Avengers of the Moon

by Allen Steele

  He gestured to the rock face behind him. “With the establishment of this monument, we’re taking measures to preserve the petroglyphs for many years to come, thereby enabling researchers such as the current team from the Planetary Institute, Dr. Philip Winters and Dr. Cole Norton, to examine these etchings in a safe and confortable environment. It will also allow members of the public to visit the site and view the petroglyphs without damaging them. The modest fees that they’ll pay for the privilege of visiting the monument will be used for its upkeep and maintenance, and in time the Institute hopes to be able to use some of the money to endow modest grants for visiting scholars.”

  More applause. Curt clapped along with everyone else, but he noticed that Otho did not. He continued to stare at the senator, his expression still menacing. Curt hoped that the security guys weren’t noticing this. At least the drone had disappeared. Without it hovering above them, the security team wouldn’t have a clear look at Otho’s face.

  “I’m very proud to have been part of the effort to erect this monument,” Corvo continued, “but the fact remains that it could not have been accomplished without support from the top floor of Government Tower. Without further ado, I’d like to present the true hero of the moment … my friend and ally, the president of the Solar Coalition, James Carthew.”

  The applause was even stronger as Corvo stepped away from the podium to extend his hands to a stocky figure with a goatee who’d just walked onstage. The Brain insisted that Curt pay attention to current affairs, so he knew that President Carthew didn’t often leave the executive suite of Government Tower in New York. Indeed, he was occasionally accused by members of the opposing political party of secretly disliking travel beyond Earth. So the fact that he’d come all the way to the Moon for a dedication ceremony was a testament to the senator’s political clout. Carthew and Corvo were, indeed, political allies, and it was often speculated that, once Carthew stepped down, he’d throw his support behind Corvo if the senator decided to run for higher office.

  Yet Otho continued to glare at Corvo, his hands remaining still at his sides. As the president walked across the stage, Curt moved closer to his friend. “What’s your problem?” he whispered.

  Otho turned to look Curt straight in the eye. In a whisper that only Curt could hear, he said, “Victor Corvo is the man who murdered your parents.”

  IV

  Curt’s first thought was that Otho was kidding, yet nothing in his expression suggested that this was a joke, even a bad one. As Curt realized this, the rest of the world suddenly vanished, leaving only three people: Otho, himself, and the man Otho claimed was responsible for the deaths of his mother and father.

  “It can’t be true. You must be…” His words caught in his throat as a dry whisper.

  —He’s not mistaken, Curtis. The Brain spoke up again. He’s telling the truth. Victor Corvo killed Roger and Elaine Newton. I was there. I saw it happen.

  “Long before he became a senator,” Otho said softly, presciently answering Curt’s next question. “When you were still a baby, while I was still in my bioclast, Victor Corvo and his men came to Tycho and killed first your father, then your mother.” He paused. “They were your parents, but in a sense they were mine, too.”

  Curt barely heard him. His gaze was locked on the man shaking hands with President Carthew. For as long as he could remember, he’d been told that his parents had been murdered in cold blood by intruders who’d found the hidden laboratory beneath Tycho. But …

  “You’ve always told me Grag killed the people who murdered my parents,” he whispered.

  The Brain said nothing. He’d gone silent again, Curt realized, as a precaution against having his Anni tapped by the floater that was still hovering nearby. “That’s correct,” Otho replied, “but they were just the ones who actually pulled the trigger. The person who gave them the order”—he nodded toward the stage—“is standing right there.”

  Curt gave his friend a sidelong glance. Again, no sign that Otho was pulling his leg. Instead, the android met his gaze with slanted green eyes that remained uncommonly serious. He silently nodded. He was speaking the truth. Senator Victor Corvo was the man who’d ended the lives of Roger and Elaine Newton.

  It was as if his heart had been replaced by a cast-iron machine, black and merciless, pumping cold anger instead of blood. Carthew had taken Corvo’s place at the podium, and as he politely waited for the applause to subside, the senator left the stage, walking down a short flight of steps to the VIP seating section, where a vacant chair awaited him in the front row. Corvo took his seat there, only a dozen or so yards from where Curt was standing.

  He could reach Corvo in just a second. If he kicked off his ankle weights, in one jump he could clear the red velvet rope separating him from the VIP seats and land next to the senator. Grab him, pull him to his feet, turn him around so his back was braced against Curt’s chest, wrap his left arm around Corvo’s shoulders, grasp his head with his right hand and twist hard. Snap! and that would be it …

  He’d just taken a step toward the rope, though, when Otho grabbed his arm. “No!” he hissed. “That’s not why we’re here.”

  Curt tried to shake off his hand, but couldn’t. He’d never been able to match Otho’s strength. Curt was mere flesh, bone, and blood, after all, while his friend was a dozen different kinds of pseudo-organic material; he was more than human, and unique because of that. “Then why—?”

  “Later.” Otho glanced past him. “We need to leave … calmly, please, but immediately nonetheless.”

  Curt didn’t have to follow Otho’s gaze to know what he meant. In the past few moments, they’d further aroused the attention of the IPF presidential security detail. Until then, they might have been only mildly suspicious, even after Curt had used hypnotic suggestion to make the inspector who’d come over to question him and Otho go away. But if the drone hadn’t detected the involuntary changes in skin temperature indicating a violent mood swing when Senator Corvo appeared onstage, then the two cops who’d replaced the inspector couldn’t have missed his impulsive attempt to charge the senator.

  “All right,” Curt whispered, “let’s go.”

  Otho nodded, then the two of them turned to begin making their way back through the crowd. Everyone was listening to President Carthew as he extolled the virtues of the new monument; they paid little attention to the two men who politely shouldered a path through them as they headed for the rear of the dome. Curt expected a firm hand on his shoulder, a murmured command to halt, yet nothing of the sort occurred. By the time they reached the monument entrance and the public airlock that lay just beyond, he’d figured that the IPF was content to let him and Otho leave just as long as they did so in peace.

  That was not to be. Someone was waiting for them just outside the airlock ready-room: an older IPF officer with a handlebar mustache and glacial-blue eyes, and the lovely young woman who’d confronted them earlier.

  V

  “Howdy, gents,” Ezra said as he stepped between the suspects and the ready-room. “I’m wondering if you’d be so kind as to have a l’il chat with us.”

  Joan hung back as ordered, quietly giving Ezra backup. The two officers tailing the suspects stopped at the edge of the crowd, each folding their arms across their chests. The two men who’d just left the crowd were now boxed in; there was no way they would be allowed to leave until Marshal Gurney questioned them.

  Joan unfastened her holster flap and tucked her right thumb in the belt so that her hand was only an inch from her particle beam pistol. The trick that the red-haired man had pulled on her had been deeply embarrassing, and she knew that Ezra wasn’t going to forget it anytime soon. So she wasn’t about to let herself get fooled again.

  “Of course.” This time it wasn’t the hairless albino who spoke first, but the man whose tattoo had identified him as Rab Cain. He stepped forward to stand beside his companion. “How may we help you, sir?”

  “Well, for starters, you can explain
why you felt it necessary to mesmerize my fellow officer when she attempted to question you and your buddy.”

  “Mesmerize? I don’t … oh, that!” Cain’s face broke into a grin. He raised his left hand, showing off the ring Joan had seen earlier. “I’m sorry, really. I sometimes forget that this can have sort of a funny effect on people. See, if you look closely—”

  “Knock it off,” Ezra snarled. “I’m not falling for that.” Cain shrugged and started to drop his hand, but Ezra grabbed his wrist. “Let’s see your tat,” he said, turning it over to expose his ID. “Inspector Randall, check the other guy’s.”

  “No need to get rough.” The albino calmly pulled back the cuff of his sleeve to let Joan examine his identification. She didn’t have a scanner, so instead she focused on the tattoo, squinting her eyes slightly to activate her Anni.

  —Anni, run identification and status check, please. IPF authorization JR26-4.

  —Certainly, Inspector Randall, Anni replied, using the grandmotherly version of her voice that Joan preferred. A translucent rectangle formed around the tattoo and a row of tiny digits appeared at the bottom of the coronal screen. —Identified as Vol Cotto. Resident of Port Kepler, Lunar Republic. Occupation: freelance astronavigator. No IPF record.

  “Anything wrong, Officer?” Cotto asked, the soul of innocence.

  Joan didn’t reply, but instead looked over at Ezra. Her boss had just finished checking Rab Cain’s ID. His gaze met Joan’s; neither of them spoke, but the glance they exchanged said everything that needed to be said. Both men had valid identification, neither had any entries in the IPF database of known criminals … and neither she nor Ezra was buying it. The old marshal had taught his protégé that police work often involved gut instinct, and her guts were now telling her that Rab Cain and Vol Cotto weren’t as innocuous as they were pretending to be.

  “You’re leaving in a hurry.” Ezra released Cain’s wrist but continued to stare him straight in the eye. “Any particular reason why?”

  “Not really.” An indifferent shrug and a smile. “You’ve heard one boring politician, you’ve heard them all. And Carthew could put anyone to sleep.”

  “Yeah, uh-huh.” Ezra didn’t smile back at him. “Y’know, son, we were watching you from over there, and it appeared you had some kinda … shall we say, adverse reaction when you saw him. In fact, I’d say you rather dislike our president.”

  “No, not at all.” Rab shook his head. “I have nothing at all against the president—”

  “You told me that you voted against him,” Cotto said, interrupting him.

  It sounded to Joan like Cotto was giving Cain a verbal nudge. “Oh yeah, well, sometimes I disagree with his policies,” Cain quickly added. “But still … no, I don’t have anything against him.”

  “Is there a reason for you to detain us?” Cotto asked.

  Joan and Ezra looked at each other. Ezra cocked his head to one side, and then he and Joan moved away.

  “We got nothin’ on ’em, kiddo,” Ezra murmured, “but I still think they stink.”

  “I’m with you, Chief,” Joan replied, her voice just as low. “You want to detain them? We can hold them for twenty-four hours without charges.”

  “What would that get us?” Ezra shook his head. “If they’re with Starry Messenger, then they’ve probably covered their tracks. Putting ’em on ice will just tip off their people that we’re on to them. No, we’re gonna cut ’em loose, but…”

  “But what?”

  “Let you know in a sec.” Ezra returned to the suspects. “You can go,” he said to them, stepping away from the ready-room hatch. “Just a routine check. Many apologies for any inconvenience.”

  “Yeah, sure. No problem.” Cotto gave Joan and Ezra a cold look as he sauntered past.

  “No problem at all. Good day, Officer.” Cain turned away from Ezra, but didn’t immediately follow Cotto to the ready-room. Instead, he paused before Joan.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Inspector Randall,” he said, just quietly enough for only the two of them to hear. “Many apologies for pulling that trick on you. It was mean.”

  Then, before Joan could stop him, Cain bent forward in a formal bow, took her hand, and lifting it to his lips, tenderly kissed it.

  Joan was so surprised that, when she opened her mouth to object, nothing came out. Men had kissed her before, of course, or at least tried to; she was an attractive woman, accustomed to advances of all kinds. But this was different: not a fumbling grope or a lewd pass, but a gallant, romantic, and respectful gesture. No one had ever kissed her this way before. His lips barely brushed the back of her hand. All the same, though, this was no way to treat an officer of the law.

  “Cut it out!” she snapped and jerked her hand away.

  Now it was Cain’s turn to be embarrassed. Face turning nearly as red as his hair, he hastily straightened up. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Didn’t mean to offend.”

  Without another word, he turned to enter the ready-room, ignoring both her angry glare and Ezra’s gape-mouthed astonishment. Even Cotto seemed to be taken aback. The only people to make a sound were the two IPF officers standing nearby, but their snickers quickly died when Ezra cast a scowl in their direction. Cotto closed the hatch behind them, leaving the lawmen behind.

  “Well … umm…” Joan struggled to recover.

  “Slick, ain’t he?” Ezra watched through the hatch window for a moment as Cain and Cotto retrieved their pressure suits from the wall racks, and then he turned away. “Okay, I got a job for you. I want to know where they’re going.”

  “Track them via lunasat?”

  “Uh-uh. I want eyes on ’em. Requisition a patrol hopper—come to think of it, take mine, it’s all set to go—and follow ’em to wherever they came from. Be careful not to let yourself be seen, but make sure they never leave your sight, and report back to me as soon as you’ve got something. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.” Joan gave him a quick salute, then hurried off to the secondary airlock being used for official IPF business. She’d have to work fast if she was going to suit up and get the hopper off the ground in time to catch up with Cain.

  Twice already, the red-haired stranger had embarrassed her. Joan determined to find out where he was going, and when she did, she’d make him sorry for treating her as he had.

  At least this was what she told herself.

  VI

  “I do believe we are being followed.”

  Curt had taken off from the Straight Wall only a minute earlier when Otho spoke up. Sitting in the copilot seat, Otho had been keeping an eye on the center console radar screen while Curt took the hopper up to cruise altitude 1,500 feet above Mare Nubium while performing the southerly turn that would put them on course for Tycho.

  Keeping a steady hand on the stick, Curt glanced at the screen. Just as Otho said, a small blip below and behind them was forming a nearly identical ground track. Whoever was flying the other craft was evidently trying not to be noticed, staying at the edge of radar range while maintaining an altitude of only seven hundred feet. It would have to climb a bit once they entered the southern highlands, but for now the pilot was hugging the flatlands of the lunar mare.

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” Curt said. “Any chance this could be a coincidence? Might just be someone else flying home the same way.”

  Otho shook his head, and Simon answered for both of them. “You know the answer to that as well as I do, lad.”

  This time, Curt heard Simon’s voice through the comlink instead of his Anni. It was the voice of an elderly sage, someone who’d lived many years and had acquired the wisdom of experience. As usual, the Brain was right. So far as Curt knew, there were no settlements, stations, or mining facilities within a hundred miles of Tycho Base. In fact, the Straight Wall System Monument was the closest inhabited area of any kind. Aside from the fact that it was one of the Moon’s largest impact craters, Tycho was a rather uninteresting place, remote from most of the locales humankind had c
hosen to inhabit. No one ever came down there.

  “Someone’s following us home,” he said quietly.

  “Really? You think?” Otho’s dry comment came with an irate scowl. “Maybe it’s your girlfriend wanting another kiss. Smooth move, Captain Future.”

  Curt’s face turned warm. “Don’t call me that.”

  “Captain Future. Wizard of science. Man of tomorrow.”

  “I’m warning you … knock it off.”

  “I agree,” Simon said. “This is no time for sarcasm, Otho. He made a mistake, and now we’ll just have to deal with it. Any ideas, Curtis?”

  Pushing aside his annoyance, Curt forced himself to work the problem. Tycho was just a little more than four hundred miles south by southwest of the Straight Wall; at their present ground speed, they’d be there in a little less than an hour. Any deviations from their present course would probably be considered suspicious, and dropping altitude wouldn’t do much good either. The nearest settlement on their flight path was the South Pole lunar ice facility at Cabeus; flying unnecessarily close to the ground wouldn’t deceive another pilot who was already at the same low altitude.

  Fortunately, the hopper was equipped with something he and Simon had recently invented in their spare time. Curt had been looking for a chance to try it out; this looked like an excellent opportunity. “Simon, put me through to Grag.”

  A moment passed, then a voice, deep and metronomic, came over the comlink. “Grag here. How may I help you, Curt?”

  “Go to the hangar control station and stand by. When I give the word, elevate the hopper landing pad, but don’t open the hangar door until I tell you. This is going to be a fast touchdown, so you need to be ready. Understand?”

  “Understood.”

  “Don’t screw it up, rivet brain,” Otho added. “We’re counting on you.” He caught the sour look Curt gave him and shrugged. “Just a friendly reminder, that’s all.”