Rogue Moon

by Algis Budrys

  "No, I'll do that, Sam." Hawks stepped back from the table and nodded toward the dressers. "It's in fine shape. Thank you." He left the laboratory and went up the stairs to the ground floor, preoccupied.

  Outside, he walked along the fog-wet, black asphalt driveway toward the gate, which was at first barely visible through the acrid mist. He looked at his wrist watch, and smiled faintly.

  Barker had left his car in the outer parking lot and was standing on the other side of the small pedestrian gate, staring coldly through it at the guard, who ignored him stiffly. Barker's cheekbones were flushed red, and his poplin windbreaker was curled over his left forearm as though he expected to begin a knife fight.

  "Morning, Dr. Hawks," the guard said as Hawks came up. "This man's been tryin' to talk me into lettin' him in without a pass. And he's been tryin' to pump me about what you're doin'."

  Hawks nodded and looked thoughtfully at Barker. "I'm not surprised." He reached into his suit pocket, under his smock, and handed over the company pass and security O.K. slip from the FBI. The guard took them into his cubicle to record the numbers on his log sheet.

  Barker looked defiantly at Hawks. "What's in this place? Another atom bomb project?"

  "There's no need to fish for information," Hawks said quietly. "And no purpose in doing it with a man who lacks it. Stop wasting your energy. I'd be happier if I hadn't guessed exactly how you'd act here." Hawks said, "Thank you, Tom," as the guard came out and unlocked the gate. He turned back to Barker. "You'll always be told everything you need to know."

  Barker said, "Sometimes it's better for me if I'm allowed to judge what I need, or don't. But —" He bowed deeply from the hips. "At your service." He straightened and glanced up at the length of heavy-gauge pipe forming the lintel of the gate in the Cyclone fencing. He twisted his pinched lips into a smile. "Well, morituri te salutamus, Doctor," he said as he stepped through. "We signify your status at the point of our death."

  Hawks' face twitched. "I've also read a book," he said softly, and turned away. "Put on your badge and come with me."

  Barker took it from the guard, who was holding it out patiently, and clipped it to his Basque shirt pocket. "And thank you, Tom," he said over his shoulder, falling into step with Hawks.

  "Claire didn't want me to come," he said, cocking his head up to glance significantly at Hawks. "She's afraid."

  "Of what I might do to you, or of what might happen to her because of it?" Hawks answered, keeping his eyes on the buildings.

  "I don't know, Doctor." There was wariness in Barker's tension. "But," he said slowly, his voice hard and sharp, "I'm the only other man that ever frightens her."

  Hawks said nothing. He continued to walk back toward the laboratory, and after a while Barker smiled once again, thinly and crookedly, and also walked with his eyes only on where his feet were taking him.

  The stairway down into the laboratory from the main floor, where the passenger elevators stopped, was clad with plates of non-skid sheet steel. The green paint on the plates was fresh at the edges, worn off the tops of the die-stamped diamonds closer in. Nearer the center, the diamonds had been worn down to the underlying angled parallel ridges. In the center itself, a freehand pattern of electric welds had been imposed over the thinned, flat metal. Hawks' and Barker's footsteps slurred and rang in the battleship-gray stairwell.

  "Shuffle your victims up and down in long, shackled lines, do you?" Barker said.

  "I'm glad to see you've found a new line of talk," Hawks answered.

  "Many's the agonized scream that's echoed up this shaft, I'll wager. What's beyond those doors? The torture chamber?"

  "The laboratory." He held open the swinging door. "Come in."

  "Pleasure." Barker straightened his shoulders into perfect symmetry, threw the folded windbreaker half across his back, and stepped past Hawks. He walked out a few feet into the main aisle between the cabinets holding the voltage regulator series and put his hands in his pockets, stopping to look around. Hawks stopped with him.

  All the work lights were on. Barker turned his body slowly from the hips, studying the galleries of signal-modulating equipment, watching the staff assistants running off component checks.

  "Busy," he said, looking at the white-coated men, who were consulting check-off sheets on their clipboards, setting switches, cutting in signal generators from the service racks above each gallery, switching off, resetting, retesting. His glance fell on the nearest of a linked array of differential amplifier racks on the laboratory floor. "Lots of wiring. I like that. Marvels of science. That sort of thing."

  "It's part of a man," Hawks said.

  "Oh?" Hawks lifted one eyebrow. His eyes were dancing mockingly. "Plugs and wires and little ceramic widgets," he challenged.

  "I told you," Hawks said calmly. "You don't have to try to get a rise out of us. We'll tell you. That's part of a man. The amplifier next to it is set up to be another part.

  "That entire bank of amplifiers is set up to contain an exact electronic description of a man: his physical structure, down to the last moving particle of the last atom in the last molecule in the last cell at the end of his little toe's nail. It knows, thereby, his nervous reaction time and volume, the range and nature of his reflexes, the electrical capacity of each cell in his brain. It knows everything it needs to know so it can tell another machine how to build that man.

  "It happens to be a man named Sam Latourette, but it could be anyone. It's our standard man. When the matter transmitter's scanner converts you into a series of similar electron flows, the information goes on a tape to be filed. It also goes in here, so we can read out the differences between you and the standard. That gives us a cross-check when we need accurate signal modulation. That's what we're going to do today. Take our initial scan, so we can have a control tape and a differential reading to use when we transmit tomorrow."

  "Transmit what?"

  "You."

  "Where?"

  "I told you that, too. The Moon."

  "Just like that? No rockets, no countdowns? Just a bunch of tubes sputtering and squish! I'm on the Moon, like a three-D radiophoto." Barker smiled. "Ain't science great?"

  Hawks looked at him woodenly. "We're not conducting any manhood contests here, Barker. We're working at a job. It's not necessary to keep your guard up all the time."

  "Would you know a contest if you saw one, Doctor?"

  Sam Latourette, who had come up behind them, growled, "Shut up, Barker!"

  Barker turned casually. "Jesus, fellow, I didn't eat your baby."

  "It's all right, Sam," Hawks said patiently. "Al Barker, this is Sam Latourette. Doctor Samuel Latourette."

  Barker glanced at the amplifiers and back. "We've met," he said to Latourette, extending his hand.

  "You're not very funny, Barker."

  Barker lowered his hand. "I'm not a comedian by trade. What're you — the house mother?"

  "I've been looking over the file Personnel sent down on you," Latourette said with heavy persistence. "I wanted to see what your chances were of being any use to us here. And I just want you to remember one thing." Latourette had lowered his head until his neck was almost buried between his massive shoulders, and his face was broadened by parallel rows of yellowish flesh that sprang into thick furrows down the sides of his jaw. "When you talk to Dr. Hawks, you're talking to the only man in the world who could have built this." His pawing gesture took in the galleries, the catwalks, the amplifier bank, the transmitter hulking at the far wall. "You're talking to a man who's as far removed from muddleheadedness — from what you and I think of as normal human error — as you are from a chimp. You're not fit to judge his work or make smart cracks about it. Your little personality twists aren't fit for his concern. You've been hired to do a job here, just like the rest of us. If you can't do it without making more trouble for him than you're worth, get out — don't add to his burden. He's got enough on his mind already." Latourette flashed a deep-eyed look at Hawks. "More than enoug
h." His shoulders arched forward. His forearms dangled loosely and warily. "Got it straight, now?"

  Barker's expression was attentive and dispassionate as he looked at Latourette. His weight had shifted almost entirely away from his artificial leg, but there was no other sign of tension in him. He was deathly calm.

  "Sam," Hawks said, "I want you to supervise the tests on the lab receiver. It needs doing now. Then I need a check on the telemeter data from the relay tower and the Moon receiver. Let me know as soon as you've done that."

  Barker watched Latourette turn and stride soundlessly away down along the amplifier bank toward the receiving stage. There a group of technicians was fluoroscoping a series of test objects being transmitted to it by another team.

  "Come with me, please," Hawks said to Barker and walked slowly toward the table where the suit lay.

  "So they talk about you like that around here," Barker said, still turning his head from side to side as they walked. "No wonder you get impatient when you're outside dealing with the big world."

  "Barker, it's important that you concern yourself only with what you're here to do. It's removed from all human experience, and if you're to go through it successfully, there are a number of things you must absorb. Let's try to keep personalities out of this."

  "How about your boy, over there? Latourette?"

  "Sam's a very good man," Hawks said.

  "And that's his excuse."

  "It's his reason for being here. Ordinarily, he'd be in a sanatorium under sedation for his pain. He has an inoperable cancer. He'll be dead next year."

  They had passed the low wall of linked gray steel cabinets. Barker's head jerked back around. "Oh," he said. "That's why he's the standard man in there. Nothing eating at the flesh. Eternal life."

  "No usual man wants to die," Hawks said, touching Barker's shoulder and moving him gently toward the suit. The men of the Navy crew were darting covert glances at Barker only after looking around to see if any of their teammates were watching them at that particular instant "Otherwise, the world would be swept by suicides."

  2

  Hawks did not introduce Barker to the crew. He pointed to the suit as he reached the edge of the table. "Now, this is the best we can do for you in the way of protection. You get into it here, on the table, and you'll be wheeled into the transmitter. You'll be beamed up to the Moon receiver in it — once there, you'll find it comfortable and easily maneuverable. You have power assists, activated by the various pressures your body puts on them. The suit will comply to all your movements. I'm told it feels like swimming. You have a selection of all the tools we know you'll need, and a number of others we think might be called for. That's something you'll have to tell us afterward, if you can. It's important that you thoroughly familiarize yourself with the operations of the suit — most of them are automatic, but it's much better to be sure. Now I'd like you to get into it, so the ensign and his men, here, can check to see that you won't have any difficulties."

  The naval officer in charge of the specialist crew stepped forward. "Excuse me, Doctor," he said. "I understand the volunteer has an artificial limb." He turned to Barker. "If you'll please remove your trousers, sir?"

  Hawks smiled uncomfortably. "I'll hold your jacket," he said to Barker.

  Barker looked around. Beads of cold moisture appeared on his forehead. He handed the windbreaker to Hawks without turning his face toward him, opened his belt and stepped out of the slacks. He stood with them clutched in his hands, looked at Hawks, then rolled them up quickly and put them down on the edge of the table.

  "Now, if you'll just lie down in the suit, sir, we'll see what needs adjusting." The ensign gestured to his team and they closed in around Barker, lifting him up and putting him down on his back inside the opened suit. Barker lay rigid, staring up, and the ensign said, "Move yourself around, please — we want to make sure your muscles make firm contacts with all the servomotor pressure plates."

  Barker began stiffly moving his body.

  The ensign said, "Yes, I thought so. The artificial limb will have to be built up in the region of the calf, and on the knee joint. Fidanzato —" He gestured to one of his men. "Measure those clearances and then get down to the machine shop. I want some shim plates on there. I'm sorry, sir," he said to Barker, "but you'll have to let my man take the leg with him. It won't take long. Sampson — help this man off with his shirt so you can get at the shoulder strap."

  Barker jerked his arms up out of the suit, grasped the edges of the torso backplate, and pulled himself up to a sitting position. "I'll take my own shirt off, sonny," he rasped, and pulled it off over his head. As Sampson unbuckled the leg's main strap, Barker looked twistedly at Hawks and ticked the edge of the armor shell with his fingers. "New artifices, Mage?" He seemed to be expecting some special response to this.

  Hawks frowned. Barker's grin became even more distorted with irony. He looked around him. "Well, that's one flunk. Anybody else care to try? Maybe I should tie one hand behind my back, too?"

  The ensign said uncertainly to Hawks, "It's a quotation from a play, Doctor." He looked at Barker, who solemnly wet a fingertip and described an X in the air.

  "Score one for the NROTC graduate."

  The other men in the dressing team kept their heads down and worked.

  "What kind of a play, Ensign?" Hawks asked quietly.

  "I read it in my English Lit course," the ensign said uncomfortably, flushing as Barker winked. "Merlin the Magician has made an invincible suit of armor. He intended it for Sir Galahad, but as he was making it, the needs of the magic formula forced him to fit it to Lancelot's proportions. And even though Lancelot has been betraying King Arthur, and they'll be fighting in the joust that day, Merlin can't let the armor just go unused. So he calls Lancelot into his workshop, and the first thing Lancelot says when he comes in and sees the magic armor is: 'What's this — new artifices, Mage?'"

  Barker grinned briefly at the ensign and then at Hawks. "I hoped you'd recognize the parallel, Doctor. After all, you say you've read a book or two."

  "I see," Hawks said. He looked thoughtfully at Barker, then asked the ensign, "What's Merlin's reply?"

  "'Aye. Armorings.'"

  Barker's mouth hooked upward in glee. He said to Hawks, "'Armorings? Sooth, Philosopher, you've come to crafting in your tremblant years? You've put gnarled fingers to the metal-beater's block, and hammered on Damascus plate to mime the armiger's employe?'"

  The ensign, looking uncertainly from Hawks to Barker, quoted: "'How I have done is no concern for you… Content yourself that when an eagle bends to make his nest, such nests are built as only eagles may inhabit. — Or those who have an eagle's leave.'"

  Barker cocked an eyebrow. "'And I've your leave, old bird?'"

  "'Leave and prayer, headbreaker,'" the ensign replied to him.

  "'You like me not,'" Barker said, frowning at Hawks. "'And surely Arthur'd not command you to enwrap this body's hale and heart beyond all mortal damage. Nay, not this body — he's not fond of my health, eh? — Well, that's another matter. You say this armor comes from you? Then it is proof, weav'd up with your incantings? 'Tis wondrous strong? For me? As I began, you like me not — why is this, then? Who has commanded you?'"

  The ensign licked his lips and looked anxiously at Hawks. "Should I go on, Doctor?"

  Hawks smiled thinly at Barker. "Why, yes — let's see how it comes out. If I like the condensation, maybe I'll go out and buy the book."

  "Yes, sir." The ensign's men had not looked up. Sampson was fumbling absorbedly with the buckles of the shoulder strap.

  "'My craft commands me, Knight. As yours does you, in sign that craft loves man full well as wisely as a woman will. Take it. Never has armor such as this bestrode a horse. Never so good a craftsman's eye has measured out its joinings, or wrought so tenderly. Never have maker's eyes so earnestly conjoined with artificer's hands and engine-shaper's mind, as were met here to borrow from your thews that motive force which, in the sum, wi
ll take all glory. Take it — be damned to you! — take it, you that have overmastered more than is your measure, and seek to overmaster morel'"

  "'There's a jealousy in you, old man,'" Barker said.

  "'You know not what of!'"

  "'You know, then, so surely, the things my silent mind wots? Be not so proud, Magician. 'Tis as you say — I, too, know what it is to be of craft. And I've my pride, as well as you have yours. Will it entail me glory, do you think, to take with your gift what I well might giffless gain?'"

  "'You must!' "

  "'Or where's your mageing? Aye — and what's my craft, to ware itself of yours? Take it I shall, though I misdoubt myself. You warrant it for proof? It will not fail, upon some field, against some lance unknown to your devising?'"

  "'An it shall fall, then fail I with you, Knight.'"

  Barker impatiently shrugged Sampson off and reached up to where the narrow band of leather had creased his shoulder permanently. He pulled it down and unbuckled the broad band across his stomach. "'Then fail not, Armiger,'" he whispered. "'I pray you — do not fail.'"

  Hawks looked at Barker quietly for a moment. Then he wet a forefinger and described an X in the air. "Score one for the whole man," he said. As he said it, a flash of pain crossed his face.

  3

  Fidanzato walked away with Barker's leg. A technician came up to Hawks. "Your secretary's on the phone, Ed," he said. "Asked me to tell you it's urgent."

  Hawks shook his head to himself. "Thanks," he said distractedly, and went across the laboratory to an isolated wall box. He picked up the extension handset. "This is Hawks, Vivian. What is it — a call from Tom Phillips? No, it's all right — I've been expecting it. I'll take it here." He held on, his eyes blank, waiting while the admiral's call was switched to the laboratory. Then the diaphragm in the earpiece rattled again, and he said, "Yes, Tom. Oh, I'm all right. Yes. Hot in Washington, is it? No, not here. Just smog. Well." He stood listening, and looking at the featureless wall before him.