by Allen Steele
There was something about the whole affair that was just wrong. The more Joan thought about it, the more she wondered whether Cain’s reaction to the men speaking at the dedication had been directed at President Carthew, as she and Ezra previously believed … or at Senator Corvo instead.
In any case, her shift was nearly over. She needed to get some sleep. Yet Joan had a sneaking suspicion that her work wasn’t done. It might still be the middle of the lunar day, but she couldn’t help but feel that a long night lay ahead.
II
With those thoughts in mind, Joan turned the flivver in the direction of the garage ramp. Had she not done so, she might have caught a glimpse of something peculiar: a brief flare low in the sky to the southwest, like that of a spacecraft’s engine exhaust except with no visible source. The flare was there for only a couple of seconds, though, before it vanished behind a range of hills a little more than a mile from the crater.
Curt landed the Comet as close to Armstrong Crater as he dared. Although the little ship was cloaked by its fantome field, he was well aware that its exhaust flare could still be seen by the naked eye … and this time, he wouldn’t have crater walls to hide behind while he made his descent. So he chose a narrow valley nestled between a couple of nearby hills and hoped that none of the guards he presumed to be standing watch outside the crater would notice the flare as he brought the Comet in for touchdown.
“I’m not picking up any unusual chatter,” the Brain said from behind him as Curt shut down the engines. “I think we’re in the clear.”
Curt nodded as he levered his seat into an upright position and unbuckled the harness. Simon was fully interfaced with the Comet; in a pinch, he could even take over the controls and fly the ship home by himself, although no one hoped it would come to that. “Good to hear,” Curt said as he stood up. “Okay … Otho, you’re with me.”
Otho said nothing as he unsnapped his own harness and stood up, but Curt could see the reluctance on his friend’s face. Otho remained silent, though, as they climbed down to the middeck. Curt paused long enough to open a locker and pull out a padded equipment bag. Slinging it over his shoulder, he continued down the ladder to the airlock deck, leaving the Brain behind.
Grag was waiting for them. The robot had already started pulling moonwalk gear from the suit lockers. “The lifepacks have been fully pressurized, Curt,” it said. “Would you like some assistance putting on your gear?”
“No thanks.” Curt carefully placed the bag on the floor and reached for his vacuum suit. “You can help Otho, though.”
“Nope. No way.” Otho shot Grag a warning look as the robot’s enormous eyes turned toward him.
“Then come with us,” Curt said. “We may need you.”
Otho snorted at this, but continued to keep his own counsel as he reached for his suit. Curt knew what was bothering him, but decided to leave it alone. They’d argued about this enough already. The time for debating motives and consequences was over; now was the time for strategy and tactics.
It took only a few minutes for Curt and Otho to don their gear, but before he put on his helmet, Curt opened the bag he’d brought down from the galley locker. First he pulled out a utility belt lined with battery packs, a gun holster on its right side. Once he’d buckled the belt around his waist, he reached into the bag and pulled out his plasmar, a handmade pistol that superficially resembled a PBP except for its flared, musketlike barrel. He attached one end of an elastic power cable to the butt, snapped the other end into a battery pack, then shoved the gun into the specially made holster and closed the flap.
The third and last item to come from the bag was a flat metal disk about the size of a saucer, mounted on a chest halter, a small digital display on its side. Otho helped Curt pull the halter over his suit and watched as he connected another power cable from his belt.
“When was the last time you tested that thing?” he asked.
“A few weeks ago.” Curt met Otho’s dubious gaze with a smile. “Brain and I got it up to ten minutes.”
“Yeah, okay, but you’ll still be as blind as a bat.”
“How would you know bats are blind? You ever met one?”
“There are no bats on the Moon,” Grag said, “but I would like to see one.”
“Open up your head sometime,” Otho muttered. “I’ll bet you’ll find a few up there.”
“I don’t understand. Why would there be—?”
“Knock it off, both of you.” Curt was fed up with the bickering. “Let’s get to work.”
He put on his helmet and twisted it tight. He didn’t immediately switch on the comlink, but instead made a silent gesture toward the airlock. Without another word, Grag opened the inside hatch and stepped into the small compartment. Once the three of them were inside, Curt and Otho pressurized their suits and tested the comlink while Grag depressurized the airlock.
A rope ladder slung from the bottom of the outer hatch got them to the ground. Curt had switched off the fantome field shortly after landing to preserve the batteries; the Comet rose above them as an ellipsoid shining in the sunlight. “Brain, are you with us?” he asked, looking up at the lighted cockpit windows high above.
I’m here, Curtis, Simon replied. “I’ve interfaced with Grag, so I can see everything he sees.”
Curt turned to Grag. The robot—or rather Simon, temporarily assuming control of Grag’s actions—raised a hand to give him a brief wave. Curt didn’t respond, but instead looked around the landing site. About a hundred yards away lay the low hills they’d landed behind.
“All right, then,” he said, pointing to the nearest hill. “Thataway…”
It took only a few minutes for the three of them to hike up the sandy slope. As they neared the top of the ridge, Curt gestured for Otho and Grag to go down on hands and knees. They crawled the last few feet to the ridgeline and found a boulder to hide behind, and it was from this vantage point that they gazed down on Armstrong Crater.
Even from there, they could see that the place was well guarded. Vehicles prowled the perimeter, and tiny figures who were no doubt armed guards stood in a broad circle around the reflector mirrors. At the end of the road leading to the crater, a checkpoint had been set up near a ramp leading under the crater, with three more men waiting to inspect any vehicles that might arrive. As Curt, Otho, Grag, and the Brain watched, a hopper took off from a nearby landing field to make a low pass over the dome. Curt was afraid for a moment that it might expand its sweep to the nearby hills, but apparently its pilot didn’t think that was necessary.
And it probably wasn’t. Nothing could get within a mile of the craterhab without being spotted.
“This is going to be tricky,” Otho said. “Even with a fantome field.”
“If I’ve got the field hiding me, I can slip in.” Curt hesitated. “The problem is getting close enough.”
The disk he wore on his suit was a portable fantome generator. After he and Simon had developed the light-deflection device for use aboard the Comet and their hopper, they’d decided to make a smaller version for personal use. It had taken years of work and countless tests, but they’d finally succeeded in devising the means by which an individual could vanish from sight. Light rays and even radar would be bent around a person wearing a fantome device, giving them the appearance of invisibility.
There were a couple of drawbacks, though.
First, because the generator was enormously power hungry, the invisibility effect was good for only a few minutes. As he’d told Otho earlier, Curt had lately managed to stretch the duration to ten minutes; what he didn’t admit was that he’d used up every battery pack on his belt doing so, leaving his plasma gun good for only a few shots.
Second, the undesirable effect of having the fantome deflect light was that a person standing within the field became temporarily blind. Since light rays couldn’t penetrate the field, the retinas of the eyes had nothing to work with; the effect was akin to being surrounded by a bubble of darkness.
When the generator was used aboard a craft, the pilot was able to use a number of tricks to compensate. As long as the onboard computers still functioned, for instance, it was still possible to navigate via three-dimensional topo maps. So when Curt used the fantome to avoid being tracked by the hopper that had followed him and Otho from the Straight Wall, he’d switched off the generator as soon as his craft was out of visual range, using crater walls to hide his own hopper while he made a successful landing at Tycho Base.
This time, though …
“There’s no way you’re going to be able to get close to the crater before the field gives out,” Otho said. “Look how spread out the guards are. Even if you sneak past them, you’d still have to make it through the checkpoints they’ve set up at all the entrances.”
“If I hurry,” Curt said, “I might be able to do it.”
“Get from here to the crater in ten minutes or less?” Simon asked, his voice a thin rasp in Curt’s helmet. “I sincerely doubt that. Besides, even if you could, there’s always a chance someone might spot your footprints as you make them.”
“Then I’ll stay clear of the guards…”
“Sure, you could do that … if you could see ’em.” Otho looked at him askance. “But you’ll be blind all the way in. Even if we tried to guide you, there’s a lot we can’t see from here. What if your foot hits a rock and you go sprawling? You’ll raise a dust cloud when you hit the ground, and that might raise someone’s attention.”
Curt opened his mouth, then closed it again. Otho was right, whether he liked it or not. The fantome field would be just as much an impediment as it would be an advantage. It wouldn’t last the time it would take for him to cross the distance, and even if it did, the fact that he couldn’t see practically guaranteed an accident that would lead to his discovery and arrest. And the last thing any of them wanted was to have Victor Corvo become aware that the son of Roger and Elaine Newton still lived.
“Perhaps you can ride in on that truck,” Grag said.
Curt looked over at the robot. “What’s that? Come again?”
“Look there.” Grag pointed downhill behind them, away from Armstrong and toward the packed-dirt road that connected it with Collins and Aldrin craters. “A vehicle is approaching.”
Shading his eyes with a raised hand, Curt twisted about on his hands and knees to peer in the direction the robot indicated. In the far distance, almost on the horizon, a tiny silver-gray fantail of regolith caught the sunlight as it was kicked up by a set of wheels. Although it was still far away, Curt knew that Grag was right. The vehicle was a tandem-trailer truck, the sort used to haul supplies from one lunar settlement to another.
This one was probably coming from Aldrin or Collins; it could be carrying food, water, machine parts, toilet paper, anything. What mattered was that it was on its way to Armstrong, and it was making good time.
“Okay, so it’s a truck.” Otho was unimpressed. “What’s he supposed to do? Go down there and thumb a ride?”
“‘Thumb a ride’?” Grag’s impassive face turned toward Otho. “I’m not familiar with this expression.”
“Maybe not, but I am … and that’s not a bad idea.” Curt grinned. “Listen, here’s what I’m thinking…”
III
“Here it comes, Curt,” Grag said.
“How far away?”
“One hundred yards and closing. Approximate land speed thirty-five knots.”
“Understood.” Curt adjusted his grip on Grag’s shoulders. He was standing behind the robot, positioned so that its massive shadow fell across him. This wouldn’t have hidden him if he was visible, but they were hoping that it would cover his footprints. All he had to do was make sure that he didn’t lose contact with Grag, or he wouldn’t be able to know which way to go.
“Captain Future, do you copy?”
Otho’s voice coming through his helmet phones gave him cause to grit his teeth. He wished dearly that the Brain hadn’t insisted on everyone using call signs on the comlink, or that he hadn’t picked this particular one for him. An added measure of security, sure, but he was feeling childish enough already.
“Affirmative, Comet,” Curt replied. “Report situation.”
Otho’s voice was a calm, reassuring presence in the darkness surrounding him. “The truck is a two-car tractor-trailer rig. Can’t tell yet if there’s anyplace for you to climb aboard. It hasn’t slowed down yet.”
“Has it seen me? Seen Grag, I mean.”
“No, it’s not slowing down.” Otho hissed under his breath. “Hey, buckethead, raise your hands! Let the driver know you want it to stop!”
“Affirmative,” Grag said. “And please don’t call me buckethead.”
“Yeah, okay, spoonface.”
Curt felt the robot shift beneath his hands. He’d adjusted the fantome generator to emit its narrowest possible field, concealing him but not Grag. They’d considered having him ride piggyback atop the robot, but realized that the generator might cause Grag to become partially invisible as well. So he’d have to depend on Grag being his guide … his “Seeing Eye dog,” as Simon called it, an archaic term he didn’t bother to explain.
“The truck’s getting closer,” Simon said, observing everything through Grag’s eyes, “but it’s not slowing down.”
Curt glanced up at the one thing he could see, his helmet’s luminescent heads-up display. Nine minutes left before the field faded, and there were no other vehicles on the road leading to the crater. In Earth time, the hour was getting late; this truck was probably carrying the last shipment of the day. If this didn’t work, he’d have to wait until tomorrow to try again, and he didn’t want to give Otho a chance to talk him out of what he meant to do. He had to take a chance, so …
“Grag, walk out into the road.”
“Are you crazy?” Otho’s shout was startling in the darkness. “That damn thing is just a couple of hundred feet away. It—”
“Grag, do as I say! Raise your hands and walk out into the road!”
“Yes, Curt.” Apparently the danger wasn’t sufficient to cause Grag’s self-preservation programming to kick in, because Curt felt the robot march forward. This time, Curt was ready for the movement. Holding on tight, he matched the robot’s gait as Grag trudged into the road before them. It came to a sudden halt and made a one-quarter turn to the right, and Curt did the same, using his hands to make sure that he was still behind the robot.
He knew that they were now facing the oncoming truck from dead center in the middle of the road.
Curt braced himself, waiting for the impact. He had the sudden thought that he may have pushed his luck a little too far this time. Over the years, while Simon and Otho had trained his body and mind for the task that lay head, he’d occasionally taken risks that horrified his guardians. He’d never been reckless, though, and each time he’d managed to get away with nothing more than bruises, sprains, or small cuts. Nonetheless, he always knew that the day would come when he—
“The truck is stopping,” Grag said.
“Confirmed. The truck is coming to a halt, with just a dozen feet to spare.” Otho slowly let out his breath.
“Affirmative.” Curt became aware of his own heartbeat. “Curt … Captain Future out.”
Otho went silent, as did the Brain. From now until he reached the crater interior, he was observing radio silence with everyone except Grag, lest their comlink transmissions be intercepted by the IPF.
“Grag,” Curt said, “patch me into your main band, please. And put your responses to me in text mode.”
A glowing word appeared across the inside of his faceplate—Affirmative—followed by a soft click. In the same instant, a new voice came through the darkness:
“… the hell are you doing here?”
“I am lost,” Grag replied.
“Lost?” Another voice, also male, more amused than the first. “I didn’t think it was possible for you guys to get lost. Where are you from?”
�
�Zero degrees, forty-one minutes, fifteen seconds north, twenty-three degrees, twenty-five minutes, forty-five seconds east.”
A sigh. “In plain English, dummy, not coordinates … where are you from? I mean, where was the last place you were before you got lost?”
“The Apollo System Monument. I am a maintenance robot there. A visitor gave me the instruction to get lost. I complied and now I am here.”
The sound of braying laughter over the comlink. Curt had to keep from laughing himself. Grag was playing its role well: the stereotypical dumb robot, misinterpreting an innocuous remark as a literal command.
“Yeah, all right … no wonder you’re lost.” A chuckle from a voice that was no longer angry. “Tell you what … climb aboard and we’ll give you a lift to our destination. Once we’re there, I’ll have someone call the park and have them come out and pick you up. Okay?”
“Thank you,” Grag said. “That would be suitable.”
Curt felt the robot march forward again. He followed it closely, still holding onto its shoulders with both hands. He hoped that the robot was keeping itself between him and the driver’s line of sight, for he had no idea whether Grag’s shadow was still hiding his footprints, but no one said anything so apparently the trick was working. After about ten steps, Grag turned to the right. Five more steps, and they turned to the right again. Two more steps, and they came to a sudden halt. Again, Grag spoke to him in silent text only Curt could see:
I am standing next to the left rear side of the tractor behind the cab. There is a ladder directly in front of me. It appears to lead to a small cargo rack on the roof. If you climb down and take two steps forward, you will be able to reach up and grasp the lowest rungs of the ladder.
Curt didn’t respond as he let go of Grag. Feeling his way with outstretched hands, he carefully stepped out from behind the robot. One step, two step, three … the palms of his hands came in contact with a vertical metal surface. He slowly moved his hands upward, and they found a U-shaped ladder rung at chest level, with another one a foot below it and yet another above.
