The Blue-Haired Bombshell

by John Zakour

  HARV had a couple of theories about this, which shouldn’t be surprising as HARV has at least a couple of theories about everything. I guess when all you do is think all day it leaves you a lot of time to come up with ideas.

  HARV’s theory on Frisco was actually two pronged: First the aliens had a lot of scouts in Frisco posing as humans. HARV surmised that aliens (being intelligent as they were) tended to be drawn to the artistic nature of early Frisco. The other part of the theory dealt with the human aspect. The same qualities that attracted the aliens to Frisco were many of the same that attracted a large gay community to the area. HARV had concluded (and had some stats to back him up) that gay people get more things done than straight people. HARV attributed this to the fact that gay couples almost always have fewer children than straight couples, and therefore they are less tired and less distracted. As HARV put it, conceiving children through sex is a lot more fun and less time consuming than going through courtrooms and adopting. So heterosexual couples would naturally have more children in the short run which in turn would tire them out more in the long run. Thus, it was only natural that Frisco would excel in this brave new world.

  I wasn’t sure I agreed with HARV. I enjoyed arguing with him, though. It kept my brain fresh. I did have to admit though, he may have had a point.

  We got to the shuttle port, parked the car, and headed inside. The place was fairly empty. A quick glance around the desk area showed that for every Earther manning a position, there was a corresponding Mooner. An Earther and a Mooner at the check-in desk. An Earther and Mooner (and a really big guardbot) patrolling the door to the flight area.

  HARV informed me that we had actually beaten Sputnik and his entourage to the check-in area. They had just pulled into the parking garage and were at least three minutes behind us. That’s one of the advantages of traveling without an entourage (or luggage): you can move faster.

  I walked up to the ticket counter. The Earther employee greeted me. She was a small, older woman with her hair done in an old-fashioned bun. She looked out of place in a shuttle port to the Moon.

  ‘‘Good evening, sir,’’ she said with a kind smile. ‘‘Welcome to the shuttle port, the fastest, most efficient, and only way to go to the Moon.’’

  ‘‘Nice motto,’’ I said.

  ‘‘Do you have a reservation?’’ the lady with a bun asked.

  ‘‘I have a lot of reservations,’’ I replied. ‘‘Space travel seems so sci-fi-ish.’’

  She smiled at me. ‘‘Shuttle trips to the Moon are perfectly safe,’’ she said smile never leaving her face.

  ‘‘I’d like two tickets for the 6 A.M. flight please,’’ I said.

  The woman passed her hand over her control screen. ‘‘Very good sir, I’ll just need your and your traveling companion’s DNA scans.’’

  The employee held up a thumb scanner for me. I placed my thumb on it. A 3-D image of myself appeared above the lady’s control panel.

  ‘‘Ah, Zachary Nixon Johnson,’’ the lady said. ‘‘It appears you have enough credits to purchase this trip.’’

  The Mooner employee looked over at my image. She looked at me. She was a short, middle-aged Asian-looking woman. ‘‘I’m sorry Mr. Johnson,’’ she said. ‘‘That flight is full.’’

  The Earther worker punched a few buttons on her display. ‘‘Ah, no . . .’’

  The Mooner looked into her eyes. The Earth woman’s eyes glazed over. ‘‘Oops, my big boo-boo,’’ she said. ‘‘That flight is full.’’

  I heard the message ‘‘the flight is full, go home now,’’ in my brain. I ignored it.

  Carol, on the other hand, didn’t. She leaned forward. ‘‘You’re going to have to do better than that,’’ she said, directing her comment at the Mooner.

  My image floating about the screen morphed into HARV’s. He pointed at the Mooner woman. ‘‘I’m Mr. Johnson’s personal computer aide,’’ he said. ‘‘I have analyzed your reservations. The shuttle holds four hundred passengers and you have only booked ninety-nine spaces.’’ HARV’s image morphed to a layout of the inside of the shuttle cabin. Each of the empty seats was glowing and flashing ‘‘available.’’

  HARV leaned over like he was reading the Moon lady’s name tag. ‘‘Now, Miss Osborne, that would mean that there are actually three hundred and one seats available. Being a supercomputer I’m quite good at math.’’

  Miss Osborne was a bit taken aback. She obviously wasn’t used to having her mental commands rebuffed or arguing with a holographic supercomputer. By this time, I noticed Sputnik and his entourage had entered the building. That meant it was showtime.

  ‘‘Have you done the e-paperwork needed to make the trip to the Moon?’’ Miss Osborne asked.

  She was grasping at random bits and she knew it. She was just hoping that we didn’t know it. Of course, we knew that Earthers needed no paperwork to go to the Moon. It was totally open to all of us. It was quite a source of contention with Mooners that they needed to be cleared to come to Earth, yet any joe could go there. Even if I didn’t have HARV hooked to my brain I would have known this. Osborne must have known we knew this, but she had to try.

  ‘‘Ah, yes, good point,’’ she said, putting a finger in her collar to loosen it. ‘‘I forgot the Earth to Moon equality act hasn’t passed council yet.’’

  ‘‘Sputnik is watching,’’ HARV said in my head. That meant it was time to really pour it on.

  I pounded on the desk. ‘‘Listen, I am a tax-paying citizen of Earth,’’ I shouted. ‘‘Not only that, a couple of days ago I was a famous spokesperson. I demand to be let aboard this flight!’’

  I paused for a nano to weigh the crowd’s reaction. There wasn’t much yet so I pushed some more.

  ‘‘Perhaps I should call my friends in the media? I’m sure World Right Now, Instant Buzz, and News 2 Know would love to hear about this!’’ I ranted. ‘‘Maybe I’ll call my good buddy, Captain Tony Rickey of the New Frisco police force. I’m sure he’d love to hear about this abuse of my citizen of Earth rights.’’

  This caught Sputnik’s attention. He whispered something into the ears of his traveling companions. Just then I realized his entourage was made up almost totally of females. Out of the ninety-or-so members of his party, only four of them were males. It was mostly a blue-haired, Asian-seeming harem. I noticed Melda was directly behind Sputnik, along with another woman who looked like a younger version of Melda.

  Sputnik moved forward. He was average height but quite stocky. His hair was blond with streaks of gray and blue, eyes a steely gray, but nothing very notable about his face except for his handlebar mustache and his goatee. He looked like a cross between a game show host, used hover salesman, and coffeehouse poet.

  He held out his hand to me. ‘‘Why Mr. Johnson, how nice to finally meet,’’ he said.

  ‘‘He is so lying,’’ HARV and Carol both said inside my brain, though I didn’t need their kibitzing in this case.

  ‘‘The pleasure is all mine,’’ I said.

  ‘‘Gee, Zach, you could at least try to lie better,’’ both HARV and Carol said in my brain.

  Sputnik released my hand. I fought back the urge to wipe my hand on the side of my pants. ‘‘So, Mr. Johnson . . .’’

  ‘‘Call me Zach,’’ I said, trying to play nice.

  ‘‘So, Mr. Johnson,’’ he continued. ‘‘Why do you wish to go the Moon?’’

  ‘‘Always wanted to go there. Never had the time. I figure now’s the time, with my girlfriend there for this conference.’’

  Sputnik looked at me for a moment. One of his companions whispered something into his ear. He smiled.

  ‘‘Ah, yes, the lovely Electra Gevada, she is attending the ARC conference. I plan on addressing them tomorrow,’’ Sputnik said.

  ‘‘I’ll give Electra your regards then,’’ I said.

  ‘‘Really, Mr. Johnson, wouldn’t you prefer to visit our lovely Moon at a much less busy time?’’ Sputnik asked.

  �
�‘Nope.’’

  Melda moved forward with the younger version of herself trailing just behind.

  ‘‘Mr. Johnson, how nice to meet again,’’ she said.

  Sputnik shot her a glance. It was subtle look but I caught it nonetheless. He didn’t know that I had had contact with Melda before. He wasn’t happy. I just wasn’t sure if he was upset about the meeting or the not knowing.

  Melda focused her attention on Sputnik. ‘‘Dear, Mr. Johnson and I met while I was working on a project with Dr. Pool. Zach and Dr. Pool are old friends. Zach saved us from a couple of plants. We didn’t need saving but it was a bold gesture anyhow.’’

  ‘‘Yes, I’m in constant contact with Randy as well as my good buddy, Captain Tony Rickey.’’

  Melda locked eyes with Sputnik. There was some silence—she was sending him a mental message.

  ‘‘Perhaps you would like my computer to call them now?’’ I offered. ‘‘I’m sure they’d love to talk to you, Mr. Sputnik.’’ I pushed a button on my wrist communicator and HARV appeared before Sputnik and Melda.

  ‘‘I would gladly make the connections,’’ HARV said.

  ‘‘This is Mr. Johnson’s personal holographic assistant,’’ Melda told Sputnik. ‘‘He is very advanced.’’

  ‘‘Yes, I am constantly on and nearly impossible to override,’’ HARV bragged. Normally I’m not a big fan of HARV tooting his own horn, but in this case it helped make sure that Sputnik and his ladies didn’t try anything.

  Sputnik broke his eye contact with Melda. He turned toward me then walked past me and around HARV to stand directly in front of Ms. Osborne. ‘‘Give Mr. Johnson and his lovely traveling companion Ms. Gevada a complimentary flight on my account,’’ he said.

  Ms. Osborne lowered her eyes and looked at her control panel. ‘‘Of course.’’ She touched a couple of buttons.

  I turned my attention to Sputnik. ‘‘So, you know Carol?’’ I said.

  Sputnik grinned slightly and touched Carol on the cheek. ‘‘Of course. We on the Moon are very interestedin psionic individuals. My people tell me she is in the top 2 percent of Earth psis. Very impressive.’’

  ‘‘Thanks,’’ Carol said. ‘‘More like the top 1 percent of psis,’’ she corrected.

  ‘‘More like the top 5 percent if you count the Moon,’’ the younger woman traveling with Sputnik noted.

  Sputnik turned and smiled. This was a true smile, not a crocodilian political one. He held out his hand. The girl approached. She was slightly shorter than Melda but no less stunning; you could tell the two were either related or commonly cloned.

  ‘‘Mr. Johnson, Ms. Gevada, I’d like you to meet my daughter Lea,’’ Sputnik said.

  Interesting . . . I was sure Melda was the mother, but Sputnik wasn’t giving her any recognition. ‘‘Typical human male,’’ HARV ranted inside my brain. ‘‘Takes credit for everything.’’

  Lea moved past me as if I wasn’t there. She was intent on making her point to Carol. ‘‘On the Moon we psis are allowed—no encouraged—to practice openly. It lets our powers flourish. You’ll like it there,’’ she said to Carol.

  I wasn’t sure if that was a statement or an order.

  ‘‘My daughter is quite spirited and quite a promoter of our cause,’’ Sputnik couldn’t have been glowing anymore if he had just swallowed uranium.

  Lea took a step back, now focusing on me. She held out her hand up to my face. I assumed she wanted me to kiss it so I did.

  ‘‘You will like the Moon also,’’ she said, though this time it was more of a command. She looked up at me. ‘‘Just don’t stay too long or cause any problems,’’ she said without moving her lips.

  Her words passed right through my mental defenses directly into my subconscious. Before they could sink their claws in though another voice rang through. ‘‘Don’t listen to the little false princess,’’ the voice said. ‘‘She’s so conditioned by her father she can’t tell her ass from a donkey.’’ The voice was familiar. It was Elena.

  I looked up through the crowd of Mooners. Sure enough, Elena was bringing up the back of the line, just behind two gorillas carrying luggage.

  ‘‘Don’t fret, I’m sure I’ll enjoy my stay,’’ I said.

  I gave a polite tip of my fedora to Sputnik and his ladies. With that, Carol and I headed toward security so we could board the shuttle.

  Security was going to be the next obstacle. After all, I was traveling with a weapon up my sleeve. Sure it was a very hard to detect weapon. Plus HARV assured me that security to the Moon was extremely low. For some reason Earth Gov didn’t feel the need to provide a lot of security. Still, I hadn’t exactly made a lot of friends here and I thought security (being Mooners) would be tough on me.

  I walked up to the door leading to the concourse. A blue-clad security guard, a big box of a man, stepped out in front of me. ‘‘Are you traveling with any weapons?’’ he asked. He was flanked by a large guardbot on his left and another tall, older Mooner lady on his right. Her blue hair almost blended in with her uniform.

  My first instincts were to lie. I fought back that urge. I popped the Colt into my hand. ‘‘I’m carrying this,’’ I said. ‘‘I have a license to carry a weapon.’’

  ‘‘Sweet,’’ the male guard said, waving a scanner up and down my body. He looked at the screen on the scanner. ‘‘According to this, yes, you are registered to carry a weapon. Which means you may carry just one weapon on the Moon.’’ He looked at the screen and frowned. ‘‘Also, according to this, you’ve been known to carry a knife and an old-fashioned fire arm in ankle holsters.’’

  ‘‘I dressed in a hurry. No time to bring all my usual equipment,’’ I said.

  The guardbot extended a clawlike arm and started patting me down from my hips to my feet.

  ‘‘Careful around the midsection,’’ I told it.

  After a significant pat down the guardbot retracted its hand announcing, ‘‘He’s clean.’’

  ‘‘I hope your claw was,’’ I told it.

  It growled at me. I get that a lot from guardbots.

  ‘‘You may pass,’’ the human guard said.

  I walked by him. I turned and waited for Carol.

  The guard stepped in front of her. ‘‘Do you have any weapons to declare?’’

  Carol put a hand on her chest. ‘‘Please,’’ she said with just the right amount of disdain. ‘‘I’m a powerful psi. My mind is my weapon. I could tell you all to drop dead at my feet and you would gladly do so.’’

  The guard, the psi, and even the bot all gulped.

  ‘‘Pass, friend,’’ the guard said.

  Carol passed by the guard. We walked down the tunnel to the concourse together. Carol looked at me and winked. ‘‘I’ll give you your backup gun and knife when we get to the Moon,’’ she said in my head.

  I was just glad she was on my side.

  Chapter 19

  The Moon shuttle group was very efficient. They didn’t keep us in the waiting area for more than ten minutes before they boarded us on the shuttle.

  The shuttle itself reminded me of the old airplanes I used to ride as a kid, only a bit wider and the chairs seemed a lot more comfortable. The cabin was broken into two areas: a first class zone in the front that held 50 people and a regular class zone that held the remaining 350 people (though the allotted area was no bigger than first class). Where first class had twenty-five rows of big, comfy seats side by side, regular class had seventy rows of little seats two on one side of the aisle and three on the other.

  Carol and I were given the two seats farthest away from first class. The only good things about them was that they were near the bathroom and that there was nobody sitting between us. So at least we could stretch out a little.

  It didn’t take long for the rest of the passengers to settle into their seats. It took even less time for Carol, HARV, and me to deduce that Carol and I were the only two Earthers on this flight.

  Sputnik and his main entourage sat in th
e first class section. The gorilla baggage carriers and rest of the Mooners, including Elena, were spread throughout the remaining section of the shuttle. You could almost see daggers shooting from Elena’s eyes as she looked at Sputnik. Though her assigned seat was near the front of the cabin, she came back and sat near Carol and me. She didn’t talk to us but I had the distinct feeling that she wanted to.

  The robot pilot came on the intercom informing everybody that the flight to the Moon would be five hours, that we might expect a little choppiness leaving Earth’s atmosphere, but after that it expected clear sailing to the Moon. The hostessbots would be serving drinks and breakfast once we reached the ionosphere. I wasn’t all that thrilled with flying through space, but at least there’d be food.

  The shuttle was a strange beast. It took up off the ground vertically like a regular hovercraft. Unlike a hover, though, the shuttle rose until it reached five miles above the Earth. As we climbed, I looked down on New Frisco, watching it grow smaller and smaller. From this high up the city, lit by the rising sun, looked blurred, kind of like a hastily made quilt.

  Once the shuttle reached optimal height it stopped its complete vertical assent.

  The pilot’s robotic voice came over the com, ‘‘Passengers prepare for acceleration boost.’’

  I held onto my seat. Not sure why, but it seemed like the thing to do. Rocking forward, I felt the speed increasing faster and faster. The shuttle shuddered. I kind of liked the speed, kind of hated the shuddering. I glanced over at Carol who was looking at me. Carol was loving this burst of acceleration.

  Carol touched me on the hand, ‘‘Don’t worry, we’ll be fine,’’ she said. ‘‘Once we break out of the gravitational pull of the Earth you won’t even notice the speed.’’

  I sat back and closed my eyes. Not much else to do really. Just relax my mind. I said to myself.