"What?"
"I'm thinking that, uh … maybe we should call for help."
"Douglas? Are you all right?"
"This is awfully rough. On Charles. On Bobby." He hung his head. "On me too. I almost didn't make it up the wall either. We can't keep taking chances like this—" He looked up, looked across at him. "How do you feel?"
"I'll go along with whatever you decide." And then he added, "I think the safety of you and your brothers comes first."
Alexei was looking down the other side of the wall. He was looking at his PITA. He wasn't looking at us. He said, "I understand your fears. But you are doing all right. Hardest part is past us now. Is all downhill from here. If you choose to go on."
Douglas ignored him. "How long do you think it would take them to get to us?" he asked Mickey.
Mickey shrugged. "We're close enough to Gagarin Station. They could have a boat out here in three hours. But we'd have to climb down to someplace level."
"Yeah, I already figured that out."
"Did you think about the marshals?" Alexei asked.
"What about them? They were waiting for us at Farpoint. We're beyond that now. Aren't we?"
Alexei shrugged.
"Aren't we—?" Douglas repeated.
"Possibly. Possibly not. Probably not." He took a breath. "Most certainly, I think not. There are bounty marshals on Luna. It takes only a phone call from Farpoint to North Heinlein or Asimov or Armstrong or … Gagarin."
"Gagarin?"
Alexei shrugged. "Is possible." He took his hand out of his glove to scratch his chin. "Is certainly a logical place to start looking for me. Maybe not you. That's why we drop pods everywhere. So they have no way to know which where to start. Remember, they don't know that I am with you. They might figure it out, because I am not at Geosynchronous anymore. But they have no way to know for sure. So Gagarin could look like red herring. Is inconvenient to get there from north. Only one train line. They would have to take transport. They might not do that on a wild-moose chase. Might check easier targets first. Whole point is to go where it is too inconvenient for marshals. That makes time to keep going, stay ahead of them."
I kept waiting for Douglas to turn to me, to ask me what I was thinking, but he stayed focused on Mickey.
And meanwhile, Alexei nattered on. "But let's play thought experiment game. Say we send signal. Everybody knows we're here. All over news instantly. No secrets on this rock. Rescue boat gets here in three hours. Maybe less, but don't cross fingers before they hatch. Fifteen, maybe thirty minutes to transfer us into boat and get up again. They are in no hurry. They will follow procedures. We take three hours back to Gagarin or wherever else they choose to take us. You figure it out. If Gagarin, that gives marshals six hours from time of distress call to intercept us. Anywhere else, even longer."
"Is six hours good or bad?" I asked.
"If marshals are serious about catching you, they can get to anywhere on Lunar surface within two hours. They have fast transport. Is not impossible. Depends on how many marshals, how desperate they are, how much confusion from big blue marble."
Douglas didn't say anything to that. Neither did Mickey.
"If you want to send distress call, Douglas, I will understand; but I promise, if marshals want you bad enough, then there will be marshals waiting for you. But if you send distress call, I will not wait with you. I will go on without you. We have broken many laws getting here. But they do not know for sure I am here, and I already have many alibis." He sighed. "This is part of why I put you into money-surfing web. So if something bad happens and you get caught, all the money used to purchase six pods will look like your own. My hands are washed. Lawyers will argue that purchase of all six pods and evasive trajectories was intent to escape legal warrants waiting at Farpoint. They will tie you up in paper." He made a face. "So, no, I do not advise calling for help. It could get very ugly for you."
That almost sounded like blackmail. Like fat Senor Doctor Hidalgo, who'd almost threatened us too. Even behind his goggles, even bundled in his poncho, I could see that Douglas didn't like what Alexei was saying.
He turned back to Mickey. "Say we go back down to the crater floor. How long would that take? Fifteen minutes? Thirty? We could all get into the inflatable and wait for them, couldn't we?"
"Is better to go forward," said Alexei. "Better landing site on this side." No one paid him any attention.
"Is that what you want to do?" Mickey asked Douglas.
"What I want … and what I have to do are two different things. I have to think about Bobby and Charles first."
"Um-?" I said.
Douglas shook his head, dismissing me. "No, Chigger. I have to make this decision for all of us."
"Well, that didn't take long."
He looked up sharply. "What didn't?"
"For you to break your promise."
"What promise? Oh—"
"Yeah. That promise." To Mickey, I said, "That he wouldn't make any more decisions for all of us without talking to me."
"Chigger." Douglas put on his patient grown-up voice. It was scary—because for a moment, he wasn't Douglas anymore. He was someone else. "I'm really scared here. You nearly got killed. And I nearly didn't make it up either. We're not trained for this. I'm sorry. This was a mistake. I'm sorry for getting you into this. We should stop here—"
"You sound just like Dad," I said angrily. That was who he'd become. "Remember when he told us he was leaving. How he wouldn't stop apologizing: 'What I want and what I have to do. We made a mistake. I'm sorry. I have to call it quits before it gets worse. Blah blah blah.' And remember how we all felt? We were so angry, because we wanted him to keep trying, just a little bit more—"
"This isn't the same."
"Yes, it is. It's quitting. Dad taught us how to be quitters. Real good."
"It's surviving."
"Yeah, Dad said that too."
"You have a better idea?"
"Yeah, I do. Let's keep going. We can quit anytime. We have to go down the mountain anyway. Let's go down and see how we feel when we get to the bottom."
Douglas looked to Mickey. Mickey shrugged. "He's right. We have to go down, no matter what. And we have enough air. We don't have to decide here. You want to think about it?"
Douglas looked at me. Even though his eyes were hidden by his dark goggles, I could see he was annoyed. He didn't like being backed into a corner. Not by me, not by Alexei, not by Mickey. But he was always logical, and that was his real strength. So finally, he nodded, and said softly, "All right, we'll wait."
Mickey put his hand on Douglas's bubble, as if to touch his shoulder. "Can you make it down? Or do you want me to take Bobby?"
Even though I couldn't see his expression, even though his body language was hidden by the poncho, I could see he was tired. I could hear it in his voice. "No, I'll take him. But when we get down, we need to rest—maybe even a nap?"
Mickey and Alexei exchanged a glance and nodded to each other.
"Turn heaters back on, please. Everyone take a little fresh air," Alexei said. "And we will start down the other side."
"Wait a minute—" I said. I could finally see clearly again. I stepped out into the sunlight, as close to the edge as I dared. I looked back down into the crater we'd just climbed out of. It was deeper than Barringer—and wider. But I wasn't afraid of it anymore. It was just scenery. It looked like a Bonestell.
I stepped back away from the edge, back into the shadow. "All right, I'm ready."
Alexei reached over and slapped my hands with his. "Good job, Charles Dingillian. We go now. Da?"
"Da."
IN CONTROL
The funny thing, Douglas was right. This was too dangerous for us. This was a mistake. It had been a mistake from the beginning. It was a whole cascade of mistakes—Mom's, Dad's, Mickey's, and all the lawyers and judges who'd stumbled into this with us.
But most of all, it was our mistake. And everything we were doing now was only making i
t worse. We were getting farther and farther away from help. Every step we took was only making it harder for someone to find us and rescue us.
And then there was that business with Alexei. The more I thought about what he'd said, the more it pissed me off. He'd threatened to abandon us. He'd gotten us into this and he wasn't going to help us get out—not unless we did it his way. And I didn't like that. And probably neither did Mickey and Douglas. But none of us were talking about it, so maybe that was even more evidence how serious this was.
Or maybe Alexei was right. He was a smuggler and a spy and God knew what else. He knew this stuff. He knew the dangers. And, supposedly, he knew how to avoid them. Maybe it was just an overdose of wunderstorm and we were getting panicky.
And then we started down, and there wasn't a lot of time to worry.
The way down didn't look as easy as the way up. Alexei had brought us to a place where the rim walls of two overlapping craters intersected. Most of the slope below us was hidden by long sideways shadows. Even so, we could see that the way down to the floor of the second crater was a broken avalanche of ugly rock. It was a rubble-strewn slope, gashed by several nasty chasms.
I didn't see how we were going to negotiate it—maybe by jumping from boulder to boulder? But it turned out to be a lot easier than that.
Alexei retrieved the grapple-dart from where it had secured itself and wound up the cord carefully; then he reloaded the dart gun and sighted down into the rubble and beyond, marking the range to the distant silver plain. He muttered to himself in Russian and I got the feeling he was doing some complex calculations in his head.
Finally, he made a decision. He sighted down into the rubble, tracking the laser dot as far as he could toward some distant landmark. Then he aimed the pistol forty-five degrees upward, and fired. The grapple-dart flew up and away, trailing the cord after it in great un-curling loops. As before, it glittered in the sunlight, yellow against the black sky above.
The dart arced over and down into the gloom below, and as the line fell back into shadow with it, it began blinking out along its length. As before, we had to wait until the butt of the dart-pistol confirmed that the grapple-dart had secured itself.
Now Alexei looped the other end around a convenient boulder and began pulling it as tightly as he could. Periodically, he'd turn and look down into the gloomy crater below with his goggles set for light-enhancement. Then he'd grunt and resume tightening the cord. Mickey helped him. When they were done, we had a Lunar zip line.
"All right, Mikhail, do you want to go first? Or should I?"
"I think you'd better."
Alexei nodded agreement. "I think so too. All right, Dingillians—this part will be easy." From his equipment pack, he produced four little wheels with handles, he handed one to each of us. "Use your grabbers. Click right grabber here, reach up, put wheel on line, click left grabber here. Once you are clicked, you cannot fall off. So enjoy ride. Pick up feet, hold knees as high as you can, ride line all the way down to bottom. Is long way, da! So do not go too fast. Twist handles this way for braking, wheel will slow. Twist other way to release brake. Is good idea to control speed all the way down, especially for beginners. When you get near end, you will see ground getting closer. That is time to go very slow. Even slower than that. Slower than very slow. Do not scrape bubble suit. You will do fine. I promise. Is great fun and best way to go anywhere on moon. Any questions?"
I raised a hand.
"Yes, Charles?"
"Did you do this on purpose?"
"Do what?"
"Choose the bounce-down sight so far from where we have to go? I mean, couldn't you have brought us down a little closer?"
"I could have, yes. But I wanted the bad guys to look somewhere else. So we hike a little bit and they go to look in six places much farther away. By the time they don't find us, we will be past wherever else they think to look. If I did not think you could handle this, Charles, I would not have used this plan." He added thoughtfully, "I make this plan a long time ago, I am very proud of myself that it works so well. You should be proud too—that you are strong enough to keep up. We are almost on schedule. Wait for my signal. I will call you down as soon as it is safe. Hokay, any other questions? No? I see you all on the bottom." He swung his wheel over the line, clicked onto the handles, kicked off with his feet, and sailed away over the edge.
"Waaaaaaaa-haaaaa! Hoooo-hooooooooo-hooooooooo eeeeeeeyyyy!" He wailed all the way down—or at least as far down as he had the air to shriek. He floated down across the Lunar landscape like something out of a bizarre dream—a silver sprite in a shimmery ball.
And then there was silence. It stretched out for the longest time.
The three of us looked at each other.
"Why doesn't he say something?" I asked.
"Maybe he's concentrating on his landing," Douglas said.
"What if he fell off?"
"He can't fall off."
"What if the bottom of the line is in a jagged rock field and he got punctured before he could warn us? What if it's not safe to go down after him?"
"Charles, stop scaring yourself. Nobody else is going down until Alexei tells us it's safe."
"But if something happened to him—?"
"Nothing happened to him," said Douglas.
We both looked to Mickey.
Mickey was studying the PITA on his wrist. "His signal is clear. His readouts are green. He's alive. He's just not talking. At least, not to us. He might be calling ahead to someone else. Not to worry."
We waited in silence. I looked at the Earth for a while. It hadn't changed its position in the sky. And the terminator line didn't look all that different from before. Most of Africa was still waking up. To another horrible day. We'd only been traveling two hours. We still had a long way to go.
And then, the worst thing of all happened.
Stinky woke up.
And announced, "I gotta go to the bathroom. Where are we?"
Mickey and Douglas and I all groaned at the same time.
"Can you hold it?" said Douglas.
"No," said Stinky. "I gotta go right now!"
"Uh-oh—" I said. I knew that tone of voice.
And in that same instant, I had a chilling insight about Stinky—and why he was the way he was. I was only angry at Mom and Dad. But Stinky was angry at everyone. It was about control.
Everybody in the family had authority over him. Everybody older had power. He had none. There was only one thing he could say to bring everything else to a stop. There was only one thing he could do to seize control.
And every time he did, everything else came to an immediate stop. At that moment, his single declaration became the ultimate power in the family. Whenever things were totally out of control—there was Stinky demanding, "I gotta go now." If nothing else, he could always be depended on to focus the dilemma on himself.
Without even thinking about it, I stepped over to Douglas. "Stinky! Can you hear me?"
"Yes. Where are you, Chigger?"
"I'm right here." I reached over and pressed against the back of Douglas's bubble, patting the bulge on his back that I assumed was Stinky. "Feel that?"
"Yes. I gotta go!"
"Listen to me. You've got to hold it. If you go now, you'll have to sit in it for six hours, for the rest of the day. And you won't be able to escape the stink. Is that what you want?"
"But I really really gotta go! I mean it!"
"Wait a minute—" That was Douglas. "Maybe I can work something out in here. Bobby, can you wait a minute—I've got a bathroom bag. You'll have to climb down from my back—"
"I'm all tied up, I can't get out. I gotta go."
Mickey said, "Can you turn around, Douglas? I'll invert the gloves and untie him. Or do you want to use the inflatable?"
"Bobby!" I said. "Which do you want to do first? Go to the bathroom or ride the roller coaster?"
"What roller coaster?"
"The one right here. The Lunar roller coaster.
"
"I can't see it. Douglas has his blanket over me."
"Do you want to go on the roller coaster?"
"Yes!"
"Can you hold it—?"
"Um … "
"'Um' isn't good enough. Can you hold it?"
"I'll try—"
"'I'll try' isn't good enough either. We have to know. Can you hold it for a few minutes more? Yes or no."
"Yes."
Mickey turned to me. "Charles, we can do it here. Douglas can take care of him in the bubble. Or they can go into the inflatable."
"Mickey, he went to the bathroom back in the pod, just before bounce-down. He doesn't have to go—not as badly as he says he does. He hasn't eaten anything in the last twenty-four hours, he doesn't like the MREs. And even if he had eaten, he'd be constipated anyway."
"And what if you're wrong?"
"I've spent the last eight years monitoring his bowel and his blad-; der. After you've cleaned him up a couple of times, you start paying attention to these things."
Mickey wasn't convinced. "He sounds awfully insistent to me."
"He does this everywhere," I explained. "At home, in the car, on trips. Nobody else can ever use the bathroom if he doesn't want them to. If he's not the center of attention, he's gotta go. He does it to escape spankings. He does it to get me in trouble. And he did it at Barringer Meteor Crater—you heard about that?—because somewhere he's figured out that announcing that you have to go to the bathroom is the reset button for reality. You notice, he hasn't said a word for the past two minutes? If something interesting is happening, he forgets he has to go."
Right on schedule, Stinky piped up. "I wanna go on the roller coaster!"
Mickey turned back to Douglas. "What do you want to do?"
"Chigger is right. Let's keep going."
"We haven't heard from Alexei—" Mickey fiddled with his phone. "Alexei—? Can you hear me. Respond please?" To me, he said, "It's a long way down. If he went slow—"
"He could still answer, couldn't he?" I bounced up and flipped my wheel over the cord, clicking my grabber onto the other handle with an ease that surprised me. I was getting used to this stuff.
Bouncing Off the Moon Page 10
