Zero Limit

by Jeremy K. Brown

  As they rode toward Bear Crater, Caitlin gazed out the window at the scenery, such as it was. Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the surface of this unwelcoming world, once described it as “magnificent desolation.” Caitlin thought, in all the years that had passed since that fateful day in another century, no one had ever found a better way to capture the juxtaposition of awe and loneliness one felt when looking out over the Moon’s terrain. The Sun shone almost white along the gray regolith, illuminating the younger patches that formed what were commonly called lunar swirls. Impact craters dotted the Moon’s battered face, telling the story of countless asteroid and comet strikes. Along the plains, long-dead oceans of ancient lava rose and fell. And off in the distance, mountains protruded up from the surface like long-abandoned pyramids. In her time mining regolith, Caitlin had enjoyed views of the Moon no one else had ever seen. She supposed she should be grateful; maybe someday she would be. But for now, she couldn’t stop thinking about what all of this had cost her.

  Their sojourn across the Moonscape stopped along the rim of the massive crater. As large as the Space Invader was, out here, it looked like a child’s toy set at the edge of an enormous sandbox. The men leaped out of the rig and began getting the gear ready. Caitlin gazed at the display on the dashboard, scoping out spots that looked the most promising, then climbed out of the cab and looked down into the crater before giving orders.

  “Diaz!” she said. “You’re on the bucket wheel. Keep the pivot arm loose and keep the blade moving. Watch out for anything large enough to jam it up. Tony, I want the collector flowing. I’m talking constant heat coming through those pipes. I’ll run separator. And Shaw, once we’ve got the rock baked, you load the canisters. Everyone’s got their assignments, so let’s get it Bravo Zulu on the first try! Clear?”

  “Hooah!” everyone said in unison before going to their respective stations.

  With everyone in position, Vee hit the gas and the Invader made its way into the crater and down to the mining field. As the bucket wheel was dragged along the surface, it chopped up regolith in its wake. The small particles of rock and dust caught the sunlight as they were agitated, floating up and back down to the surface like mini shooting stars. It was almost hypnotic, Caitlin thought. She had heard rumors that new harvesters were being developed that would do the job automatically, lumbering over the surface like massive grain combines, chopping up the rego as automated droids handled the gathering and separating process. She supposed that was for the best, but she felt for the future generations of would-be miners being deprived of such beautiful sights.

  About four hours into the shift, the Invader’s engine seized up and the rig sputtered to a halt in the middle of the crater.

  “Dammit!” Caitlin said, and hauled herself out of the cab.

  She climbed down to the surface. Tony was already working the problem.

  “What’ve we got?” asked Caitlin.

  “Damn rego’s caught up in the drivetrain somewhere,” he said.

  Caitlin shook her head. Rego was a common problem everywhere on the Moon, especially when it came to machinery. The radiation that constantly bombarded the lunar surface gave the soil an electrical charge, which meant that it clung to everything. But the harvesters were supposed to be protected against such accidents.

  “How the hell did that happen?” Caitlin asked.

  Tony pointed to the engine covering and grimaced.

  “Looks like we kicked up an iron fragment,” he said. “Probably early in the scrape. Punched a hole right in the casing. Rego’s been flowing into it ever since. Everything’s gummed up pretty good.”

  By now, the rest of the crew had gathered around, assessing the problem. Caitlin was past assessment, only interested in solutions.

  “How can we fix it?” she asked.

  “Not sure,” he said. “Back at the Doghouse, I’d just suck the stuff out with a vacuum. But vacuums don’t work without an atmosphere. No air means no suck out here.”

  “There’s plenty of suck out here if you know where to look,” said Diaz.

  “Can it,” said Vee.

  “So you’re saying we’re stuck?” Caitlin asked.

  “Looks that way.”

  Caitlin considered their situation for a moment, then an idea struck her.

  “Maybe not,” she said. “I’ve got an idea. It’s crazy, though . . .”

  “Crazy can be good,” said Tony. “What is it?”

  “It’s probably better if I show you rather than tell you.”

  “Fair enough. What do you need to get started?”

  “I need a few of the canisters from the Invader,” said Caitlin. “And we’ve got to bring them out to the crater wall. Over to the shadows.”

  “All the way out there?” said Diaz. “You’ll probably lose an hour.”

  Caitlin looked out to the far edge of the crater and then back at her crew.

  “Better than losing a day,” she said, gathering up two canisters. “Let’s get moving. Shaw? You’re coming with me.”

  “Why me?” he asked.

  “You’ve got the equipment I need,” said Caitlin. “Plus, don’t you think it’s a lovely day for a walk?”

  Having gathered their gear and the canisters, Caitlin and Shaw made their way farther into the crater, feeling impossibly small. As the temperature began to drop, Caitlin found herself grateful for the protection of her suit. While there was no heating system, the truth was the garment didn’t need it. The vacuum seal trapped body heat, keeping miners warm.

  “How are you holding up?” Caitlin asked Shaw.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know,” she said, “your wife and everything that’s going on.”

  “Oh,” Shaw replied. “If you’re worried that my head’s not on the job . . .”

  “No. I’m worried because you’re on my crew. And that means you’re family to me.”

  Shaw allowed a small smile at this. In the time since Caitlin had taken over the Invader crew, she had taken on the role of den mother to the team. Making sure they got their physicals done, that they had eaten before work and stayed hydrated during and after a job. It had gotten so that the crew, in addition to Cutter, occasionally called her Mama Bear.

  “I’m doing . . . surprisingly well, actually,” Shaw said. “I mean, it sucks, but I think I knew this was coming for a long time.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t think she was ever really in love with me,” he said. “I think she loved the idea of me, if that makes sense. The idea of who she thought I was. Or, more to the point, who she thought she could turn me into.”

  Before Caitlin could ask more, they’d reached the crater wall. The Sun had dropped out of their sight, and with it, the temperature. They took a moment to look around. Shaw turned to Caitlin.

  “All right,” he said. “What’s the plan?”

  Caitlin dropped to one knee, placing a canister in a mini subcrater, the product of a micrometeorite strike.

  “OK,” said Shaw as Caitlin stood back up. “Now what?”

  “Now we wait,” Caitlin said. “It shouldn’t take long . . .”

  “For the water vapor inside to freeze!” Shaw said, finally picking up on what Caitlin was proposing.

  “You got it,” she said. “I’m just concerned that the other gases might freeze as well.”

  Shaw shook his head. “The temperature’s not cold enough for the hydrogen, oxygen, or even He-3 to freeze. Just the water, which is all we need.”

  “See?” said Caitlin. “That’s why I brought you with me.”

  As they waited for the cold to do its job, Caitlin returned to the previous conversation.

  “What was her idea?”

  “What?”

  “Your wife,” said Caitlin. “What was her idea of what you should be?”

  “I don’t know,” said Shaw. “Work in an office. Ride an elevator every morning. Sit around with a bunch of dudes in ties saying stuff like, ‘You do
n’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!’ and ‘Is it beer o’clock yet?’”

  “Sounds unpleasant,” Caitlin agreed. “What did you want to do?”

  “I wanted to teach,” he said. “I loved science and thought maybe if I passed that excitement and enthusiasm to the kids, I could make some kind of difference. Problem was all I could get was sub work. And when that dried up, I knew I had to do something, so I came here. Figured I could put that science knowledge to good use and maybe still make a difference, even if it wasn’t the one I’d intended to make.”

  “Well, if we pull this off, you’re gonna help make a difference today,” said Caitlin, nodding toward the canister.

  “Yeah,” said Shaw, looking around at the massive crater. “If she could only see me now.”

  Once she was convinced the Moon’s temperature had turned the water vapor inside the first canister to ice, Caitlin picked up a second one. Dropping again to her knee, she opened the first canister, venting out all the gases, then looked up at Shaw, shaking it like a tumbler of scotch. Although no sound was produced in the airless void, Caitlin almost felt like she could hear the clinking of frozen cubes.

  “Ice,” she said, grinning. “Which we can then turn to steam.”

  “Great,” said Shaw. “Only, if you’re proposing what I think you’re proposing, one gathering of ice isn’t going to be enough. We need a heavier concentration.”

  “A good teacher always checks his students’ work,” Caitlin said. “That’s why I proposed bringing extra canisters.”

  “So we’ve got to transfer the gases into the canister with the ice, freeze that water vapor, and do the whole process over again three more times.”

  “Sounds about right,” said Caitlin.

  Shaw reached into his equipment bag and extracted a high-pressure hose designed for transferring gases.

  “Then let’s get to work,” he said.

  Once the job was complete, Caitlin and Shaw walked back to the Invader. Caitlin used the heating system on board the harvester to turn the water ice into steam. After Shaw fiddled with the tank’s valve to reverse the flow, he brought the tank over to the hole in the rig’s casing and handed it to Tony.

  “What do I do?” Tony asked.

  “Just point the canister at the drivetrain and open the valve.”

  Tony did as Shaw asked and a torrent of steam erupted from the end of the canister. He had to tighten his grip to avoid having it slip from his hands. The crew cheered in unison at the makeshift pressure washer as Tony cleaned out the collected grime from the Moon’s surface. Within a few minutes, the drivetrain was cleared, Vee was able to turn the engine over, and Diaz had covered up the hole with foam sealant. They were underway again.

  “Well done, crew,” said Caitlin. “That’s how we do it.”

  As everyone prepared to get back on board, Caitlin stopped Shaw for a moment.

  “Your ex-wife might not think so,” she said, “but I think the idea of you is pretty damn great.”

  She bumped her helmet against his and clapped him on the back before climbing the ladder to get on the Invader and back to work. By the expression on his face, Caitlin thought Shaw looked happier than she’d seen him in a long time.

  When their shift was over, the crew walked back over to the rig, tired, aching, and covered in Moon dust. Diaz peered into the back of the Invader, marveling at the stacks of canisters, the spoils of a hard day out in the mining fields. From where they were on the crater, they would haul the canisters to a condensing station where the collected gases would be cooled in a cryogenator. The He-3 would be drained off, and excess gases produced by the cooling process—like hydrogen, methane, and oxygen—would be collected separately and used to sustain life-support systems in the colonies. As for the He-3, it would be loaded onto industrial transports at the Ponca City docks and sent back to Earth. But as far as the Invader crew was concerned, all of that was someone else’s problem. By the time the gas was on a transport back to Earth, they would be on to another crater, mining the next helium batch to build a better future for everyone else.

  “All right,” said Caitlin, “let’s head home. Think we’ve made the company rich enough for one day.”

  Everyone nodded and piled back into the Invader, still chatting, bickering, and bantering. The radio blasted the Kings’ “Switchin’ to Glide.” Caitlin’s body felt sore but exercised, the way it should feel after a day of exertion and hard work. Her father would have simply called the feeling a “good tired.”

  “Who’s buying tonight?” asked Diaz.

  “Every day you ask that question,” said Shaw. “Is the answer ever going to be you?”

  “I told you,” Diaz said, “I’m waiting on my chits.”

  At the mention of chits, Caitlin felt herself bristle. It was a particular point of irritation for her that they didn’t actually get paid for their work. For miners like her, with family back on the world, the company had arranged for a stipend to be transmitted to Earth each month, but otherwise, execs thought room and board were sufficient compensation. Or maybe they thought the privilege of pushing Moon dust back and forth was its own reward. Caitlin didn’t know.

  In lieu of pay, what was offered were “chits,” small plastic tokens that acted as currency around the Hive to buy anything extra that the company didn’t provide. Generally speaking, that meant booze. A makeshift bar called the Dark Side served what passed for alcohol on the Moon. Basically, they were just processed cubes that, when mixed with water, liquefied and became something approximating a drink. The venue had whiskey cubes, vodka cubes, Jaeger cubes . . . there was even a beer cube, although no one among Caitlin’s crew had ever felt brave enough to try it.

  So the crews used chits to get skunked after a day of mining, but Diaz was always giving his chits away to anyone who was short, with the promise that he would one day get them all back with interest. The rest of the crew considered his gestures to be noble, but the paybacks never seemed to materialize. As such, they were always stuck picking up the tab for him, not that any of them really minded.

  “Trust me,” said Diaz, even as everyone chided him. They had heard it all before. “Trust me. Any day now. Mrs. Huang’s gonna pay me back. Jimmy Egan. The Frenes in 2205. It’s all gonna come through and I’ll be hip-deep in chits.”

  “You can replace that ch with an sh, and you’ll be closer to the mark,” said Tony.

  More laughter. Driving over the surface of the Moon, teasing and joking with these disparate people, Caitlin felt that, just for a moment, she might be OK. That maybe things weren’t as dire as she usually thought they were. Then she caught a glance of Earth rising high in obsidian firmament and her heart broke once again.

  Caitlin got back to the Hive, wanting only to crawl into bed. She had gone to the Dark Side long enough to collect the free round for her and her crew for outpacing Tom Hudson in mining rego. Hudson took the loss gracefully, promising that the next time he paid for a drink it would just be the two of them, but she brushed him off gently with a promise that, if he kept making bets, he’d be paying for her drinks for a long time. For all the merriment, she took the moment when Tony decided it was time to stand on the bar and sing Otis Redding’s “These Arms of Mine” as her cue to leave. As she got to the door, she fumbled in her jumpsuit pocket for the plastic card that unlocked her unit. She sighed, assessing her situation. A shower was out of the question thanks to the rationing, so she knew she was going to have to sleep dirty and grime-ridden. But, she told herself, at least she would sleep. She was working a double tomorrow, so she intended to get as much shut-eye as she could. She pressed her thumb to the plate in front of her unit, allowing the door to slide open. She was just about to walk in when she spotted the man waiting for her.

  “Taggart?” he said. “Caitlin Taggart?”

  “Jesus!” Caitlin said, jumping back. “You can’t sneak up on people like that!”

  “I’m sorry,” the man said. “Very sorry. But you are
Caitlin Taggart, yes? Captain Caitlin Taggart?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Retired. Who wants to know?”

  The man extended his hand and pumped hers up and down excitedly. “David Richards,” he said. “I work with Lyman Ross.”

  “OK . . . and he is?”

  “Sorry, sorry,” Richards said, waving his arms. “Son of Senator Hamer Ross from Texas and the head of Core One Mining? The mining company? He is very interested in meeting with you!”

  “I appreciate that,” Caitlin said. “But can it wait until tomorrow? As you can see, I’ve had a long day and—”

  “I’m afraid it’s somewhat of an urgent matter. Time is of the essence.”

  “Well, then, I’m going to have to decline,” said Caitlin. “I don’t just meet with strange men because they’re on a schedule.”

  Caitlin turned to go and Richards piped up again.

  “Mr. Ross knows he’s inconveniencing you,” he said, “but he wouldn’t do so if it wasn’t extremely pressing.”

  She stopped and looked back. Something in his voice had gotten her attention. “How pressing?”

  Richards looked at Caitlin and she could tell by the glint in his eye that he knew he had her on the hook. All he had to do was reel her in.

  “What if I told you that he can get you home to your daughter?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Looking around at Lyman Ross’s private office in Aldrin City’s Hotel Cernan, Caitlin Taggart had only one continuous thought: I am in the wrong business. Compared to the bland, filthy lodgings at the Hive, the opulence on display was extreme. Everything seemed to be coated in oak and enhanced by the tawny light coming from elegant wall fixtures. The desk she was sitting in front of was equally ostentatious and, in a place like the Moon, pointless. Life in a harsh, unforgiving environment such as the Moon was supposed to be about function. Here, the furniture was nothing but form. Lyman Ross was obviously a man who cared a great deal about impressions.