.” Linear meters and a digital clock now joined the status lights. Adrian stared at the temperature meter. The value crept higher even as he watched. “It is getting a trifle warm, actually.”

  “Try your radio,” said Victor in a voice saying it was useless. “Use high gain. I'll try mine as well. Maybe someone is in earshot.”

  “Not likely,” said Adrian.

  Victor swiveled around toward the crater wall. “Let's hide out under the telescope. Aluminized film. It'll reflect most of th
e heat back into space.”

  “But not the internal heat from my suit.”

  “No,” said Victor in a barely audible voice. “But it'll buy you some time.” He helped Adrian to his feet. “Think you can walk?”

  “Depends on what you consider walking.” Adrian forced a laugh. “Under the telescope. Like cats under a hot tin roof.”

  “Come on,” said Victor, offering his shoulder as a handhold. “It's just a few meters to the entrance.”

  “If they couldn't hear us before,” grunted Adrian as he hobbled, “they'll never be able to pick up radio signals from in there.”

  “There's something to be said for dying later rather than sooner,” said Victor. “Anyway, I'm sure they'll come looking for us.”

  “The Moon's a big place. They'll never find us in time. Our oxygen will just run out. It's fry or asphyxiate.”

  Victor turned on his helmet light as they passed through the entrance.

  Inside, Adrian sat with his back against the crater wall, He could see a dim bluish patch of light on the ground stretching out from the entrance—the light from Earth. Earthlight. I can't die here, so far from home. I need a plan. Focus, Adrian! He checked his temperature display: 38 degrees Celsius.

  Victor, standing, looked out the entrance. “I think,” he said without turning around. “I think our best shot is for me to try to jog back to the outpost for help.”

  “That's twenty-five kilometers away.”

  “Give or take,” said Victor, “but I should be in line-of-sight radio range in, I don't know, around twenty.”

  “Well, if you think you can make it . . .”

  Victor stood at the entrance in silence. Then Adrian heard a sigh. “No,” said Victor, softly. “I'd never make it. No way the suit and the refrigeration module could survive a twenty-five kilometer run into the sun . . . not to mention me surviving it.” He turned away from the entrance and then just stood like a statue.

  Idly, Adrian looked up at the underside of the huge bowl of the telescope, its bottom three meters or so above the ground. “Formidable!”

  “The telescope?” Victor also looked up at SERT. “On Earth now,” he said, in a wistful voice, “thousands of people, amateur astronomers, are at their computers analyzing the multi-channel radio signals from this beast.”