Lunar Descent

by Allen Steele

  “Piracy?” Riddell blinked innocently. “Whatever are you talking about, Kenneth? And as far as hostages go, the few people here who did not vote in favor of the walkout are not being harassed or harmed in any way. That includes our chief physician and our security chief.”

  Dr. Walker’s religious convictions are a matter of record. As a Buddhist monk, he wouldn’t participate in a tawdry little labor strike like this unless lives were at stake. His reserve is admirable. I would have expected it of you as well.…

  “Surprise, surprise,” Lester drawled, barely able to hide his smile.

  As for Ms. McGraw, Crespin continued, her failure to contain this crisis … well, this affair might have led NASA to fire her on our recommendation if she had not acted first. She tendered her resignation in writing earlier this morning, in a letter faxed directly to us.

  This time, Lester was unable to conceal his shock. “QuickDraw … I mean, Tina resigned?” He shook his head. “I … she hadn’t told me about this before.”

  She quit before she was fired, Crespin said haughtily. Personally, that seems to be a prudent course of action. You and others up there might well consider doing the same thing before things get a little rough.

  Here we go … “Let’s cut out the double-talk, okay?” Lester leaned back in his seat and clasped his hands together in his lap. “What have you got on your mind?”

  Crespin glowered at him from the screen. It wouldn’t do much good for me to claim now that Skycorp isn’t planning to sell Descartes to Uchu-Hiko, he said. I have to hand it to you, your ability to foresee coming events has been rather sharp. In fact, Rock is at this moment engaged in negotiations with the Japanese regarding the sale of the facilities.…

  “I figured as much. Go on.”

  You should also know by now that ASWI is opposed to this illegal strike, he continued. And the AFL-CIO has just issued a statement that it won’t support your strike either. However, our business partners in Tokyo are a little more understanding. They realize that there will be a need for certain in-place expertise once they’ve acquired Descartes. After all, you can put people through simulators until hell freezes over and you still won’t have that necessary core of experience to …

  “I hear the Japanese make great simulators,” Lester said briskly. “What are you driving at?”

  Leniency. If you and the other leaders of this strike will convince the rest to drop the action and resume work, management and foremen may be rehired by Uchu-Hiko once they’ve acquired the base. That is, your jobs will be continued without interruption. Kenneth smiled. Just as if this … well, let’s call it a philosophical disagreement … never occurred in the first place. Not a bad deal, considering.

  “Considering,” Lester repeated. “But the key word here seems to be ‘maybe.’”

  Crespin shook his head. I can’t speak for the Japanese. I can only repeat what Uchu-Hiko’s chairman, Mr. Hiyakawa, told me on the phone this morning.

  “Hmm. Interesting.” Lester wasn’t ready to trust Ken Crespin for a moment. Even if Uchu-Hiko’s CEO had agreed to the outlined proposal, there was no way of knowing for sure. Not as long as Crespin was running the show. And this was even supposing that Riddell had the ability to stop the walkout all by himself, which he didn’t. He was not about to confess to Crespin that a decision to strike had been put in motion while he himself had been passed-out on his office floor. It did tell him one more thing, though: Skycorp and Uchu-Hiko clearly believed that he was the chief instigator of the strike.

  Pretending to be thinking things through, he casually looked away from the camera at the MainOps floor. The TELMU on duty, Doug Baker, seemed to perceive that the GM was looking his way. He looked over his shoulder, pointed at the blip on his screen, and nodded his head gravely. “Marines,” he said very quietly.

  Riddell nodded back in acknowledgment, covering the gesture by coughing into his fist. He looked back at the camera. “And if we don’t take up your offer?”

  That’s not a wise idea, Lester. Riddell couldn’t help but notice that this was the first time Crespin had addressed him by his first name. There’s good reasons why you should seriously consider our proposal.

  “I’m listening.”

  It doesn’t matter very much if you’ve delayed the Korean SPS project. That’s the sort of thing which tends to be self-correcting. But you’ve also bottlenecked the shipment of oxygen supplies to other orbital operations.

  “Oh, really?”

  Oh really. In fact, the U.S. government is rather upset with you and your little band of pirates. Losing a Spam-can or three is something which can be ignored over the long haul …

  “Excuse me?” Lester interrupted. “I think we’ve got a little static here on the line.…”

  Crespin continued undeterred. But shutting down the flow of a vital resource is more than a few persons in power can bear. He pointed a finger at the screen. Get this straight, once and for all. If you and your compatriots continue cutting off key consumables …

  “Wonderful alliteration,” Lester said, smiling. “Ever thought of working in dinner theater?”

  … an RDF squad from the 1st Space Infantry will be launched at 1200 hours GMT tomorrow from Phoenix Station, Crespin went on. They’ll come down and swarm all over your gang like …

  He stopped and smiled gloatingly. Well, I suppose you can imagine the results. I shouldn’t have to remind you that you’re unarmed and utterly defenseless. He paused again. Of course, if you’re willing to negotiate a quick end to this strike …

  “Hmmm. Maybe we shouldn’t rule out negotiation altogether.” Lester looked away again to buy a few precious seconds, contemplatively stroking his chin while he looked at the image which was displayed on the TRAFCO screen. Crespin was telling only half the truth. The Valley Forge wasn’t about to launch—it was already on its way. Since the military moonship had the new GE Pegasus nuclear rocket as its AOMV, at constant thrust it would make the trip in little less than half the time lunar transit usually took. They could be here by tomorrow. Yet Crespin had obviously underestimated not only the base’s ability to track spacecraft in cislunar space, but also Riddell’s own knowledge of the 1st Space.

  Crespin isn’t interested in negotiation of terms, he suddenly realized. The only thing he or Skycorp will accept is complete surrender.

  And it was obvious that he wasn’t the only one at Descartes who had hit upon that realization. Around him, MainOps had gone quiet. The command crew had been eavesdropping on their conversation, but now their interest was not quite so subtle. They openly watched their general manager, apparently wondering if he was going to sell out, now that the Marines were on the way and amnesty had been offered to strike leaders who bowed to pressure from the company.

  Good Lord, he thought, what am I going to have to do to earn these guys’ trust? Put on a hardsuit and start walking around the outside of the base with a sign reading “On Strike”?

  “Okay,” he said at last, looking back at the camera. “I’ll take your proposal under advisement. Maybe we can … ah, reach some sort of accommodation.”

  “Bastard,” he heard someone whisper.

  Crespin’s smile grew larger. Very good. I take it you’ve seen my point.

  You son of a bitch, Lester thought. You think you’ve already won.… “Oh, you’ve made your point, all right,” he said. You’ve made your point that you can’t be trusted, he added silently. “We have three demands.”

  All right. Crespin picked up a pen from his desk and prepared to write; more theatrics, since Riddell had no doubt that the entire conversation was being taped and monitored by others. Fire away.

  From around the command center, Lester felt everyone’s eyes upon him. “First,” he said, “I want amnesty extended to everyone participating in the strike, now and after the sale of the base. No firings, no layoffs, no reprisals in terms of salary or bonuses. We don’t care if we work for Skycorp or for Uchu-Hiko, but everyone here keeps their job at the same
rate of pay.”

  Crespin raised an eyebrow and his pen stopped moving. Come now. After all this you can’t possibly expect the company to … He sighed. Oh, all right, if you must. I’ll at least bring it to their attention. Next?

  “Second,” Lester continued, “an end to the embargo on nonessential supplies. We’re not slave labor, and we don’t like being treated as such. If we ask for something … books, films, underwear, chewing tobacco, a new Coke machine, whatever … we’re going to get it as long as it doesn’t violate company rules against contraband.”

  Oh, certainly. Certainly. Even as Crespin was writing, Riddell could tell from his face that there was no more chance of the second demand’s being met than the first. Quarter of a million miles away, he reflected, and I can still tell the bastard’s got his fingers crossed.

  Crespin looked up from his notepad again. Very well, he said with a condescending smirk. Your third demand?

  I’m going to enjoy this … “My third demand,” Lester said slowly and carefully, “is that I want you to come up here personally and kiss my ass.”

  What? The VP’s smile vanished. He shook his held in bewilderment. Pardon me, but I’m not quite sure I understood what …

  From the looks on the faces of the MainOps crew, it didn’t seem as if they believed that they’d heard him correctly either. “The way I figure it,” Lester said, “you owe me a little something. You sent me up here, deliberately expecting me to run the base into the ground. I take that as a personal insult. Then you reneged on the terms of the six-week probation period and didn’t give these guys their bonuses for meeting your own production quota, so that’s an insult to them.”

  Riddell shook his head. “That wasn’t very nice of you. But since I’m a nice guy, I’m willing to forgive and forget.” He paused. “All that you have to do is to kiss … my … ass.”

  Crespin glared out of the screen at him. Really, Lester, he said with infinite condescension. There’s no reason to be crude about this.

  “Crude?” Lester was already standing up. “Looky here, Kenneth. Let me show you crude.…”

  He then turned around, unbuckled his belt and unzipped his fly, pushed down his trousers and underwear, and bent over so that his buttocks were thrust straight at the camera lens.

  As everyone in Main-Ops whistled and hooted, he added, “No pun intended, Mr. Crespin, but this is called a full moon. Get it?”

  No reply. By the time Lester had straightened up and pulled up his pants, Kenneth Crespin had already switched off. Amid the applause and cheers, Lester smirked as he rebuckled his belt. “I think he got it,” he said to no one in particular.

  He then clapped his hands for attention. “Okay, listen up!” he shouted, and the uproar in MainOps gradually died away. “That was crude …”

  “But effective,” Baker added. More laughter.

  Lester grinned and held up his hand for silence. “But it doesn’t get us off the hook. The ball’s back in their court, and if you haven’t heard already, we’ve got a 1st Space RDF squad breathing down on us. TRAFCO can work out the exact ETA, but my guess is that the Valley Forge will be here within twenty-four hours. You know the game-plan and you’ve received your assignments. We’ve still got a lot to do between now and then, so let’s get to it.”

  A few more yells and a smattering of applause, but now the show was over and everyone was heading back to work. Lester needed a cup of coffee badly. He walked away from his desk, stepped off the dais, and was turning to head for the stairs when he came face to face with Susan Peterson.

  “Oh. Hi.” He hadn’t spotted her before now; she must have entered MainOps in the middle of his talk with Crespin. In fact, it was the first time he had been near her since just before he had found the party in Storage Two on Sunday night; it felt like a week had passed since then.

  “Hi yourself,” she said. There was a faint, coy smile on her face.

  And the last time you saw me, he thought, I was about to get drunk. Embarrassed, he looked down at his feet. “What’s up?” he asked, lacking anything else to say.

  “Well, your bare tush, for one thing …”

  “Oh, jeez,” he murmured, “you caught that.” The only thing hotter than his face was the lunar surface outside the windows. “I was just … I was trying to …”

  “Make a point. Right.” Still smiling, she shrugged her shoulders. “Nice ass, I’ve got to admit,” she added softly, stepping a little closer.

  “Uhhh, well …”

  Before he could stop her, she reached around him, in a way so that no one else could see what was going on, and gave his butt a little squeeze. “I think,” she whispered into his ear, “I know something better to do with that ass than show it off to a company vice-president, don’t you think?”

  Lester took a deep breath. “The strike …”

  Butch took her hand from his ass and laid a finger across his lips. “Can get along without you for a little while. Now c’mon. We’ve got a little unfinished business, you and I.”

  She lowered her hand and gracefully stepped around him, brushing her fingers across the back of his left hand as she headed for the stairwell. Lester looked around the operations center once more. No one was paying attention to them. Then, without looking back, he followed Butch to the entrance to MainOps and down the spiral staircase.

  Conjecture of a Time (Montage.3)

  Alone at last in the infirmary, Monk Walker meditates. The lights are dimmed, his surgical instruments, bandages, and anesthesia are laid out on sterile white cloths in readiness for the uncertain hours ahead, the hallway door is shut just for once to preserve the peace. Monk sits cross-legged on a gurney, rolling his string of wooden beads between his fingers. Alone, but not in silence. On the tape deck, a book-tape slowly spins, the crimson LED light sparking on and off as Kenneth Branagh recites from Henry V:

  “Now entertain conjecture of a time

  When creeping murmur and the poring dark

  Fills the wide vessel of the universe.…”

  Across the hall and down the corridor, behind the closed door of the general manager’s office, Lester Riddell slides Susan Peterson’s open shirt from her shoulders. Weak blue earthlight shines through the window, touching the raised nipples of her breasts. Her shirt rustles gently as it drops to the floor, joining the rest of their clothes at their feet. He gently cups his hands around her breasts and, as she draws him closer, starts to say something, but she shakes her head and wordlessly shushes him as she stands on tiptoe and places her mouth over his.…

  “From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night,

  The hum of either army stilly sounds,

  That the fixed sentinels almost receive

  The secret whispers of each other’s watch.…”

  In the EVA ready-room, suit techs move from empty hardsuit to empty hardsuit, prepressurizing air tanks, cleaning helmet faceplates, double-checking radios. Tomorrow there will be no time for the usual checkout routine; it must all be done in advance of the landing of the 1st Space Infantry. Kneeling in front of Airlock Two, an electrician consults the manual on the floor, uses a tiny screwdriver to make a final unauthorized adjustment to the pin-plate of the delicate electronic circuitry within, then shuts the service panel, picks up his toolbox and book, and heads for Airlock Three.…

  “Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames

  Each battle sees the other’s umbered face.

  Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs

  Piercing the night’s dull ear; and from the tents

  The armourers, accomplishing the knights,

  With busy hammers closing rivets up,

  Give dreadful note of preparation.…”

  Out on the lunar surface, beyond the barricades of gray-brown sand and rock surrounding the main airlocks, the last of Honest Yuri’s statues is gently unloaded from the bed of the truck on which it was carried from the Night Gallery. Six moondogs carefully haul the heavy, scowling demon dow
n from the huge-tired vehicle, gasping as they collectively struggle to set the scrap-metal creature upright on the soil. Farther away, within the walls of the newly risen battlements, two more moondogs find a place within the curled forms of the welded-aluminum lovers to place a slender round cartridge. It fits neatly between their touching bellies; the moondogs grin lasciviously at each other, and then one touches a switch on the bottom of the cartridge, causing a red LED to light. Nearby, Honest Yuri watches; the expression on his face is unreadable behind the silver mask of his helmet faceplate, on which are reflected the lights of other vehicles moving past him in the distance.…

  “The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,

  And the third hour of drowsy morning name …”

  Standing before a window in MainOps, Mighty Joe Young silently watches as the ’dozers and rovers, now freed from their other jobs, move into their strategic positions on the outskirts of the base. Around him, a skeleton crew of command personnel sit through their graveyard shift at their consoles, listening to their headphones, studying the rubric of code-numbers and code-letters scrolling up their flatscreens, occasionally glancing up—again—at the main screen on which the trajectory of the Valley Forge is displayed. Mighty Joe fights back a yawn. Almost as if by magic, a fresh mug of coffee appears in front of him, followed by the smooth touch of slender fingers at the nape of his neck. He looks around at Annie Noonan, smiles back at her, and takes the coffee mug from her hand.…

  “Proud of their numbers and secure in soul,

  The confident and overlusty French

  Do the low-rated English play at dice;

  And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night,

  Who like a foul and ugly witch doth limp

  So tediously away.…”

  The rec room is vacant, the corridors empty, the mess hall deserted. Those who are not working are in the dorms. In some niches, tense games of gin and poker are being played, to while away the long hours. In others, men and women turn restlessly in their sleep—tossing their blankets, pounding their pillows—or don’t sleep at all. In her bunk in 2-B, Tina McGraw stares up at the ceiling, feeling cool tears slide down her face as she silently weeps for a job lost, a career squandered. Above her, on level 1-B, Seki Koyama gazes at a postcard on his wall of Mount Fuji, hoping to gain courage from its formidable snowcapped cone, finding none except what little he can muster from within himself. Over in 1-A, Tycho dozes, wakes up, dozes, wakes up again to the sound of fingers tapping on a keyboard from somewhere down the row of niches. At first he thinks to get up, put on his shorts, stalk down there, and bang on someone’s door and tell him to cut-it-the-fuck-out. But then, just as impulsively, he decides that something important must be happening down the hall, so instead he rolls over and buries his shaved head beneath his pillow.…