by Neil Clarke
“Do I get O.J.T?”
She laughed. “Yeah. Sure.”
29 NOVEMBER 1979
The dark closed in as I stepped out of the airlock onto the surface of the Moon. Sunlight caught the tips of rim-wall peaks three thousand feet above me, but didn’t touch the crater floor. The only real illumination where I stood came from a scatter of lights on the assembly line and my helmet lamps.
Edie DuPree, my shift partner, waited. She had worked with me patiently for the past three days, showing me the ropes. First day, I asked about days off. DuPree smirked and shook her head.
“Read your contract,” she said. “Twelve hours on and twelve off. Seven days a week.”
With DuPree’s help, I learned to set up an ascent engine assembly while getting used to working on the lunar surface. To inspect a recycled RL-10 engine and attach it to the circular support structure. To test the pump tanks and fittings.
I felt confident I was ready to move on.
DuPree agreed. “You got your moon legs, Kerrigan. Let’s build an icicle.”
She waved me on. I moved with her, the low-gravity gait now familiar.
“Remember. Think through every move,” DuPree said, for the hundredth time. “If you don’t know, don’t pretend you do. You can kill yourself, if you have to, but for God’s sake don’t take me with you.”
“Got it,” I said. “Measure twice and cut once.”
“Right. Training’s over. We got to catch up for those three days. Odysseyburns at midnight on New Year’s Eve and we’ve got to finish filling her reaction-mass tanks before she leaves.”
“Why midnight?”
She looked at me as if I were a child. “The bad thing about leaving from Low Moon Orbit is that delta-V change in orbital planes creates a narrow window of opportunity. But it doesn’t have to be midnight. That’s pure show biz. They have to go at midnight because the President says they do, the People say they do, Corporate P.R. says they do. Paper puts up with anything.”
Ahead were four large cylindrical tanks, two of them three times taller than the other two. Ladders ran up opposite sides of each tank.
Over them, a stringer crane ran on a track to the launch area. The engine assembly we had worked on last shift waited in a cradle there.
“Casting tanks,” DuPree said, pointing to remind me. “The short ones for the LOX, tall ones for the liquid hydrogen. They poured one set yesterday after our shift and they’re almost finished cooling. The two at the end are complete. They pulled the cope, froze the caps last shift. Time to build the stack.”
“This whole thing still seems a bit nutty.”
“Yeah, but it works. Since we have to lift the water to orbit anyway, why not save on raw materials and make the water the fuel tanks? It’s fifty degrees absolute down here in the shadow. That ice is rock hard. We shoot it up to Odyssey where they melt it into the reaction tanks. Then they bring the engine assembly back down for another run.”
I looked around. “Where are the winch controls?”
DuPree held up her gauntlets. “Right here. The motor they sent up cracked a bearing from the cold, first month. The second one lasted sixty days. They’ve been promising a redesigned one for eighteen months. Until they send one up, we use muscle.”
“They didn’t mention that in training.”
“Lots of things they didn’t mention, trust me.”
Trust you? Maybe someday.
DuPree grabbed the chain dangling from the gang pulley and dragged the winch over to a short tank. I skipped to the tank. DuPree gestured toward a ladder. “Up you go.”
I hopped up the rungs. As I came over the top I saw the circular disk of ice that would become the top of the tank, looking like a raw glass casting for a big telescope mirror.
“Heads up,” DuPree said.
I grabbed the descending ring and guided it over the ice.
“Let me know when it’s about four inches below the upper edge.” I could hear the effort in DuPree’s voice.
“Down. Down. Down. Stop.” I said.
I saw the chain swing, slap lightly against the tank, and I expected to hear a clang. None came.
Stay alert. No aural cues.
DuPree’s helmet appeared over the opposite side. “Good job, good job. Ice looks good. You steady the ring while I lock it.”
I leaned forward, stretched my arms to each side, trying to get the ring at as even a height as possible. I felt it snug up.
“Hands clear,” DuPree said, grunting.
The ring settled into place.
“Sure it won’t slip and break?” I asked.
“It—oh. Ice. Remember. That ice is fifty degrees above absolute zero. It’s granite.”
“Copy that,” I said.
“Let’s get this baby out of the cradle.”
We both climbed back down.
I was surprised at how much effort something as simple as climbing a ladder at one sixth gee took. Something one of the Florida trainers had said popped into my head.
Half your work will be against the suit itself Take your time. The biggest danger is overheating, even if it’s cold outside. The Universe as Thermos bottle.
“Does the ice ever get stuck?” I asked.
“Once in a while. There’s heating coils in the tank wall just in case. Most of the time, it’s no problem. Let’s give this a try.
We both pulled on the chain. The compound pulley above us rotated smoothly.
“The ice expands when the water freezes,” DuPree said. “The tank’s designed for that. It contracts some as it chills down, enough to give you windage.”
Three more pulls. I looked up to see the ice peeking over the tank rim. “Looking good?” I asked.
“Lookin’ sweet.”
We continued pulling, a bit at a time, until the ice cylinder cleared the tank. “Okay, let’s slide this down to the engine mount.”
We took a step away and pulled. The winch resisted for a moment, then slid a few feet, ice dangling below.
“There’s a clutch fitting that won’t let it run free, not that you should trust it,” DuPree said. “Last thing you want’s for that sucker to take off on its own. Remember, weight isn’t mass. How you doing?”
“Five by,” I said. “Actually having fun.”
“That’s what the virgin said. By this time I’m a hooker.”
I grinned. “In it for the money, huh?”
A pause. “No, I see it as my own small contribution to mankind’s leap for the stars. Of course, I’m in it for the money. It’s my job. Besides, I’m not going anywhere.”
I remembered we were on an open circuit and made no reply. We slowly walked the ice down the hundred yards to the engine cradle, with not much more effort than pulling a child’s wagon.
“Okay,” DuPree said. “When we’re done, that hunk’s gotta be centered, true and flat. Let’s take our time.”
“Copy that.”
We moved the cylinder slowly over the flat circle of ice on top of the engine platform.
“Okay,” DuPree said. “I’m going to lower, you guide. Take your time. Get it right. Remember, that thing masses a lot more than it weighs.”
The placement went uneventfully. I guided with one hand, the way I had steered sections of concrete sewer pipe, two summers on a job during college. “We’re good, let it down.”
DuPree lowered it the last quarter inch, walked over to inspect. “Good. I just got to go up top to check if it’s level. Sometimes the casting can be off a bit.”
“Can I try it?”
I felt DuPree give me the once over from behind her visor. Finally, she pulled a bubble level out of a suit leg pocket and handed it over.
“I’ll hoist you up. Take cross measurements in the middle and at three points along the edge. Gotta be within a degree of vertical. The bubble’s ethane, shouldn’t freeze if you’re quick about it.”
DuPree hopped down past the cradle, grabbed a chain hanging from another pulley. Dragging it over
, she handed a hook to me.
“Hold on tight,” she said, and began hauling me up. A minute later I cleared the top of ice cylinder, let go of the chain and stepped onto the surface. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s try this.”
Bouncing to my knees, I put the level on the ice and studied the bubble. Less than half a degree. I inched sideways. Crosswise, dead center.
As I crawled toward the edge something hit me in the back. It wasn’t much, a tap, but I wasn’t expecting it. I fell forward. My chest hit the edge as I slid off the top, helmet down, toward the ground twenty feet below.
I opened my eyes and tried to sit up. “What the f—”
DuPree pushed me back onto the cot. “You’re inside, safe.”
The old line, Must be a definition of the word ‘safe’ I’m not familiar with,popped into my head.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Near as I can tell, when you let go the chain you must have given it a push. It came around and it caught you in the back.”
“I must have hit my head in the fall. It knocked me out.”
“First fall up here’s scary. Maybe you fainted.” DuPree offered a glass of something.
I accepted it, took a sip. It tasted like strawberry Kool-Aid. “The damned fall seemed to last forever.”
DuPree’s lips quirked. “Under three seconds, but no worse than falling four feet, back on Earth. Gives you a jolt, but it won’t kill you. Just don’t try it from the top of a fifty-foot hydrogen tank. That will kill you.”
Was it an accident? Did you try to kill me, DuPree? Or try to scare me?
I took another sip, collecting my thoughts. I wasn’t sure if I had pushed the hook and chain away or not. Either way, I’d have to be watch my step with even more care from now on.
“Just so you know,” I said. “I don’t faint from fear.” I swirled the liquid in the glass. “This stuff’s terrible. Got anything to dilute it with?”
“No alcohol allowed on the base.”
I looked at her. “And you call yourself a miner?”
DuPree grinned. She walked to a desk and opened a drawer, pulled out a plastic container and another glass. “Got a vacuum still out behind the Ruzic cryostats,” she said.
I held out my tumbler. DuPree cut the red liquid with the same amount of clear, then poured herself an equal dose. We touched glasses and drank. It was a surprise.
“I know it’s an old line,” I said, “But this is smooth hooch. Real grade-A moonshine, and I know my ‘shine.”
I polished off the drink in two gulps.
DuPree grinned. “If we ever get decent shipping costs, we could sell this stuff for good money, Earth side. Beats Stoli hollow.” She collected my empty tumbler. “Regs say you rest for rest of shift.”
“And let everyone think I’m a wuss and an incompetent?” I pushed up onto my elbows. “Get the medic to look at my pupils and let’s get back to work.”
“I’m all you get, so we go by regs. There’s no medic, not since the last one did walkabout three months ago. Never did find her and they haven’t shipped in a new one yet. Posey says it’s problematic finding tech staff. I figure the real reason is the Company’s too cheap to pay for one, this close to launch.”
“Posey does seem harried, doesn’t she?”
DuPree looked at her glass. She held the bottle out to me. I shook my head.
“Posey’s like one of those thought experiments I read about in high school. A perfect, frictionless, rolling bitch.” She knocked the drink back.
Later, I lay in my bunk, staring at the ceiling and sorting things out. Item: nobody would talk about Leatherman. Item: there was no evidence that what happened was anything but an accident. Item: It was remarkably easy to have an accident down here.
Posey could have done him in, or arranged it, if she had something to hide in her handling of the project and thought Leatherman was sniffing too hard. Her moonshadow-cold exterior might be cover for a deep insecurity. Or she might just be frozen to the core.
DuPree could have done it. She was hands-down the best roustabout on the surface; everyone I asked said so. Setting up an accident would be easy for her. The question was motive.
For that matter, any of a half-dozen miners could have done it. Bumping shoulders was easy here. The almost total lack of privacy, the grinding schedule, the seeming indifference of the Corporation to legitimate complaints. I’d arrested more than one man who had murdered because, “I didn’t like the way he looked at me.” When the moon was waiting to kill you just because you were here, nerves could get raw fast.
I had insufficient data. I had a long list of suspects with plenty of means, plenty of opportunity, even if motives were unclear. Shift change in four hours. The people I was getting to know would be all over me, razzing me for all they were worth.
Secretly glad it hadn’t been them who’d taken the fall.
3 DECEMBER 1979
Sit-down meals were served every six hours. I wandered into the dining room just after the purely arbitrary 12:00 noon GMT chimed over the public address system. An hour until my shift began. I paused at the door, sniffed and wrinkled my nose. I knew that smell.
Chipped beef.
At the hot table I picked up a plate and spooned what looked like lumpy wheat paste onto toast. At least there was salad. I’d asked DuPree where the fresh greens came from.
“Little bootleg greenhouse, next to the still,” she said. “I’ll show you when we get the chance.”
Last time the still had been in a side tunnel of the biggest mine. It seemed to move around.
I added instant mashed potatoes that looked like they’d been scavenged from old stores in a fallout shelter. There were empty chairs at a corner table with a fellow I had met a few days before.
He looked up as I approached. “Hey.”
I cocked my head. “You mind, Jake?”
He gestured acceptance. “Help yourself.”
I sat down.
“You ready to go home yet, Kerrigan?” he asked.
“You can call me Laura, Jake.”
“You do what you like. I’ll stick with Kerrigan. It’s less personal.” He turned his head to cough. “‘Scuse me.”
I heard home in Kadar’s voice. Eastern Kentucky or maybe just over the Tug River in West Virginia.
I took a mouthful of chipped beef. It tasted the way it looked. “Jake, you’re an old hand here. You’ve been up, what, two years now?”
“Twenty-three months, nine days and—” he looked at the clock on the wall. “—four hours.” He coughed again.
“Excuse me again.”
“You had a doctor listen to that?”
He shrugged. “The last medic told me I had sinus problems, just before she went walkabout. I figure I got Moon lung. The damned dust’s everywhere. Funny thing. I came up here to get away from the dust in the coal mines back home.”
Another thing they hadn’t talked about in training.
“Can’t the company do anything about it?” I asked.
“They could. They’ve talked electrostatic precipitators for years. That’s all they do. Talk. How long you sign up for?”
I chewed, swallowed, decided maybe it was time to lose a couple of pounds. “Year, option for two.”
“It’ll be two, trust me. There’s never enough return berths and the military up on Selene get priority. I’ve been on the wait list so long the ink’s almost evaporated.” He swallowed a mouthful of mashed potatoes and pushed his tray away.
“You know, you sound like Leatherman,” he said.
“Who’s Leatherman?” I asked.
“Who was Leatherman, you mean,” Kadar said. “Short-termer. Asked lots of questions, just like you.”
“What happened to him?”
“Up and disappeared ten days ago. We all marked it off to a walkabout. Sometimes it happens early like that. Scuttle now is they found him in an ice tank up in orbit. Hell of a way to go.” Kadar coughed again. “At least he got off this
rock.”
I toyed with a forkful of lettuce. “Didn’t anyone notice he was gone? I mean, there’s procedures. Hell, I memorized a bunch of them.”
Kadar waved his fork. “Sure, there’s procedures. There’s schedules, too. We ain’t met one of those since this operation started. Supposed to be three teams out working on the same rocket, round the clock. That’s what the rules say. We’re lucky to get one full team every shift.”
I sat silent, hoping he’d say more. He did.
“Leatherman probably slipped and fell in. It’s dark out there. Whoever his partner was must’ve figured he went inside for something. Next shift put the cap on. Before you know it he’s on his way to orbit.”
“No one looked?”
“No one looked because no one thought to look,” Kadar said. “There ain’t no procedure seventy-eight, paragraph fourteen. Look for a body inside the tank before sealing. “
“Who was his partner that day?” I asked.
Kadar studied me. “You ask a lot of questions, for someone who says she used to be a cop.”
I didn’t blink. “A guy got killed. You know how old habits are.”
Kadar leaned toward me. “Look, Kerrigan. This here’s a small place. But all that means, you got no room and no right to stick your nose into other folk’s business.”
He coughed, long and hard, hacked up dirty phlegm into his closed fist. When he found his voice it sounded rusty. “We looked everywhere, didn’t find him. Like I said, short-termers don’t go walkabout that much, but it happens. And life goes on.”
I wiped up the last of my gravy with a bit of toast. “How many have gone walkabout?”
“Ain’t answering no more questions.” Kadar pushed back his chair.
“You’d think that would free some return berths,” I said.
Kadar laughed, a thick, angry snorting sound. He scooped up his tray. As he shuffled away, he hummed a tune I recognized.
Sixteen Tons.
5 DECEMBER 1979
Two days later, standing behind a berm under a makeshift roof, I watched as the countdown neared zero. It was the second launch I’d worked on, the first I’d had a chance to watch, and the first time I’d worn my painted pressure suit.
