The Luna Deception

by Felix R. Savage

  22:06.

  The Gold Digger, a Juggernaut bound for Ceres, blasted off.

  Hope that wasn’t it.

  He did not know if he would get a chance to contact any of the ships. But maybe, now that Derek Lorna had got what he wanted, he’d let Mendoza go.

  The door of the chapel opened. Lorna himself entered with a light step. “Congratulations! You did it, guys! You’ve earned a place in history. Not the official version, of course.”

  Puzzled smiles greeted this announcement.

  “Five years from now, or maybe ten years, humanity will thank you. Unfortunately, you won’t be around to see it. Because the future of humanity does not belong to plebs like you. It belongs to highly advanced phavatars.” Lorna grinned. “Like me.”

  The top of his head hinged back. A stubby little gun threw a targeting laser across the chapel. The beam fastened on Seanette, the woman from Harrods customer service. It brightened to a linear lightning bolt. Seanette went rigid and collapsed, her limbs jittering on the floor.

  After a second of stunned disbelief, everyone screamed and scattered to the ends of the chapel. Mendoza dived under the pews. He recalled how he’d evaded Lorna’s hijacked bot in the clinic at Farm Eighty-One. His chances were poorer now. He’d been buzzing on morale juice at that time. Also, he hadn’t been in a minimal-flexion cast following surgery.

  Also, Dr. Miller’s assistant hadn’t had an electrolaser in its head.

  He crawled past Emil’s body. Emil’s hair was burning, while the children on his t-shirt silently sang Happy Birthday once again.

  Ganfeng from the Shackleton City Visitor Center leapt over Mendoza, kicking him in the cast. It hurt so much Mendoza almost blacked out. When his vision cleared, he saw Ganfeng lying face-down. Electrolaser weapons delivered a precisely calibrated current via an ionized plasma beam. Basically, they electrocuted you.

  “Mendoza.”

  He sat up. Stared at Lorna, who was a couple of meters away, standing in front of the little waterfall at the end of the chapel.

  But of course, it wasn’t Lorna. It was a phavatar, a robotic telepresence platform. The type known as a “selfie”—a phavatar that had been customized to resemble its owner in every detail.

  Except for the gun sticking out of the top of its head.

  “Saved you for last,” the phavatar said. “I thought you’d like to know a bit more about the future you won’t, unfortunately, see.”

  “Don’t you know what happens to bad guys who stop to gloat before killing their victims?”

  “Oh, come on. I’m not a bad guy. I’m just well-informed. If paying attention to what’s going on makes you a bad guy …” The phavatar shrugged. “Stick horns on me and call me Lucifer, I guess. But someone’s got to do this, and I volunteered to be the one who breaks the eggs.”

  Mendoza would have laughed, if he hadn’t been so terrified. “Was any of it true? The stuff you told me about fighting back against the PLAN?”

  “Absolutely. Every last word. You could have been part of it, too, if you hadn’t screwed up.”

  Mendoza snuck a glance around the room. Bodies lay motionless. He smelled burning fabric and hair. Why wasn’t anyone coming to help? Answer: Lorna had made sure they wouldn’t. He probably had friends in the Spaceport Authority. People who thought the same way he did.

  Mendoza felt a pang of profound regret. “I wanted to join your fight. But …”

  “Too bad. Because of you, a hundred and seventeen people died. Whoops. Update,” the phavatar said, glancing at the corpses on the floor. “A hundred and twenty-three.”

  “You didn’t let me finish,” Mendoza said. “I wanted to be part of the fight against the PLAN. But not if it’s being led by a psychopath.”

  “Any other insults? Questions? Or is that all you got?”

  “How did you arrange that riot at UNVRP HQ?”

  “I didn’t. The plebs working for UNVRP did that all by themselves. It seems that when Dr. Hasselblatter’s campaign imploded, they got mad that there wasn’t going to be a new golden age of tourism, after all. No quidditch, no robot bison … It’s dangerous, you know, Mendoza, to offer people a fantasy based on OPM, and then snatch it away.”

  “OPM?”

  “Other people’s money. My idea was to evacuate everyone from Mercury, leaving just a skeleton crew to run the shipyards and factories. People cost a fortune. But Doug doesn’t see it that way. So, OK, he can keep his rat-infested underground habs.” The phavatar shrugged.

  “And Angelica Lin? What about her?”

  “Angie? She’s dispensable, and will be dispensed with pretty soon.”

  The casual disavowal took Mendoza’s breath away. “Wait. Pretty soon? You mean this isn’t over yet?”

  “It’s only just beginning. Angie doesn’t know that, of course.”

  The phavatar extended its hand. On its palm, a robotic nightmare appeared. It had six legs, drill-bit fangs, and big, cute eyes. It was about twenty centimeters tall.

  “This is a vinge-class industrial phavatar. In real life, they’re bigger. There are hundreds of them on Mercury, and they are moving towards UNVRP HQ as we speak. When they get there, Angie will let them in. She thinks they’re there to neutralize the Marines, so we can declare independence. She’s right. But it won’t end there. As it happens, these phavatars are now a distributed mobility platform for a little program I put together.”

  “Which is supposed to do what?”

  “Finish the job,” the phavatar said laconically. “I hate freeloaders.”

  Mendoza thought, Elfrida. He said, “You’re going to kill everyone.”

  “Except Doug’s people.”

  “You can’t. That’s evil. It’s criminal.”

  “It didn’t have to happen! We could have won the easy way. No laws broken. No one would have had to die, except for a few UNVRP suits.” The phavatar closed its fist, vanishing the projection of the vinge-class horror. “But you fucked up. Any last words?”

  “I want a priest.”

  “Sorry, no can do.”

  Mendoza began to pray out loud. “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit …”

  Lorna’s phavatar tapped a toe impatiently.

  The waterfall suddenly gushed out at maximum flow. In Luna’s low gravity, the stream of water travelled parallel to the floor. It hit the phavatar in the head.

  The phavatar spun around. The water filled its skull cavity and rebounded as far as the ceiling.

  Mendoza sprinted for the door.

  Behind him, he heard the crack of something—he hoped it was something vital—shorting out.

  “Mendozaaaa!” The phavatar’s voice chased him down the corridor.

  He ran on, clumsy in his cast. He had no idea where he was. Spaceport staff shrank against the walls. Some of the quicker-witted ones started to run. Mendoza followed a man who seemed to know where he was going.

  “Mendozaaa!” The phavatar’s roar mingled with shrieks from the staff.

  The man Mendoza was following leapt into an elevator. Mendoza scrabbled at the closing doors. They opened again. He fell in. The man shouted, “Door close! What in the freak? Are we under attack? Is it the PLAN?”

  “No,” Mendoza panted. “Call security. There are five dead people back there. In the chapel.”

  A BOOM! cut him off. The elevator bounced, and then continued to descend.

  The tannoy came alive. “Attention all passengers. This is a courtesy announcement. An … equipment malfunction … has occurred on the fifth floor of Terminal B. Security protocols have been activated, and there is no risk whatsoever. This has been a courtesy announcement.” It continued after a minimal pause, “All personnel on the fifth floor of Terminal B, please evacuate immediately. There is a significant risk of fire. Area shutdown will be implemented in thirty seconds. Repeat, evacuate immediately.”

  “He must have self-destructed,” Mendoza muttered.

  “Cheese! This is crazy! We
were just there!”

  The elevator halted on the ground floor. Mendoza left his companion with the words, “Thanks for opening the doors. You probably saved my life.”

  He was in a limited-access corridor. He could hear the murmur of a troubled mass of people. He hurried through a one-way wicket, past the toilets, and out into an area which he remembered from his trip to 4 Vesta last year: the Outer System Departures concourse.

  People milled, nervous. They had probably heard the explosion, and were not reassured by the courtesy announcement. Mendoza repeatedly caught the dread syllable “PLAN.” Like the man in the elevator, everyone jumped to the same conclusion.

  He’d come this way when he shipped out for 4 Vesta last year, and he remembered the layout. He walked through the crowd, matching his gait to the meanderings of the bewildered passengers. An iridescent half-shell sheltered an airlock signposted PLAY AREA. The access light was green. Mendoza went in, flipped open a locker full of small sharesuits covered in Unicorn Tears® and Knights of the Milky Way™ characters, and took one of the larger ones stenciled PARENT / GUARDIAN. Assured by the airlock that his seals were “tickety-boo!” he went out into a hailstorm of brightly colored foam balls.

  Lethal radiation didn’t hang around in the vacuum, so for twenty-minute windows between launches, it was safe to go out.

  Spacesuited children pelted each other with foam balls, slid down curly slides, and bounced on a trampoline that catapulted them ten meters up inside a transparent tube.

  Mendoza skulked around the playground, seeking the emergency exit. There had to be one. Children’s safety was such a priority in Shackleton City, they’d never build a play area with only one entrance …

  When he found the emergency exit, he pushed it open and exited into the launch zone.

  A siren filled his helmet, ear-splitting. He broke into a run. Terminal B loomed behind him, a minimalist plastisteel edifice spangled with squares of brightness. The entire fifth floor was dark.

  Waaah-wooonh! Waaah-wooonh! His sharesuit unleashed a klaxon in his ears, followed by an automated warning. “Return to the terminal immediately. Do not enter the launch zone. Return to the terminal immediately …”

  Trying to tune out the noise, Mendoza glanced at the sharesuit’s HUD. Unbelievably, only fifteen minutes had passed since Lorna started his killing spree.

  22:17.

  That meant five of his possibles were still here: the Mafficker, the What Are You Looking At?, the Attachment Unavailable, the Katana, and the Bit O’ Jam.

  Waaah-wooonh! Waaah-wooonh!

  This noise was driving him crazy.

  Spaceships towered ahead of him. Some looked like four-storey buildings wearing Elizabethan ruffs, and others were ground-hugging disks or toroids. The floor of Amundsen Crater was 105 kilometers across. Spaceplanes and other wheeled spacecraft landed on the runway on the far side of the central massif. The ships on this side were landing craft capable of vertical launches and landings, mostly Flyingsaucers and Superlifters belonging to long-haul motherships that remained in orbit.

  One of Mendoza’s possibles, the Mafficker, was a spaceplane parked on the far side of the crater, so he discarded that one. Even if it was the one, he’d never get there. That left the What Are You Looking At? the Attachment Unavailable, the Katana, and the Bit O’ Jam.

  He only had time for one guess.

  Had to get it right first time.

  He whispered a prayer. Made his decision.

  The Katana.

  Now to find it.

  He’d accessed a map of the launch zone while he was working in the chapel, and had tried to memorize the locations of his possibles. But he was used to storing data in his BCI for later reference. Without the BCI, his memory had gone to shit. He couldn’t even remember the number of the Katana’s parking space.

  He ran along the fluorescent orange lines that marked out the 1000m2 spaces, noticing how few ships were parked dead center, how many had barely made it into their allotted space at all. That was a giveaway that human pilots had landed them. Trekkies—career astronauts—knew how important it was to keep your own abilities up to scratch, instead of relying on computers for everything.

  His lungs burned. The Trust Deficit … the Close Your Eyes And Hold Out Your Hand …

  “Return to the terminal immediately. Return—”

  “Turn right at the Teething Trouble. Two spaces down, on your left.”

  That hadn’t been the voice of his sharesuit.

  “Who are you?” He cut across the corner of the Teething Trouble’s parking space.

  “A friend. Keep going. You’re almost there.”

  Mendoza now saw the Katana ahead of him. A Superlifter, its hull dulled by a zillion little dents, suggesting that it usually plied the Belt, where there was more microdebris. The logo adorning its nose depicted a winged giraffe.

  The ship had already assumed its vertical launch position, which put the crew airlock high above Mendoza’s head. As he stared up at it, panting, the outer hatch swung open and a rope descended.

  “I know. A rope?” the voice said. “But we’re not allowed to deploy our drones or nets here. Organics don’t set off any alarms. Grab hold and we’ll pull you up.”

  Mendoza wrapped his gloves in the rope. It was an act of faith. He ascended in jerks and starts to the airlock.

  An EVA-suited individual, tall and skinny even by spaceborn standards, hauled him into the chamber and coiled up the rope. When the lock had pressurized, Mendoza removed his helmet with a grunt of relief.

  It continued to blare its warning in his hand. He hardly noticed.

  His rescuer had removed his own helmet, revealing a face that Mendoza remembered.

  Kiyoshi Yonezawa had grown a moustache. Still, Mendoza recognized him.

  They had last met on board the Vesta Express, millions of klicks from here.

  “Christ, that thing is loud,” Kiyoshi said. “Gimme.” He took Mendoza’s helmet and whacked it against the inside of the airlock’s outer hatch. It fell silent.

  “Was that you, talking to me in my helmet?”

  “Nope,” Kiyoshi said. “That was my kid brother. You haven’t met.”

  “I need to go to Mercury.”

  Kiyoshi wasn’t listening. “Come on, get strapped in, we’re launching in nine minutes.”

  xi.

  Mendoza tumbled into the Superlifter’s bridge. Cramped, horseshoe-shaped, it smelled fetid. Fr. Lynch sat nearest to the airlock, in the comms officer’s couch. His tense expression did not relax, but his voice was warm. “You made it, God be praised! I’m sorry I left you behind, Mendoza, but I thought you’d be all right with Franckel and his people. There was no time to tell you …”

  “It was my fault,” Kiyoshi said. “I wanted to get moving. We were supposed to be gone by now, but our launch slot got moved back.” Mendoza realized that Kiyoshi had been there in the squatters’ hab in the shipping terminal. He’d been the guy in the bandanna. He threw his long legs over the pilot’s couch. “Thankfully, we’re cleared to launch now. Hey, guy, I said strap in.”

  Mendoza squeezed behind him, heading for the astrogator’s couch, which was unoccupied.

  “Not there!”

  “FFS, bro,” said a disembodied voice. It was the voice that had guided Mendoza through the launch zone. Male, youngish, with the same slight accent that tinctured Kiyoshi’s English. “He can have my couch. I don’t need it.”

  “No, that’s OK.” Mendoza retraced his steps and sat down in the co-pilot’s couch. The co-pilot didn’t have much to do on a Superlifter. It was a prestige position. The couch recontoured itself to cradle his body. Kiyoshi spoke tersely into the radio, confirming to the Spaceport Authority that he was ready to launch.

  The bridge had no windows, of course. Windows had gone out with chemical rockets. But the co-pilot’s couch had its own screen. Mendoza tested out the fingertip controls and found an external optical feed. Out in the launch zone, nothing was happeni
ng. The distant terminals reclined against the crater wall like sleeping lions. He couldn’t believe it would be this easy to get away.

  The hum of systems built to a roar. The Superlifter rattled like a can full of pebbles. Kiyoshi glanced over at Mendoza’s screen. “What are you doing?” he yelled above the din.

  “I was worried they might be coming after me!”

  “Who, security? Nah! You’re just another illegal emigrant!”

  Mendoza realized that Kiyoshi did not know what he’d just gone through. None of them did.

  “It’s Derek Lorna! His phavatar killed five people! I barely escaped!”

  “Later,” Kiyoshi said distractedly. To someone else, he shouted, “The toroidal field magnet isn’t acting fixed!”

  “It’s fine,” the disembodied voice said. “It’s just a problem with the display.” Mendoza assumed Kiyoshi’s brother must be sitting at the far end of the horseshoe, beyond the unoccupied astrogator’s couch, out of sight.

  “The toroidal whatsit, is that not a crucial component?” Fr. Lynch asked. He sounded uneasy. Or maybe Mendoza was projecting. He had never flown on a spaceship this small. It felt like it was shaking itself apart.

  “Kinda, yeah! If it fails, we’ll splatter 30-million-degree plasma all over the spaceport!” Kiyoshi bared his teeth in a grin.

  The roaring and rattling went on. Only when g-force clamped down on his body did Mendoza know they’d launched. The pressure caught him in a less-than-ideal position—head turned towards Kiyoshi, one arm across his lap—and rapidly grew unbearable. He could not lift his arm off his lap. With his head pinned sideways, he stared helplessly at the others. Kiyoshi lay grunting, his mouth open. On Kiyoshi’s other side, Fr. Lynch looked like a dead martyr. Both men took on a gaunt appearance as the g-force pulled their faces tight on their skulls.

  Mendoza’s cast interpreted the gees as an ongoing impact. It compressed his ribcage even more in a misguided attempt to brace him. He grew short of breath. Grayness ate at his vision.