by Neil Clarke
DuPree didn’t move. She studied me for a moment, her mouth set in a hard, straight line. “You’re still law, aren’t you?”
No more lies.
I shrugged. “I wasn’t when I came down here five weeks ago. I lost my badge, back on Earth. This job was the best I could line up.”
“And now?” DuPree asked.
“They offered me my badge back, just before I dropped from Selene Station, if I could find out who killed Leatherman.”
“That’s all?”
“I was supposed to stop the sabotage, too.”
“And now?”
“Got the word this morning I had my badge back, if I wanted it. I’m going to use it to arrest Zender. Jake Kadar, too, if he’s still alive. And I’m going to make sure there’s a trial, so everybody back on Earth sees what’s going on here.”
“Okay.”
DuPree fiddled with the oxygen fittings. I watched the dial as the marker began to move away from the big letter E.
The seconds ticked past. I watched the oxygen gauge climb toward full. The dome didn’t feel so over-warm, anymore. I listened to the ticks and hisses of my suit, the creaking of the dome’s equipment, and imagined what I might say to my father when this was over, if I still was alive, if I told him I wasn’t going to take back the badge.
“I thought you killed him,” I said, after a time.
“I figured as much,” DuPree said. “My old man always said I had that sort of face.”
“Your father?”
“Naw. My husband.
“You’re still married?”
“Uh huh, but you couldn’t prove it by that asshole. He went out for milk one night and didn’t even send back the change.”
I grunted once, almost a laugh. “It’s better that everybody knows what’s what here.”
“If you say so. I don’t figure it’ll make any difference.”
DuPree fiddled with the fittings again. I glanced at my heads-up display. My tanks were full.
“Help me with mine,” DuPree said. She turned her back to me.
I began to set the lines. “When you get back to the base—”
DuPree interrupted. “Hell with that,” she said. “I’m coming with you. Wouldn’t miss this for a ride to Mars.”
Down on Earth a billion people were looking up at the full moon. Gliding up its face from south to north Odyssey was visible only in the mind’s eye, approaching the moment its nuclear engines would ignite over the moon’s north pole.
The exhaust of the first fireworks rocket limned a fiery trail across the black void above North Rim. It exploded into an incandescent boll of rich green light that faded into nothingness.
“A waste of time and money,” DuPree muttered. “No one on Earth will be able to see anything with the naked eye.”
“There’ll be a lot of people out with telescopes,” I said. “And the cameras on Selene Station will pick it up. It’s all part of the celebration.”
“Part of the propaganda, don’t you mean. Lot of good a trip to Mars is going to do us. That senator from Massachusetts, the guy who ran against Nixon, has it right.”
“Kennedy?”
“Yeah, that’s the guy. He says we ought to be spending the money to do some good at home.”
“I suppose.”
I hadn’t ever really thought much about it while I wore a badge. I had left the politics to others and focused on my work. For all the good that did me.
It had taken us the better part of twenty minutes to hike from DuPree’s hidden still to North Rim. The fireworks began on the dot at 2350, just as we crested a small ridge. The vantage offered a spectacular view of the display area, as well as the plain below where the techs bustled about, overseeing the detonations.
Jake Kadar was down there somewhere.
My inclination was to head down into the bustle, figure out which one was Kadar when I got there. Whether or not Garver thought much of the notion of a rocket launch aimed at Odyssey, I was convinced that was what Kadar planned.
Even so, Posey most likely waited in the portable bubble set up beyond the fireworks. She was an admitted murderer, premeditated or not. By all the rules, I had to go after her first.
DuPree had already started for the bubble. She stopped and turned, when she realized I wasn’t with her.
“You okay?” she asked.
Even through the headset, I heard concern. DuPree didn’t know about the planned rocket launch, though. Or maybe she did. Just because she wasn’t responsible for Leatherman’s death, didn’t mean she wasn’t involved in a conspiracy against the Mars ship.
“Yeah,” I said. “Just fine.”
DuPree waved a gloved hand. “Come on then. Let’s get that bitch.”
The fireworks show continued as we hiked across the plain, each shot more intense and colorful, more crowded with launches than the one before.
The finale launched just as we reached the bubble. The dome looked like half a giant soap bubble anchored to a flat expanse of regolith at the edge of the crater rim, fifty feet across and twenty feet high at center.
Two doubled sheets of sixty-gauge clear polyvinyl chloride formed the structure, one giant bubble within another and separated by a six-inch air space. The airlock was sealed within a plastic sleeve.
Its walls offered a clear view, as wave after wave of rockets climbed into the void, leaving dissolving lines of colored fire behind. Then they blossomed, a fast-fading bouquet of multi-colored globes of fiery light.
And as the sky turned charcoal black again, a brilliant star rose over the southeastern horizon as Odyssey reached for the zenith as it had so many times before.
About ten degrees above the rim the point of light appeared to grow much brighter. Five minutes from the pole Odysseys engines fired, beginning the burn that would break it free from orbit and send it on its way to Mars.
Inside the clear bubble, the crowd of suited figures went wild. They might all be cynics, like DuPree, might think the Odyssey a work of hokum, but the sight of that star, that massive vehicle underway, a thing they helped make possible, stirred their souls.
The sounds of celebration filled my suit’s headset; we were close enough now for reception. I felt a shiver tiptoe up my spine. Only five weeks on the job, but I felt the need to cheer.
“Go. Go. Go.”
I helped make that happen.
“There!” DuPree breathed, pointing. “There she is.”
Sure enough. I spotted Posey’s distinctive pressure suit near the center of the clear plastic dome. Like the others, she had her back to us, to the pre-fab airlock, looking overhead.
DuPree grabbed at my arm, but before she took a single step toward the lock I glanced down into the maze of metal frames that had supported the launching tubes. The other workers were headed up the rim slope to the bubble, but a single suited figure remained below.
A skull-and-crossbones pattern. Jake Kadar.
As I watched, he raised a massive tube to his shoulder and pressed his helmet to a mechanism set at an angle atop the tube. It had to be the aiming sights. The tip of the tube traced ahead of the path of Odyssey across the heavens, then a gout of fire belched from the rear of the tube, and another rocket streaked into the sky.
“Jesus, what was that?” DuPree said.
There had been no cloud of dust, of course. The crew had cleared the floor of North Rim down to bare rock, but there still was reaction. Kadar rocked in place, buffeted by the blast, pulled off his feet but he didn’t fall.
“He anchored himself in place,” I said.
The man came prepared.
“Is that Kadar?” DuPree asked.
The rocket trail stretched toward where Odyssey would be in a few minutes.
“Looks that way,” I said. “He’s shooting at the ship. Let’s hope his aim was wrong.”
I wondered if Garver saw it, from his vantage point on Selene station, a dimmer star slowly separating from Odyssey. And I wondered if he still was unconcern
ed.
Finally, after what seemed eternity, though it couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds, the exhaust trail snuffed out. I began to count. As I reached forty-two a massive ball of white light appeared, more intense, more threatening than anything that had come before.
“Did he get his hands on an atom bomb?” I asked.
DuPree sounded excited. “That wasn’t an a-bomb.”
“You knew about it?”
“No. It wasn’t nearly bright enough. You’d have been blind now if it was.”
“Jake wanted to destroy Odyssey. “
“I don’t believe it. He helped build the damned thing, why would he want to blow it up? Besides, that bit of pyrotechnics went off at least thirty miles below the ship. Either someone miscalculated—”
“—or it was a scare tactic.” I looked up again. Odyssey was almost directly overhead. Normally it would begin to move toward the northern horizon, blinking out as it moved into the moon’s shadow. But it was falling slower, and yet slower, as it moved out of orbit, picking up steam.
There was a voice on the radio, the ship commander. “All systems nominal.”
“Damn,” I said. Too much was going on at once.
DuPree pointed. “Jake’s on his way up here now. Bet he wants to turn himself in. Bet he wants to be arrested, get some attention. Somebody’s got to talk about conditions here.”
“I’m not worried about him,” I said. “Watching Kadar, I forgot about Posey.” DuPree turned toward the dome. Most of the folks inside still watched Odyssey. Some were high-fiving and slapping each other on the back. A happy babble filled my headphones. But Posey Zender, her suit painting unmistakable, stood with her back to the others, her attention riveted on me and DuPree.
“Stay out here,” I said. “She’s got my gun.”
“To hell with that. I want a piece of her.”
And DuPree hurried after me toward the lock.
The crowd turned as I swept through the air lock. Thick interlocking rubber mats covered the floor. Electric heaters sat at the cardinal compass points. A head-high screen hid the sanitation units. Someone had stenciled a crescent half-moon upon the screen.
A portable air generator, identical to the unit in DuPree’s distillery, sat near the airlock. Power for the lights and all the equipment fed from a cable leading back to a junction box below the solar arrays near the habitat. Nothing fancy. Still it was cozy and the four heaters, along with all the people in the bubble, kept it comfortable.
At first glance, the image of a herd of pregnant aliens popped into my head. The gathered technicians and miners still wore pressure suits, but had removed their helmets and clipped them to their suit fronts on quick-release rings.
Behind me, the air lock whooshed and the dome’s plastic surface rippled, as DuPree came in. Posey took a step back and pulled the air pistol from a suit pouch at her hip.
“She’s got a gun,” someone shouted. “Posey’s got a gun.”
The crowd pushed back even more, those in the outer edges pressed against the flexible walls.
“Fancy seeing you two here,” Posey said. “I didn’t think you would be by.”
“Put down the gun, Posey,” someone suggested.
“Where did she get a gun?” someone else asked.
I eased toward Posey. “If you fire that in here and miss, you’ll open up the bubble. A lot of people could die.”
“Everyone put on your helmets,” Posey said.
“She tried to kill us,” DuPree said.
The crowd rumbled even louder. DuPree ignored them, moved forward, too, but eased away from me. I waved her on. If we made it difficult for Posey to see both of us at once, we might stand a chance of disarming her.
“Don’t listen to her,” Posey shouted. “They both want me dead.”
Technicians and miners alike glanced back and forth between us. Some people had already slipped on and sealed their helmets, but most stood waiting, helmets in hand.
“Who are you going to believe?” DuPree demanded. “Me or Posey Zender?”
I shuffled to the left, adding distance between her and DuPree. Posey made a choice and turned with me. The crowd rotated with us, looking like a bunch of extras in some old Keystone comedy.
“What’s going on?” someone asked.
“Posey killed Leatherman,” I said.
“I thought that was an accident.”
So everybody knew after all.
“It was Posey,” DuPree said. “And an hour ago she tried to kill me and Kerrigan, drained our tanks and left us to die afoot.”
“I have it all on tape,” I said.
I didn’t, but Posey didn’t know that. Maybe it would stir the pot.
It worked. She pointed the pistol straight up.
“Get your helmets on,” she shouted. “I’m going to fire on the dome in ten seconds.”
“You’ll die without a helmet, Posey.”
“What’s the difference? Dying here or rotting in some jail on Earth. I think I’ll do it right now.”
The airlock whooshed. The bubble quivered as it gulped the bit of vacuum brought in by the lock.
“All right, I did it,” Kadar radioed. “I tried to shoot down the Mars ship. Chain me up and ship me back to Earth.”
Everybody looked, even Posey, and DuPree jumped. She soared across the bubble, grabbed Posey’s upstretched arm and pushed it toward the floor. I barely heard the chuff of the pistol discharging. The flechette dart bit into the rubber inches from my right boot. It remained intact.
Posey and DuPree were buried in a mound of squirming, pressure-suited people, wrestling for a chance to get at Posey and none of them very happy at the moment. I had never had so many impromptu enthusiastic deputies.
The point of light had passed to the north, but now instead of falling back down the sky it dropped more slowly. Soon it was almost stationary, receding on a line directly away from the viewers on the lunar surface.
The dot went dim as the first engine burn finished. Odyssey had embarked on its long ellipse to the fourth planet from the Sun.
Posey lay pinned to the floor. I ducked to pick up the gun, then turned and gave DuPree a thumbs-up.
“Hey!” Jake Kadar pulled off his helmet. “What about me? Who’s going to arrest me?”
1 JANUARY 1980
I sat at the base radio when Selene Station rose over the horizon. It had been six hours since Odyssey pulled out of orbit. By now the crew would be busy mothballing the NERVA reactors, getting the craft into cruise mode. The Rockefeller staff was scattered about the base, in groups of one or two or more, celebrating the launch in the manner they preferred, including DuPree’s excellent distillate.
Except for two burly miners.
They’d volunteered and I’d deputized them to ride with the shackled Anderson, Zender and Kadar on a truck ride up to Selene Station. Kadar had babbled before they left about how Anderson had convinced him that trying to shoot the ship down would get him charged and sent back to Earth for trial.
Jake would get his wish.
For the moment I was alone. I fidgeted, wishing I didn’t have to wait to talk to Garver. I decided we’d need some sort of relay satellites. This waiting for line of sight stuff grew old.
There was a burp of static. “Rockefeller, Selene Station.”
“Congratulations, Tom,” I said into the mike.
“Good job to you, too, Laura,” he replied.
“Yeah.” I looked at the wall, thinking about the dark and the cold beyond. It didn’t bother me so much, anymore.
“Thought you’d like to know,” Garver said. “Anderson’s spilling his guts. He’s a fink for TLC. They sent him up here to stage an incident to make the base staff look bad, turn public opinion again the workers. Kadar’s a patsy, a desperate man, no more than that.”
I nodded. I hoped Jake got off lightly.
“That little scheme backfired,” Garver said. “There are already calls for a Congressional investiga
tion.”
“You think it’ll do any good?”
“I think so. Senator Goldwater from Arizona said something about not binding the mouths of the kine who tread the grain.”
“That’s good to hear,” I said.
“Get things cleaned up down there soon as you can. I need some kind of report ASAP. I don’t want to have today mucked up by a few pencil-pushers crying for their paperwork.”
“Everything’s under control. I’ll scribble something and have it up to you by 1400.”
I heard him sigh. He had to be as tired as I was, ready for an uninterrupted nap.
“Another truck will be down next time around,” he said. “I can have you on a tug for LEO in twelve hours. You’re priority, Laura, a small celebrity. The woman who saved the Mars mission and all that.”
I closed my eyes. In my mind I saw the shining star pass overhead, rising up from the stark rim of this new world toward another one and not falling down again. I smelled the ever-present dust and hint of ozone, considered the place around me that would kill me in a moment if I made a mistake. I thought of radiation and vacuum and the cold, the cold the most.
And I recalled the way we all cheered Odysseys departure.
“Thanks,” I said. “I won’t need it.”
“What’s that?”
“I think I want to stay, be here when the ship gets back. There’s a lot of work to be done in the meantime, lots of opportunity, getting ready for the second launch.”
“Someone else can do it.”
«T »
“I suppose.”
“But—”
Earth was far away and long ago. “But the base staff voted to form a union. United Workers of Luna, Local 1. They invited me to be president.”
I heard a grunt, then a soft chuckle. “What are your plans, Madam President?”
“Hey.” DuPree stood at the open door, smiling and holding two glasses of red liquid.
I sat up straight. “Tom, I plan to have a taste of genuine moonshine. After that I’ll play it out by ear.”
“Save some for me, will you?” he said.
“Say again?”
“Save a glass for me. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”
“Say again?”
This time the chuckle was full-out loud.
