by Homer Hickam
“Yes, of course,” the Colonel answered. “What else can I do? Nothing else. It will be dangerous, but I’m sure we can do it.”
The sheriff glanced at the Colonel. The Colonel gave him a small shake of his head. What was actually to be done was to remain between them for now.
“What about the other fuser?” Tiger asked.
“What other fuser?”
“We’ve been painting one on our pulsdar. It doesn’t appear to be going to L5 but heading into deep space.”
The Colonel mulled it over. “Crater Trueblood,” he concluded.
Accepting that Crater was still trying to rescue Maria, Colonel grappled with the uncomfortable facts that faced him. If it was discovered that he had financed the asteroid horde at L5, not to mention that he had financed the first crowhoppers, he was going to be branded the biggest war criminal of all time. But Crater didn’t care about that. He would have only one purpose, saving Maria, and the boy had proved time and again he could do the impossible. And if Crater saved Maria, would she keep quiet about what her grandfather had done? And even if she did, would other station survivors, including the Colonel’s own son, remain silent? The brutal answer was that there could be no survivors, which meant Crater had to be stopped.
The Colonel gripped the top of the jumpseat and asked, “How far out will our missiles be able to engage a target?”
“The record is ten thousand miles,” Tiger answered.
“Keep close track of the other fuser,” the Colonel said. “We might need to destroy it.”
“But, sir,” Tiger argued, “if that’s Crater Trueblood and the Lunar Rescue Company, they’ll be on our side.”
“We don’t know if it’s them or not,” the Colonel replied. “So as a contingency, we have to be prepared to smash them.”
Tiger frowned but said, “Yes, sir.”
THIRTY-TWO
When the main airlock hatch opened, Maria saw who it was, and despite her perilous situation, had the good humor to laugh as the clumsy red-suited creature floated outside. “Good old BKD4284. What’s wrong, BK? May I call you BK? You run out of young women to rough up inside? Yeah, I guess you have. Well, welcome to my world.”
The demon, an ax strapped to its backpack, stared at her, then pulled itself along the handrails to the central core. When it reached the lower ring, it pulled free its ax and began to cross the connecting strut toward Maria. Maria grabbed handrails and pulled herself away from the demon. “What would Crater do?” she asked herself, the answer being he’d use what he had.
But what did she have? She looked around the station, then toward the bridge and the array of dishes and antennae there. Maria crossed a strut, grabbed onto the ladder that led up the central core, and headed for the bridge. The demon turned around and followed.
At the bridge, she pulled her legs up just in time to avoid a vicious swipe of the demon’s ax, and then went hand over hand across the bridge viewports, the startled crew members inside pointing at her. She headed for a weak-looking whip antenna and rocked it back and forth until metal fatigue allowed her to tear it free.
When Maria turned around, the demon was almost on top of her. She dodged his attack and fastened her waist tether, a thin wire fed from a spring mechanism, onto the nearest handrail, then pushed off. Coming around in a swinging arc, she dodged a clumsy swing of the demon’s ax, then lashed out with the antenna, managing to swat him on his helmet. The creature gathered itself and swung its ax again, just missing her tether. Maria pushed off once more and circled the demon, leaving a wrap of tether wire about its waist. Maria grabbed a comm dish and hung on.
The red-suited creature started to come after her but found itself snared by her tether. Maria released the tether clip at her waist, then soared to the hull, went hand over hand to reach the other end of the tether clip, and released it. “So long, BK,” she said as the demon floated away. “Have a nice death.”
The demon stared at the unattached tether trailing it and then tossed away its ax and started making swimming motions. Maria glanced through one of the viewports of the bridge. Her father and Truvia were there, looking up at her. She grinned and gave them a thumbs-up, which, based on their shocked expressions, did not seem to please them.
THIRTY-THREE
Petro woke Crater. “We’re being painted,” he said.
Crater opened his eyes but Petro wasn’t there. His voice was transmitted over the speaker in the cabin where Crater had climbed into a bunk and wrapped a sleeping bag around him. He unzipped the bag, pulled on his coveralls, and headed for the cockpit. “Can you tell who it is?” he asked while somersaulting into the copilot’s seat.
“Pulsdar is coming from moonside,” Petro said. “Signature makes it another fuser.”
Crater studied the pulsdar screen. Something was sending out horn-shaped waves that were washing over them and lighting them up. “Could it be that one of the Colonel’s fusers got through after all?” Crater asked.
Petro shook his head. “Who knows? The problem is their pulsdar’s emitting a broad-range blast. They’re not only painting us, they’re painting L5 too. The warpods and the station are going to be on full alert.”
Crater rubbed the sleep from his eyes and tried to think. “If they feel threatened, the warpods will probably move. They might even come out of L5.”
“The only way to know is to fire up our own pulsdar and have a look-see, but then L5 would be certain we’re a fuser.”
“Or ask the Cycler to do it for us again.”
“The Musk is rounding the moon about now,” Petro replied. “They’re out of position.”
“So we have to carry on blind.”
“I guess so. In another few hours, we’ll begin our asteroid tumble. Maybe we’ll luck out and catch some warpods sleeping, anyway.”
Crater pondered that. “Well, we’ve cast the die. Nothing to do but stick to our plan.”
Crater and Petro sat companionably together for a while until Crater said, “I’ve been thinking about these fusers. Where did the technology come from? All of a sudden during the war, there they were.”
“I’m no fonder of the Colonel than you are,” Petro replied, “but I have to give him credit. His jumpcar plant in Armstrong City was busily developing fusion rocket engines in secret. He said if we ever headed to the stars, we’d need them.”
Crater was intrigued. “Who said anything about going to the stars? Humans have never gone farther than Mars.”
“You know the Colonel. He’s got some big ideas. Theoretically, a ship with fusion drive could head to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star, and be there in about sixteen years at quarter–light speed.”
“Can a fuser go that fast?”
“No reason why it can’t as long as it’s got the fuel. Of course, at that velocity, there’s no way to avoid anything, and hitting even a grain of sand would be like detonating a ton of high explosives.”
“Maybe a pulsed wave buffer of some sort expanding out in front,” Crater said. “Like a cow catcher. That would be an interesting engineering problem.”
“Well, Proxima Centauri’s just a red dwarf. We know there are planets around it but not much else. Probably lifeless. Maria’s farside telescope might have told us if it was a good target or maybe found another close star with Earth-like planets.”
“Whatever star that’s eventually picked, it’s good to live in a time when there are people who just might head out to the stars,” Crater said. “As much as I should hate his guts, the truth is I admire the Colonel’s grit and imagination.”
“And his granddaughter.”
“Yes, her too.”
Petro chose his words carefully. “I spent some time with Maria in the war, and our conversations were almost always about you. She loves you, Crater. She just doesn’t know what to do with your love. Your love wants to tie her down, but that isn’t her. She has to feel like she’s got most of the say in her life. What I mean is, life has to be on her terms, not yours. If you
two got together, she’d be off working all the time. Could you stand that?”
“I wouldn’t like it,” Crater admitted.
“Well, there you go! That’s her problem with you right there. And where did that opinion come from? You’re an orphan! You weren’t raised by a mom who stayed home and looked after the kids. You were raised in a boarding house, your adopted mother a woman who claimed to be the queen of England and was out building a bunch of businesses most of the time. Her Moon Soap is so successful, she could probably buy the Colonel. She didn’t build that business by wiping your nose and making you corn bread. She was out there hustling!”
“I remember Q-Bess being home a lot,” Crater retorted. “And she looked after me too.”
“When you were twelve, Mom signed the papers and you went to work on the scrapes. Was that looking after you? She was more than happy to have you out from underfoot. Look, I love our mum, don’t get me wrong, but she isn’t little Miss Happy Housewife like you want poor Maria to be. You’ve got to lighten up, let that girl be who she wants to be.”
Crater made a dismissive gesture. “It doesn’t matter. That ship passed me a long time ago. Maria and I are never going to get together.”
“Then why are we on this fuser?”
When Crater didn’t answer, and when it was clear he didn’t have one to give, Petro gave his brother a significant look, then pulled off toward a bunk to snatch a little sleep. Crater sat back in the copilot’s seat and kept watch on the other fuser’s pulsdar signal and started to think. A lot of men he knew never gave any thought to their lives at all. For them, it was just one thing after another, whatever happened just happened. The truth was Crater often wished he could be more like them and not worry about what was around the corner or what questions he should ask or answers he should give. He wished he never gave any thought to the reason there was a universe or worried that one day, according to science, the sun would expand and absorb the Earth and the moon, killing all life. That was so far in the future, it was decidedly not worth worrying about, but every so often, Crater would blink awake and find himself worrying about it anyway. It was foolish, of course. The atoms of his body by then would probably be so spread out that one would never come within a million miles of the other. Yet Crater worried about the end of the solar system and couldn’t help it, just as he worried about Maria and couldn’t help it, and grieved that they would never be together as partners in life.
“Well, so be it,” he said to himself. “I’ll save her this one last time and that will be the end of it,” though his heart and everything in him disagreed.
The sets of pulsdar waves kept lighting up the Linda Terry on the screen. Crater studied them. Whoever was painting them was persistent, more like an enemy than a friend.
THIRTY-FOUR
Truvia and Carus conferred on the bridge. Maria was no longer in sight, presumably moved back to the lower ring. Junior had gone to his cabin to take a sleeping pill. Through the port viewport, they could still see the demon adrift. It had swum in the vacuum for a while, then given up. Now it was still, except for an occasional twitch of its arms and legs.
“We could call a warpod in to pick it up,” Carus said.
“Actually I’m glad to be rid of it,” Truvia said. “It ate and drank a lot and stunk like rotten eggs most of the time. My stomach turned anytime it was around.”
“Maybe you should have transformed it.”
“Into what?”
Carus twisted his lips, a sardonic expression. “You could have made it into a second Junior Medaris.”
“Intriguing,” Truvia said. “But no, it was too stupid. It might have looked like Junior, but nobody would have been fooled.”
“The real one is pretty dumb, if you ask me. I rather like his feisty daughter better.”
“I offered her the throne. You can see the result.”
Carus nodded unhappily. “What’s next?”
“Tomorrow we take Junior to the moon and have him officially take control of Medaris Enterprises. While he’s there, the asteroid will collide with Earth. Then Junior will explain to the Lunar Council that many more such rocks are aimed at all the cities on the moon. They will have no choice but to give in. We will take over and begin to build our new order.”
“You make it sound so simple. I believe there will be resistance.”
“If there is, we’ll destroy it wherever it arises.”
“Excuse me, Trainers,” Letticus, the station captain said, “but there is evidence of a fuser coming in our direction. They’re painting us with their pulsdar. We’ve called them on every frequency we can think of but no response.”
“When will the fuser arrive?” Carus asked.
“Could be as early as sixteen hours.”
“Send a warpod out to engage it,” Truvia commanded.
“What are we to do with Queen Maria?” Letticus asked.
“That problem will take care of itself. She will run out of air tomorrow. Before she does, she may come in voluntarily. If she doesn’t, we wait until she’s unconscious and go after her. Now if you can spare me, I’m going to Junior’s cabin. I think he needs me to hold his hand.”
“How long do you intend to keep him alive?” Carus asked.
“Until he’s no longer useful to us.”
Carus made a small bow. “You always see things so clearly, Truvia. It is fortunate you are on our side.”
“I dare say you’re correct,” she said and went below. But before going to Junior’s cabin, she instead went to the lower ring. Looking out at Maria, she said, “Such a foolish child you are. Please come in. I promise I won’t let anyone hurt you. The throne is still yours. You must want it. I know you do.”
Maria studiously ignored her. To Truvia, her silence felt like a wound.
THIRTY-FIVE
Maria was almost disappointed when they didn’t immediately send a crowhopper out after her. The way she saw it, that was fundamentally better than waiting around to asphyxiate, and maybe she could have taken a couple of them with her. While her air ticked down toward nothing, she dozed occasionally but otherwise spent the time looking out at the moon and the Earth and feeling a little cheated that the moon was so dead and gray and beat up with craters and the Earth was so alive with swirling white clouds and glittering blue seas and brown-green continents. It seemed unfair that gravity worked the way it did with liquids and gases held close to the planet Earth but blown away from the moon. It was also not fair that Earth was just the right size to have a fiery inner core that spun around and created a magnetic field that fended off the solar wind while the moon with its cold center was subjected to the unceasing fury of deadly radiation.
On the other hand, there was much to admire about the moon, including its size and location. Maria knew the moon had given the Earth the helping hand it needed to sustain life. The lunar tides gave the edges of the continents a refreshing wash, bringing with it tidal pools where myriad creatures could feed and grow. In the deep ocean, the movement of the water pulled back and forth by the moon’s crossings kept the seas from becoming stagnant and dead. The moon even stabilized the Earth’s wobble, which provided a temperate climate over most of the planet’s surface.
These gifts of the moon to the Earth were well known. Less known was that without the pull of the moon, the Earth would spin more rapidly on its axis, so much that a day would be only six to eight hours long. Such rapid spinning would not only cause a disruption to the normal cycles of life but would also cause powerful windstorms to sweep across the planet. With such storms, it would be impossible for plants to grow or animals to live. The moon, then, was the perfect size and distance to provide benevolent gifts to its mother planet while sacrificing its own ability to thrive.
Eventually, of course, the Earth had given the moon’s gift back in the form of life even though there were many arguments about how best to manage the migration of life from the blue planet to the gray. Philosophers waxed, poets wrote, and preachers pre
ached about the dead moon coming to life, taking from it lessons of hope and the virility of the universe. For their part, engineers and scientists only saw what had to be done to keep life viable in the harshest of conditions, the mooncrete tubes beneath the ground, the plaston protective domes over the cities, the constant search for water and the plumbing it took to deliver it, and the growth of food in biovats or farms beneath the domes, not to mention the various vehicles needed to transit the space between the Earth and the moon and travel on the moon’s gritty surface.
Bringing life to the moon had turned out to be one of the best things humans had done for themselves in a very long time. It had opened up new sources of energy, new sources of precious metals, even new products like soap made from moon dust that could scour anything clean. The wars that had swept across the planet in the twenty-first century had waned and nearly subsided in the early twenty-second when the moon began to be settled, the energy of warfare drained into the energy of building a new civilization.
But then the crowhopper war had been unleashed, planned and paid for by the dictatorships of the United Countries of the World, and the cycle of killing and plundering, so common on Earth throughout the centuries, had taken hold on the moon.
It shamed Maria to know that her family had provided the seed money and the initial management of the facilities that had created the crowhoppers. Somehow her grandfather and the other family members had kept that a secret, not only from everyone else, but her too. But now the secret was surely going to get out. What she would do with this knowledge, Maria didn’t really know. Actually, of course, it appeared that was not a real concern since she was probably going to run out of air before rescue came.
She no longer believed Crater was coming. It had always been unlikely. The Trainers were right about that. How could a heel-3 miner get all the way out here?
“How much time do I have?” she asked the suit puter.
