Moonrise gt-5

by Ben Bova

  “Fifty-one, in September. If I make it that far.”

  I’ll be nineteen next January.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Yeah.”

  I’m sorry,” Brennart said. “I shouldn’t have let you talk me into bringing you along.”

  I’m not sorry about’it,” Doug said. He realized that he meant it truly. “I would’ ve kickdd myself for the rest of my life if I hadn’t come up here with you.”

  Brennart made a noise that might have been a snort. Or a suppressed laugh. “You know what we used to say about test pilots, back when we still used test pilots? More guts than brains.”

  Doug laughed out loud. “Yeah, that’s us.”

  “That’s what it boils down to. You know what you’re doing is dangerous, but it’s so damned inviting! Like a really nasty-looking woman you see at a bar. You know she’s trouble, but you can’t help yourself.”

  “I’ve never heard it put that way before,” Doug said.

  “Yeah.” Brennart almost sighed. “You can’t turn it down, so you tell yourself you can handle the danger, you’re prepared for it.”

  “My father must’ve been like that”

  “He was one smart turkey, let me tell you. He knew when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em. Never took a chance he hadn’t calculated out to six decimal places.”

  “I never knew him,” said Doug. “He died before I was born.”

  “That’s what impressed me about you, kid. You didn’t just decide to run up this mountaintop for the glory of it. You calculated the odds, first.”

  “I didn’t calculate on our hopper dying, though.”

  “Like the man says, you can’t win ’em all.”

  Doug nodded, blinking at perspiration that was trickling into his eyes.

  “If we get through this without being totally fried,” Brennart asked, “what do you want to do with your life?”

  “You mean the ten minutes I might have left?”

  “Come on, seriously. Have you thought about it?”

  “Not much.”

  “You ought to. A guy in your position has all sorts of opportunities open to him. You ought to start thinking seriously about them.”

  “I’ve sort of been following my father’s footsteps,” Doug admitted. “I’ve never thought about anything but Moonbase.”

  “You could do a lot worse,” said Brennart. “Your father knew which way was up.”

  “I sort of thought I’d like to study architecture.” It was something of a confession. Doug had never told anyone about that, not even his mother.

  “Architecture?”

  Shrugging inside his spacesuit, Doug replied, “Lunar architecture, you know. I want to build’a real city here.”

  “Oh,” Brennart said. “You really have the bug, don’t you?”

  “Maybe it’s genetic.”

  “No,” said Brennart. “It’s the frontier. It gets to you. Like Mark Twain said, “When it’s steamboat time, you steam.”

  “Steamboat time?”

  “In Twain’s era the steamboat was the exciting thing. Another generation of kids wanted to be railroad engineers. Then came airplanes, and any self-respecting youngster wanted to be a pilot.”

  “And then came the Moon,” Doug said, “and they all wanted to be astronauts.”

  “And now you want to be a lunar architect.”

  “If we get out of this,” Doug pointed out.

  Ignoring that, Brennart went on, “You want to build, to add something to the world. Like your dad. That’s good. Everybody should leave his mark on the world.”

  “You’ve certainly left yours,” Doug said. “They really will build a statue to you.”

  “I’ve had a helluva lot of fun doing it,” Brennart said. “Too bad it’s got to end.”

  “Like the man says,” Doug quoted him, “everybody dies.”

  They fell silent again.

  Eventually, Doug said, “I wish I could have had a life like yours.”

  With a low chuckle, Brennart replied, “You can have it, kid. It’s not all that much, you know.”

  “But you’re a real legend! You’ve done so much!”

  “Except the one thing I really wanted.”

  “What was that?”

  “Mars.”

  “You wanted to go on the Mars mission?” Doug felt stupid as he heard his own words. Of course Brennart wanted to go on the Mars mission. Who wouldn’t?

  “The lead American astronaut was a friend of mine, Pete Connors,” said Brennart. “Pete’s a good guy, but I’m a better one.”

  “Then why didn’t they pick you?”

  “Bunch of academics made the selections.” Brennart said the word academics very much the way he pronounced lawyers. “I work for a dirty old profit-making corporation. Pete always stayed with the government program.”

  “And that’s why they didn’t take you?”

  “That’s why.”

  “But that’s rotten! They must’ve been a bunch of brain-dead turds!”

  Brennart laughed softly. “Pete did a good job. They got back okay.”

  A second Mars expedition was being put together, Doug knew. Moonbase was supplying all their oxygen and Masterson orbital factories were building spacecraft and electronics assemblies. On government contracts, for a fixed fee.

  “It’s a damned shame,” Doug mumbled.

  “Yeah. But I’ll get a statue and Pete won’t.”

  “They ought to put your statue right here, up at the summit”

  “No, no! I want it at Moonbase,” Brennart objected. “Nobody’ll see it if you put it here.”

  Doug replied, “We’ll run special tours to Mt Wasser to see your statue.”

  He could sense the older man grinning. “Make more money that way, huh?”

  “Might as well.”

  “Why the hell not? Good thinking.”

  Hesitantly, Doug asked, “Is there anyone… do you have any family…

  “Nope. I was an only child and I never had any kids of my own — that I know of.”

  Before Doug could answer, Brennart added, “I’ve been sterile for a lot of years. Another occupational hazard up here.”

  “Damn,” Doug said. “It’s just not right for them to shut down nanotechnology. With nanomachines in your body, things like sterility and cancer could be stopped before they started. The nanobugs would destroy cancerous tumors and rebuild tissue that was damaged by radiation.”

  “Maybe so,” said Brennart. “But it’s not going to help me.”

  “It’s criminal to prevent nanotherapy!”

  “Yeah, maybe so. But they’ve got their reasons, you know.”

  “Religious fanatics,” Doug complained. “And politicians without enough spine to stand up straight. Nanoluddites.”

  “Now, don’t go getting all righteous and indignant,” Brennart said.

  “Why not? What they’ve done—”

  “Take a look at Earth. Take a good look. Going on ten billion people down there, with no end to population growth in sight.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Last thing in the world those governments need is people who live two or three hundred years. They’re barely holding things together as it is, and you want them to let people extend their lifespans indefinitely? Get real.”

  “You don’t think that the world’s leaders use nanotherapy for themselves?”

  “Even if they do, they can’t let it out where everybody can use it. They’re already up to their armpits in starving people; give ’em nanotherapy and they’ll all go under.”

  “No,” Doug said. “I don’t believe that.”

  “Believe it, kid. You’ve lived in a nice comfortable cocoon all your life. The rest of the world’s poor, hungry, ignorant — and violent.”

  Doug had no reply for that.

  “Who’d pay for nanotherapy, anyway?” Brennart went on. “Only a handful of people could afford it. You think the poor majority would sit
back and watch the rich folks live forever? Hell no!”

  “That’s why they’ve trained down nanolabs,” Doug said with new understanding.

  “They’d burn down your house, with you and your mother in it, if they thought you guys were using nanotherapy that they couldn’t have”

  Doug thought about that. Then he replied, “Yes, I imagine they would.”

  “The little guys always try to bring down anybody who gets ahead of them. Greed isn’t only for the rich, you know.”

  “You’re talking about envy.”

  “Yeah, maybe so.”

  Doug thought for a moment, then, “Maybe that’s what a frontier is really for.”

  “What?”

  “To get away from the little guys, the small minds, the people who don’t want any changes, any new ideas.”

  “The escape valve,” Brennart said.

  “Right. That’s what the frontier is: our escape valve.”

  “Don’t let them take it away from us, kid. We need a frontier.”

  Doug nodded silently inside his helmet.

  “How do you feel, kid?”

  “Okay, I guess.” It was less than the truth. Doug felt feverish; perspiration was oozing out of him, trickling along his back, down his ribs.

  I’m kinda tired. Think I’ll catch a few zees.”

  “Nothing better to do,” Doug agreed.

  But he could not sleep. Stretched out prone beneath the scanty protection of the flimsy hopper, he rolled over as far to his left as his backpack would allow him. That took some of the strain off his neck, but not much. Methodically, Doug checked each frequency of his suit radio. Nothing but harsh static grating in his earphones.

  I’m going to die here, he told himself. He found that he was not afraid of the idea. He really didn’t believe it. The idea of dying on this mountaintop, killed by radiation that he could neither see nor feel, seemed almost ludicrous to him. As if someone were playing an elaborate practical joke on him.

  Sooner or later somebody’s going to pop out and yell April Fool! Doug told himself.

  And then he tasted blood in his mouth.

  I must’ve bit my tongue, was his first reaction. But he knew that he hadn’t. And he also knew that bleeding gums were one of the first symptoms of radiation poisoning.

  Doug flicked his radio back to the suit-to-suit freak. Brennart wasn’t snoring, but Doug could hear the man’s steady, slow breathing. Vaguely he remembered some old astronaut telling him, when he was just a kid, “Never stand when you can sit, never pass a toilet without taking a piss, and never stay awake when you can sleep. Those are the three basic rules of long life.”

  Long life, Doug thought. The blood in his mouth tasted warm and salty. He turned his head to find the water nipple, took a long sip, and swished the water in his mouth. There was no place to spit it out, so he swallowed it.

  That feels better, he told himself. But a few minutes later the warm salty taste of blood came back.

  As soon as Greg awoke he checked with the control center. “Radiation levels haven’t started down yet, Mr. Masterson,” said the young woman on his phone screen. “We expect them to start diminishing within the next hour or so.”

  “Thank you,” Greg said tightly. Within the next hour or so. How long have I slept?

  He tapped the keyboard next to his bunk and the screen showed he’d been asleep a little more than four hours. Feeling grimy, he stepped into the shower stall. But no water came from the shower head. “Christ!” he bellowed. “Doesn’t anything work right around here?”

  Naked, he stormed back to his bunk and pounded the keyboard. “Maintenance,” he told the phone’s computer.

  A bored-looking kid in repulsive sickly green coveralls appeared on the screen. “Got a problem?”

  “My shower’s not working.”

  The kid glanced off to his left. “Room two twenty-three, right?”

  “No shower until Tuesday. Sink Water only”

  Greg raged, “What do you mean—”

  “Water rules,” the kid said, with the finality of unshakable regulations on his side. “Got a problem, take it up with administration.”

  “I’m the next director of this base!” Greg roared.

  The kid was far from impressed. “Then you oughtta know the rules.” The screen went blank.

  Defeated but still steaming, Greg sponged himself as best as he could in the tiny stainless steel sink, pulled out a fresh pair of dark blue coveralls from his travel bag, then put through a call to Savannah.

  “The radiation level will be back to normal in about an hour,” Greg told his mother as he pressed the Velcro seal of his coveralls front.

  And heard her saying, as soon as she saw his image on her screen, “The radiation level will be back to normal in about an hour.”

  Greg laughed and so did Joanna.

  “They’re going to be okay,” he said.

  This time she waited for his words to reach her before replying, “Have you heard from them yet?”

  “Not yet,” Greg said. “I’m going down to the comm center now. I’ll have them patch you in to their transmission when it comes through, if you like.”

  Joanna answered, “No, that won’t be necessary, just as long as you can tell me they’re all right. I can talk to Doug later, when things calm down and get back to normal.”

  Pleased with her response, Greg said, “Okay, Mom. I’ll let you know the instant we re-establish contact with them.”

  “Fine,” she said.

  But once the screen went dark again Greg wondered, Why doesn’t she want to talk with Doug as soon as we make contact again? Is she worried that I’d be jealous? Or will she be making her own contact, direct from Savannah, without letting me know?

  Doug’s eyes snapped open. He hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep until he woke up. He had been afraid to go to sleep, he realized. Despite everything he had been telling himself, deep within him lurked the fear that once he shut his eyes in sleep he would never open them again.

  Well, he said to himself, that was feeble.

  He found himself lying on his right side and tried to roll back onto his stomach again. The effort left him gasping, dizzy.

  I’m weak as a kitten, he said to himself.

  Brennart was still asleep, stretched out beside him. Doug twisted over and looked around. It made his head swim. For several minutes he simply lay still, panting, trying to fight down the fear and nausea that rose inside him like an inexorable tide. Hang on, he demanded of himself. Hang in there; the storm must be almost over by now. Help will be on the way soon.

  But not soon enough, a sardonic voice in his head replied.

  His world was constrained to this metallic nest beneath the hopper, with a few containers and tanks around them. The nozzle of the hopper’s main engine hung between him and Brennart like a bell in a church spire.

  An old tune sprang to his mind: It’s a Small, Small World. Idiot, Doug snarled to himself. You’re being fried by a solar flare and you’re thinking about childhood songs.

  His earphones chirped.

  By reflex, before he realized what it meant, Doug tapped the radio channel selector on his wrist.

  “Moonbase to Brennart. Do you read?”

  He heard Killifer’s overjoyed voice, “Loud and clear, baby! Are we glad to hear you!”

  “We’re working on reactivating the minisats that the storm knocked out. We have two of them working so far.”

  “Great!”

  “What is your condition?”

  “We’re all okay, except Brennart and Stavenger. They’ve been up at the top of Mt Wasser for. .Doug sensed Killifer checking a clock, “… almost seven hours now.”

  A different voice came on. “Seven hours? In the open?”

  “Brennart himself? And the Stavenger boy?” It sounded like Jinny Anson’s voice. Urgent Demanding. Doug didn’t much like being called a boy.

  “Right,” Killifer said again.

  “What’
s happened to them?” Now it was Greg’s voice. Unmistakable.

  “Don’t know,” said Killifer. “We haven’t been able to contact them.”

  “This is Stavenger,” Doug said, shocked at how weak his own voice sounded. “Can you hear me?”

  “Stavenger!” Anson shouted. “How are you?”

  “Alive… barely.”

  “And Brennart?”

  “Sleeping. Or unconscious.”

  “We’ll get help to you as soon as we can,” Anson promised.

  Greg came on again. “Killifer! Get somebody up to that mountaintop and bring those two back to your base camp. Now!”

  “Hey, we’ve got a few problems of our own. Power cells are running low, our one remaining hopper needs refueling—”

  “Get them as quickly as you can,” Anson said. Her voice was cool, but there was no mistaking the implacable tone of her command.

  “Right,” said Killifer. “We’re on our way.”

  “And shoot us a complete rundown of your own status,” Anson added. “All systems.”

  “Doug,” Greg called. “Doug, how are you?”

  “I feel kind of sick, but I’m still breathing.” He reached across and shook Brennart’s shoulder. No response. “I mink Mr. Brennart’s unconscious.”

  “We’ll get help to you right away,” Greg said.

  “Good,” said Doug.

  Anson came on again. “Killifer, it’s going to take us several hours to get a resupply lobber to you. Storm beat up our surface facilities pretty good and we’ll need some time to get ’em all back on line.”

  “Understood,” Killifer replied. “We’re all okay here, except for Brennart and Stavenger.”

  “How long can your power supplies hold out?”

  “Fuel cells are down about forty percent. We can power down if we have to, stretch ’em out till the resupply arrives.”

  Doug heard Greg’s voice in the background urging, “You’ve got to send a medical team down there. Right away!”

  “Stavenger,” Anson called, “can you put your medical monitoring system on frequency three? We can start checking out your medical condition.”

  “Okay. And Mr. Brennart’s, too.”

  “Right. Of course. But you’ve got to be quick. The satellite won’t be above your horizon much longer.”

  “I understand,” Doug said. “Now, which of these plugs is the medical system?”