Walking on the Sea of Clouds

by Gray Rinehart

  Now the delay ended with her voice. “Beverly Needham.”

  “Oh, Lord, Belladonna and the Barmaid, at it again.”

  “Heck, yeah. You know I wouldn’t be coming up there if I couldn’t count on having a friend with me.”

  “You’ve got me,” Van said.

  “Oh, who needs you?”

  Underneath the thin layer of static, Van thought he heard a smile in her voice. “Thanks, that’s very nice.”

  Now the smile became more evident. “You know I’m teasing,” Barbara said. “Sort of.”

  “Yeah, I can tell from your voice. Except I think I may be hearing something else besides teasing.”

  Barbara paused, extending Van’s wait. “Yeah, I guess you are.”

  “Do you guess you’re going to tell me, or do you want to play twenty questions? Or maybe invisible charades?”

  Van imagined her sitting up straight in her chair—he wondered if she was sitting in the wood-paneled den or in the ranch house’s brightly-painted kitchen. She always sat up very straight when she was about to say something important. She said, “BD told me I should be honest with you, so I will be. I’m not feeling as good about this plan as I was before.”

  Van was glad he hadn’t eaten. Deep in his gut the first tremors started. “How so?” he asked.

  “Sweetie, I know you think this is your destiny … the reason you were born, and all that. I respect the dream. And I respect you as the dreamer. But I’m getting scared. You getting hurt … that was like when we took that hop to Okinawa, remember? And mom got sick.…” Her voice trailed off.

  Van remembered. There was no way they could count on a space-available flight to bring them back quickly from their leave, so Barbara had booked the first flights she could from Japan back to the states. Every flight was on time, they made every connection, but while they were somewhere over Idaho—already on descent into Montana—her mom died.

  Van guessed the two things might be somewhat equivalent in her mind. And if he’d hurt himself seriously, or if he had an aggressive disease and was fading fast, he might even be able to see it himself. But it was just a little fall, and once he found the locker with the Tylenol-III then he’d be ready to roll.

  And this wasn’t the time for them to be discussing her damn doubts. He knew the Consortium was listening, or at least recording what they said. It was in their contract that all their communications would be monitored. He had no doubt they would mark it all down in their evaluation books.

  You couldn’t wait to talk about this when I got home? In private? And you called your friend who’s already in the AC and talked to her about it? They probably have the psych eval half-written by now.

  He didn’t dare say the words aloud. Some Consortium shrink would jump on that like a mosquito on a tourist. Why would you say that? What are you afraid of? Were you trying to coerce her? They would analyze it and interpret it and use it to screw him. His lips were salty; nausea seeped into his empty stomach as if he was sweating on the inside. His view of the bulkhead and the control panel wavered as his brain spun through a few possible responses, seeking one that wouldn’t get them canned.

  Before he came up with anything Barbara spoke again. “I know you’re up to it,” she said. “You’ve been ready for anything as long as I’ve known you, and this is what you’ve lived your whole life for.” She sniffed a little, but softly as if she had turned her head away from the microphone. Her voice was remarkably steady. “I just don’t know if I’m cut out for it.”

  Van wasn’t sure now either. He had been sure, until that moment, as sure as he could recite the date of the Apollo-11 landing. Barbara wasn’t a delicate little flowery girl. Growing up on the ranch had made her just tough enough: smooth and supple, rather than worn or stiff. Not wound so tight that she was rigid and likely to snap, but strong and flexible and reliable.

  He still didn’t know what to say. Part of him wanted to say “Stop your whining” or “You better damn well figure it out soon.” He told himself that was just fatigue and fear: he’d never spoken that way to Barbara before. He wanted to say something supportive, something encouraging and affirming like “It’s okay, it’s just cold feet,” but he didn’t want to sound as if he was begging her or trying to change her mind. She had to make her own decision, as much for herself as for the Consortium and the program.

  As the silence grew uncomfortable, he still didn’t know what to say. So he tried not to say much of anything.

  “I appreciate you being honest with me,” he said, a little surprised to find that it was true, “but I’ve got to go. Shay’s got us mustering in a little while, and I need to eat first. We’ll have to talk about this later.”

  * * *

  Barbara played back that conversation most of the night and into the next day, which dawned cold and brutal. Overnight the Chinook wind had stalled, and cold came back down from Canada like a stampede of polar bears. The low clouds looked as if they were sculpted out of lead, but they were only visible for a couple of hours before the snow started falling. It was heavy, wet snow, and as she made her way from house to barn she longed for the days of her early childhood, of Saturday mornings when she could go back to bed after her chores and the adults would take care of all the really heavy work.

  But she wasn’t a child anymore, and she wondered if she’d been acting childish. It was one thing to be afraid, and another to let fear control you, right? But this was more than fear. It wasn’t an irrational nervousness about the unknown—this was rational trepidation, the fear of risks that were known and could be numbered and analyzed but never eliminated. She used to perform hazard analyses in the service, for Heaven’s sake, looking at the probability and severity of any event. She knew the risks, and what went into minimizing them and mitigating them.

  Sometimes she thought it would be better not to know the risks. Blissful unawareness, the way the cows were unaware of their ultimate fate, at least had the advantage of being blissful; she, on the other hand, had doleful knowledge.

  She tried to use menial tasks to work her way into blissful ignorance—by which she meant the bliss of ignoring Van and the Moon and everything outside the confines of the barn. Between the morning and evening milkings she made rounds, working on the myriad little things that had been neglected in recent months. She tightened the hinges and turnbuckles on the gates, greased the bearings on the ventilators, and worked her way through the milking parlor with the maintenance manuals and the big toolbox. She worked inside and out, on anything she could find, but she never attained ignorance, nor bliss.

  By the time Barbara got back inside, she was so tired she could barely pull off all the layers of her clothes. She thought about starting something for supper, but decided instead to stoke up the fire and relax in its warm embrace.

  Her father’s voice roused her from a doze; he’d called her from the vicinity of the kitchen. “What?” she said.

  “I said, you’ve got a message blinking in here on the phone.”

  It was probably from Van, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it. The smell of frying pork lured her into the kitchen, though: her father had two pork chops going in the pan. “Those smell good,” she said.

  “Yes, and I bet you want one.”

  She patted his bald spot. “You wouldn’t want your little girl to go hungry, would you?”

  “Okay, you can have one … if you make up some gravy.” He pointed to a pot in which three medium russet potatoes were being boiled.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she said, and picked up the telephone receiver. The callback number for the message wasn’t the Consortium switchboard, but a number she didn’t recognize. Didn’t think she recognized, that is. It seemed familiar … then her sluggish brain caught up with her and she realized it was the number she had called to reach Beverly Needham in New Mexico.

  She punched the button on the machine and let the message play; no need to take it privately.

  “Barmaid, this is Bella.
Heard Van the man was back in the can, so I figured you’d had a chance to talk to him. I wanted to see how it went, and to run a little idea by you. Call when you can! Love.”

  Barbara suddenly felt light and refreshed, as if the Chinook wind had blown into the house and straight through her. She giggled and hugged her Father.

  “You going to call her back?” he asked.

  “After supper,” she said. “You go in and put your feet up, I’ll finish cooking.”

  “Alright. The applesauce is here in the fridge—”

  “Go. Now. Skee-daddle, daddy.”

  He turned his rough, lined, scruffy face to look at her, a little smile curling the corner of his mouth. His eyes twinkled. He bowed a little and said, “Thanks, girlie. You make a papa proud.”

  She barely noticed the twin tears that rolled down into her smile.

  * * *

  “Hey, Wild West Woman! How’s life on the ranch?”

  Barbara, sated and bathed and wrapped in her softest robe, grimaced at the question. She wriggled down further into the recliner’s cushions. “I think we got eight or ten inches of snow so far today, and it’s still coming down. How’s that sound?”

  “At least you’ll have a white Christmas.”

  “Shows what you know,” Barbara said. “More likely an appaloosa Christmas, with little patches unmelted and everything else mud. But, we’ll manage.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. So how did it go with Van? Did you tell him you’re withdrawing from the program?”

  Barbara scooted back a little, so she sat straighter in the chair. “When did I say I was withdrawing?”

  “You’re not? Well, that’s good to hear.”

  “Wait a minute. You thought I was scratching us off the colony list?”

  “Well … I thought it was a possibility. You were having those serious doubts, after all.”

  “So? About once a month I have doubts that I was meant to be a woman, but that doesn’t mean I want to sign up for surgery.”

  “Calm down, Barmaid. I’m just glad to hear that you’re not letting your little episode get the better of you. But you did tell Van you were feeling some anxiety, didn’t you? How did he take it?”

  Barbara took a couple of breaths, eyes closed, to calm her heartbeat. She reduced her volume to gentle conversation. “Yes, I told him,” she said, “and he took it about as well as can be expected. He didn’t fly off the handle at me, but he didn’t let me bare my soul, either.”

  “He’s a man, dear. The last thing he wants you to bare is your soul.”

  “Huh? Oh. Well, I’m not likely to bare anything else for him anytime soon.”

  “Uh-huh. You say that now, but then he’ll come walking out of that dropsule and you’ll melt like a schoolgirl.…” BD’s voice trailed away in a little patter of laughter.

  Barbara tried to put some fire in her tone, but she ended up giggling a little herself. “I don’t know about that, but I guess things could be worse. He’s not hurt that bad—probably his pride more than anything, and he’s got pride to spare. And I worked my fingers to the bone today, fixing a lot of things that needed fixing, and that puts things in perspective. I guess we’re destined to have problems, some bigger than others, whether we’re up there or down here. And maybe it’s not so important what difficulties you face, as the fact that you face them together.”

  “Amen to that.”

  “So what’s the idea you wanted to run by me? Does it have anything to do with boiling oil or sharp knives?”

  BD laughed louder. “It didn’t, but I suppose I could think of something. No, I thought I might pop up to see you when I get done with this training stint. Looks like we’ll have a week and a half or so before we have to head to Guiana, and I’d like to spend a few days with you.”

  “That would be great! You and Gary?”

  “Heck, no, just me,” BD said. “I’ll see enough of him later, and it may get to be too much. I want some time away from him for now. Let absence make my heart grow fonder. You know what I mean.”

  Yes, she did.

  * * *

  Wednesday, 13 December 2034

  Lunar Setup Mission II, Day 43

  By Monday, Van’s knee was some better, and by Wednesday he barely realized he’d been injured. His radio appointment with Dr. Nguyen had gone well, since he’d authorized Van to withdraw some of the colony’s Tylenol-III; the Doc would want to see him as soon as he stepped out of the dropsule, probably. He still kept his knee taped—no use wasting all that effort he put into shaving his leg—which limited his mobility just enough to slow him down a little. That kept him from doing any more damage, while the codeine knocked out the pain.

  It seemed to help his attitude some, too. It helped that he wasn’t sitting under two feet of snow like Barbara was. He’d called on Sunday and Monday, and she said the forecasters promised no relief. He was just as glad to be where he was, even if he was injured; he didn’t miss winter, and probably never would. A boy from southern California and Alabama didn’t belong anywhere snow stood on the ground for more than a day, and their winters in North Dakota had been the worst of his life even though one of them was called “mild” by the other missileers. He grit his teeth at the realization that it would still be winter in Montana when he was done with this mission; they had to make it through the screening and get back up to the Moon, if only to get away from her damn ranch.

  Although, maybe it was the cabin fever that had made Barbara’s attitude a little better the last time he talked to her. Maybe Montana winters were good for something after all.…

  Shay had him on fairly light duty, mostly driving machines to scrape away trenches or wrench out boulders for setting new habitats in place. Every shift, Van told him his knee was almost back to normal, and today Shay had heard enough. Van chuckled now as he drove one of the little MPVs toward the south end of Rupes Mercator to set up another radio repeater. He’d been sure he could wear Shay down. He was a little surprised that Shay let him come so far out by himself—it was one thing to run around the complex alone, as opposed to being so far afield—but they wanted to make up lost time and the risk of this mission was pretty minimal.

  The little trucks were far less comfortable than the Turtle, having only a bench seat in an unpressurized cab. They sat two people comfortably and three cramped. They had far less range, too, running on hydrazine turbines with limited fuel supplies. The turbine engines worked on the same principle as hydrazine-fueled monopropellant satellite thrusters: the hydrazine—a chemical Van had once been told was a near-impossibility in terms of structure, being basically an ammonia molecule with an extra hydrogen atom tacked on—flowed across a catalyst that caused it to expand with great heat and pressure. The catalyst beds in old satellite engines used to be good for only a few hundred seconds’ operation, making each maneuver a rare and precious thing, so these monopropellant turbines wouldn’t work except that a garage mechanic around 2020 had solved the catalyst problem by working carbon nanotubes or Buckyballs or something into the catalyst matrix; now they ran for hours before they needed cleaning and refurbishing.

  The plain of Mare Nubium, even near the low hills of the Rima Hesiodus, was a vast darkness to Van’s left as the truck rumbled down the same path he and Grace had traversed six days earlier. The line of low mountains to his right that was Rupes Mercator was equally dark, since the ambient lights in the truck and his helmet display overpowered even the nearly full earthlight. If he had time, he would stop and turn down all his lights and enjoy the earthshine; but he was on a schedule.

  The line of reflectors spaced every fifty meters or so down the path kept him on it—a nice touch that Scooter had installed two days ago, after they were finally unpacked—and he trusted the laser gyroscope in the truck to tell him when he got to the unmarked side path up into the range of hills. Without the benefit of precise surveys and an equivalent to GPS, all navigation was internal; it would be years, if ever, before anyone trusted an autonomous vehic
le on the Moon.

  Once he was on the smaller path, it was easy enough to follow: no erosion or wind action would ever wear it away. He found the tower foundation just where Jovie and Shay had installed it the week before last.

  The MPV he had been issued was essentially a flat-bed pickup truck, albeit an oversized one with metal mesh wheels. Like the others, it could be fitted with a variety of implements by way of a fifth wheel and other attachment points in the rear; however, this one was fitted with tools, sections of the tower, and the communications equipment Van would leave behind.

  A light standard in the bed illuminated his work area, and Van worked quickly to set up the small tower. He fit the pieces together as it lay on the ground, clamped the bottom to a pivot driven into the lunar soil, and pushed it upright and tightened it into place. It didn’t need staking against wind loads, of course, but Van installed a trio of close-in guy wires to help stabilize it in case of an accident or lunar seismic activity.

  With the final support wire in place, Van stopped to take a drink. He flexed his good knee, and then his bad knee to the limit of the tape. A shot of pain, as if he’d disturbed a nest of fire ants behind his kneecap, worked its way slowly from his knee to his brain. Time for some more medi—

  Van hung his head until his forehead touched his face plate.

  He’d forgotten to bring any pills. He knew it was useless, but he checked the little pouch in the left side of his helmet. It tasted of plastic and salty sweat, but as far as medicine it was as empty as the vacuum outside his suit. He checked to make sure his microphone was off, and cursed so long and loud he left drops of spittle that glittered in the indicator lights of his HUD.

  The pain increased as he hooked up the comm unit and the combination Bergeron heat engine and solar array that would be the repeater’s power source. The sensation sharpened into that old feeling of jagged gears grinding inside his knee as he picked up and packed away his tools. It took him two tries to climb back into the cab of the little truck. His vision contracted as he twisted on the seat and hooked into the onboard oxygen supply. It took several seconds before his eyesight cleared enough that he was confident moving the truck, and it wavered enough at the edges that he crept around his new installation and back downhill.