Helium3 - 1 Crater

by Hickam, Homer

  Hit Your Face frowned, which, Crater had to keep reminding himself, meant he was happy. “It was my way of reminding him to be courteous to a guest even though, technically, you are not a guest. You are a captive.”

  This was news to Crater. “I volunteered to come here,” he reminded the Umlap.

  “No, you came because your captain was happy to be rid of you.”

  “That’s not true,” Crater said. “It was my idea.”

  “But he didn’t try to convince you otherwise, did he?”

  Crater thought it wise to change the subject. “Is that scraper out there the one that’s broken down?”

  “Since it is our only scraper, yes. Can you fix it?”

  “I’ll have to look at it first.”

  “First you must see the king. His name is Wise Beyond Belief.”

  “I have to catch up with the convoy,” Crater said.

  “I don’t care,” Hit Your Face replied, and Crater realized he was in big trouble. He had to catch up with the convoy to get to Armstrong City and aboard the Cycler on time to collect the Colonel’s artifact, whatever it was. And even though his primary reason for coming to Baikal was to keep Maria from being stuck on an Umlap spear, he’d allowed her to go off on her own. How could he protect her if he wasn’t around?

  His idea to go with the Umlaps, he confessed to himself, was a bonehead move, and he needed to figure out how to get away from them as soon as he could. He was tempted to just take off running, but even if he escaped outside, the fastbug required repair. Crater accepted there was nothing to do but chalk this one up as another example of his bad judgment and do what he could to get out of it. And fast.

  Crater stripped down to his underwear and passed through the next hatch to a dustlock where there were three showers.

  The Umlaps skipped them and kept going. From the pungent odor wafting from them, Crater thought they should have taken advantage of the showers. But that wasn’t his problem, so he followed them into the next dustlock where their town clothes, black pantaloons and red vests, were in piles on the floor. There was an argument between two Umlaps claiming the same pair of pantaloons, and punches were thrown and kicks were kicked. Hit Your Face battered them both down with a flurry of fists, then took a pair of pantaloons and a vest from a cupboard and handed them to Crater. They seemed clean so he put them on.

  Outside the dustlock was a tube made of raw mooncrete.

  Hit Your Face swung open a hatch, its unoiled hinges protesting, and led the way into another tube as dismal as the first.

  Some Umlap men sat on the deck playing some sort of board games. They were arguing and, as Crater watched, started wrestling. Hit Your Face went over, kicked them both, and turned their game board over, scattering the little figurines on it. The two crawled off, rubbing where they’d been kicked.

  “What is the population of Baikal?” Crater asked.

  “Twelve,” Hit Your Face replied. “There were thirty before the women left and took the children with them.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Who knows and who cares?”

  They kept going through two more dingy tubes. The exit hatch of the last tube opened into a small tube where a man sat cross-legged on a gray blanket. On his head was a peaked red and black cap. “King Wise Beyond Belief,” Hit Your Face said, “I have brought you a captive.”

  The chief had two teeth, one on the top and one on the bottom. He also had eyes like hard, black beads and a livid forehead scar. He grinned at Hit Your Face, clearly very unhappy. “What nonsense is this?” he demanded. “Where is the money?”

  Smiling broadly, Hit Your Face said, “They would not give us any, so instead we took this boy.”

  “Ah, for ransom,” Wise Beyond Belief replied, nodding.

  “No, I came to fix your scraper,” Crater said.

  “He appears petulant. Why have you not beaten him?”

  Hit Your Face grimaced, obviously pleased by the question. “It slipped my mind!”

  “There is no reason to beat me,” Crater said. “Let me fix your scraper and I’ll be on my way.”

  “There is nothing wrong with our scraper,” the king replied, then said, “Sit down. Hit Your Face will bring us refreshments.”

  Hit Your Face laughed in outrage. “Do I look like a serving wench?”

  “Do not test me,” Wise Beyond Belief said with a chuckle that was clearly a warning.

  Hit Your Face grinned, then left. Crater sat. “What did you mean there is nothing wrong with your scraper?”

  “Just because a thing doesn’t work doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it.”

  Crater pondered the king’s philosophy, if that’s what it was, then said, “Since it is designed to work and it doesn’t, by definition, there is something wrong with it.”

  “Do not argue with me. You are just a boy. Perhaps I should kill you.”

  “If you do, I won’t be able to fix your scraper.”

  “I already told you there’s nothing wrong with it.”

  “But you also said it didn’t work.”

  “And if you cannot make it work?”

  “I will have tried.”

  “Try and not do could get a boy killed.”

  Crater was trying to decide if Wise Beyond Belief was serious about killing him when Hit Your Face reappeared carrying a tray. On it was a bottle and three dirty glasses. He poured the liquid from the bottle into the glasses and handed one to the king and one to Crater.

  “Cheers,” Wise Beyond Belief said and drained his glass.

  Crater sniffed the liquid, which smelled nearly as foul as the Moontown grease traps. “It is made from turnips,” Hit Your Face said. “The turnip biovat is the only one we have that works.”

  Hit Your Face drank, then looked at Crater. He took a brave swallow. “Good,” Crater croaked, though he came close to throwing it up.

  The king said, “I require a nap. Take this boy away. Bring him back after he’s fixed our scraper.”

  “I can’t stay, your majesty,” Crater said. “I must catch up with my convoy.”

  “That is not possible,” the king replied. “If you are able to make our scraper work, what would we do if it stopped again?

  No, you will stay.” He fluttered his bony hands. “Go.”

  Hit Your Face led Crater back to the dustlock. “Your suit is in there. You saw the scraper.”

  “Is there a maintenance shed?”

  “Bad Haircut will guide you.”

  “Who is Bad Haircut?”

  “The creature who insulted you whereupon I hit him.”

  Crater pulled on his ECP suit, then went outside and looked in the fastbug stowage locker. Inside was the railgun rifle and a bag of tools. The rifle did him no immediate good. He still needed a working fastbug.

  He left the tools but took the rifle, lest it be stolen, and trudged down to the scrape and took a walk around the scraper.

  It was a standard design and, other than being filthy and probably poorly maintained, Crater could see nothing obviously wrong with it. He sat in its seat and gave a go at starting it.

  When nothing happened, he swung open the engine hatch to have a look at the fuel cell. The reason the scraper didn’t work became instantly clear. It had no fuel cell, just a vacant cavity where one was supposed to be.

  “The scraper can’t be fixed. The fuel cell is ruined. I have told everyone this. Are you going to shoot me with that rifle?”

  It was the Umlap who’d been hit by Hit Your Face. “You would be Bad Haircut,” Crater said. “No, I’m not going to shoot you. Could I see the fuel cell?”

  “The maintenance shed is just over there.”

  “I need the fastbug to be brought there too.”

  “I will see to it.”

  The interior of the shed had piles of trash, but it held shop machinery that looked useful. Bad Haircut pointed to a fuel cell that Crater recognized as a Stewart Y21A5 design. No tests were needed to identify the proble
m since there was an obvious crack in it. “Have you tried to weld it?” Crater asked.

  “Yes, but after a few hours, it cracked again.”

  “Do you have a spectroscope?”

  Bad Haircut said he did, and before long, Crater had the fuel cell in a fixture studying it. The lunasteel around the crack was a fractured mess. “There’s no fixing this,” Crater said, then noticed a shuttle parked on the other side of the shed. “What’s wrong with that shuttle?”

  “Its braces are broken.”

  “Does it have a fuel cell?”

  “It is too small to power a scraper.”

  “How about two shuttle fuel cells? If we had two, we could link them together and that would be enough power to run your scraper.”

  “I have a spare shuttle fuel cell,” Bad Haircut said. “But your idea will not work.”

  “Well, let’s give it a try, eh?” Crater said, then started to remind him about the fastbug when four Umlaps carried it inside, set it down, made many rude gestures to Bad Haircut and Crater, then departed. “Nobody seems happy here,” Crater observed.

  “Why would they? This place is a scrag dump.”

  “But you have everything you need to make it into a nice place.”

  “We are an unlucky people.”

  “Asteroid Al says people make their own luck by hard work and being decent to one another.”

  “He is obviously a fool as are you. Here we are much smarter.”

  “Then why are we happy and you’re miserable?”

  Bad Haircut smiled. “You make my brain hurt with your illogical logic. Let us try your dumb idea.”

  Crater could see he would get nowhere with Bad Haircut when it came to bucking him up, so he got to work. Over the next few hours, he and Bad Haircut connected the two shuttle fuel cells, then installed them in the scraper. When tried, the combo instantly came to life, and Crater tested the combo by running a straight scrape and piling up a tent. Bad Haircut picked the dust up with a shuttle, carried it back to the conveyor belt that didn’t work, and ran up to the vibrators and solar tower that also didn’t work.

  Crater picked rocks out of the belt, fixing it, then walked to the vibrators, adjusted them, ran them for a little while, then walked on to the solar tower, fiddled with its controls, redirected its collectors, and burned off a little heel-3 from the dust. Then Bad Haircut and Crater exchanged the Baikal version of a handshake, slapping each other on their respective helmets and frowning deeply. “I’m sure the king will be grateful,” Bad Haircut said. “Now, we can work ourselves to death while he sits on his backside and does nothing.”

  Crater turned to the fastbug, which proved an easy fix. All he had to do was weld a broken strut on the axle joint, which he accomplished quickly. He put on his ECP suit and climbed in its seat. “I’ll take it for a test drive,” he said to Bad Haircut, although he actually meant to keep on driving. He could be on the dustway within minutes and gone before the Umlaps could react.

  Unfortunately, Hit Your Face showed up at that moment, along with three of his fellows, all holding spears and looking menacing. “I saw the scraper working,” he said. “Now we will make money and get our wives back, although they are all ugly.” He pointed at Crater. “You will be the chief foreman.

  Establish the shifts immediately!”

  “I can’t be your chief foreman,” Crater replied. “I have to catch my convoy.”

  Hit Your Face smiled. “Bad Haircut will be your assistant.

  He was our foreman but a poor one. You will be much better.”

  Then, without further ceremony, Hit Your Face and his troops marched out through the airlock.

  Bad Haircut stared after them, his eyes burning with hatred. When he saw Crater watching him, he pointed at a hatch. “There’s a tube through there where you can sleep.

  There is turnip paste and water in the refrigerator.”

  Crater said, “Now, see here, Bad Haircut, I have to go. You and I are friends, aren’t we? How about looking the other way and I’ll just drive out of here and be on my way.”

  Bad Haircut seemed to be considering Crater’s proposal, but it didn’t last. “Hit Your Face will kill me if I let you go,” he said. “He has killed before. He and Wise Beyond Belief murdered the previous king and their court. By the way, while you were working on the scraper, I went through the stowage locker in your fastbug in case it contained something good to eat. I found a bag with something in it that must be yours. It’s disgusting and I am afraid of it.”

  Curious, Crater opened the stowage locker of the fastbug and retrieved the tool bag. Inside was a wrench, three screwdrivers, and a jack. It also contained a shapeless clump of slime mold cells. “Gillie!” Crater cried. When the gillie did not respond, Crater said, “Turn yourself on.” But there was still no response. “Poor thing,” Crater said, wondering how it had gotten inside the fastbug locker.

  Crater carried the gillie to the tube that Bad Haircut said he could use. It was as dismal as everything else in Baikal: bare walls, bare floor, a mooncrete table, a plaston chair, a bunk with dirty blankets, a small refrigerator that, when opened, proved to contain several containers of what Crater presumed was turnip paste, some bottles of water, and the turnip drink.

  There was also a flash oven where Crater supposed he could heat up the paste. A cupboard revealed some cracked plaston cups and dirty dishes. That was it.

  Crater sat on the bed and contemplated his plight and the gillie. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked. If it was dead, Crater hoped at least it wouldn’t stink. Suddenly very tired, he curled up on the bed and slept, waking to the sound of himself singing “Moon Dust Girls.” Except it wasn’t him. The gillie stood on the table, though it had no legs, and sang, though it had no mouth, and looked at Crater, though it had no eyes. “Status?”

  Crater asked.

  Normal, it replied.

  “What happened after the crowhopper took you?”

  Show you, it said.

  The gillie projected a view of something blurry, then

  Crater saw a spiderwalker ridden by a crowhopper. Then he heard the voice of the giant who’d attacked him. “Take this thing back to the jumpcar,” it said, handing the gillie over.

  “And give me your rifle. I’m going to follow the convoy.”

  “I’ll take that ugly thing but I’m keeping my rifle,” the other crowhopper said.

  “I’ve had a bad day,” the giant growled. “And if you don’t do what I say, you’ll have a bad one too, and it will be your last.”

  The smaller crowhopper took the gillie from the giant and put it in the stowage locker on the spiderwalker. The picture went dark until Crater saw the back of the crowhopper. Then the point of view changed and Crater saw the gillie crawl up the rider’s back, then onto its helmet where it began to change color until it was perfectly clear. The gillie grew a tripod of legs, holding what appeared to be a convex lens. A hot spot developed on the back of the helmet, and the crowhopper suddenly jerked, then fell off the walker. The gillie returned to its own view, which was all red. It seemed to swim in a red liquid for a while, then it was in the dust.

  “You used the sun to burn a hole in its helmet,” Crater said in awe. “I didn’t know you could make shapes like that.”

  Hard to do. Made gillie tired. Big sound also required much energy.

  Needed to recover so gillie did not move for long time. Fastbug arrived, I crawled inside. Do not like Captain Teller so did not communicate.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” Crater said, which caused the gillie to somehow look pleased. “And thank you for saving me with the big noise.”

  The gillie did not answer and appeared to be asleep if, in fact, it could sleep. Crater picked it up and gently placed it on the pillow of the bed, then heard someone rap on the hatch.

  Bad Haircut, without waiting to be invited, came inside. “I have found enough miners. We will begin in the morning. Do not try to escape. There are guards.” He crawled back thro
ugh the hatch and slammed it shut.

  Sighing fretfully, the convoy getting farther away by the minute, Crater found he couldn’t sleep. He got up and took the rifle to the machine shop. He had an idea how to improve it.

  He disassembled the receiver and considered its design. It was ingenious in every way except how the flechette was inserted into the chamber. This required a handle and a spring mechanism to push it into place. Crater found a slab of lunasteel and used a milling machine to produce another receiver, this one with a dual spring design that made it semiautomatic, eliminating the need to pull back the handle. Every time he pulled the trigger, a flechette was launched and another one sprung into its place. All a rifleman had to do was keep pulling the trigger until the magazine was empty. Crater also made the magazine bigger, plus turned out a hundred new flechettes made from an iron alloy he found in the bar stock. Satisfied with his work, Crater could finally allow himself to sleep, and he did, managing a couple of hours.

  :::

  EIGHTEEN

  When Crater woke, he made a breakfast of turnip paste, which tasted so putrid he had to choke it down. He then went out into the maintenance shed, disappointed that Bad Haircut and seven other Umlaps were already there. He intended to escape, one way or the other. Based on their smiles, they were not happy to be there either.

  On the scrape, Crater gathered the Umlap miners and assigned Bad Haircut as the scraper driver. Consulting a reader that held their names, Crater assigned the other positions, which brought more unhappy smiles.

  “We’ll say a prayer now,” Crater said, using English for the term. “Who’s the oldest man?”

  “What is prayer?” Bad Haircut asked while the other miners looked puzzled.

  “It is talking to God,” Crater answered. “Asking the Big Miner to keep us safe and that kind of thing.”

  “We don’t think there is a Big Miner. We think there are many gods that are everywhere, in the dust, in the turnips, and so forth, and every one of them is angry and mean.”

  “Well, I’ll say a prayer, anyway.” Crater did so, silently asking that everything would go smoothly and safely on the scrape and that he would then be able to escape. Afterward, he said, “Let’s go to work.”