Lunar Descent
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PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF ALLEN STEELE
“An author with the potential to revitalize the Heinlein tradition.” —Booklist
“The best hard SF writer to come along in the last decade.” —John Varley, author of Slow Apocalypse
“One of the hottest new writers of hard SF on the scene today.” —Asimov’s Science Fiction
“No question, Steele can tell a story.” —OtherRealms
“The master of science-fiction intrigue.” —The Washington Post
“Allen Steele is among the best.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Steele writes with a spirit of exuberant, even exalted, optimism about our future in space.… Intelligent, literate, and ingenious.” —Booklist
“[Steele’s writing is] highly recommended.” —Library Journal
“A leading young writer of hard science fiction.” —Science Fiction Weekly
Orbital Decay
Winner of the Locus Award for Best First Novel
“Stunning.” —Chicago Sun-Times
“[Steele is] the master of science-fiction intrigue.” —The Washington Post
“Brings the thrill back to realistic space exploration. It reads like a mainstream novel written in 2016 A.D.” —The New York Review of Science Fiction
“A damned good book; lightning on the high frontier. I got a sense throughout that this was how it would really be.” —Jack McDevitt, author of Cauldron
“An ambitious science fiction thriller … skillfully plotted and written with gusto.” —Publishers Weekly
“A splendidly executed novel of working-class stiffs in space.” —Locus
“Reads like golden-age Heinlein.” —Gregory Benford, author of Beyond Infinity
“Readers won’t be disappointed. This is the kind of hard, gritty SF they haven’t been getting enough of.” —Rave Reviews
The Tranquillity Alternative
“A high-tech thriller set against the backdrop of an alternative space program. Allen Steele has created a novel that is at once action-packed, poignant, and thought provoking. His best novel to date.” —Kevin J. Anderson, bestselling author of the Jedi Academy Trilogy
“Science fiction with its rivets showing as only Steele can deliver it. This one is another winner.” —Jack McDevitt, author of The Engines of God
“With The Tranquillity Alternative, Allen Steele warns us of the bitter harvest reaped by intolerance, and of the losses incurred by us all when the humanity of colleagues and friends is willfully ignored.” —Nicola Griffith, author of Ammonite
Labyrinth of Night
“Unanswered questions, high-tech, hard-science SF adventure, and action—how can you fail to enjoy this one?” —Analog Science Fiction and Fact
The Jericho Iteration
“Allen Steele is the best hard SF writer to come along in the last decade. In The Jericho Iteration he comes down to a near-future Earth and proves he can handle a darker, scarier setting as well as his delightful planetary adventures. I couldn’t put it down.” —John Varley, author of Slow Apocalypse
Rude Astronauts
“A portrait of a writer who lives and breathes the dreams of science fiction.” —Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Clarke County, Space
“Lively … engaging.” —Locus
“A really gripping tale … This stuff is what I love the most about science fiction!” —The Texas SF Inquirer
Lunar Descent
“A well-balanced blend of hard science, adventure, and thoughtful extrapolation.” —Science Fiction Chronicle
“A triumph of the individual human spirit … excellent.” —Starlog
Time Loves a Hero
“Not only a story about time traveling and multiple worlds, but also a look at how science fiction inspired scientific endeavors … [Time Loves a Hero] demonstrates Steele’s growth as a writer.” —Steven Silver’s Reviews
Oceanspace
“Steele’s descriptions of the ocean depths and the unknown possibilities down there are first rate.” —The Denver Post
“Steele’s account of the undersea research facility that is the real star of this book is so thorough you’d think he had visited the place. The plot is complex and the characters real. There aren’t many people writing fiction grounded in realistic scientific explanation. Allen Steele is among the best.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“The closest thing in years to [Arthur C.] Clarke’s The Deep Range. Steele has done his technical homework thoroughly and he writes with an eye to pacing and dry wit. Hard SF adventure doesn’t get a whole lot better than this.” —Booklist
Lunar Descent
Allen Steele
For my mother—
who let me skip school to watch the Apollo moonwalks
Introduction
Lunar Descent was my third published novel, following Orbital Decay and Clarke County, Space. It was also the third in a thematic trilogy set within what I was then calling the Near-Space Series; in terms of the series’ internal chronology, though, it takes place between the first two books. There’s a reason for this.
Clarke County, Space was written largely because I’d stalled on Labyrinth of Night, the novel that was originally intended to be my follow-up to Orbital Decay. It was the first volume I delivered of a two-book deal made with Ace shortly before Orbital Decay was published, and I’d hoped that, by the time it was finished, I’d worked out my problems with Labyrinth of Night. But Labyrinth was a tough nut to crack, and since I still owed Ace another novel, it meant that I had to fill in the gap somehow.
Lunar Descent was the solution. Midway through writing Clarke County, I realized that I’d left open a sizable hole in the future history I’d found myself creating: What was happening on the Moon all this time? Thinking about this, I decided that I wanted to write a novel about Descartes Station, the lunar mining base I’d briefly visited in Orbital Decay through the persona of my first-person narrator, Sam Sloane. Sam was no longer around, but perhaps I could go back to this place and see what had happened there in the years following Orbital Decay, and also show how they influenced the events of Clarke County, Space. So although Lunar Descent was written and published after those two books, it became the glue that binds them together. However, it’s not necessary to read them in any particular order; in fact, all three can be read independently.
It’s usually difficult to pinpoint an exact moment when a story comes to me, but Lunar Descent is an exception. My favorite band, the Grateful Dead, was doing a show at Sullivan Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts. My wife and I were in field box seats off to the right side of the stage; night had fallen, but I could see small, flickering lights moving through the audience on the stadium floor and on the upper-level seats on the opposite side of the field. Such was my frame of mind that it seemed to me that I was looking at a mining operation on the surface of the Moon, with the lights being those of workmen and their vehicle prowling through the lunar night.
Then the Dead swung into the classic Willie Dixon song “Wang Dang Doodle,” and in that instant I knew what Lunar Descent would be about. This scene occurs in chapter eleven; the novel was built entirely around that.
Although this novel tackles some serious issues involving labor rights and the relationship between corporations and their employees, it’s lighter and more satirical in tone than the two books that preceded it. That threw some readers and critics when it was published in 1991, and I imagine that it may still have that effect. On the other hand, some readers say Lunar Descent is their favorite of my
novels. I was surprised, many years later while attending a space business conference in Los Angeles sponsored by the Space Frontier Foundation, when the president of LunaCorp told me that Lunar Descent occupied a place on his office shelf as a reminder of the sort of future on the Moon he’d like to help build. I took that as a supreme compliment.
It’s been nearly twenty-five years since this novel was published, and more recent events have made the timeline and some of the technology obsolete. Nonetheless, I’m very pleased to see this book become widely available again, and I hope you’ll enjoy it.
Allen Steele
Whately, Massachusetts
November, 2014
DESCARTES STATION: GENERAL LAYOUT
Sketch courtesy of Skycorp Engineering Group
A McGuinness International Company
(1.) MAIN OPERATIONS CENTER (Subcomp A third level)
(2.) SUBCOMPLEX A (two levels)
(3.) DORM 1 (two levels)
(4.) DORM 2 (two levels)
(5.) DORM 3/VIP QUARTERS (one level; includes emergency airlock)
(6.) GREENHOUSE
(7.) EVA READY-ROOM/AIRLOCKS
(8.) SPACECRAFT MAINTENANCE (unpressurized)
(9.) TRAFFIC CONTROL CUPOLA
(10.) VEHICLE GARAGE/MAINTENANCE (unpressurized)
(11.) FACTORY DOMES (unpressurized)
(12.) MASS-DRIVER (unpressurized)
(13.) NUCLEAR POWER STATION (unpressurized)
(14.) LANDING PAD THREE
(15.) LANDING PAD TWO
(16.) LANDING PAD ONE
Not Pictured:
SOLAR CELL ARRAY
SPACECRAFT FUEL TANKS
MINING AREAS
PART ONE
One of These Days
Sunrise (Montage.1)
There is a place, within sight of all the world’s oceans, where the seabreeze has never flown.…
Descartes Traffic, this is LTV oh-five-eleven on primary approach, do you copy? Over.
High mountain ranges, colder at night than the glaciers of Antarctica, hotter at daytime than the Sahara, yet lifeless and still, never having felt the touch of snow or wind …
We copy, LTV oh-five-eleven, and we have you on our scope. Beacons are on and you’re cleared for touchdown on Pad Two, over.
Deep canyons where water has never rushed, vast plains where neither bison nor antelope nor elephant has ever stampeded, long-dead volcanoes whose last lava flow hardened millions of years ago …
Shift Two, this is your final call. All work crews are to clock in by twelve-hundred hours or face late-work penalties. Shift One workers, please use Airlocks One and Two at Subcomp B for your return. Please remember to clock out before you proceed to Subcomp A.
A dead world: gray, colorless, sterile, its barren wilderness illuminated only by weak blue light cast by the half-full Earth perpetually hovering at near zenith. Yet there is life, there is motion and change.…
By the way, for employees on the first and second shifts, the first game between the Atlanta Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals will be shown live tonight in the rec room, beginning at nineteen-hundred hours. For the benefit of third-shift workers, the game will be simulcast on LDSM, on comlink channel four, and videotaped for your enjoyment after your shift.
In the middle of the plateau of the Descartes highlands, warm lights glow from a cluster of buried buildings and domes; more lights are in motion around it, casting strange shadows across boulders and tiny micrometeorite impact craters, as men and machines move continuously across the night-darkened, silent landscape.…
Sunrise coming up at twelve-oh-one hours. Repeat, we’ve got local sunrise in fifteen seconds, so please adjust your suit thermostats accordingly. Hope y’all enjoy the view, it’s gonna be a nice one.
On a mountainside overlooking the plateau and the encampment, a lonesome, still figure stands in the darkness: a space-suited figure, yet no light is cast from its lamps, nor does the radio cross talk reach its antenna.…
Descartes Traffic, this is LTV oh-five-eleven. We’re on final approach at angels five, range one-five, bearing six-south by fifteen east and closing. Looks mighty nice from where we are. Time to break out the lotion and beach blankets, boys and girls. Over.
A single light in the sky, racing from east to west, is reflected in the helmet visor of the lone figure, yet it doesn’t move, apparently not even noticing.…
Five seconds to local sunrise. Four … three … two … one …
All at once, the blinding, white-hot orb of the sun ascends above the eastern horizon, sending shadows racing away from it, and suddenly there is light on the wasteland; the gray rocks and soil are tinted with silver with just the vaguest hints of brown and orange as the sunlight moves, as a straight curtain, across the Descartes highlands, closing upon the mountain and the figure standing near its summit.…
Heeeey, that’s gorgeous! Beautiful, just beautiful! Welcome back, Mr. Sun, we sure missed you!
The light reaches the lonely figure on the mountain, and as it does, the figure fades from sight, as if evaporating in the abrupt, harsh heat, leaving behind not so much as a single footprint to show that it had ever been there.…
Gonna be another beautiful day here on the Moon, ladies and gentlemen. Hope you enjoyed the show. Time to go back to work now.…
1. The Diversion of Spam-Can S31CO18
The next incident of piracy began early Friday morning-May 17, 2024, to be exact, just a few hours before sunrise. An appropriate time for vile acts by unspeakable men.
“Fast Eddie” Delany leaned over the railing of a catwalk high above the floor of Bay Four of Skycorp’s Orbiter Processing Center and watched as the bridge crane just below his feet lowered a cargo pallet into the payload bay of the Skycorp shuttle Jesco von Puttkamer. He absently reached into a breast pocket of his work vest and pulled out a stick of Wrigley’s spearmint as the big crane cranked and whined and beeped, the ruckus barely heard through the ear protectors clamped over his balding head. Seventy feet below, at the bottom of the vast pit formed by the tiered work platforms surrounding the shuttle, two other cargo loaders standing in the open bay of the Boeing S-202B “Humpback” reached up to grasp the leading edges of the massive pallet and gently guide it down. Fast Eddie curled the stick of chewing gum into his mouth and slid back the right sleeve of his cotton shirt to check his watch. Almost 0300. Time to get things rolling here.…
He looked down again to make sure the pallet was going into the stub-winged shuttle without a hitch. One of the grunts in the Puttkamer’s bay glanced up at him and quickly gave him the O.K. sign with a free hand. Eddie returned the gesture, then stood up from the railing and began walking down the catwalk toward the top platform of the big hangar. Up here in the rafters, he could peer above the corrugated sheet-metal walls dividing the hangar, into the bays where the other shuttles were going through the post-landing and prelaunch turnaround cycle.
In the far distance to his left the red-striped vertical stabilizer of an older ship, the Boeing S-201A Willy Ley, could be seen between the levels of the rear swing-away platform; the old boat had come home Saturday afternoon, and from what he had heard from the Bay Two techs during his last coffee break, its electronics were giving out almost faster than they could find and repair the faults, and whole sections of the multilayer thermal protection tiles on the lower fuselage were all but shot to shit. Somebody would have to soon make up their minds whether to keep Willy operational or decommission it for cannibalization and eventual donation of the hull to some museum. Damn shame if they took it off the flight line; the Willy Ley had a lot of history behind it. To his immediate right he could see the smaller, blue-and-green striped fuselage of the Orbital Services spaceplane Deke Slayton over in Bay Five, leased from Skycorp until Orbital Services fixed the damage suffered by its own OPC hangar, on the other side of Merritt Island, from the violent tropical storm which blew over Florida’s northeast coast two weeks ago. The mini-shuttle was ready to be towed to t
he Vehicle Assembly Building for mating with a booster, as soon as the two almost-rival companies got the paperwork out of the way and NASA found a window in the Cape’s crowded launch schedule. Fast Eddie grimaced and shook his head as he glanced away from the OS-32 shuttle. All dressed up and no place to go, aren’t you, Little Deke?
But it was Bay Three, immediately to his left between the Puttkamer and the Ley, which demanded his attention. As Fast Eddie reached the stairway leading down from the work platforms to the hangar floor, he paused to rub imaginary dust from his right eye while he furtively studied the floor of Bay Three. From here he could see the blunt nose of the Boeing S-202B Sally Ride protruding through the forward tiers. Like the Puttkamer, the Ride was a second-and-a-half generation shuttle; raised payload bay on the top aft fuselage, no vertical stabilizer, long delta wings with tip fins, advanced avionics designed for quick turnaround at the Cape. In the trench underneath the fuselage he could see jumpsuited technicians making last-hour adjustments to the landing gear hydraulics. The doors of the humpbacked payload bay were open, and sure as hell, Eugene the Dork was waddling down the mobile ladder out of the shuttle and down to the hangar floor. Right on time.
The Dork paused on the lowermost platform to ask a question of the bay foreman—Fast Eddie could make out Lynn Stoppard’s pained expression, even if Eugene missed it entirely—and to fuss over his datapad with his lightpen. Eddie took the opportunity to relish his target of opportunity. Eugene Kastner was the king nerd of Skycorp’s graveyard shift at the Cape, the wanker to end all wankers. This was a guy who probably tucked his Fruit of the Loom undershirt into the waistband of his baggy shorts before he went to bed in the morning. He was an assistant scoutmaster for the local Boy Scout troop, took his Sunday day-off to attend the Baptist church in Titusville, voted Republican across the ballot even for municipal dogcatcher, rarely wore anything which wasn’t white, gray, or brown (and secretly cheated on company dress code for management by using a clip-on tie instead of learning how to tie a decent knot), always kept a half-dozen colored pens (no two alike) in his breast pocket, and couldn’t keep his weight down because his darling wife always made sure that there was a packet of Sara Lee double-fudge cookies in his dull gray lunchbox. Eugene hummed along with Muzak when he thought he was alone, stopped reading science fiction when he thought all the writers were becoming liberals, and once bared his soul to a couple of other cargo inspectors in the NASA cafeteria to tell them that, if it weren’t for them, Lord knows what would get into the cargo canisters lifted to orbit by the shuttles during their weekly supply missions.