"starsiders_2_bouncing_off_the_moon_by_david_gerrold_v05_unformatted" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gerrold David)
being kissed by my big brother. He said, "Okay, Chig. I promise. No more family decisions unless everyone in the family is part of them. Even Stinky." "Pinky promise?" "Pinky promise." We hooked little fingers and shook on it. There was one more thing I had to ask. "Douglas?" "Yeah?" "Are you and Mickey ... you know? Gonna get married?" "I don't know. We haven't really talked about it yet. Does it bother you?" "I just want to know. Will he be part of our family too? Is he going to help make decisions?" "Um, Chig ... He is part of it. We have to include him." "But we just met him two days ago." "Three." "Whatever. It's just-how can you make that kind of a decision so quickly? It's not logical." "Oh, look who's talking about logic now." "You know what I mean," I said. "Yeah, I do. And yeah, you're right. It's not logical. But ... I've never had anybody love me before. Not like this. And I don't want to lose it. It's very confusing. Maybe it'll happen to you someday. And then you'll understand." I couldn't imagine it. So I didn't say anything. I didn't even make a face. Douglas ran his hand over the top of my head again. He took a deep breath. "There is a decision that we do have to make very soon, Chig. All of us. What colony are we going to head out to? We'd better start thinking about that now. Because that will be a one-way trip."
CARGO
IF I'D THOUGHT THE TRIP up the elevator was boring, the cargo pod was even worse. At least the elevator had all the cable channels, haha . We could have had some video reception if we'd linked to either an Earth or a Lunar station-but if we started downloading, then our presence on this pod would be obvious to anyone with access to the tracking software. And the whole point of this trick was that they wouldn't know which pod we were in. Alexei spent an hour explaining to us how the pods were built and how they worked. That was sort of interesting for a while-but it wasn't really his purpose to entertain us. He said it was essential to our survival that we understood what kind of vehicle we were in. "Is only a cargo pod, not a real spaceship," he said. "Is idea to have efficient and cheap way to send supplies and equipment to Luna or Mars or asteroid belt or anywhere else. You put stuff in box, you give box a push-you fling it off Line, da? Eventually, it arrives. Cost for fuel is negligible. You are already out of gravity well, so you only need fuel for course corrections along the way and a little bit more for braking at destination. Is very convenient, if you are not in hurry." Then he showed us how the pods were built. "You see all these polycarbonate rods lining the shell? That is the skeleton of the pod. Very light, very strong. You put framework together like Tinker Toy, you clamp cargo wedges into frame, then you attach outer bulkheads all around. Polycarbonate shells-all prefab, all the same. Stamped from injection molds. Because they make only one trip, reusability is
no concern-you think, da? Nyet. The shells are product too. Open up pod, take out cargo, close up pod, turn it into house. Very good house." Alexei pounded on the bulkhead with his fist. "This is why you find windows and plumbing and wiring in walls-not just because World Space Agency mandates every pod must have basic life support, but because every pod shipped will expand living space at destination. Very clever, yes? We have transport, we have life support, we have new home." He pounded a crate. "Is tradition on Luna, at least one of these crates always contains furnishings, yes. We live in most expensive shipping boxes in solar system. Very nice, da?" I shrugged. Maybe Alexei thought this was exciting, but I didn't. We'd grown up in a tube-town-which is really just a polite way of saying we lived in a giant sewer. No kidding. Any tube that failed the structural integrity tests for piping sewage was still considered strong enough for housing. They all came out of the same factory. So I didn't see that a used shipping box was all that much of an improvement, especially not one with 450,000 kilometers on it. On the other hand, if you had to live in a used shipping box, you could do a lot worse than a Lunar cargo pod. Alexei showed us how the hull of the pod was made out of six simple pieces: four identical curved hull sections, each describing a 90-degree arc, and two identical circular end pieces. Each piece was designed to fit into every other piece, and each panel had its own hatch and window. Also, each hull unit had two survival cabinets, one at each end. Each cabinet contained the minimum basic life-support supplies necessary for one person for three days; so the pod had eight total. Alexei showed us how each of the survival cabinets held food, water for drinking and ballast, oxygen-recyclers, self-heating blanket-ponchos, first- aid kits, plastic toilet bags, and personal survival bubbles because you can't pack space suits in enough different sizes. And please read the instructions before opening anything. Mickey explained that the pods were essentially the spacegoing version of an Antarctic explorer's travel-hut. A onetime pod doesn't need the same kind of precision machinery as a reusable vehicle, and it's unnecessary to build a whole lander for the delivery of cargo, so the steering and braking systems were the cheapest brute-force method possible. "Is the engines that are most clever," Alexei said, glancing at his
wrist. "Nyet-not to worry. We are fine for another ninety minutes. Time enough for lesson. I explain fuel rods. Is really quite simple. How do you fire rocket in space? No oxygen in vacuum, da? So you put oxygen in fuel mix. Make whole thing one solid tube of fuel. Ignite at one end, it burns until fuel is gone. Is very efficient booster system. But one big problem with solid-fuel booster. Timing. Once burn starts, you cannot turn it off. So is not good for precision burns, da? Nyet, we find a way. Is much simpler than you think-we use Palmer tubes. Invented by engineer with too much time on hands. Name of John Palmer . Playing with his poker chips at Las Vegas. Very famous story, I share with you. "Dr. John Palmer, famous engineer, sits at roulette table, thinks of mathematics of chaos and order. How good luck, bad luck both run in streaks. How random numbers cluster up. Thinks about composition of solid-fuel boosters. Meanwhile, he stacks chips, red and black, red and black, red and black. Then he runs out of blacks, so he stacks two red, one black, two red, one black. Suddenly light goes on in head. He pushes everything onto double zero and gets up from table. Wins eleventy-thousand plastic-dollars anyway-almost forgets to collect winnings, he is so excited. "He rushes back to laboratory and invents Palmer tube. I explain. He slices solid-fuel rod of metallized hydrogen into little flat poker chips. Very thin. In between, he puts little polycarbonate separators, even thinner. Separating disks are made of several layers, perforated and corrugated and shaped to be strong on one side but weak on the other; crisscrossed with grooves so that weak side looks like business side of nail file. Strong side looks like mirror. Very clever, da? "Then Palmer gets even more clever idea. When he makes separator chips, he paints circumference with liquid conductor. When he makes rod, he glues insulated wires down each side. He makes whole thing in polyceramic tube, holds fuel rod like gun barrel. "Works like this. Turn on current, juice goes down wires, da? All the way to end of tube, to bare ends of wires-last separator in line has shiny side out, grooved side in. Conductive ring around separator chip completes circuit, ignites fuel chip in front of it. Creates ring- shaped ignition. Most efficient explosion. Fuel slice vaporizes, separator vaporizes-bing! Next separating disk in line is shiny side out, strong enough to protect next fuel slice-remember, separator only weak on grooved side, not shiny side; so when force of explosion hits
shiny side, next separator works like back wall of combustion chamber for just that moment. Da? So you get one little poof of thrust. Only one. "But explosion also heats ignition wires, melts insulation off- enough so that bare wires now touch next separator disk. If there is still current, that disk completes circuit and ignites fuel slice behind it-and whole process happens again. Fuel slice explodes and vaporizes separator disk that ignites it, but does not ignite next disk again. And just like before, next separator is back wall of combustion chamber and you get next little poof of thrust. And process starts again. Wires melt a little more, and if there is still current, next disk goes bing too. Everything happens very fast-bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing-like so. "As long as current flows through wire, disks blow off the end of the tube, one after other. Is like packing whole bunch of bullets in same barrel, but no bullets, only charges. When you burn enough fuel, you turn off current. Explosions stop. Thrust stops. Is beautiful clever, da? Da? "But firing tubes like this-bing, bing, bing, bing, bing-makes very unpleasant pulsing effect. Not a fun ride. Like sitting on machine gun. Not a problem. You bundle tubes together. Tubes not work in sync, all the little bing-bings average out. Instead of machine-gun feeling, you get corrugated road. More tubes, more average, more smooth- but smooth not needed for cargo, packages don't complain, so is still rough ride, but tolerable, da? Never mind. We get there. Palmer bundles guarantee delivery. Is simple brute-force brilliant. If one tube in bundle fails, no problem; others make up difference. Thrust monitor in bundle manages everything. You need this much thrust? Fire tubes until. Da! "Here is more brilliance. Palmer tubes can be any size. As thin as paper clip, as thick as elephant leg-we have elephant on Luna, you know, baby female; you must come to our zoo, see baby elephant bounce-much funny. Anyway, Palmer tubes and Palmer bundles can be made all sizes. Use different size bundles of tubes for all different purposes. Heavy lifting, braking, steering, attitude adjustment, lots of useful boost. Launch to orbit from Luna or Mars. Very efficient. Bring asteroids home for mining. Deliver cargo pods anywhere. Fling them off Line, steer them to destination, brake to match orbit. "This is why Palmer tube is so brilliant. Volume manufacture makes space travel cheap. Palmer tubes as easy to make as pencils.
Put in red goop here, blue goop there, black goop over there, run the machine, stack the firing tubes here. Bundle together, plug in timing caps and thrust monitor. Da? Very cheap. You can put three sets of boosters and a thrust monitor on a pod for less than a thousand plastic- dollars. And whatever part of tubes are left over at destination can be used for other things. "You know story of Crazyman Tucker? He lived in old cargo pod. Very nice pod too. Much fancy. He collected unburned ends of tubes for years, he finally bundle them into big cluster, launch his pod into Lunar orbit. Another cluster of tubes sends him off to rendezvous with Whirlaway rock. He almost makes it too. What some people won't do to avoid export taxes, da? But rescue costs more than taxes. So he lose entire fortune anyway. He should have used Palmer tubes for more mining. Get more rich. But he say, `What good is money on Luna? Nothing to do but throw rocks at tin cans. And you have to bring your own rocks.' Is very forbidding planet. But you will like, I promise. I teach you to fly at Heinlein Dome. You will have so much fun, you will never want to leave." At that, Douglas spoke up. "Thank you, Alexei. but we're going out to a colony." "I know that, gospodin," said Alexei. "But if you don't get a bid, you are welcome on Luna. I promise." "We have an insured contract for a colony placement," said Mickey. "And with all the money you say we've earned, we should be able to buy our way onto the next outbound ship." Alexei grinned. "I will miss you, Mikhail. And if you change mind and decide not to go, I will enjoy not missing you even more." His PITA beeped then. "Oops-here we go. Everybody hold on tight, please."
CHOICES
MICKEY KNEW A LOT ABOUT the colonies; working as an elevator attendant , he'd met a lot of outbound colonists. And Alexei knew most of the starship crews; he knew all the best gossip about the different worlds. "You stay away from both Rand and Hubbard," Alexei warned. "Not very happy worlds. Not at all. The sociometrics don't work. Not like promised. The Randies had to turn themselves into a cult. The Hubbers had to invoke totalitarian control-or was it the other way around?" He scratched his head. "No matter. I tell you how bad it is- the brightliner crews won't go dirtside anymore." "I heard they weren't allowed to," said Mickey. "It's prohibited now. So they can't report back." "That too," agreed Alexei. "The smart thing is, stay away from colonies founded on political or religious ideology." Douglas nodded. "I'd already figured that out." He turned his clipboard around so we could all see it. Half the names on it were already crossed out. We'd taken time to sleep and eat and give ourselves deodorant sponge baths before we got too smelly. I helped wash Stinky when he finally woke up, and even he smelled tolerable when we were done. I told Stinky that we were in the cargo pod, but apparently it didn't sink in, because midway through the breakfast, he started complaining. "How come we don't have a real bathroom? How come we can't go to the restaurant to eat? When are we gonna get there? I thought you said
we'd be there when we woke up. How come we don't have any real beds?" Oops. So Douglas and I told him that we were hiding in the baggage compartment, because we were playing hide-and-seek, so Howard-The- Lawyer wouldn't find us. That he understood immediately. And it was a lot easier than trying to explain Whirlaway to him. We endured two more course changes-Stinky thought they were fun-and then we finally settled down for a family meeting about where we were going. Very quickly, we decided that if any one of us had a strong objection to a specific world, we'd take it off the list. Mickey immediately vetoed Promised Land, New Canaan, and Allah. "They're all orthodox," he explained. "You can immigrate only if you convert." Douglas was already checking them off the list. "The sociometrics for religious colonies aren't good anyway. Long-term instability, almost always leading to schisms, holy wars, revolutions, and pogroms." "So let's just eliminate all of the ones with sociometric liabilities," I said. "They all have sociometric liabilities," said Mickey. "We have to consider them each on their own merits and then decide what set of problems we're willing to take on." Douglas agreed. "You want to do this alphabetically?" "Um, wait a minute-please?" They both looked at me. "Maybe we should make a list of things that we want. That way we'll have something to measure each planet against. Then we can give each colony a score, and that way we can-what's the word?-prioritize them." Mickey and Douglas exchanged glances, nodded. "Sounds like a plan." Douglas said, "You start, Chig. What do you want?" The picture in my head was Mexico. The Baja coast. Our one short day at the beach. A bright blue sky over a wide emerald sea. Yellow sand and tall green forests. And wind-breezes that smelled good. Real flowers. But first things first. "Normal gravity," I said. "That's good thinking," said Mickey. "Most people don't think about gravity enough. Most people can handle a ten or fifteen percent boost. It's like gaining five or ten kilos. But it's extra stress on the heart, on the feet, on the bones; there's a higher risk of injury; and you
age faster, you sag more. Also, your life expectancy is reduced." Douglas made a note. "Gravity, that's important. We'll give that one a lot of weight." And then he added, "Not just gravity, we have to think about the whole planet. What kind of star does it circle? What color is the light? How long is the year? How severe are the seasons? What's the atmosphere like, what kind of weather does it have? How long are the days? Is the air breathable? Or will it be someday? What kind of terraforming is possible?" And as he said that, all my visions of a tropical beach disappeared. We weren't going to Hawaii. We were going to Mars. Barren red rock, stretching off in all directions. Clusters of domes hiding beneath angling solar panels. Antennas sprouting like needles. Storage tanks huddling against the ground to withstand the enormous winds and dust storms. Agriculture domes. Tubes snaking from one place to the other because the atmosphere was too thin to breathe. Long ugly days. Cold dark nights. Tube-town again. Only this time, uglier than ever. Because there wouldn't be anyplace else to go. I knew what kind of planet we had jumped off. I was just beginning to realize what we might have to jump onto.... Douglas must have seen the look on my face. He asked, "Chigger?" "I want a colony that has an outdoors," I said. "Breathable air. I want to go outside." "Mmm," said Mickey, frowning. "That does limit our options." "I don't care," I said. "I don't want to live in a tube anymore." "Nobody does. But sometimes that's all there is." "I don't care. That's what I want." "Would you accept a world that had garden domes? I hear some of them can be very nice." Alexei spoke up then. "We have garden domes on Luna. Very pretty. We put a dome over a crater and fill it with air. We bring in manure and water, seeds and insects, pretty soon we have garden. Well, not pretty soon. Sometimes it takes twenty years to get garden dome going. But for much people, garden dome is all the outdoors they need." I shook my head. "Maybe that's okay for Loonies. It's not okay for me. I want a real sky." Douglas made a note on his clipboard. "Outdoors. Very important."
Mickey didn't look happy about that, but he didn't argue it either. He said, "There are a couple of other things we need to consider. Where we can live, what kind of work we'll have to do, what kinds of laws there are-y'know, every colony has its own idea of the way things should be. What you can believe, where you can live, who cqn marry who .... Stuff like that." Douglas looked up. "I hadn't thought about that." "Well, we have to." He added, "There are some places that worl't let us keep custody of Bobby. You'd better put that at the top of your list. In fact, we'd better limit ourselves to places that recognize `full faith and credit' of other places' laws. Otherwise, Judge Griffith's custody rulings could be set aside by anyone who chooses to file a 'writ bf common interest.'" Douglas frowned, but wrote. He stopped, looked across at Mickey. "You're trying to make a point, aren't you?" "Uh-huh." "Go on." "I think we should limit ourselves to signatories to the Covenant of Rights." Douglas didn't say anything to that. I could tell he was thinking it over. He didn't like the idea, I knew that much, but he could see the point. It wasn't that we disagreed with the U.N. Covenant of Rights. Not in principle, at least. But back home, there were a lot of people who said the Covenant was a recipe for anarchy or totalitarianism-or both at the same time. So we had never ratified it. The Covenant recognized the basic rights of all people-that every human being was entitled to equal access to opportunity and equal protection under the law. That all people were entitled to freedom of belief , freedom of expression, freedom of spirit. That all access to food and water and air, access to education, access to justice. And most important, that all people were entitled to equal representation in their government. And that no government had the right, authority, or power to restrict or infringe or deny those freedoms . And so on. It was pretty dangerous stuff. Some of the folks back in tube-town said that the only way all those freedoms could be guaranteed equally would be to establish a totalitarian dictatorship. Then no one would have any freedom, but we would
all be equal. Other people said that if we signed the Covenant, it would mean we'd have to repeal half our laws, and our civilization would break down. They said that men and women would have to share the same toilets and that rich people would have to sleep under bridges with poor people and everybody would have to share all their property so nobody had more than anybody else. And besides, only the OneWorlders wanted us to sign it because that would be another step toward ceding our independence to the U.N. And once there was a world government in place, the rest of the world would loot our economy. And so on. But the way it looked now, it didn't really matter after all. The last news we'd heard, nobody had an economy anymore. Douglas said, "I know you mean well, Mickey, but I'm not comfortable with the Covenant of Rights. It sounds like collectivism." Mickey looked at him expectantly. So did Alexei. "I mean, you can't just let people have rights without controls. You get a breakdown of society. You get corruption and immorality and fraud. The system breaks down, a little bit at a time. You get multi- generation welfare families, and parasites feeding at the public trough. You get teener-gangs and disaffected subcultures and dysfunctionals of all kinds. You get riots and crime and ... and immorality. All kinds of degeneracy. You have to have some limits on what people can do; otherwise, it all erodes away and eventually falls apart." He gestured vaguely behind himself. "I mean, all you have to do is look at what's happening back there on Earth." Mickey replied, "I could just as easily argue the opposite side of it, Doug-that the meltdown is a result of too many oppressive controls ." "I don't think so-" "Well, then let me put it to you another way. Do you want a place where you and I can stay together? Only a Covenant world will guarantee that. None of the others. If they haven't signed the Covenant, there's no evidence that they're committed to anyone's rights." Douglas sighed in exasperation. "Y'know, back in Texas, that kind of talk would be subversive." There was a long uncomfortable silence at that. Mickey and Alexei exchanged a glance, waiting. Douglas looked from one to the other. I could see he was struggling
with it, trying to wrap his head around a whole new idea. Finally, he said, "Things really are different out here, aren't they?" "Yeah," said Mickey. "They are." Douglas sighed. He hated losing arguments. "All right." He scribbled something on his clipboard. "Mickey wants a Covenant world. Very important."
MONKEYS
THERE WAS A LOT MORE than that too. I never realized there was so much stuff to consider. Like language, f'rinstance. What if the perfect colony was one where no one spoke Spanglish? We'd have to spend six months just learning to speak French or some other weird tongue, before we could begin to function like real people. And skin color. We didn't think of ourselves as racist, or anything like that, but we all wanted to go to a place where we looked pretty much like everybody else, because we wanted to fit in. And food. That one was real important-especially after eating a few of those damn MREs. On some worlds, they grew their protein in big vats of slime. On others, they farmed insects. By comparison, even pickled mongoose sounded appetizing. Both Douglas and Mickey had a lot of information in their clipboards about all the different colony worlds, so we spent a lot of time talking about each one and scoring it on all the different things that were important to us. We crossed off some colonies immediately, with almost no discussion at all. Others, we talked about for an hour or more. I hadn't realized there were so many different kinds of colony worlds. Other than that, we napped and crapped-and got slapped into the aft bulkhead every time there was a course change. I can't say I ever got used to them; they were all uncomfortable; but at least I got
smart enough to take a lot of deep breaths whenever Alexei's PITA beeped. Every so often, we'd climb around to one side or the other, to peek out one of the little windows, hoping to catch sight of either the Earth or the moon. We never did get a real good look at the moon; we were angled wrong, coming around behind the dark side, trying to catch up to it; but once we got a spectacular view of the crescent Earth. It was the size of a basketball held at arm's length-and it looked so big and so small, both at the same time, it was scary. And it was so bright it made my eyes water. It gave me a funny feeling inside to know that we would never go back. We'd never see Mom or Dad again either. And that felt strange too. Because I didn't feel anything for them, just gray inside. Like I didn't know what to feel. Maybe I'd feel it later. I just didn't know. I wondered if Douglas felt the same way-or if he was still so confused about his feelings for Mickey that he didn't have room for any other kind of feelings. But with so much other stuff happening, I didn't get a chance to talk to him about it. I also had to take care of Stinky. Stinky thought free fall was fun. He wanted to go bouncing and careening around the cargo pod, except there really wasn't much room for that, except for the little bit of open space at each end. I'd started thinking of our nest at the aft end as the top. The bottom was the space we used as the bathroom, although a couple of times, Mickey and Douglas went up there when they wanted some privacy. Alexei busied himself with eavesdropping on the various news channels. I could see his fingers twitching when he did. He said he wanted to get on the phone and start calling. He could make a lot of money with just a few phone calls-but any unusual traffic from this pod would certainly alert whoever was watching that this was the occupied one, so he resisted the temptation. He said he was part of a web of money-surfers who took care of each other's business when any one of them was in transit or had to go underground for a while. That way, the money was never where anyone might be looking for it. Just the same, he worried about the opportunities passing by. So it was left for me to entertain Stinky whenever he got bored, which was almost constantly. Fortunately, we had the monkey to play with, so the two of us started teaching it things and making up games. The monkey was pretty smart-smarter than I would have guessed for
a kid's toy. Smart enough not to draw to an inside straight. Smart enough to play an aggressive game of chess. Even smart enough to hold its nose whenever Stinky farted. I shouldn't have been surprised by its ability to play chess or poker. It was, after all, a toy-and even Douglas could write a chess or a poker program, the logic wasn't that hard to chart. Simulating intelligence is so easy, even Stinky can do it. But every so often, I caught the monkey studying me thoughtfully -or maybe it was just my imagination. Maybe that was part of the way it had learned to interact with its human hosts. But it made me wonder. What if the monkey really was watching us? Recording everything? What if the monkey was some kind of a spy? Maybe the monkey's job was to travel with us and monitor ... that was the part I couldn't figure out. That was where I ran out of paranoia. "I wish you could talk to me," I said to it. "I wish I could just order you to explain yourself. That would make everything so much simpler ." The monkey just cocked its head and looked at me curiously, as if waiting for me to give the order. Yeah, right. Some people thought robots were fun. I didn't. I thought most of them were a damn nuisance. Because they did exactly what they were told. They didn't do what you meant, they did what you said. Which was kind of funny if you were a kid, but it was frustrating too. I never had the patience for it, but Stinky did. And so did Douglas. They had the logic genes. I guess they got that from Mom. I got the music, and not much else, from Dad. I didn't resent it, not really, but sometimes I wished I could understand things the way other people did. It would make life a lot easier. I wouldn't have to work so hard at everything. It was halfway through the second waking period-I couldn't think of them as "days" when nothing really changed-when Stinky finally figured it out. It. We had gone up to the front window to look at the moon, which was still a crescent, but starting to fill out enough that we could see the sharp edges of craters all along the terminator line. When we got bored with that, we started making up songs about bouncing elephants, and then we decided to teach the monkey how to dance, which is hard enough in gravity, but in free fall it's impossible-so it was silly enough to start Stinky giggling, which is sort of good most of the time, because
He shook his head. I didn't expect him to remember anything. Mickey had drugged his ice cream and that had kept him pretty drowsy for half a day. But whatever else he was, Stinky wasn't stupid. "We're not going to see them anymore, are we? We're going on the brightliner by ourselves ." "Well, Mickey will be with us-I think. Do you like Mickey?" "Douglas likes him." Which was his way of saying no. Because if he really liked Mickey, he would have said so. Maybe he resented Mickey for the same reasons I did. Or maybe he was just jealous that Douglas was spending so much time with him. Or maybe he just didn't like Mickey for no reason at all. "Do you miss Mom?" I asked. "Uh-huh, don't you?" "Um ... I don't miss the yelling." That must have been answer enough, because he changed the subject . "I'm hungry. Do we have anything to eat besides those awful em- maries?" "Not till we get to the moon, kiddo. Sorry." "Okay. I'll wait."
FINAL APPROACH
AFTER SEVEN OR EIGHT MORE course changes, each one more painful than the last, we finally got a good look at the bright side of the moon. Well, part of it anyway, as we came around the northern edge of the terminator. We still had three more burns to put us into a near-polar orbit, what Alexei called the crazy-mouse orbit, so that meant we'd actually orbit the moon a couple of times-down the front and up the back-before finally heading in. The second time we came around the bright side, it filled the window , but it was hard to tell how close we were; Douglas said that's because the moon has a fractal surface; there's so many craters of so many different sizes that a close view looks a lot like a high view, and vice versa. But the landscape below us was moving slowly, so I took that as an indication that we were still fairly high-and when I pressed my face close to the window, I could see the horizon, and it was still curved. So that meant we were at least a hundred klicks high, if I had done the math right. Probably not. Math was not my best subject. The dark side of the moon was hard to see clearly; there was some light reflected from the crescent Earth, but not enough, so everything looked all gloomy gray. And the bright side, when we crossed the terminator again, was almost too bright to look at directly. Douglas said that the Lunar surface reflects more light back at you when you look at it head-on, and that's why a full moon is noticeably brighter than a
half-moon, it's something to do with refraction and the way the Lunar dust scatters light. Alexei joined us at the window. He took one glance and grunted. "We are coming in very fast. Good." I took another look. He was right. The ground below us was moving noticeably faster. "We are looping over top of moon in a few seconds. Look for north pole; there it is-" He pointed toward the horizon. "See those lights near terminator edge? That is north station. Biggest ice mine on Luna. Be sure to wave at the Rock Father." "The Rock Father?" Stinky asked. "Who's he?" "You don't know the Rock Father? Shame on you. Is Lunar legend. Lost Russian spaceman, freezes every Lunar night, wakes up every Lunar day. Is immortal. Lives at Lunar North Pole, like Father Christmas , except he has no reindeer, no elves. Rock Father is everyone's Crazy Uncle Loonie. Plays pranks on ice miners. Steals supplies. Rearranges markers. Hides in shadows where no one can see. One time Rock Father even puts up black featureless monolith in Clavius crater. Proportions one by four by nine. Standing on edge. No footprints anywhere around. Make American explorers much crazy. Rock Father laugh forever." "But why is he called the Rock Father?" That was me. "Because he is father of all Loonies. The Rock Father answers all prayers. Mostly, the answer is no. But sometimes not. Rock Father is there once in every life. He answers most important prayer-he knows, even if you don't." "Do we have to make a wish?" Stinky asked. "Prayers are not wishes," Alexei said. "But most terries don't know the difference. This is why Rock Father hardly ever listens to terries." He glanced out the window again. "Hokay, enough." He began herding us back to the other end of the pod. "Is now time for everyone to strap in and get ready for landing. I am afraid landing will be rougher than expected. We are coming in faster than I planned. Not too much faster, but enough. This will be more crunch-down than bounce-down. We will rattle a little, but if we precaution properly, we will all be safe-" His PITA beeped, and he shouted, "Whoops- hang on!"
This course change was the longest and roughest one yet. Everything rattled and roared and shook. The monkey slipped out of my grasp and was thrown somewhere down below. I was pinned flat against the top of one of the cargo crates. I didn't see where anyone else was, but when it finally stopped Stinky was crying and Douglas was holding him tight. Mickey had a nosebleed, and even Alexei looked a little shaken; he was a skinny undermuscled Loonie; he probably hurt worse than any of us. But I didn't feel too much sympathy for him, because this had been his idea from the beginning. And he'd suckered the rest of us into joining him. The monkey came climbing up from below-I was thinking of it as below now-and wrapped itself around me. Absentmindedly, I patted its head. When even the robots get scared, you know you're having a rough time. "We are fine, we are fine," Alexei assured us, a little too quickly. "Mickey, help me please. We must make sure cabin is ready for bounce-down. I will inflate interior balloons manually. I start at bottom and work my way up. You will please secure dingalings in web? Space everybody carefully." I didn't like the sound of that. I was still worrying about the words crunch-down. And Alexei didn't sound all that confident himself. Mickey started strapping in Stinky. There were elastic belts set into the bulkhead at various places. He pulled several of them across Stinky's chest to form an X-harness with a latch at the center. "See this button?" Mickey explained. "That's the emergency safety release. Don't press it until after we're down and after we stop bouncing and rolling. It might take a few minutes. There'll be an all-clear bell. If you don't hear it, don't press the button. Do you understand, Bobby? You wait until we come and get you. Promise?" "I promise," Stinky said. He said it that way, and I already knew how that promise was going to get kept-with him getting loose and bouncing all over the pod as soon as he felt like it. No, Mickey didn't know who he was talking to. I pulled myself over and faced the devil child squarely. "Listen to me. This is a real promise, Bobby-not a pretend one. Not one where you say you promise and then do what you want anyway. If you don't keep this promise, you could get hurt. Real badly. You don't want to get hurt, do you?"
"Nuh-uh." "Then you absolutely must not under any circumstances whatever, no matter what you think, no matter what happens, press that button- not until Mickey comes and tells you it's okay to press it. Okay?" "Okay," he said. "Promise?" "Promise." "Pinky promise?" "Pinky promise." We hooked pinkies and shook. I turned to Mickey. "Is there some way to disable that button or put it where he can't reach it?" Mickey shook his head. "That would defeat the purpose of the emergency release-" "He's not going to keep his promise," I said. "Will too!" Stinky shouted at me. "Will not," I snapped right back. "Liar! You big liar! I'll show you!" "I'll bet you a million dollars-" "I'll bet you a hundred million zillion dollars!" "Okay, it's a bet. If you push that button without permission, you owe me a hundred million zillion dollars and your monkey." "Not my monkey! Douglas!" "Then don't push the button," I said. "Not ever. Not unless Mickey says you can." Douglas moved between us then. He pushed me back away from Stinky. "Chigger," he whispered. "Was that necessary?" I whispered right back. "You want him to stay in the harness, no matter what? We're talking about Stinky. Logic and promises won't do it. He'll only do it if he can spite someone." Douglas got it. "Y'know, he's a lot like you." "Yeah, I know-that's how I know he'll push the button. Because I would." Douglas didn't want to argue. There wasn't time anyway. He pulled himself back toward Mickey and whispered something in his ear. Mickey nodded. Douglas came back to me. "Come on, Charles. It's time to buckle you in. We'll put you in this harness, close to Bobby." He pulled me into position and began pulling straps down, the same way Mickey had
strapped in Stinky. "I'll be on the other side. Mickey will be up there, and Alexei will be down there. That should balance the weight fairly evenly." He struggled with the latches for a bit-he couldn't get the X- harness centered on my chest-until Mickey came over to help. He loosened two of the belts, pushed me sideways, then tightened them again. He leaned in and whispered to me, "You're very convincing, you know that? Douglas thinks we should tranquilize Bobby again. It's safer. It'll make things harder on the ground, someone will have to carry him. But if you really think he can't be trusted-" I thought about all the times someone had told him not to do something -and how quickly he'd done exactly what he'd been forbidden to do. Like running down into the Barringer Meteor Crater. Like calling Mom from One-Hour station after Dad had told him not to. He did this stuff deliberately-as if to prove that no one could control him. No one. Mickey saw it in my face. "I really hate to do it to a little kid like that ..." "He's not a little kid," I said. "His middle name is Caligula." Mickey sighed. "All right. Do you want a sedative too? This could get pretty rough." I considered it. I thought about all the burns we'd already been through. It was very tempting. But. .. I shook my head. "I'd better not." "You sure?" "No. Yes. You said it's going to be hard enough to carry Stinky. Who's going to carry me?" "Good point." He finished securing me in the webbing. "I was hoping you would say that, but Douglas asked me to make the offer. That's pretty courageous of you, Charles. Here, put this O-mask over your face." "Oxygen-?" "Just a precaution, to make sure you have an air supply after we blow the inflatables. Whoops-you have company." He was talking about the monkey, it was just climbing its way back up to me-pulling itself hand over hand through the webbing. I was glad I'd programmed it to home in on me. I would never have been able to find it otherwise, not in the mess of this cluttered cargo pod. "I'll strap it in with you," Mickey said, tucking it into the webbing and pulling a safety belt around to secure it. To the monkey, he said,
"Don't push this button, unless Chigger tells you. Do you understand?" The monkey made a face at him-crossing its eyes and curling both its lips back. Neither of us had any idea what the expression meant. Alexei came back then and helped Mickey strap in Douglas. We must have been running out of time, they both were pretty urgent in their movements. When they finished, Alexei double-checked Stinky, then went to his own landing station and webbed in as quickly as he could. "Are you secured, Mikhail?" he called. "I'm good," said Mickey. "Hokay!" hollered the mad Russian lunatic. "Get ready for bubbles -" He snapped a code word to his PITA, and a second later, the inflatables began filling the cargo pod-hundreds of self-inflating balloons . They came bubbling up from the other end of the cargo pod, filling every available space so tightly it would have been impossible to move, even if we weren't webbed in. The bubbles pressed up against my face like someone holding a pillow over my nose. I was grateful for the 0-mask. The packing bubbles would have suffocated me. It made me uneasy to be so completely immobilized. All I could see was bubbles-the bluish light of the pod was fractured like a hall of mirrors; it was like looking into shattered winter. And it was cold in the pod too. We'd had to turn off our blankets for the bounce-down. "Stand by!" hollered Alexei. His voice came muffled through the bubbles. "We begin braking now. It will be rough-"
BOUNCE-DOWN
THINK I PASSED OUT. I wasn't sure. One moment I was trying to scream and the next moment everything was eerily silent. "What's happening now?" I called. I don't think anybody heard me. But a moment later, Alexei's voice came muffled through the cabin. "We burn off speed. We have come around very fast. Must burn off more speed. Twice more speed. Aim at surface, dive to landing site, then brake hard for last kilometer down. Is very nasty maneuver, but only way to get to safe house. Very safe house." I couldn't believe he was conscious. Of all of us, Alexei seemed the weakest. He was tall and gangly and skinny-he didn't have the muscles for Earth gravity, and I'd assumed he didn't have the endurance either. Living so long in lesser gravity, his bones should have softened, his heart should have shrunk. It made me wonder if he had been working out in the high-gee levels at Geostationary. Despite all his disclaimers, he must have been; he was handling the heavy gees better than any of us. Maybe he'd been preparing for this kind of escape for a long time. Just how much illegal stuff was he involved in anyway? "What next?" I shouted. Alexei had explained the operation to all of us, more than once, but I still wanted to hear him confirm the successful completion of each phase of it. "More braking-" "I'm already broken," Douglas gasped.
I was glad that Stinky was tranquilized. I don't think I could have stood it if he were screaming and crying and I couldn't get to him. That business at the meteor crater had been bad enough-I still had nightmares . Even so, I thought I could hear him whimpering in his sleep. The poor little kid, I almost felt sorry for him-everything he was going through. It had to be worse on him than any of the rest of us. Alexei's PITA beeped. I started gasping for as much breath as I could before the rockets kicked in- -this time I did pass out. I woke up to the sound of Alexei's PITA beeping again. I was beginning to hate the sound of that thing. I had just enough time to say, "Oh, sh-" and then the rockets fired again. I didn't remember waking up after the next one. I was just awake and cussing, spewing every dreadful word that I'd ever gotten my mouth washed out for using. The third time I repeated myself, I stopped to take a breath. "Is impressive. For a thirteen-year-old." I ignored him. "Is anyone else alive?" I called. "Yo," said Mickey. "I'd ask if you're all right," called Douglas, "but nobody who's seriously hurt cusses that enthusiastically." "What about Bobby?" "He's not making any noises," called Mickey. "He is fine," said Alexei. "I am certain." "Can you see him?" "Please not to worry. Little stinking one is fine." "Don't call him Stinky!" I said. And wondered where that came from. There was a sound from Douglas. Laughter? Probably. But only family members had the right to call him Stinky. No one else. And only when he really deserved it. "We will be down soon," Alexei said. "You will see for yourself, everyone is fine." "Where are we now?" "We have broken orbit. We have fired twice to dive in toward bounce target. Only one more burn-the last one. We brake hard to burn off speed. And then we bounce." "You hope-" But I said it under my breath. I was saving most of my air for breathing. Alexei heard it anyway. "You will like Luna, Charles. I promise. No bad weather. No weather at all-"
And then his damn PITA went off again. This was the worst one of all-at least the worst one that I was conscious for. The noise was unbearable. Even if I could have stuffed my fingers into my ears, it wouldn't have done any good, the whole pod was roaring and shaking and rattling. Whose good idea was this anyway ? And this time, I had a very clear idea of the direction of down. It was directly in front of me. All the packing bubbles were pushing up against us-we were hanging from the top of the cargo pod, while several hundred tons of widgets and whatnots trembled ominously only three meters away. Those crates were aching to break free of the violent deceleration and smash upward into our faces. Just how strong were those foam dollops anyway? And finally when I was convinced that the incredible noise would never end, it did. We were in free fall again. But only for a few seconds. Something went bang on the outside of the cargo pod. A whole bunch of things went bang. The "Lunar parachutes." The external infiatables . Alexei had explained this too. We were landing on balloons. A whole cluster of them. Very strong, very flexible. From the outside, the cargo pod would look like a plastic raspberry. Depending on our angle and speed, and the kind of terrain we were landing on, we could bounce for five or ten klicks. Alexei said that usually, you try to undershoot the target and bounce the rest of the way to your final destination. He said that some pods had bounced over fifteen kilometers from their initial touch-down points, but that those kinds of bounce-downs were carefully planned. The pods had come in very fast, and at a very shallow angle-and they were aimed down a long slope or something like that. But we wouldn't have that kind of ride, for which I was very grateful . The target zone had a lot of rough terrain, and Alexei wanted to minimize our bouncing-so as soon as it was safe, the pod was programmed to deflate the balloons and let us just crunch in. I wondered what Alexei's definition of safe was. I hoped that Armstrong was telling the truth when he said, "It's soft and powdery. I can kick it with my foot." And then we hit-bumped-something. The impact came from the side, and it was hard enough to knock the breath out of me with an
audible Oof!! I heard Alexei say something that sounded like "Gohvno!" I got the sense that gohvno was something I didn't want to step in. And then we were in free fall again-or maybe not. But we were still airborne-except there isn't any air on Luna, and we weren't being borne by anything-we were just up. And then down. We bounced again-this time from the other side and even harder than before. The whole pod went crunch! And then we were up again-floating for a long agonizing moment -until crunchbang! We bounced again. I couldn't believe the balloons were working. This hurt! Floated and bounced, bounced, bounced-and then abruptly crunched to a stop-was that it? Were we down? We were hanging sideways and upside down in the webbing- I fumbled for the release. It was hard to move; we were still pinned by the packing bubbles. They smelled of canned air. "Don't anyone move-" shouted Alexei. "We're not done yet." We waited in silence for a moment. Nothing happened. "Douglas?" No answer. "Mickey?" I called louder. "Ymf," said Mickey. "What's happening?" "Wait," said Alexei. The cargo pod lurched. Sideways. "Is the balloons. Rearranging selves. Everybody wait." "Douglas? Douglas-?" Where was Douglas? I had this sudden nightmare knowledge that he had died in the crash. Then I would be really alone. "Is not to worry. Nobody is dead," said Alexei. "Everybody wait! Pod must settle itself!" The pod continued to shudder and jerk and bump. Slowly, it began to hump itself upright. The pod was pumping air from balloon to balloon, pushing itself up with plastic muscles. "Everybody stay still," said Alexei. Like we had a choice. I was still worried about Douglas. "Mickey? Can you see Douglas? Is he all right?" After a moment, Mickey called back. "He's fine. He's groaning." The pressure on my chest began to ease. The packing bubbles
were starting to wilt, slowly deflating. I guessed they were timed or something. Finally, the cargo pod groaned and settled itself. "Please to wait-" cautioned Alexei. It bumped and lurched one more time, then sagged into an exhausted upright position. We were hanging from the webbing at the top. The only good news was the Lunar gravity. One-sixth Earth normal. It felt ... strange and easy at the same time. As soon as he decided it was safe-and not soon enough for me- Alexei unbuckled himself and began climbing around the webbing like a human spider. He unbuckled Mickey first. Mickey's face was covered with blood. He held a soggy red handkerchief over his nose. He must have had a nosebleed all the way down. "I go find first-aid kit," said Alexei. "You take care of dingalings." He dropped down between two of the crates, and we heard the packing bubbles squeak and squeal and pop as he pushed his way through. It was a funny noise. It sounded like someone with water in his boots, squelching through a sewer. The canned air smell got stronger. Mickey lowered himself to a crate, standing knee deep in squooshy balloons. He picked his way over to stand beneath me. Still holding his head back, still holding the hanky over his nose, he called up to me. "Can you free yourself, Charles?" "I think so." "You'll have to help me with Douglas. We'll lower him to the top of the crates. All right?" "All right." I fumbled around with the latch for a moment-it wasn't hard to unbuckle, but my hands were shaking so badly from the landing that I couldn't coordinate. Finally, I managed to free myself- I was never very good at gymnastics, but in Lunar gravity, everything was so surprisingly easy that I wished we could have had gym class on the moon, it was a lot more fun. I hung from the webbing without any effort at all. I did the math in my head; I weighed nine kilos. Mickey pointed and I went hand over hand to Douglas. He looked pale, but he was breathing steadily into his O-mask. I wondered if he'd passed out during braking or if he'd bumped himself unconscious during landing, a concussion would be very bad news, but we wouldn't know until we got him out of the webbing. Mickey stood just below me, still holding his hanky to his nose. He gave me careful instructions, step by step, how to lower Douglas with-
out dropping him. Even though falling three meters in Lunar gravity is no worse than falling half a meter on Earth, we still didn't want to take any chances. People had broken noses, arms, legs, and hips by underestimating Lunar gravity-especially after prolonged free fall. And we were all very shaky from the bounce-down. "Lower him feet first, Charles. Grab him under his arms and hold him till I get his legs. I know it's awkward, but he should be light enough that you can handle him. All right, ready?" Mickey started to take his handkerchief away from his nose, but it was still bleeding too badly. "Maybe we should wait until Alexei gets back. Let him do it." "I can manage. We'll do it quickly. Wait a minute." He wiped at his nose for a second, then looked up. "Okay, ready?" "Ready." I unbuckled Douglas with one hand, then reached and grabbed him before he could fall out of the webbing. He started to slip out of my grasp, but I caught him by the collar and held on. That was enough. Mickey grabbed his legs and lowered him. Still hanging from the webbing, I scrambled over to check on Stinky. He was sleeping like a baby, and almost as cute. "Leave him there for now," called Mickey. "Let's take care of Douglas first." I let go of the webbing and dropped down to the top of the crates. I dropped impossibly slow. It was amazing. We really were on the moon! I hit a little harder than I expected, and I bounced almost all the way back up, laughing with delight. Mickey gave me a nasty look. "There'll be time enough for that later." He put his hand back to his nose. Alexei came climbing back then and yanked me out of the air. "Learn to walk before you fly," he said. He popped open the first-aid kit and began pawing through it. "Here, this will stop nosebleed very fast." He held up a tiny spray bottle, and Mickey tilted his head back. While they did that, I went rummaging in the kit for old-fashioned smelling salts. I found a little flat packet of ammonia, cracked its spine, and held it under Douglas's nose-he didn't react. I waved it under his nose again-come on, Douglas! I was ready to jam it up his nostril when he suddenly flinched and said, "Stop it, Charles!" He made a terrible face and pushed me away with both hands. He sat up, still wrinkling his nose in disgust as he looked around. He blinked in surprise. "What happened to you, Mickey?" "Ahhh," said Alexei, turning around. "The dead have come back to life. Welcome to Luna! My home sweet home!"
STEPPING OUT
MICKEY FINALLY GAVE UP and put cotton up each nostril and a clip on his nose to pin his nostrils together. He'd just have to breathe through his mouth for a while. The funny thing was, he'd been trained in all kinds of safety procedures on the Line, so he was practically a space doctor. Alexei was equally well trained, so you'd have thought between the two of them they could have figured something out-but apparently the low air pressure in the pod, combined with the lighter gravity and everything else, made this particular nosebleed slow to heal. But we couldn't sit around waiting for Mickey to stop dripping. Alexei was certain about that. We'd lose the advantage of our landing. The two of them pulled a variety of instruments out of the first- aid kit and began checking everyone out. Ears, eyes, nose, blood pressure , blood gas, adrenaline, blood-sugar levels, I didn't know what else. Except for a lot of residual jitters, we all checked out normal. As normal as possible under these conditions. Finally, Douglas and Alexei bounced up to the webbing and brought Stinky down, and Mickey checked him out too. He was fine, but he'd be asleep for several hours longer. I whistled a few notes from Beethoven's Seventh Symphony-what I called the Johnny-One-Note theme; it wouldn't sound like a melody to anyone who didn't recognize the theme, just some vague tuneless whistling-but it was a clear signal to the monkey. It came bouncing down to join us. It squatted next to Stinky and pretended to take his pulse. Or maybe it wasn't pretend-
ing-I remembered reading in the instructions that it was supposed to be a pretty good baby monitor. It would howl for help if a baby stopped breathing or had a temperature or something like that. But if it was seriously checking Stinky, then it wasn't finding anything wrong with him. It sat back on its haunches and waited patiently. For a damn stupid toy, it sure had a terrific repertoire. And it was smart enough to know when to stay out of the way. Maybe it listened to stress levels in human voices. Or maybe it just sniffed for fear. Douglas might know. Maybe I'd remember to ask him later. "All right," said Alexei, looking at his PITA. "We have not a lot of time. We must get moving quickly. Is everybody ready for nice walk? Everybody go to bathroom, whether you have to go or not. I mean it. You are constipated from free fall. Once you start bouncing on the moon, everything shakes down. Is not fun bouncing with pants full of poop." He practically stood over each of us to make sure we complied. Once that business was taken care of, he started snapping out orders in Russian to his PITA. It projected a map of the local terrain on the bulkhead. "We are lucky childrens. We have not got too far to go. Here, see? Da? We go here to Prospector's Station. We change clothes, we look like ice miners. We catch train, we go to Gagarin City. Much good food. You like borscht? With cabbage and lamb, one bowl is whole meal. I am hungry already. Come, climb down now to bottom of cabin. Bring everything useful. We will not be coming back. Grab food and water, all you can carry. Mickey, bring first-aid kit too. Waste not, want not." He disappeared between the crates again, but his voice came floating up, issuing a long string of orders. The packing bubbles began squelching again. "Can you take Bobby down?" Douglas asked Mickey. Mickey nodded . I looked to Douglas, concerned. He wouldn't have asked that unless he still felt pretty bad. "Are you all right?" I asked. "I'll be fine. I just need a little time." I whistled for the monkey-"Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"- and it jumped onto my shoulders for a piggyback ride. I followed Mickey and Douglas down through the crates and webbing, down through the big foam plugs and the still-deflating bubbles. This sure wasn't space travel the way we saw it on TV. When we got to the bottom of the pod, the footing was uneasy and squishy because of all the collapsed packing bubbles. I tried to peek
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