Walking on the Sea of Clouds

by Gray Rinehart

  Gary twisted his lips into what may have been a grin, but Stormie decided was more of a grimace. “It was,” he said, his voice pitched low and rumbling out of the back of his throat. “It was in the habitat module that crashed, which means right now it’s useful more as metal and plastic scrap than as an operational piece of equipment. After that, even though these things were soft-landed as best they could be,” he patted the outer, curving bulkhead, though the flexion in his arm and hand made it look as if he wanted to slap it, “nobody would risk putting anything delicate in them. Hell, we’ve dealt with enough broken things as it is. And then other shipments started taking priority, and before anyone knew what had happened the EBM rig had been pushed off eighteen months into the future. Getting those shipments moved up was just setting the schedule right as best I could.”

  “And we messed it up,” Stormie said.

  “Yeah—”

  “No,” Frank said, and held up his hand. “I did it. You did nothing wrong.”

  Stormie motioned Frank to wait and directed her words at Gary. “He may have made the actual arrangements, but I was agitating for a faster flight from the moment we stepped onto Clarke.” She paused for a second at the incongruity of “stepping” onto the space station, then pressed on, her mind barely keeping up with her words. “There’s a loadmaster on the station who could’ve shipped those crates and told us to pound sand, and there are probably a half dozen other people who could’ve put up barriers to what Frank did. That doesn’t make it right, I know, and we will find a way to make it right. Those other people aren’t here right now to account for their actions, but we will account for ours. If you think of something we can do to make things better—to make things right—I’d appreciate if you’d tell us and let us do it.” Gary looked as if he was about to speak, but Stormie pressed on, “No, let me finish. I know you have another appointment, and I won’t keep you from it.

  “We are here for the duration, Gary. For the long haul. Our contract is only so many years, but it’s renewable, and I intend to renew it over and over and over again. And while we’re here, we will work night and day—ha! I mean lunar night and day—to keep this colony going. We wouldn’t, and we won’t, do anything to jeopardize it. I’m sorry we botched your schedule, but we will fix it any way we can.”

  Gary stood silent for a moment, looking back and forth at the two of them, considering her words. He waited long enough that the icy anger that had driven her outburst—at the time she didn’t think it was an outburst—started to melt from a creeping fear that she’d gone too far.

  “I’ll think about it,” he finally said. “And I’ll let you know. Right now we all have work to do.” He nodded at them and slipped between them into the corridor.

  Stormie raised her eyebrows a little, then a little more when Frank started to smile. “That,” he said, “was impressive. My wife the orator. You should run for office.”

  “Not likely,” Stormie said, and now that they were alone her ire returned. “Like he said, we have work to do. Let’s find our lab space and start unpacking.” She stopped in the hallway and half turned to her husband. “And while we do, you can tell me all about these ‘financial difficulties’ our company is in.”

  * * *

  Monday, 9 July 2035

  Van took a deep breath as he unsealed his helmet. The sour-sweet smell of people packed together was delicious to him. It was good to be home.

  He slid over to Barbara and helped her off with her helmet. She sighed in relief and started moving to her next task, but he held her and looked at her as if for the first time. Her hair, which had billowed around her head when they were on the Clarke station, again framed her face in soft waves. He much preferred it that way, even now when it was a little matted and mashed from the helmet.

  As he concentrated on her, she smiled a tentative smile that displayed her wonder at why he should be studying her so intently. Before she could ask, he hugged her and kissed her—an awkward move because they were still encumbered by their suits, but he didn’t care. Having her here with him made everything right.

  Everything about being back on the Moon thrilled him: the lighter gravity under his feet, the closed-in feel of the prefab habitat around him. This was where he belonged.

  He was so content just to be back that he soaked it all in, so much that he actually paid attention to Alice Lindsey, an electrical engineer in the initial group of colonists, as she talked the group through the airlock and decontamination routine. He was glad he followed it closely—they’d made some improvements over the routine the setup crews had used, and the new protocols should control the lunar dust better.

  And when Alice announced there was a welcoming party waiting in Grand Central for all the newcomers, organized by Maggie and Rex Stewart, his contentment enveloped him like a pressure suit holding back the vacuum of despair. God was in his heaven, and Van was in his.

  The spread at the welcoming party was a little thin—crackers and some reconstituted dip that resembled pimiento cheese—but they’d put out jugs of water that were already paid for. Van was on his third glass of water and his second little cheese-and-cracker sandwich when Gary Needham approached him.

  “So,” Gary said, “did you make sure the EBM crates came with you?”

  “Nice to see you, too, bossman,” Van said around his mouthful of food.

  Gary made an exaggerated bow. “I’m sorry I didn’t offer you the proper pleasantries. All that pampering and celebrity life must’ve gone to your head.”

  Van swallowed the last of the cracker and leaned in close so only Gary would hear him. “Shove it up your ass, old man.”

  Gary didn’t flinch. “I don’t care how much you sweet-talk me, I’m not going to sleep with you on the first date. Or ever.”

  Van laughed and washed down the sticky bits and cheesy aftertaste. “Yeah,” he said, “I watched them get loaded myself.”

  “Good,” Gary said, and seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. He wiped his forehead with his hand and wiped his hand on the front of the shirt. “Sorry I didn’t answer your messages—been a little busy.”

  “I accept your apology.” Van decided to pick at Gary a little bit more. “It did hurt my feelings, though.”

  Gary didn’t take the bait. In fact, he smiled. “I tell you, Bev is sure happy Barbara’s finally here.”

  The two of them were having their own tête-à-tête on the other side of the chamber. They were so intent on their conversation they didn’t notice their husbands watching them.

  “The feeling’s mutual,” Van said. “Barbara seemed like she wanted out of the program a couple of times, but she came around. I think Beverly being up here helped a lot, that she would have someone to talk to, you know?”

  “Yeah, that can be helpful.”

  “So what have y’all been doing? Got all the habitats up and running now?”

  “Shoot no. We haven’t done nearly as much as we should. We’re getting closer. I still owe you a beer, I guess.”

  “That’s okay,” Van said.

  Gary pointed across the room. “You see those two over there? The Pastorellis? You know ’em?”

  Van remembered the good-looking black couple from the Utah training facility. “Not well,” he said. “Met ’em. Bio contingent. Contract types, right?”

  “Yeah. They’re part of the reason I haven’t gotten much done. I’ve been riding herd on them the past two and a half weeks.”

  “Oh, don’t let anyone else hear you say that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Come on, Colonel, think about what you just said. I know you’re not really that naïve.”

  Gary looked puzzled for a second before the realization dawned on him. “Oh, hell, Van, you know I didn’t mean it that way. And don’t call me ‘Colonel.’”

  “I don’t know why not. I bet you’ve got your silver oak leaves somewhere in your office here, hidden away. And even if you don’t, I’d say the billet you’re in is at least an O
-6 equivalent.”

  Gary drew his lips so tight it looked as if his teeth might poke through. “First of all, this isn’t a government operation, so there aren’t any officer equivalents even if you think there should be. Second, I don’t care if it was a damn SES equivalent, don’t do that to me.”

  Van laughed; the Gary Needham he knew would actually care quite a bit if his job was equivalent to the Senior Executive Service. But he didn’t press the subject. “Whatever you say. Is that what’s eating you? Not making the schedule because you’re worrying over the hired help?”

  “Now look who’s being condescending,” Gary said.

  “I learned from the best.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Needham,” Arvati Peterson called from across the chamber. She walked over, a little clumsy since she wasn’t used to the lunar gravity yet. Her husband Sonny followed behind, carrying one of the live specimen transit cases. Arvati popped the seal on the case and opened it. The unmistakable mewling of a very frightened cat cut through the room like a siren. Conversations died and heads turned.

  “We thought we should present you with the first cat on the Moon,” she said.

  Van watched Gary for any reaction, but he seemed very well composed, even when the struggling cat was forced into his hands. It was a smoky grey color, darker than the Siamese Van had grown up with.

  Gary eyed the cat for a long moment, his face inscrutable. Finally he asked, “What’s its name?”

  “Not that it’ll matter,” Van said. “Like it’ll come when you call.” Gary made as if he would pass Van the cat, but Van slid back a half step.

  Arvati said, “Its tag said Comet, but we thought it looked more like a Dusty.”

  Gary held the cat up with his left hand and looked it in the eyes; it dug its claws into his shirt sleeve. He scratched it for a second behind its ears and handed it back to Arvati, who cradled it like a child. “Then Dusty it is,” he said. “I guess it’ll be useful if one of the rabbits gets loose, but I better not hear about it trying to get at any of the catfish.”

  “Although,” Van said, “if we ever need any catgut, it’ll be useful for that, too.”

  Nobody laughed. Van found that disappointing.

  As the others turned back to their conversations, Gary pulled Van partway into the westward-leading tunnel junction. “Cats. Just what we need when we’re on razor-thin margins up here.” He paused, then picked up where he’d left off before. “It’s bad enough that I’m coaching Frank and Stormie along on extra work details—a duty I may transfer to you now, wise ass—because their company is strapped for cash and they need the out-of-scope hours. I mean, we need the work done to get caught up, and I appreciate them doing it. But their capabilities don’t match their willingness.

  “I’ve had ’em out helping set and open the last of the prefabs, because that’s freed up folks to work on the vehicles and hook up the rest of the systems. They do okay driving around and they know when to be precise and when to say, ‘Good enough,’ but they’re not fast enough to keep us ahead of the game.

  “But that’s not the real trouble,” he said. “Truth is, the AC itself is looking at a balance of payment problem if the asteroid shipments don’t pick up, and soon.”

  “Really? The last P&L statement looked okay.”

  “That’s because it didn’t detail all the executive pay cuts.”

  “What executive pay cuts?”

  Gary chuckled. “Know how much I got deposited in my account last quarter? One thousand dollars—for the whole quarter. Do that math: that’s about eighty dollars a week.”

  Van looked for deception in his friend’s eyes, but didn’t see any. “That’s crazy,” he said.

  “No, I think it’s smart, that’s why I went along with it when the brass pitched it to me. I’m the lowest level to take a pay cut so far. Everybody below me is making their regular salary, everybody above me is making much, much less. And I mean much less than the rank and file, Van. Kari Aliri, up at the Clarke station? She got five hundred bucks for the quarter, and it gets worse the higher you go. Instead of salary, we’re getting a cost of living allowance—which doesn’t mean much to me up here, but for most of the folks down below it means they’re digging into savings to pay their regular bills.

  “While all this is going on, they’re looking at all kinds of ways to cut costs. That’s why I wanted that EBM rig up here soonest, because I didn’t want them selling it off or stopping the flights or anything. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, right? Plus the fact that we need the stupid thing.

  “Anyway, they’re looking at buying out all the independents and making them Consortium employees. They think if they can do that, it’ll save them money in the long run.”

  Van shrugged. “Sounds reasonable to me, but Econ class was a long time ago and I didn’t do that hot in it.”

  “Never mind. The problem is, the Pastorellis’ partner, down on Earth, is in tight with Morris Hansen. Hell, Hansen contacted him personally when he decided to join the Paszek Group—for all I know, the guy has his hands in the AC’s own pockets.”

  “Didn’t I hear that their partner had an accident or something?”

  “Yeah, he had a stroke. Which means that he hasn’t been part of the most recent negotiations, which means that we’re stuck with them as independents for the time being. Meanwhile the AC is hemorrhaging cash.”

  Van couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Gary so agitated. If he was this distressed, the Consortium must be frantic to get more frequent asteroid shipments moving to Low-Gee’s processing facility so that revenue stream would start coming in. But if things were that strapped …

  “I’m surprised you authorized any money for this little shindig, if things are so bad,” Van said.

  Gary clapped a hand on Van’s shoulder. “Oh, if it had been up to me, we would’ve put you guys to work right away. But the Stewarts paid for all this out of their own pocket. So you can thank them.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  Gary sighed. “Probably not. But if I act as if it’s that bad, then hopefully I’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

  * * *

  Frank very much enjoyed the newcomers’ welcome; in their time on the Moon so far, pleasant distractions had proved rare. He looked forward to speaking to the Petersons. He had found Sonny and Arvati to be an engaging couple during their training, and would like working with them. Their presentation of the little cat to Gary Needham amused him more than it did Stormie.

  “I wonder if that’s a male cat or a female,” she said.

  “Why does it matter?” he asked.

  “One, male cats have a tendency to mark their territory, and I don’t find that very pleasant. Two, if it’s female I wonder if it’s already pregnant. That would be a convenient way of increasing the cat population pretty quickly, which means we’ll have to account for a bunch of cats instead of just one cat in our calculations.”

  He looked at her carefully and decided she was not joking. In fact she looked far too serious. “My dear,” he said, “do you really think a brood of cats will make a big difference in the figures?”

  She frowned. “Maybe not a big difference, but some difference. I just don’t understand the point. They took cats on ocean-going vessels because they had rats. We don’t have rats, and with luck we won’t have any for a long time. And cats on a ship aren’t competing for resources with their hosts in a hermetically-sealed environment. Even if the thing is fixed, it seems like a waste, and we don’t have a lot of room for waste.”

  Frank wrapped her in a hug and kissed her forehead. “I am sure we will be able to handle it,” he said.

  “Thanks. Do you think we’ve done our social duty? I’d like to get started on the nutrient solution for the next batch of bio-reactant.”

  Frank sighed. It would be useless to tell her she was working too hard; she already knew, and did not care. Not because she was unaware of the effects of overwork, but because she rarely thought of what she did
as work in the first place. He understood the feeling well, because most of the time he shared it.

  “I am certain you will be missed,” he said, “but just as sure that you will be excused. I, however, would like to stay for a while yet.” He gave her a quick kiss and watched her exit into the south tunnel junction.

  Frank was helping himself to another cracker when Sonny Peterson stepped up next to him.

  “Good to see you, Frank,” Sonny said. “But I must say, you look exhausted.”

  It did not surprise him that Sonny would make that observation. “I am very tired, yes,” he said. When it looked as if Sonny wanted more detail, Frank explained that he and Stormie had, for almost three weeks straight, spent as much time outside the habitats—setting the few remaining prefabricated shelters in place so they could be hooked up—as they had inside working on the environmental equipment.

  “How’d you get roped into that?” Sonny asked. “You two must be hating life.”

  Frank disagreed, and the more he talked about it the more he disagreed. It was hard, he would not deny it, but their role was not just to keep the colony alive—which was important in itself—but to help it thrive. If that meant long hours in pressure suits, setting up and unpacking habitat modules, so be it. If that meant driving multi-purpose vehicles to deliver rails, newly forged from native materials, for the launch acceleration system that would eventually stretch hundreds of kilometers across the Sea of Clouds, they would do it. Most things worth doing required hard work and sacrifice, and this was no different.

  “No, my friend,” Frank said, “quite the contrary. Life is good, and we are just trying to make it better.”

  “Okay, then. But maybe now that we’re here, we can take some of that load off you. If you need some help, you let me know, okay?”

  “Of course,” said Frank, and they shook on it.

  As Sonny walked away, Frank heard, “Pastorelli! Good to see you again. How the hell are you?”

  Frank cringed a little at the familiar voice and turned to see Scott Herbert standing behind him at the little snack table. He had not been looking forward to this reunion.