The Long Run

by The Long Run (new ed) (mobi)

  A deeply disturbed expression had settled on the wrinkled countenance. "Son, you're wrong. And you're--"

  "I'm not your son."

  "I wake up every day, Trent, and I realize again how much life is worth living."

  Trent said, "I don't want to die, Nathan." He locked eyes with the old man and when he spoke there was an edge in his voice that he had not intended to put there. "But I am not going to lose again."

  * * *

  16.

  Luna City at Copernicus was built, SpaceFarers like to observe, by downsiders.

  And it shows.

  It is the oldest city on the Moon, and in this instance the use of the word "on" is correct; it is one of only five bubble cities on the planet. It is in one of the most visible craters on Luna, a crater visible from Earth even by eye. It makes a convenient astrogation aid for visitors from other worlds.

  It is, say loonies and SpaceFarers alike, one of the half dozen worst places on the Moon's surface to put a city. It is ringed by a crater wall that rises over three and a half kilometers above the crater floor, in the midst of some of the most rugged territory to be found on Luna.

  All of which means that travel to and from Luna City, except by suborbital bounce or spacecraft, is something that loonies and SpaceFarers alike avoid at all costs.

  Trent's first sight of Luna City was unimpressive. He arrived in public transport, a rolligon from Aristillus, on Sunday, September 15, in the midst of nearside's two-week Lunar night. The rolligon spent nearly four hours just crawling up the side of Copernicus crater, on a laser-cut road that was just wide enough for two rolligons to pass side by side. From the vantage point of the lip of Copernicus, Luna City, as seen through a cloudy sheet of reinforced glassite, was a glowing translucent bubble in the midst of gleaming square kilometers of solar power panels, surrounded by tiny illuminated red-and-yellow patches where semiballistics and spacecraft landed, and all of that surrounded by the dark Lunar desert.

  The solar power panels, by themselves, were enough to mark the city's age; cheap fusion power had not even existed when Luna City was built.

  Standing in the waiting room of the Blain Trading Emporium, Trent said, "Mademoiselle?"

  In the maglev, coming down, Trent had noted that the levels were numbered in reverse, just like in the Down Plaza; it made him feel almost immediately at home.

  The pregnant girl behind the desk, not older than twenty, with long red hair and an exquisite silver blue skin dye, did not quite make a question of it when she said, "May I help you, sir," her tone making it clear that the subject was in considerable doubt.

  Trent looked at her blankly. "I have an appointment with 'Sieur Blain."

  The girl said with just a touch of impatience, "M. Blain, sir, has only one appointment today, with a professional computerist who's recently immigrated to Luna. He's reserved most of the afternoon for him, and I don't believe he'll have time for...." The receptionist's voice trailed off. Trent was grinning at her. She said "M. Vera?"

  "Hello."

  "Oh. You're late."

  "I got lost on the way here. This is my first time in the city."

  "You're not very old."

  Trent said gently, "Will you tell 'Sieur Blain that I'm here?"

  "Oh. Yes. Uhm, go in." She blushed purple through the skin dye. "He's expecting you, actually."

  Trent smiled at her again. "When are you due?"

  The girl blinked, and then smiled back rather tentatively. "Early November."

  "What's your name?"

  "Sidrah. Sidrah Blain."

  "Nice to meet you, Sidrah."

  Candice "Candy" Blain's office was positively Spartan. There was a single huge desk of wood-grain polymer, with a terminal and pointboard built into the desk's surface. The holofield the terminal used for display was up; Trent could see the faint and nearly invisible outline, all the sign the holofield gave of its existence to somebody sitting on the other side of the desk.

  Other than the terminal itself the desk was nearly empty; on it sat a thin, tall cup next to a sealed thermos. There was a single visitor's chair immediately in front of the desk.

  A short, broad, bald man sat behind the desk, watching Trent with all the expression of a hard-boiled egg. He sported a huge red handlebar mustache. "You're Nathan's nephew?" he boomed out of a barrel chest.

  "Thomas Vera," said Trent. He grasped the hand that Blain, standing to reach over the desk, had offered him, and Blain enfolded his hand in a bonecrusher handshake. It was Trent's right hand, and even after being treated by the medbot at Aristillus, Blain's grip hurt. Trent stood motionlessly, with a half-smile still on his features, squeezing back until Blain pulled his hand away with a grimace of pain.

  Blain seated himself slowly, clenching and unclenching the hand Trent had taken. "You got a hell of a grip there, Mister Vera. Nathan said you were a computerist?"

  Trent seated himself, still smiling. "I used to box semi-pro. I try to stay in shape."

  "You're not quite what I'd expected. Bigger, among other things. The call I got from Nathan, he says you're six different kinds of computerist; webdancer, programmer, theorist, designer, field tech--how old are you?" Blain said abruptly.

  Trent said evenly, "UNIB Aristillus, Account VERA1505. You can look it up."

  Blain tapped at his pointboard with two fingers, glanced at the balance shown in the holofield. He cleared the field, and smiled at Trent as though it hurt his face. "'Sieur Vera, how can I help you?"

  "I need tools."

  Blain nodded. "I've got half a dozen BB kits covering most of the tool needs the average computerist has. If we can modify from that--"

  Trent interrupted. "My needs are unusual. If all I wanted, 'Sieur Blain, was a standard Black Box tool kit, I could have ordered it from the catalog myself."

  "Unusual?" Blain lifted one red eyebrow. "As in illegal? Image coprocessors, that sort of thing?"

  "That sort of thing," Trent agreed.

  Candy Blain paused, obviously wondering whether what he was about to say might endanger his chances of making a sale. "Thomas--you don't mind if I call you Thomas--your uncle's been on Luna six years now. That's not such a terribly long time, really--just about one in four of the folks here in Luna were born here--but in those six years he's done pretty well for himself. Especially considering he's ex-Speedfreak, and pretty much everybody knows it...." He seemed to shift subject. "I hit Luna four years ago Tuesday last. Ministry of Population Control trouble; my family and I had a squad of six babyburners on our tail all the way to Navajo Spaceport. Barely did get away--after we lifted the babyburners got on the radio and told the SpaceFarer's ship we were on to drop us off at Halfway. They didn't do it, so here I am today, a respected member of the community with a business that actually turns a profit every now and again. And there's your uncle, prime candidate for Public Labor back on Earth, a bit better respected than I am even. A lot of the people who emigrated here, Thomas, they did it because the walls were closing in on them downside. And then they started over, clean. PKF mostly doesn't care what you did downside, and there ain't no babyburners up here--Luna's still badly underpopulated."

  Trent said, "On the maser."

  Blain paused, train of thought obviously derailed. "What?"

  "The babychasers. When they tried to stop the ship you were on. To reach a ship near Earth they would have used maser, not radio."

  Blain stared at Trent. "The point I'm making here, holding an Image coprocessor is a death penalty crime up here, Thomas, unless you immigrated with it as part of your inskin and couldn't take it out--and you pretty much have to be a U.N. webdancer, in some capacity, to get even that much slack."

  "So?"

  "Do you really need one?"

  "I have another source for an Image coprocessor, 'Sieur Blain. I need things," said Trent, "that are even more illegal than that. Nathan said you do work for the Syndic and the Old Ones and that you could get what I need. Are you going to take my order or not?"
r />   Beneath the moustache, Blain's mouth set in a hard line. "Give me your order."

  Trent said, "You might want to take this down."

  Blain tapped instructions into his terminal, touched record. A feminine voice said, "Recording."

  Trent reached across the desk and tapped the record key once. "I don't like having my voice print taken."

  Blain stared at Trent again.

  "You might want to type this."

  Slowly, with plain distaste, the small man poised two fingers above the pointboard, and said without civility, "Talk."

  Trent spoke slowly, watching Blain's two fingers, giving the man time to type. "Monofilament, two reels; room temperature superconductor, one reel; two-stage electrosetting mappable blast plastic, one kilo; one collapsing portable Slo-Mo fast enough to make liquid air with; two pencil lasers, one ultra-violet and one X-laser; two kilos of Complex 8-A--"

  Blain interrupted. "One moment. We may have some trouble with the fadeaway." He pecked away furiously as he talked. "Peaceforcers have been cracking down on the stuff recently, ever since that Trent fellow zapped a bunch of them with it when he ran through Peaceforcer Heaven. If I don't have some in stock we might not--" He stopped, looking into the holofield. "Okay. Eighty grams liquid still in stock, and I can get more within, say, three weeks. Hope that warehouse hasn't been raided recently." He turned back to Trent. "Go ahead."

  Trent smiled pleasantly at Blain, reached across the desk, and turned off the recorder again. "Do you have a problem with me?"

  "Aside from not liking you very much," said Candice Blain deliberately, "not really."

  "Good. Let's continue." It took most of five minutes, and the final total came to over seven thousand CU.

  When Trent was completely done, Blain said, "Where do you want this stuff delivered?"

  "Nathan's apartment," said Trent, "in Aristillus."

  Blain nodded shortly. "Give it six to ten days."

  Trent said, "It's been a pleasure doing business." He gestured behind himself, to the receptionist's area. "The receptionist--your daughter?"

  "My wife." The muscles in Blain's jaw were twitching.

  "She's really gorgeous. Is she--"

  Candice Blain snapped, "Get out."

  Trent smiled at him. "I was never here."

  Luna City reminded Trent of the Down Plaza grown a thousand times larger.

  There were three levels beneath the bubble but aboveground, eleven levels that were, properly speaking, underground. Four of the levels, the bottom-most four, were purely residential. Levels U1 through U7 were a mixture of residences and businesses; everything above ground, on the A levels, was dedicated to business.

  The leasing agent was a native loonie, a tall woman some two hundred and twenty centimeters in height. She scowled impatiently, looking pointedly at her Rolex, when Trent arrived at the apartment on U2. "'Sieur Vera?"

  "Hello," said Trent. "I'm sorry I'm--"

  "You're late," she said flatly.

  "I know, I'm sorry I got lost and there were no maps and--"

  "You will find, 'Sieur Vera," she said severely, "that punctuality is a trait thought highly of in Luna."

  Trent stood completely motionless for a moment, and then said evenly, "As opposed to courtesy, I suppose. I'd like to see my apartment now."

  Down payment on the three-bedroom apartment came to a hundred thirty-five CU; Trent arranged to take possession of the rooms on the first of October. He walked up a series of long ramps, past hundreds of shoppers and business people and some fifteen Peaceforcers, until he reached A1, the first level from which it was possible to see, three levels above, the dome itself. As Trent reached higher levels, the percentage of people wearing pressure suits increased noticeably; on A-1, with nothing but the dome to protect them from death pressure, at least half of the people in the plazas and corridors were either suited up or carrying p-suits with them.

  At the center of the city were the Lunar Gardens, famous on Luna and off. The Gardens were a touch of Earth, grown strange and tall; huge trees, largely redwood and oaks, most of them reaching up so close to the dome itself that they had to be trimmed back regularly, reaching up away from a rainbow riot of flowers and shrubbery. The shrubbery was trimmed in the shapes of animals both real and imaginary; the flowers were genegineered roses and orchids and blood innocents, glowing orange and purple, yellow and pink, blue and bronze-gold beneath the Garden's sunpaint.

  Trent walked all the way around the Gardens, a complete circuit on the cobblestone path, before heading to the bank.

  There was a UNIB location at the very edge of the dome, right up against the ten-meter high wall that the dome itself rested upon. He went inside and waited in line with half a dozen others until a teller was available.

  It was fully five degrees cooler inside the bank than in the main dome. The teller, a burly man with Earth-grown muscles and distinctly effeminate mannerisms, checked Trent's account and said politely, "What can I do for you, 'Sieur Vera?"

  "I need to place a direct call to Earth. I was hoping you might have a conference room I could use."

  The man smiled at Trent, looking him up and down. "I think we can arrange that."

  The conference room Trent was ushered into was completely empty; the room's single terminal was turned on, with a call sign hanging in the holofield. Trent jacked his handheld into the terminal's interface and waited.

  Johnny Johnny said almost instantly, "Done. If anyone's tapping this line at the bank end they'll see a recording of you and a banker type saying stupid things to one another. You'll be telling him to sell short Tytan Industries, and he'll be telling you you're a fool."

  "Really?" Trent blinked. "Who's right?"

  There was a brief pause, and Johnny Johnny said, "Aw, hell, Boss, I don't know. What do you think, I follow the stock market in my spare time?"

  Trent grinned. "Sorry. When do we start?"

  "Right now."

  Trent took a deep breath. He was not surprised by the nervousness that came to him then. "Okay."

  "I'm waiting for an open line--we're connected to the Earth InfoNet now through the Relay Station at Halfway. Waiting again for connection to the Northeast exchange--connected. Coding for the Schuyler/Daimara residence--connected."

  Audio came on with an audible click. Video did not. "Hello?" The girl's voice was hesitant and it hit Trent right in the stomach.

  He took another slow, deep breath. "Hello, Denice."

  A three second pause; the phonefield flared into color. Trent touched the video stud to one side of the pointboard to send his image back to her. Denice simply stared at the holocams at her end and

  flicker of fire, of intimate touch....

  A second and a half later her face lit up in a way Trent had never seen during the summer they had lived together. "Trent? My God, it's you!"

  "Yes."

  Three seconds. "You're alive! All the Boards said you were dead."

  "Never believe anything you audit on the Boards, Denice. It's all lies anyway except for the parts that aren't."

  "I didn't believe you were dead. If you were dead I think I would have known." She paused, said questioningly, "I dreamed you were hurt."

  "A little. Nothing major."

  "You look different. You've had biosculpture?"

  "Makeup. I'm going to have biosculpture soon."

  "Where are you calling from? Luna, from the delay, but where?"

  "Luna City at Copernicus. I'm sorry I haven't called before, but this is the first time it was safe. I was at Aristillus for a week, and they have only seventeen data lines in and out of the city. Too small; too much chance of being monitored. There's a hundred and twenty thousand lines feeding Luna City; it's probably safe." Trent grinned at her. "Expensive, but safe. Have you had problems with the PKF?"

  Denice shook her head. "They questioned pretty much everybody who admitted to knowing you, but nobody got brain-drained, and nobody mentioned me. One Peaceforcer actually came to the
studios--apparently somebody at The Emerald Illusion recognized Madame Gleygavass the time she went dancing with us--but I told the Peaceforcer, when he came, that he'd spoken to Madame Gleygavass and she didn't know anything about their problems." She shrugged. "He thought it over and after he remembered the conversation he went away, and the PKF hasn't been near me since then. What have you been doing?"

  "I just rented an apartment, and I'm going to go see about biosculpt and an inskin next. In another two weeks I should be biosculpted, plugged in, and reasonably safe." He smiled, and said softly, "The safe part won't last long."

  "What are you going to look like?"

  "Haven't decided yet." A small clock in the lower right corner of the holofield blinked: two minutes, 180 CU. "How's it been since I've been gone?"

  "Madame Gleygavass took me out of the production of Leviathan. She said I'd lost focus."

  "Is she right?"

  Another pause, not entirely due to the three second lightspeed delay. Denice nodded slowly. "I keep thinking about taking you out of the Detention Center." Her voice was very soft. "You know, I really enjoyed that. I enjoyed it more than anything else I've ever done. I felt like I'd accomplished something."

  "Sometimes," said Trent, "you remind me of Carl a lot."

  "Thank you."

  "It wasn't a compliment," said Trent. "I don't think it's a good idea for me to go back to New York, at least not any time soon, but after I've done a couple of boosts up here, I'd be able to afford the immigration fee, and you could join me."

  "I think--" The girl paused, features impenetrable, and then grinned at Trent again. "I think I'd really like that."

  "Good. How's Jimmy?"

  Perhaps it was the delay; it seemed to Trent that she answered reluctantly. "His legs are okay; Doctor Jane's been growing an arm for him, but it's not ready yet. He's been using a prosthetic. And"--she did hesitate now--"he's in law school."

  "Brutal."

  "He started this semester."

  Trent shivered. "The poor bastard."

  "He did it to himself."

  "True, too truehow's Bird and Jodi Jodi?"