by Neil Clarke
“You settled in okay?”
“Yeah. Amazing how quick being tired all the time takes away the wonder of walking on the Moon.” He sipped his coffee. “Imagine how Jake feels.”
DuPree set her book aside. “He counts the hours he’s been here.”
“Yeah,” I said.
Anderson sat back and took another sip. “Poor guy don’t talk about anything except getting off this rock. I’m amazed he hasn’t gone walkabout by now.”
“Kadar’s tough,” DuPree said.
I nodded. “I grew up around anthracite miners. They bitch and moan and talk the ear off their union rep, but there’s a pride in those guys. They ride on their backs into a hole a mile inside a mountain and know damned few could take it.”
I forced down another mouthful of string beans, waiting.
“Uh-huh,” Anderson said. “He jabbers our shift away, going on about how we need to form a union, show solidarity.”
I pushed at the potatoes with my fork, decided against it; there were limits.
“Yeah, we could just put down our tools and strike, but what good would that do?” DuPree said. “If we make the ship miss its tick we’d lose the goodwill of the whole damned country. You’d have to be really desperate to try something like that.”
Anderson glanced at her. “What’s the line in Bobby McGee? You know. Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”
“Nuthin’, not nothing.”
He drained his cup and stood up. “Whatever. I got to take a leak and get out there or Posey will be down my throat so far she’ll see daylight out my butt.”
25 DECEMBER 1979
“Merry Christmas, Tom.”
The bright dot rose over the rim wall, farther to the east after the final adjustment to the orbital plane.
“Copy that, Laura. Have any presents for me?”
Garver was in a good mood. Six more days to launch and only one more icicle to be sent up. He would make his schedule.
“Work on the final piece of ice is underway,” I said. “And there’s time to do another if there’s a failure.”
“Music to my ears,” Garver said. “You’ve more than earned your prize. I’ll have you up here the day after launch and on your way to Earth shortly after that.”
“Uh huh.”
“You don’t sound excited,” he said.
“I am. It’s just—”
“You haven’t caught your man.”
“Yes. That’s it.”
“It doesn’t matter, Laura,” Garver said.
“Yes, it does!”
He changed the subject. “I’ve heard from Earth. Plans for the second Mars flight have been finalized. Construction will begin in ninety days. Launch in twenty-six months.”
He was getting excited. “It’s supposed to be faster, cut two months off the trip. The outbound leg will use hydrogen as a working fluid, bump engine efficiency to allow a bigger payload, including a lander this time. They’re going to hold a contest to name it.”
“As long as it isn’t Thumper. Will you build it?”
Garver cleared his throat. “They want a younger man next time.”
“What will you do?”
“I’m thinking about that.” He cleared his throat again. “You see the pickup from the telephoto camera we mounted for the launch?”
“I did.”
Selene Station was five miles from Odyssey in a following orbit. At a magnification of sixty the spacecraft appeared to be less than five hundred feet away. The orbital burn would be relayed live to Earth.
“It looks good,” I said. “But I’ll be with most of the crew in the bubble, watching naked-eye. Watching the crew as well.”
“No need.”
“The ship hasn’t launched yet, Tom. What did you find out about a rocket launch from down here?”
“There’s no danger.”
“Are you sure?”
“Damn it, there’s no danger! This conversation’s over.”
I stood, listening to static. He’d hung up on me.
31 DECEMBER 1979
Posey entered the west entrance locker room just as I lifted my helmet into place.
“Need some help?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said. “They claimed in training the suits are designed so a single person can dress herself, but I always struggle. It’s easier when you have a second pair of hands.”
Posey shrugged. “Everything’s easier if you don’t have to do it by yourself. That’s the manager’s motto.”
She stepped to a locker that held one of her four matching flowerpower-painted suits. She kept one at each airlock, along with a few plainwhite spares.
“Help me get into my suit first,” she said.
For a time we worked in silence, checking each other’s suit.
“Going out to watch the show?” I asked, as I slipped my head up into the helmet Zender held.
“Yes.”
The big fireworks display laid out at North Rim would be set off in less than two hours to mark the midnight launch of Odyssey. The first second of the first day of a new decade, to be forever celebrated as the moment Americans took their next step to the stars. Except for those nerds who insisted the decade would begin at 1981.
At least, that was the corporate line all the network news services pushed.
For the men and women at Rockefeller Base it marked a day more personal and important. Twenty-four hours away from work and a chance to party. Posey made a big deal out of it when she made the announcement at a mandatory meeting three days before.
“This is happening because of us,” she had said.
“Sure,” DuPree had hissed in my ear. “And next day we’ll all be back to work, good little drones pickin’ that cotton.”
“Did you hear me?” Posey asked. Her voice had taken on the hollow, mechanical sound of the suit radios.
“Sorry,” I said. “Interference. What did you say?”
“I said, I wouldn’t miss it. How about you? Why aren’t you already out there? Miss the trolley?”
“No. I figured to watch it on the television in the lounge, but the reception’s not very good.”
It was a lie.
I had planned all along to be close to the fireworks site but wanted to stop by the spot where I had hidden the case Garver gave to me. If I had to stop a last-minute assault, I’d would need a weapon and there was a gun in the case.
“There’s still plenty of time,” Posey said.
“How’s that?” I asked.
Posey tipped her helmet toward the glowing clock above the door. I looked, despite having a heads-up times display in her own helmet.
2240.
“We’ll take one of the loaders. One of the perks of being boss, travelling in comfort.”
“This can’t be right?” I said. “My heads-up says I’ve only got a quarter-tank of oxygen. I know I topped the tank when I came back in last work shift.”
Posey examined the gauges on the back of my life support pack. “I’ve got the same reading here. Everything looks okay. You must have forgotten.”
“No. That’s not possible. I’ve got to charge it.”
“No time,” Posey said. “Do it at the bubble. There’s spare tanks there and it’s only a fifteen-minute ride.”
“I don’t like doing that,” I said.
She set her own helmet into place. “Up to you, but if you want a ride—”
“Can I catch a ride, too?”
I turned toward the corridor entrance. The noises of the suits, the sounds of our voices and the worry over the low oxygen, had masked DuPree’s entrance.
“I don’t think—” Posey said.
DuPree already stood at her locker. She pulled her suit out and held it out to me.
“Help me with this, will you?” she asked.
“There may not be room,” Posey said.
I glanced at Posey. She looked like she had sucked on a lemon. “Come on, Posey,” DuPree said, as she s
crambled into her pressure suit. “Don’t be a bitch. I won’t take up that much room. We’ll be fine.”
At last, Posey nodded. She scooped up her gear bag. “All right,” she said. “Hurry. I don’t want to be late.”
We rolled along the crater floor at six miles per hour, following the twin circles of light from the headlamps. Not exactly racing speeds, but twice as fast as they would have managed, walking in the bulky pressure suits and the rover’s electric motors could keep up that speed for hours.
DuPree drove, at Posey’s suggestion. I sat next to her and Posey stood behind us, gripping the seat backs. I couldn’t hear so much as a whine from the vehicle, but felt the steady vibrations from the big electric motors that drove each of the six drive wheels.
“I need to make a stop,” I said.
“For what?” Posey’s voice sounded more authoritative on the suit’s radio. Deeper and richer.
“Something for the party. It’s around to the left.”
“Hope it’s something good.” I heard the amusement and disdain in Posey’s voice.
She probably thinks we’re going to the still.
“Over at the far end,” I said, pointing. “Back by the west corner. I’ll tell you when we get close.”
DuPree turned the vehicle and accelerated.
On foot, the cache lay eight minutes from the west lock. We covered the distance in just under four.
“Stop here,” I said.
I clambered from the rover when it stopped. I’d done a good job on the cache, set it near a concrete piling, so it looked as if it were a piece of the superstructure.
The tricky part was kneeling in the pressure suit. I eased into place, went to one knee and tapped in the four-digit locking code. When I pulled the box open, the compressed-air pistol and the four flechette rounds it carried were gone.
I glanced toward the loader. Posey and DuPree were deep in conversation, not paying any attention to me or my empty junction box. I locked the lid and loped back to the rover.
I thought of growing up in Pikesville, running with my brother toward the family’s Ford Country Squire station wagon, racing for the privilege of sitting up front with Dad.
“Shotgun,” I muttered, sourly, as I climbed back in next to DuPree.
DuPree engaged the rover’s six electric motors, the vehicle rolled away from the array.
Posey leaned close. “The pantry empty?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“If you hid a bottle there it would have frozen and exploded. I thought you knew better by now.”
“Yeah, you nailed it,” I lied.
I couldn’t figure it. No one knew about the cache. Had I said something I shouldn’t have? Had Jake Kadar or Mitchell Anderson twigged to my investigation in some other way?
Somehow, I’d miscalculated, revealed my intentions and led someone to my hiding place.
I thought I’d been so careful, though.
Time to change my plans. Whoever took the flechette gun had to be the one who planned to strike at Odyssey before the Mars ship moved out of range. And he would be waiting for me somewhere, with four plastic flechette shells filled with dozens of tiny steel darts.
The rover bounced across a rough stretch of floor, a set of rills. I glanced up, uncertain where we were, and saw none of the landmarks I’d learned over the last five weeks.
“I thought we were headed for the bubble,” I said.
“I am,” Posey said. “You’re not.”
I turned as much as the pressure suit would allow, trying to look behind me.
“Sit still,” Posey snapped. “DuPree’s doing what I told her to do. You need to do that, too. I’ve got the fancy gun of yours pressed against your friend’s left shoulder.”
“What’s going on, Posey?” I asked.
There was a teasing tone to the other woman’s voice I’d never heard before.
“Maybe I’ll tell you,” she said. “Maybe I won’t. Sit still for now and shut up.”
When we stopped, my heads-up display read 2300. An hour left until the fireworks display began. Odyssey was passing over the south pole, warming up the reactors for the engines. I worried more about the oxygen gauges. I had less than ten minutes worth of air left. Something had to be done soon.
“Get out, Kerrigan,” Posey ordered.
“You can’t—”
“I said, ‘Get out!’”
I clambered from the Rover. I felt brief resistance and heard a short, brittle snap. Before I could turn back to the vehicle I heard a scrambling sound through the headphones that could only be two people struggling in pressure suits.
“Jesus!” DuPree sounded panicked. “Jesus! You can’t do that!”
I turned in time to see Posey clawing at DuPree’s life support pack. A cloud of white vapor steamed around DuPree’s helmet, as if it were a cold day on Earth and she was breathing hard. She twisted and turned beneath Posey, at a disadvantage because of her position. I stepped toward the rover.
“God damn you,” Posey screamed, waving the compressed-air gun toward me. “Stay where you are.”
DuPree scrambled across the passenger seat on her belly, wallowing in the heavy suit. She kicked at Posey’s hands, fell from the vehicle, catching herself with her gloved hands before her faceplate hit the regolith. She pushed, staggered onto her feet and stumbled toward me, went to her knees an arm’s length away.
“She opened my tanks!” DuPree’s voice sounded distant and hollow. “The bitch opened my tanks! Shut it down, Laura, shut it down!”
I reached to the controls, fumbled my first attempt, but them managed to return the valves to the proper position. I glanced at the gauges. DuPree had just a bit more than fifty minutes-worth of air.
“DuPree to Rockefeller control. We’re low on oxygen, about an hour out to the northwest. Send help stat. We need help now.”
No response. I glanced at DuPree’s suit. The radio antenna had been snapped in half. Posey’s handiwork.
“They’re not going to hear you.”
Posey stood on the passenger seat, the pistol pointed at DuPree and me. “There’s enough antenna left for up-close communication, but no one beyond a couple hundred yards can hear you.”
“Did you kill Leatherman?” I asked.
“Back away,” Posey said. “Back away or you die right now.”
I helped lever DuPree to her feet.
“Did you kill him?”
“I said, ‘back up.’”
The two of us shuffled backward until we were almost a hundred feet from the loader.
“Come on, Posey,” I said. “Tell me. I want to know before I die.”
Posey maneuvered into the driver’s seat. “I didn’t mean to. It was an accident, but no one will believe that now. Not after I stuffed him into the ice.”
“Why did you do it?”
“The bastard was coming on to me. Christ, it had been over two years since I’d been with a man. And then he used me. I caught him snooping in my employee records. I thought he was a union rep. We argued and I lost it. I pushed him back and he hit his head on the wall. Freaking newbie couldn’t handle the gravity. I got him into a suit and cut the leg to make it look like an accident.”
“And now you’re going to kill us.”
She began to roll away. “No. The two of you just went walkabout. It happens a lot up here.”
We watched her head off toward the observation bubble. DuPree turned to me before the vehicle disappeared.
“How much air to you have left?” she asked.
“Five, maybe six minutes. You?”
“Almost half an hour.”
“Swell. You might be able to make it back to base.”
“Not without you. You know how to do a two-person emergency air transfer?”
“Yeah. But even if we split what we’ve got, we don’t have enough air to make it to the base in fifteen minutes. And if Posey’s as sma
rt as I know she is, we can’t make it to the bubble in that time, either.”
“Let’s get started on the transfer,” DuPree said. “We’re pushing the time needed, as it is.”
I turned to allow DuPree access to my life support pack. “But what good—”
DuPree interrupted. “You know that illegal still you’re always asking me about?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s no more than ten minutes’ hike away and I’ve got oxygen tanks there.”
DuPree had underestimated the distance to the still, either that or I was hyperventilating. My suit’s oxygen level indicator had dropped into the red by the time DuPree pointed to a small rounded mound. A buried sulfur concrete dome.
“There it is,” DuPree panted. “Told you we could make it.
There was no glass door, just the rotating lock. DuPree pointed that I should go first and it was no time to play Alfonse and Gaston. It still seemed to take forever before we were both inside.
We stood face to face, working each other’s helmet rings. At last, my seal popped and I could breathe. I finished removing DuPree’s helmet and leaned against a rough wall, sucking in breath after breath of oxygen.
The dome felt over-warm and the heady sour-mash scent of moonshine filled my nose. The dome wasn’t much larger than my quarters at the base habitat. Eight feet in diameter and filled with DuPree’s distillation equipment, it offered barely enough room for the two of us to stand, much less move. The dim light added to the sense of claustrophobia.
“Tight quarters,” I said.
“Yeah,” DuPree said. “But we’re alive. Come on. There’s more room below.”
“Below?”
DuPree tipped her head. I spotted a hole in the floor near the far sloping wall. I jockeyed around, twisting so that DuPree could move past me toward it. When DuPree started down the ladder, I followed. “Where did you get this place, Edie?”
“Lunar scrimshaw. I got off-hours work in return for a share of the ‘shine.” A small storage room lay below, down an obviously homemade ladder. Despite the metal shelves stacked full of supplies, the scavenged plastic barrels and the life-support equipment, there was enough space here to turn around without touching each other.
I pointed to the oxygen-charging port marked in vivid green. “Help me charge my suit, will you? I’m going after her.”
