Crater Trueblood and the Lunar Rescue Company

by Homer Hickam

  “Her kidnappers will just want money for her, right?”

  Riley shrugged. “I think it might be bigger than that. You don’t kill a thousand people and destroy a billion johncredit project and then just ask for a ransom, even if it is for the exalted Miss Priss of the Moon Maria Medaris.”

  Crescent concluded Riley made sense. There was something big and very dangerous out there, and Crater was running toward it as fast as he could go with a carelessness that just might get him—and her—killed. Crescent’s thoughts turned to her secret—a secret that made her unwilling to be killed for no good purpose, even though she was genetically programmed to die. Although her fate was not entirely in her hands, she didn’t want to spend her remaining days on a futile, life-ending search for Maria Medaris. She had something vastly more important to do.

  EIGHT

  There was no here. There was no now. There was no light. There was no darkness. There was nothing until a painful light struck her eyes, which she realized were wide open. Blinded, she tried to shield them, but her arms were restrained. Then, blocking the light, Truvia’s bone-white face loomed before her like a grotesque, chalky asteroid. “What would you like more than anything in the world and its moon?” Truvia asked.

  Maria fought for focus, found it, and said, “To go home.”

  Truvia tilted her head. “Do you think I’m beautiful? We have mastered the science and art of such things. I will ask you again. What would you like more than anything in the world and its moon?”

  “And I said to go home. Have you contacted my grandfather?”

  “He knows you’re here.”

  “What did he say?”

  “What he says doesn’t matter. What would you like more than anything in the world and its moon? Think carefully now.”

  “I think I want out of this loony bin.”

  Maria became aware that there was someone else in the room. She was shocked when she saw it was a demon, a biologically manipulated creature, less intelligent than crowhoppers but more vicious and remorseless. It gazed at her with malevolent interest.

  “It is called BKD4284,” Truvia said of the demon. “It is the last demon in our inventory. We invented them after we patented Legionnaires or, as you call them, crowhoppers. Sadly, demons did not turn out as we hoped. Insanely violent, yes, but too stupid to follow orders in battle with any consistency. We kept BKD4284 because it has been trained in torture. I’m sorry to say torture is the first step in your training because you must first understand that you cannot be saved.”

  “No need for torture,” Maria said quickly. “I got it. Can’t be saved. What’s next?”

  Truvia’s expression changed to one of sorrow. “I don’t believe you are sincere.” She floated away to the hatch. “But you will be.”

  “Don’t leave,” Maria said, frantic. “I can get sincere in a hurry.”

  Her hand on the hatch cover, Truvia said, “Have you ever thought about the human foot? It is a most remarkable anatomical structure. It takes our weight and provides our locomotion. It contains twenty-six bones and thirty-three mostly articulated joints held together and strengthened by ligaments, tendons, and muscles. It also holds millions of nerve endings. The metatarsals are the longest bones of the foot and subject to fracture under stress. BKD4284 is, in its own way, an expert on these interesting bones.”

  The demon was touching Maria’s right foot. “Get away from me!” Maria yelped and tried to pull her foot away.

  “Until later,” Truvia said.

  Maria watched the demon open a cabinet and withdraw a device that looked like a clamp with a thumb screw. Almost lovingly, BKD4284 took the device and, though she tried to resist by kicking out, forced Maria’s right foot in it. “Truvia!” Maria yelled. “Come back. Let’s talk!”

  She would have shouted the woman’s name again, but in the next moment, there was no room for it in her open-mouthed scream.

  NINE

  Leaving Crescent plodding behind, Crater hurried up the slope of the vast crater that housed the Adolphus Crater Research Center. He had his suit off and was donning a clean room tunic by the time Crescent climbed inside the airlock. “Every minute counts,” he griped. “You were late this morning. Now you’re still lagging. What’s your problem?”

  “My apologies,” she said. “I will try to do better.”

  “Don’t you want to rescue Maria?”

  I don’t give a scrag about Maria, was Crescent’s thought. What she said was, “Of course I do.” For a moment, she considered telling him her secret, the one that made her want to cling to what life remained, but she resisted the urge. It was her secret, not his. Still, she needed to tell him, not only because it was the right thing to do, but because it might turn him back from the folly of trying to rescue Maria. She made up her mind. “Hold on, Crater,” she said, an anxious lump forming in her throat. “There’s something important I need to tell you.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Crater demanded. “Every second counts. There’s no time for foolishness!”

  “This isn’t foolishness!” Crescent cried, but Crater had turned his back to her and climbed out of the airlock. Disgusted, she threw down her helmet. “How I wish I had stabbed you in the heart the first time I met you rather than your leg!”

  After she’d regained a semblance of control, Crescent followed Crater through the airlock hatch where she found him engaged in an arm-waving conversation with a technician who apparently wasn’t supplying him with the information he wanted. “I’m sorry, sir,” the technician said, “but without a pass, I am not allowed to let you into the crater vent.”

  “But I was invited here by Perpetually Hopeful!” Crater shouted.

  “Do you have proof of that, sir?”

  “No, but—” Crater turned helplessly toward Crescent. “Can you believe this?” he demanded.

  The lunaglas dome was designed to turn dark to protect the scientists and technicians working inside Adolphus from the full fury of the sun, but it was still very bright inside. After Crescent’s eyes adjusted, she saw a crowhopper man wearing a clean room tunic striding in their direction. She recognized him very well and was pleased to see him. That was when a plan began to form in her mind. If Crater thought she was foolish, then she would show him just how foolish she could be. “Absalom, fellow Legionnaire,” Crescent greeted him.

  “Crescent, honored Phoenix Legion warrior,” Absalom replied, bowing to her. When he lifted his eyes, he took note of Crater and bowed to him. “Crater, my friend.”

  Absalom was one of three crowhoppers who had defected in the latter stages of the war, ending up in Endless Dust. “Absalom, can you get me inside the vent?” Crater asked.

  “Of course.” The crowhopper turned to the technician. “These are valued friends. They may go anywhere they wish.”

  “Yes, sir,” the technician replied. He gestured toward the hatch over the vent and said to Crater, “This way, sir.”

  Crater hesitated. “You’re a supervisor, Absalom?”

  “I am,” Absalom proudly replied. “In charge of dome maintenance.”

  Crater, impressed, nodded, then followed the technician to the vent hatch. Before entering it, he stopped and looked over his shoulder at Crescent. “Are you coming?”

  “You don’t need me,” Crescent said, before muttering, “You never do.” Crater continued on without arguing, and she turned toward Absalom. “Congratulations on your position, honored warrior.”

  “Thank you,” Absalom replied. He studied her. “You are well, Crescent?”

  “I am well,” Crescent replied, her mind racing. “My fate as a member of the Phoenix Legion has not yet been activated. In fact, I have never felt better.”

  Absalom worked his lips into a smile. “That is good.”

  “What is good is that we came here,” Crescent said, “because I require a conversation with you.”

  “A conversation with you would be most acceptable.” He gestured toward a mooncrete bench.
<
br />   Crater, still marveling that rescuing Maria didn’t seem to be Crescent’s first priority, climbed through the vent hatch, then hurried down the steps to the next level, a cylindrical room built of mooncrete. Technicians were hunched over monitors and gauges while others were peering into a deep chasm from a viewing platform. Crater saw someone he knew staring at a computer, an Umlap named Makes Bad Bets.

  “Bad day,” Crater said, using the traditional Umlap greeting.

  “Of course it is,” the Umlap replied in the traditional Umlap response, adding, “What do you want?”

  “I’m looking for Perpetually Hopeful.”

  “Wrong level. Two floors down.”

  “It is awful to see you, Make Bad Bets.”

  “It is awful to see you too,” Make Bad Bets replied, then got back to his puter.

  Crater descended two floors and found General Nero at a desk talking to someone on his do4u. At the viewport looking into Adolphus Crater, he spotted a tall Umlap woman dressed in purple robes. It was Perpetually Hopeful, the general’s wife. Since all Umlap expressions were backwards, her frown followed by a scowl demonstrated her Umlap delight at his presence. “Crater!” She took him in her long arms, pressing her cheek next to his. “Thank you for coming. Look, General, it’s Crater!”

  General Nero looked up briefly, nodded, then went back to his conversation. Perpetually Hopeful steered Crater around to the other side of the viewing platform, then took his hands and twisted her purple lips into a smile. “You see, I am showing you my joy with a normal human smile. I am told if I continue, I might rewire my brain.”

  “You are the last person in the universe who needs to rewire her brain,” Crater said.

  “You are a sweet boy. Would you like to know what we’ve discovered in this crater?” Before Crater could answer, she said, “Great things. The microorganisms along these walls are a combination of ancient strains of cyanobacterium and archaea. This may be proof that the moon was seeded with life from space or maybe life from Earth a very long time ago. Bacteria and archaea, you see, can live inside rocks, so if life developed in another solar system, they could have gotten here on meteors. Or maybe they got here by rocks ejected from Earthly volcanoes. However they came, life forms fell into Adolphus and stayed dormant until the cold fusion of tons of Helium-3 heated them up. After that, they started to thrive.”

  Crater considered that, then asked, “What are the implications?”

  “This bacteria produces oxygen. Imagine if we had a hundred or even a thousand of these pits pumping out O2. It could very well transform our Luna into a blue and green planet!”

  Crater thought that over. “But moon gravity won’t hold an atmosphere. That’s why we don’t have one. Also, pure oxygen is poison to most organisms, including humans. Earthian atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, keeping the percentage of oxygen down to a nonpoisonous level.”

  “True enough, so we only need to have oxygen at a lower nonpoisonous pressure and we can walk around without a helmet or suit. And if we can start farming and adding water—maybe we’ll fly a comet in to give some nice freshwater lakes and cool things down—we’ll have a new Earth!”

  Crater thought her enthusiasm was misplaced and did his best to phrase it politely. “There’s still the problem of the moon not having enough gravity to hold an atmosphere, not to mention the solar wind that would strip it away over time. Those problems can’t be solved.”

  “Nonsense! Every problem can be solved if it can be identified! But we have more transitional plans in mind. If we can create more plants like Adolphus, we could run pipelines filled with oxygen all across the moon. Millions of people could live beneath lunaglas domes such as we have in Armstrong City and Cleomedes without all the complex, expensive, and inefficient recycling. Imagine a thousand such metropolitan centers all over our globe!”

  Crater wished he had time to discuss the implications of Adolphus Crater further, but he was on a mission. “You said you had information on Maria Medaris,” he said, redirecting the conversation.

  “I do,” Perpetually Hopeful said. “Our sources tell us this was a deliberate attack and a kidnapping. Colonel Medaris knows who did it and where Maria is.” She removed a pouch from her waist belt and handed it to him. “The General and I wish to hire your company to find out all that you can. This pouch contains a number of gold coins, which I hope will be adequate to retain your services.”

  Crater hefted the pouch in his hand. Even in one-sixth gravity it was heavy. He offered it back to the Umlap queen. “I was going to find Maria anyway,” he said. “I was just out to the asteroid strike.”

  “We know very well where you’ve been, Crater,” Perpetually Hopeful answered. “Little escapes our notice. You will keep our gold and seek Maria out.”

  “Why do you care about her?” Crater asked.

  “We don’t, frankly,” General Nero said, stepping up beside his wife. The general was wearing a tunic, leggings, and boots made of a gold-colored material, his signature style. “What we care about is finding out who tossed that asteroid into the moon. Colonel Medaris may well pay a ransom and keep that knowledge to himself. I have too many investments on the moon not to know who threatens it.”

  “I can’t promise to send you regular reports,” Crater said. “I’m likely to be pretty busy.”

  General Nero nodded. “That is not a problem. We trust you. Do you have a plan?”

  “Not yet. First, I have to know where Maria is, but if the Colonel knows, I’ll find out.”

  “Good boy,” General Nero said. “Give us a report when you can.”

  The general walked away while Crater was enveloped in the Umlap queen’s robes as she gave him a farewell hug. “Go about your work, Crater.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I will. And you go about yours.”

  She formed a smile. “To be sure.”

  Crater climbed the steps. When he emerged on the floor beneath the dome, Crescent and Absalom rose from a bench and bowed to one another. After bowing to Crater, Absalom walked away. In the dustlock, Crescent asked, “Was your talk with Perpetually Hopeful productive?”

  He handed her the pouch, which she opened. “She gave you gold?”

  “We’re now working for General Nero. How was your talk with Absalom?”

  “It was good to share a moment with an old friend.”

  They suited up and went through the airlock and into the dust, then headed for the jumpcar. “Crater,” Crescent said, “will you stop for a moment and listen to me?”

  “Can’t you talk while we’re walking?”

  “No. Please stop and listen. You can afford a few minutes.”

  Crater reluctantly halted. “What is it?”

  “I think this job is too big for us. Even with your bag of gold, it doesn’t make sense for us to proceed. Whoever hit the telescope with an asteroid has enormous power that we can’t even begin to understand. This may be an internal Medaris family struggle, and you know as well as anyone that nobody in the Medaris family can be trusted. The Colonel especially has no regard for you. He’s betrayed you more than once. For my part, he tried to frame me for a murder I didn’t do so that he could execute me. Need I remind you that we were on the run from him the last time you rescued Maria?”

  Crater’s face was grim. “This isn’t up for a vote. I’m the boss, and I’ll say what our job is.”

  Crescent felt as if Crater had clawed open an old wound. “Let me be certain I understand you. My opinion doesn’t count?”

  Crater started walking again. “It counts. I hear you, I’ve taken your comments under advisement, and now we’ll go rescue Maria.”

  Crescent stayed rooted in the dust. “You’re an idiot when it comes to that Medaris witch,” she seethed.

  “Take that back,” Crater demanded, whirling about.

  “I will not. She’s a witch because she’s bewitched you!”

  Crater scowled. He gestured toward the bag of gold. “We’re a rescue company, and we’ve been hire
d to rescue a very important woman. What about that don’t you understand?”

  “You’re obsessed with her,” Crescent spat, her big hands balled at her side.

  Crater’s eyes turned cold. “Anything else you want to get off your chest?”

  “Why, yes, there is,” she said with false cheer. “Would you like to know why I wanted to speak with Absalom?”

  When Crater saw that Crescent was near tears, he felt his anger begin to drain away. He was not a cruel, thoughtless man, but he recognized he was acting like one. “If you would like me to know,” he said, trying to make amends.

  Crescent worked her lips into a smirk. “I asked him to marry me and he agreed.”

  Crater could not disguise his astonishment. “I didn’t know you knew him that well!”

  Her smirk wavered. “I don’t.”

  “And you’re going to marry him? What sense does that make?”

  Crescent could feel her temper rising, and she waited a moment for it to subside. Crowhoppers were trained to kill whenever they felt threatened, and as much as Crater meant to her, she didn’t trust herself at that moment. When she felt under control, she said, “It doesn’t have to make sense to you as long as it makes sense to me and Absalom. I only told you because you’re my boss. Or dictator. Or tyrant. All of the above. And we can go now. I know it’s killing you that we’re wasting time talking about something that doesn’t have to do with your precious Maria Medaris.”

  Crater struggled to find the right words to say. “I guess I should offer you congratulations,” he finally managed to blurt.

  Crescent made a dismissive gesture. “I guess you should, Crater, but it really doesn’t matter. I have learned to expect nothing from you. That way I’m not constantly disappointed.”

  Crater opened his mouth to reply. He wanted to tell her how much she meant to him and how truly happy he was that she’d found someone, but it was too late. Crescent had bounded past him on her way to the jumpcar.

  TEN