"starsiders_2_bouncing_off_the_moon_by_david_gerrold_v05_unformatted" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gerrold David)
RUN IN THE SUN AND THEN
WE WERE ON our way again, bouncing and skipping and hopping and tumbling through the Lunar darkness. Alexei ran ahead in his Scuba gear, he didn't want to waste time with the bubble suit. Douglas hop-skipped behind him in that weird bouncing lope that the first Lunar astronauts had discovered as the most efficient method of moving quickly around the Lunar surface. Mickey and I brought up the rear. The inflatable bounced along behind us on a long silvery leash. We must have looked like a soap commercial-four manic bubbles chasing a frantic piece of lunatic lint. The reflector disappeared behind us, and for a while, everything was silent again. A week ago, all I wanted was a quiet place to listen to my music; now I was beginning to resent the silence. It was too much silence. Luna was so quiet it was scary. You could hear your heart beating in your chest. You could hear the blood flowing through your veins. You could hear your own ears. Suddenly, there you are, alone with your own brain. Back on Earth, all I'd ever wanted was for everybody else to shut up, so I could hear my own thoughts and not theirs. But here on Luna, the silence was so deep, it swallowed up everything. It was as vast and empty as the whole universe. It stretched from here to forever and back again. I felt like I had fill it with something or disappear too. Only I didn't have enough music or thoughts or anything else to fill up a silence that big. Mickey stayed close to me, watching me carefully. This was going
to be a long mad dash with very few rest breaks. Alexei wanted us to catch the train, and we didn't have enough air to do anything else. So it was hop-skip and bump from one hill to the next. Hither and thither and yawn. I was tired, and it was getting hard to pay intention. And nobody wanted to talk, we just wanted to get there. Four and a half kilometers isn't that far. On Earth, it's maybe two hours' walk on level ground. On Luna, with lesser gravity, bouncing downslope at a brisk pace, it shouldn't be any longer; what you lose in mobility from the bubble suit, you get back from the lighter gravity. But this part of Luna didn't have level ground. On the map it looked like a plain, but at ground level, it was a rolling bumpy surface, pockmarked with little craters, boulders, ridges, and rough hillocks. Tumbles of rocks were scattered everywhere. And every so often, there were chasms we had to leap over. Alexei called them "expansion joints," but didn't explain what they were. I concentrated on my hop-skipping. I found a rhythm and played music in my head to match. A Philip Glass piece, one of the repetitive ones with endless chord changes. It could be played forever. And as long as I could keep it running in my head, I could keep moving. I'd probably have it stuck in my head for a month- And then we stopped. Brightness lay ahead. "Oh, chyort!" Alexei laughed at my outburst. "Remind me to explain that to you." His voice came muffled in my ears. -but the chyort was real. We'd run out of shadow. Ahead, the ground rose up into sunlight. Perpetual dawn slammed sideways across the landscape. It blazed and sparkled. It was too bright to look at, even with the goggles fully polarized. "Is not to worry," said Alexei. I wanted to kick him. "Is not as bad as it looks." "Not as bad-" That was Mickey. "How far does this extend?" Alexei hesitated. "Is less than one kilometer. We can do it. We rest here. Turn off heaters. Get very cold. We run for fifteen minutes, straight that way. We warm up, da. We get hot. But we have fifteen minutes before bubble suits turn into little ovens. Who cannot run one kilometer in fifteen minutes? On Luna, is piece of cheese." "You're crazy," said Douglas. "Absolutely crazy. Why didn't you tell us this before? Why didn't you tell us about the mountain climbing and the zip line and the bubble suits and everything?"
"Because if I tell you, you would say, `no, Alexei, I'm afraid not. That sounds like much too hard. We will much rather sit here like little potted plants to be pickled in our own juices.' But I tell you that no, you are not little cabbages, and here we are, almost home, and you find you are much bigger and much braver than you thought. You do the mountain, you do the zip line, you do everything else-you can do this too. You have to. Is no alternative to this. You stay here, you die. And little stinking one with you. But you come with me across sunlight and you live to laugh about it. Get ready now. Time you stand here thinking about this is time you will not have on other side. Mikhail, help me check air on everyone, please." He was already peering at my readouts . Without looking up, he said, "Mikhail, do not give me that look. Remember, I promise to take care of you. I am keeping that promise. Right now I am taking better care of you than you are taking yourself. You should thank me. You will thank me soon enough. Come, please. I have too much money invested in you already. I do not intend to lose my investment. Charles Dingillian, you are fine. I have turned your air up just a little. You will do fine. Be grateful monkey does not breathe, you would not have enough air for both of you; otherwise, one of you would have to stay behind. As soon as we are all too cold to move, we will go. Come, Mikhail, let me check you now." Alexei kept up a steady stream of chatter. Maybe his mind really was that peripatetic, spinning from thought to thought like a dervish. And maybe he was doing it deliberately to keep us from thinking what a stupid thing we were about to do. In all likelihood, we were going to end up as a bunch of fried mummies, baking on the Lunar plain. I wondered what kind of weird life-forms would evolve in our sealed and abandoned bubble suits. What would future Lunar explorers find growing here in the blazing sun? Flesh-eating fungi? Vacuum-breathing mold? Something dreadful, no doubt-especially Grottius Stinkoworsis. I shuddered. It turned into a shiver. A whole bunch of shivers. I was cold. I could see my breath. "Uh-Alexei?" "Yes, yes, I know. We are just waiting for Douglas to chill. Ha-ha, I make joke there. Old-fashioned slang. Never mind. Douglas and Robert mass more than everyone else. They generate more body heat. It will take longer for them to chill out. We want temperature in bubble suit to be almost freezing. Below would be better, but we do not want to risk frostbite either. We are almost there. Please be patient. Douglas ? Are you ready? Mikhail? Charles? Hokay. There is no more time
for chattering-except teeth, perhaps. When I say we go, everyone follow me. Don't fall down. Just keep going, no matter what. Remember to pace yourself. We are not racing. We are bouncing like before, only faster. Everybody ready? Get set? Go!" And with that, he was off-a black stick figure racing into the light, carrying his bubble suit over his shoulder. Douglas followed immediately after. I hesitated for half a heartbeat-then plunged ahead. Mickey called, "I'm right behind you!" We bounced into the light and it was like coming out of a tunnel. The sun slammed sideways into us like a wall of radiance. It was blinding . It dazzled and glared and my eyes started watering almost immediately . But I knew that part of it was just that my eyes hadn't adjusted yet. I found my rhythm and kept going. Hop with the left foot, hop with the right-I skipped steadily after Alexei and Douglas, bouncing high with every step. We would have been floating through the air-if there had been air, but there wasn't; so we bumbled gracefully through space-bouncing across the land like gossamer hippopotami. Everything was still too bright, the sideways glare etched every rock and boulder in sandpaper detail, the plains looked painful-but I wasn't hot in the bubble suit. Not yet. I was still shivering from the prolonged cold of the long Lunar shadows. I was almost impatient for the suit to start warming up. So far, this wasn't too bad. But we had a long way to go, and the sun's heat would be cumulative. Behind me, I could hear Mickey counting off checkpoints. We passed the first one and I realized I wasn't shivering anymore, but the bubble suit still felt cold. Maybe it was just the exertion that was warming me up. I glanced back. The line of shadow had receded into the distance. A little farther and it would be over the horizon. That would be the worst-when we were out of sight of shadow. Despite the long shadows, there was little refuge out here. The boulders were too small, their shadows were stretched out thin and insignificant. The light came in at us from the side, like the flame of a giant torch. All around us, the surreal landscape glowed; we pushed headlong into a world of dazzling glare. The inside of the bubble flashed and sparkled with rogue reflections. I was getting comfortably warm. I maintained my pace, occasionally glancing back to see if Mickey was keeping up. He was close behind me. Ahead, Douglas was maintaining a steady pace, even burdened as he was with Stinky. Even far-
ther ahead, I could see the flashing black figure of Alexei bounding through the sunlight. He wasn't having a problem with this, he'd already done it twice-once across, then back again when he'd heard us following him. His Scuba suit was refrigerated. He could go farther than any of us. We passed the second checkpoint, still pounding across the silvery white dust, and I began to feel optimistic about making it. Maybe this wasn't going to be as bad as I feared. All I had to do was keep Alexei and Douglas in sight. Just keep bouncing. Watch out for the boulders. Pay intention. And try not to notice the cold drop of sweat running down my side- It was getting warmer out here. It was getting warmer in here. Inside the bubble. Not uncomfortable yet, but ... I glanced back. Mickey was still close behind me. "Pay intention, Chigger!" It wasn't Mickey I was worried about. It was the distance to shadow. Every bounce forward was also a bounce farther from darkness . And I had no idea how far we still had to go to get to the shadows on the other side. We were heading deeper into the heart of brightness. I began to worry. I wasn't hot yet, but-I was thinking about hot. The cumulative heat was building up. I began to worry that Alexei had miscalculated. He had the refrigerated suit. We didn't. What if we were like the swimmer who swims too far out and has no strength left for getting back. What if the heat in our bubbles became intolerable before we got to the other side? What if we were getting too far out into the light to reach any shade safely? What if we could only get most of the way across, but not the last half klick? What if we couldn't make the last hundred meters? What if we couldn't make the last ten meters-? Ohell. What if we couldn't even get halfway to safety? What if we had already passed the point of safe return? What if we were already doomed? What if we were already burning up and didn't know it? "Shut up!" "Huh?" said Mickey, right behind me. "I didn't say anything." "I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to the little voices. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" "Chigger, are you all right?" Oh great. Now he was thinking I was going crazy- I looked at my numbers. "I'm fine."
These bubble suits weren't designed for this. They were meant for emergencies. All this stuff, it was supposed to be used for keeping folks alive until the rescue boat could get to them-nobody ever intended these things for Lunar exploration. Not for long-distance hikes across the Lunar surface. Not like this. Alexei had told us not to worry, it was part of the design specification because who knew what might be needed in an emergency, but just because a bubble suit can doesn't mean it should. And besides ... what if Alexei was lying about the suits? Then what? But why would he lie to us? What was the point in that? Did he want to kill us? How would he benefit from that? Well, there was a thought... We passed the next checkpoint. I'd lost count. I had no idea what Alexei and Mickey were using as checkpoints. I couldn't tell one rock from another anymore. I wasn't warm anymore. I was hot, the sweat was running down my body. I'd skip into space-lifting up high to see the glowing landscape ahead of us, then each time as I'd float back down, the droplets would go coursing down my underarms in warm sluggish trails that made me think of snails-and then I'd bounce down onto the silvery floor of sparkling light and the droplets would splatter off, into my already-clammy jumpsuit. With each hop and skip, the damp material plastered itself against me like a used towel. Everything was wet and smelly with sweat. I'd been in the sauna a few times, at school. I didn't like it. It was too hot. This was almost as hot. Not quite. But getting there. I thought about cold orange juice-real orange juice-not the orange-colored stuff that Mom always bought. I thought about ice. I thought about ice water. I thought about swimming in ice water. Another checkpoint. And I still didn't see any shadows on the horizon . We were in the middle of a dazzling plate of fire. We were under a magnifying glass. The hard black sky was overruled by the scorching blaze of light in the east. The sweat poured off me. So did the tears. "You're doing fine, Chigger. Just keep on. Only a little farther." That was Mickey's voice. I couldn't see anyone clearly anymore. There was a dark figure bouncing in front of me. And a blurry bubble too. Mickey's occasional comments came from behind me. Were they suffering as much as I was? I couldn't imagine it-
Maybe Alexei really did want us dead, so he could skip off into the darkness with the monkey ... Sure, that was it. That's why he'd left us up on the rim of the crater. He wasn't going for help. He was just going. And going. And then what-? It was too hot to think of the next step. But if he knew where the monkey was and nobody else did, then he could sell it to whoever would pay the most and nobody else could get to it if we were dead-and the moon was the perfect place to lose anything. Or anyone. How much more of this could my bubble suit take before it popped? Was it already bigger because the air was heating up and expanding ? And why didn't we float up into the air like the hot-air balloons in Albuquerque? Weren't we hot enough? Oh, we were hot enough, but there wasn't any air to float up into- Another checkpoint. Mickey's voice sounded bad. Somewhere ahead, Stinky was crying-or screaming. I bounced up, floated down, bounced up, floated down-watched the landscape drop away, peered into the distance, floated down-everything was brightness in all directions . Ice water, ice water, ice water, swimming in ice water, diving in ice water. Dying in ice water. It didn't work anymore. It was too hot. It was burning. It was hotter than the sauna. I wasn't going to make it. I didn't see how I could make it. I bounced up, floated down, I couldn't see anything but solar glare. We had come too far to get back and there was no shadow anywhere. We'd bounced and skipped into sunlight and we were going to die here- I kept going anyway. I wanted to lie down, but I didn't. I didn't have any more sweat. It had all been boiled out of me. I went to take a sip of water but it was too hot to drink. And as fast as I sipped, it just dripped right out of me. There were droplets bouncing around the inside of the bubble now. There were little puddles splashing lazily around the bottom in a graceful slow-motion ballet. Another checkpoint- If I fell down, I wouldn't be able to get up. I had to pay intention. This was the hard part. I wasn't going to be the first to fall- Just before we had started across the frying pan, while Alexei was checking Mickey's air, Douglas had pulled me aside, had talked to me like an adult. "I'm responsible for Bobby. You're responsible for Charles. I can't be responsible for both of you. If you fall down,
Charles, I can't save you. I can't come back for you. Neither can Mickey. If it gets so bad out there that you can't get up, no one else can pick you up either. Don't fall down. If you fall down, and I try to save you, we all die. Don't fall down." "I won't." It had been easy to reassure him at the time. Because I didn't know. Not then. Now I knew. And I wasn't sure I could keep the promise. I could barely see anymore. I followed the bouncing blur. One more bounce. Take the next bounce. Just one more bounce. Keep going. It won't get better if you stop. Another bounce. And another . Keep on bouncing. Bouncing. Keep on, Charles-keep your promise. Don't fall. Pay intention. And then-"There it is!" Mickey's voice. I didn't see it. I saw bright scorching solar blur. I saw purple splotches floating in front of my eyes. I saw noise and dazzle. I didn't see any shadow. He was lying. He was just saying that to keep me going- "Straight ahead, Chigger! Almost there!" "Almost where?" But I didn't have any voice. Just croak. Not even loud enough to be heard. I bounced, I floated, I looked. Painful brightess. Something angled. Maybe. Bounced, floated, looked-something flat and rectangular, angled toward the sun. But not darkness. It still didn't resolve. Bounced, floated, looked-it didn't make sense, but it wasn't sunlight and I bounced and floated toward it. Alexei was already there, in the shade of it. Shade! Something dark was humped into the ground. He was opening a hatch, standing and waving, beckoning. Douglas was just bouncing into the shadow of something-it was real! And then I tripped. And bounced and rolled, ass over elbow, every which way-had I punctured my bubble? Was I dead and didn't know it yet?-I was still rolling. I heard voices. "Let him go, Mikhail-get out of the sun! We can't lose both of you-" That was Alexei! And then, "I am get him." I was trying to get up, but my arms weren't working. My feet kept kicking uselessly at the bottom of the bubble. I didn't have the air to scream. I felt like a frog in a frying pan. I probably looked like one too. Just add butter-never mind, I'll lie here and boil in my own juices. A fat lot of help you are, you stupid monkey- And then, someone was rolling me around, I wasn't doing it, some-
thing black blurred around my vision, and then I was vaguely upright- "Can you move, or do I carry you?" Without waiting for an answer, Alexei grabbed my bubble suit by one of the plastic handles on the outside; he held me high, and began bouncing toward the blackness ahead- The light went out abruptly-not the heat, I was still baking like a clam in my own shell. But at least the light was gone. Hands pushed at me, pushed me into a dark tube, pushed me farther. Pushed. Through a series of horizontal hatches that opened in front of me and closed behind me. I felt helpless to resist-I couldn't see anything but splotches of purple dazzle. I bounced off something-I heard hissing. I heard a hatch slam. I heard voices, not in my earphones, but from farther away. I heard sounds I couldn't identify. A voice swearing in Russian. An argument. Douglas calling out-"Is Charles all right?" "Is not dead yet," said Alexei. And that would have been reassuring to hear if I didn't have more accurate information than he did. And then the hissing got louder, and louder-someone was unzipping my bubble suit-I tried to slap them away, but I didn't have strength to resist, so I just lay on the floor and waited to die. I took hungry deep breaths, filled myself with hot air, that was a mistake, the vacuum would rip it out of my lungs like a scream-and then the hissing stopped and-cooler air rolled around me, surprising me like a wet slap in the face, and I youched aloud and tried to sit up, but I still couldn't, and then the hands were pulling wet plastic up and off me, and suddenly I was out of the bubble and the air wasn't baking around me. I rolled sideways and blinked at the darkness, there were people moving in the purple dazzle. Douglas and Bobby and Mickey and someone still in black. KPHCJIOB. "We made it!" Mickey cracked in a voice like old dust. "Da!" said Alexei, pulling off his hood. "We made it. I did not think you would, but you do pretty good for terries. I only had to drag one of you into the shade. Welcome to Prospector's Station." He glanced at his watch. "You make very good time too. For terries." "You didn't think we'd make it-?" That was Douglas. Weakly. "Da. But if I tell you that, you wouldn't try." "If you didn't think we'd make it ..." Douglas began slowly, "... then why did you let us try?" "Because I assume-rightly-that like all terries, you are too stupid to lie down and die. You keep going anyway. Yell at me later, Doug-
las. You have prove me right again. Save voice for now. You are all dehydrated. Here, drink water." He started passing out plastic water bags. He popped the nipple of mine and held it to my face. "Drink slowly-little gulps. You have been through much. Give body time to recover. We have plenty time before train arrives. Over an hour."
THE DARK SIDE OF THE LOON
PROSPECTOR'S STATION WAS THREE CARGO pods, laid end to end, half- buried in the Lunar dust. They were sheltered by three near-vertical sails of solar panels. The pods were linked together on a north-south orientation, and the solar panels were mounted on gimbals so they could swing down on either side to block the sun's rays at dawn and dusk and all the positions in between. The habitability of the shelter depended solely on the maintenance of the motors. The pods were divided into two levels; the bottom level of each pod was storage, the top was function. The pod at the north end was a hydroponics farm, the pod at the south was a machine shop, the center pod was the living area. Nobody lived here permanently, it was a communal site. Everybody who used it had to replace what they used and make sure that the station was in working order for whoever might stay here next. Crosshatch decking had been laid along the bottom of the pod to provide a level floor. Underneath the floor, several plastic bags served as impromptu water tanks-another use for inflatable airlocks; waste not, want not. Above us, identical mesh decking provided the ceiling to this level and the floor to the next; we could see up through the crosshatch to the level above. It was just like being in a tube-town again, only this time with lighter gravity. I sprawled on my back, with my eyes closed, watching the purple glares fade into mottling blue-and-gray fractalizations, watching the fabric of unreality unravel in my imagination, occasionally sipping at
the water bag that Alexei was holding for me. Every so often, he'd tip it to my lips, let me suck a few swallows, then pull it away before I could start gulping greedily. It didn't make sense. Why was he being so nice to me now if he wanted to kill us? Maybe because he needed our deaths to look natural? Sure. That was it. Because he knew the monkey would be a witness to whatever he did. The testimony of robots had been used before in court cases, especially when they had stored audio and video records pertinent to the legal matter at hand. Most robots above Class 6-and that included the monkey-were continually sorting and storing their records. Cheap memory made it possible for a robot to retain a lot of information; it turned out to be useful for a lot of things-family albums , long-term health records, behavioral records, insurance tracking , consumer tracking, the census, stuff like that. Anyone who wanted to track "lifestyle information" could poll the international robot database for specifically correlated information. It was rumored that robots were also good for amateur pornography , because they also tracked human sexual behavior. Which is why Mom had always said, "Don't do anything in front of a robot that you wouldn't want God robot, if you didn't want to get caught. There were so many robots in some neighborhoods that getting away with a crime was impossible. This didn't mean that crime didn't happen. It just meant that enforcement was more about finding where the criminal was than who he was. So, if Alexei were planning to kill us, he had to make it look like an accident. Because the monkey was watching everything. That would explain leaving us on the rim and taking us into the sunlight to get to Prospector's Station. Alexei couldn't just take the monkey from us, because he knew I'd programmed it to be loyal to me first, then Douglas, and finally Stinky. It was emotionally linked. It wouldn't go with anyone else unless we told it to-or unless we were dead. If we were dead, its loyalty programming would store all pertinent information about us and our deaths in unerasable files-and without further instructions of who it should report to, it would shut down and wait for the next person to open it up and assign ownership to himself. Alexei? Probably. Most certainly.
Unless I had been out in the sun too long and was still making up crazy paranoid fantasies. . . I had to consider that too. Alexei put the water bag to my lips again. I took another sip. Around me, I could hear everyone else breathing softly, catching their breaths, sucking at water bags. I could smell their sweat in the air. It smelled like a locker room in here. We all stank. I didn't care. It was cool. Blessedly cool. Almost too cold. I was evaporating excess heat as rapidly as my body could carry my overheated blood to my skin. What was in the monkey that was so valuable it was worth killing for? I was pretty sure it wasn't information. Whatever data was packed into the memory bars would have already been piped to its recipient some other way by now. Probably the moment we were served with our first subpoena at Geostationary somebody somewhere was saying "Oh, merde!" and then, "All right. Switch to Plan B. Code it in the least significant bit of each pixel of the local news and let them download it off the web." Or whatever. There were just too many ways to smuggle bits from here to there. So it wasn't the information. It had to be something physical. Money? No. Codes for money? No, that was more information. They'd have found another way to send it by now. Physical ID keys that unlocked money? Maybe. But if that's what it was, they wouldn't have trusted Dad with it. It had to be something so unique that this was the only way to move it from here to there. Wherever there was. So it wasn't information. And it wasn't money. What else was there? Power. I took another sip of water. I was feeling better, but I wasn't ready to open my eyes yet. Power was a good answer. People would kill for power, wouldn't they? Of course they would. If they wanted it badly enough. But what kind of power? Processing power. If you had processing power, you had every kind of power. It all depended how you applied the processing power. Quantum processing? Could you pack a quantum CPU into a memory bar? I'd have to ask Douglas that. He'd probably tell me I was crazy.
It was an outrageous idea. Alexei trying to kill us-then saving us-then holding the water bag for me. Yeah, sure. The monkey wasn't sentient. It hadn't done anything at all to help us survive. No. There had to be a simpler explanation. I laughed at my own paranoia and opened my eyes, blinking and squinting. I could almost see again. I lifted up on my elbow to thank Alexei for saving me-and almost choked in horror. It wasn't Alexei holding the water bag. It was the monkey. It curled back both its lips to show its teeth and gave me its goofiest smile.
CHANGES
WE HAD TO GET AWAY from Alexei. I had to convince Douglas and Mickey that we had to get away from Alexei. I had to get them in a room away from Alexei so I doubted that they would believe me. Heck, even I didn't believe me. Alexei had stripped off his Scuba suit, finally, and was giving himself a "space-bath." A space-bath is where you strip naked and wipe yourself all over with alcohol pads and moisturizer sponges. It stings a lot, but it gets you mostly clean. He tossed bath bags at everyone else and told us to do the same. "Worst thing on Luna is nose crime. Don't make big stink on Luna. Very bad manners. Wash every six hours. When you wake up and when you go to bed. Before you put on space suit, after you take it off. Before sex, after sex. Use moisturizers on skin so you don't dry out and flake and make dust. Shave body hair regularly, same reason. Use deodorants. Others should not have to breathe your effluvia. Also slows down disease germs." So I opened the bag and took a bath. I stripped out of my jumpsuit and sat skinny and apart and wiped as much of myself as I could reach. Mickey and Douglas and Stinky were all washing each other, scrubbing each other's backsides and behind the knees and backs of the ears and places like that. The places I couldn't reach, I handed the cloth to the monkey and let him do it. Alexei offered, but I didn't want him touching me anymore.
The thing was, the cleaner I got, the better I felt, and the sillier the whole thing began to feel. It was just me listening too much to my own thoughts again-like Mom always said. She said that too much silence wasn't good for a person. "Your mind goes go off into never- never land and never comes back. Just like your father. He went off, did too much thinking for his own good, and he never came back either ." Yeah, right, Mom. But Mom didn't say all that stuff just because she believed it. She said it because she thought it was true and she didn't want us to make the same stupid mistakes that she and Dad had made. So she figured if she told us the punch lines, we wouldn't have to live through the jokes. Ha ha. We saw how that worked out. I had the fastest divorce in the family. I finished wiping myself-even in places that most people don't talk about-and pushed the soiled cloth back into its bag. I tucked it into a larger bag for waste, hanging from the inevitable wall webbing. I was beginning to suspect that everything on Luna was made from cargo pods, and there would be wall webbing everywhere. Alexei glanced over to me and said, "Hokay, girls-let's go upstairs . Are you ready for your disguises?" "Huh?" "You do not think you can ride the train as the Dingillian family, do you? Ah, from the looks on your faces, I can see you have not thought about this at all. You are lucky I am so foresighted. Come upstairs. Follow me, all of you. Hurry now." We shrugged and followed him up the ladder to the top level of the station-we went hand over hand, feet were redundant. His endless monologue continued. "Douglas, you will be Samm Brengle-Tucker, famous hermit prospector. Everybody knows Brengle-Tucker, he is very famous because nobody knows him. You ask, if no one has ever met him, what proof do you have that nobody knows him? There is none, of course, because you cannot prove a negative. We had that in logic class at Lunatic U. Prove that you cannot prove a negative. Very confusing , very clever-Loonies like word games, logic puzzles. But you understand the problem, da? How can everyone know him if nobody knows him? That is because he never comes in from the cold. Or the hot. He only sends e-mail. He orders supplies, he pays in cash. He picks up supplies when he gets around to it. He lives in self-sufficient tunnels . He has ice claim registered somewhere in Superstition Crater.
There was a row of lockers along one wall of the machine-shop pod. One of them had the name BRENGLE-TUCKER on it. There were also several interesting-looking crates stacked against the wall, stenciled for delivery to BRENGLE-TUCKER. Alexei counted them off and pulled one out, setting it aside for the moment, then turned back to the lockers. He showed his card to the door of the BRENGLE-TUCKER locker, and it clicked and swung open; he pulled out a roll of labels with Russian and English lettering and began pasting new destination labels over all of the BRENGLE-TUCKER labels on the crates. When he finished , he pushed the boxes into a transfer tube connected to the aft hatch. "Outgoing mail," he explained. "Incoming is delivered at other end." He unlocked the one remaining crate to reveal a rack of clothing, all kinds, some very ugly wigs, and a makeup kit. "I order this special from Luna City." He held up an ugly-looking dress. "Just for you, Charles. While floating in ballast tank, I am thinking Dingillians might need disguises on Luna, so my lifelong friend Samm Brengle-Tucker sends in order before we jump off Line. Or do you like this one better? I did not know your size, I had to guess." I didn't say anything in response. I just scowled at the oversized dress and the awful wigs. Alexei's story didn't make sense. Not if you thought about it. He'd said he'd been listening to the channel chatter. As soon as he'd heard about the marshals waiting at Whirlaway, he came to get us. When would he have had time to phone ahead to Luna? He wouldn't. We launched off the Line almost immediately after we'd climbed into the pod. He couldn't have made the call after we were en route, so he'd have had to have made this plan and ordered these disguises before we left Geostationary-or at least before he came to get us. In which case ... his story about the channel chatter and the marshals might be false. Alexei was chattering too much to notice my silence. He tossed the makeup kit to Mickey. "Here, you get started. You and Douglas, use suntan number nine, da? You are Lunar prospectors. Douglas, you are here longer; use a lot, get very dark. Not to worry. Is permanent color. Takes at least a month to fade. Face and neck only. Mickey, you will not need as much. You have only been here a year. You do not work outside so much. Only some." Then he went burrowing through silky nylon things, sorting and
tossing. "Brengle-Tucker is good man. He order everything for his pretty wife. Even fancy underwear. Just in case someone looks up receipts, this shows he adores her, leaves nothing out. First rule of smuggling, Charles-do not give reason for someone to be suspicious; always give them something else to look at. Like underwear. Most people do not look under underwear, that is why you hide your dirty books under it. So here is nice underwear. Don't look funny at me, Charles. You are not your panties. And clean underwear is always welcome , even if it is pink and has lace trim. Is Loonie lesson, never look gift underwear in crotch. Clean underwear is as valuable as water. Sometimes more. Here, this will fit you too. You are not much bigger in the chest than I am." He tossed me a padded bra. Stinky giggled. I glowered at him. "Is this really necessary-?" I started to object. "Da!" he nodded, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Is good disguise. I have wear it myself sometimes." I looked at all the unfamiliar clothes he had pushed into my arms, with a feeling of dismay. "Why can't you just call your Mr. Bagel?" "Is Beagle, not Bagel, and is not good idea. Not from here. Is too much expensive. Costs much fuel. Emergency is over. And will make more risk." "But I don't want to do this!" "Oh? You will run across moon, naked to the sunlight, risking death with every step, all without question-but you will not wear a bra even if it means saving your life?" I looked to my older brother. "Douglas-?" "Hey, I have to pretend I'm your husband." "Can't Mickey be my husband?" "No. He's already mine." "You know what I mean-" "Come on, Charles. Please?" Douglas gave me the impatient Mommy look. "Pretend it's Halloween." "No," Mickey interrupted, in a voice like he was giving orders. "That's the wrong approach. Chigger, pretend it's a play. And you're the star. Everyone is watching your every move and listening to your every line. So you have to get into your character and stay there, because all our lives might depend on it." "Oh, that's good," said Douglas. "Make him self-conscious." "Her," corrected Mickey. "And you too, Douglas. You have to stay
in character too. All of us. From now on, this is Maura, and you're Samm. And Bobby is ..." "Valerie," I suggested. "No, I'm not!" he snapped right back. "I'm Patty." "Patty-?" "Yes, Patty!" "Okay. Then I'm going to call you Pattycakes." "And I'm going to call you Mommy." It must have been the startled look on my face-both Mickey and Douglas laughed out loud. Alexei said, "Hokay, then it's settled. Now, hurry and dress." Mommy?
A ABOARD
THERE WAS NO OFFICIAL RECORD of Janos, Maura, and Patty arriving on Luna, but that wasn't unusual. Luna didn't police her borders; thousands of illegal immigrants dropped off the Line every year, riding cargo pods to various hard-to-reach locations. No one knew how many hidden colonies there were, although satellite-based observatories had mapped over eleven thousand cargo pods, unmanned stations, and automated industrial installations capable of sustaining human life. It was estimated there could be as many as two thousand more habitats, either buried or camouflaged. Another way to estimate the total number of human beings on Luna was to measure total power consumption. The entire moon took its power through the cable system. Superconducting wires carried power from the bright side to the dark side, wherever it was needed. Because the Loonies believed in wasting nothing, everything was monitored . The numbers on water usage, heat radiation, oxygen recycling, waste production, and food consumption were all part of the economic balance. How much did Luna need for her own people? How much could she export to Mars and the asteroids? Once all the various industrial and agricultural processes were factored out, once the exports were subtracted, there was still a considerable discrepancy between projected and actual consumption of resources. Luna's official census reported 3.2 million permanent residents. The unofficial census estimated that there were another 50,000 Loonies living off in the hills. Some of them were fictitious identities like Samm
Brengle-Tucker and his family; no one knew how many; but the fictitious families made it harder to track down those who were just invisible . So nobody knew for sure how many invisibles there were. People went invisible for lots of different reasons. Some of them were hiding from Earth authorities or bounty marshals. I could understand that. Others wanted to live alone so they could practice their own way of life without interference from anyone else. I could understand that too. And some of them were invisible because they really hated other people. And that one wasn't hard to understand at all; sometimes other people were really hard to put up with. I wondered what it might be like to live so all alone-hiding in the darkness, hiding from the light. And then there were the others.... Some of the invisibles were out there in the shadows because they were doing things they really didn't want anyone else to know about. That was scary. I couldn't imagine what those things might be. And I didn't want to imagine. Alexei Krislov paid for his own train ticket. Samm Brengle-Tucker bought tickets for himself, his common-law wife and daughter, and his half brother, Janos Brengle-Palmer. Then Alexei passed out cash cards to everyone. "Just in case," he said. "But even cash cards that come from Earth can be traced eventually, so only use for emergency. Please. Remember, you are invisibles and hope to stay that way." "Won't people ask questions?" I asked. Alexei shook his head. "People come in and out from the cold all the time. Go visiting, go shopping, then disappear again. There are many invisible networks. Most Loonies know better to ask. Someday they might want to go invisible themselves. Loonies respect each other's privacy. No questions, no touching, no personal remarks. Is because we do not have much real privacy-we share too many cramped little tubes for too much of our lives-so we have to create privacy in our heads. Earth tourists do not always understand this. Too much touching and pushing, they think they are being friendly. On Luna, if someone touches you and you do not want to be touched, is very big, very bad mistake. Slap hand away and say, `Don't touch me, dirtsider!' Is very nasty insult here. Not to worry, you will have Samm and Janos to protect you. You will stand close between them. Just remember who you are." A year ago, Janos had arranged the mail-order marriage of Maura
Lore-Fields to Samm Brengle-Tucker, and had brought her and her eight-year-old daughter (from a previous marriage) to the moon to meet her new husband. Janos had short black hair and a mustache he refused to shave because he was going back to Earth as soon as traffic on the Line resumed. Samm had enormous eye goggles he had to wear to compensate for some progressive condition that he hoped to have corrected at Gagarin Dome. Maura had frizzy red hair and wore just a bit too much makeup for Luna. Most Loonie women wore their hair short and only wore makeup for formal occasions; but Maura didn't know that yet because she still hadn't been to a proper Lunar settlement. Her husband was a hermit, almost invisible; so she didn't know that she looked a little cheap. She thought she looked good, and on Earth, perhaps she would have. Patty had darker hair than her mother. Both had come from a religious settlement in northern Canada where women were not allowed to speak except when asked a direct question. Samm and Janos wore matching heavy-duty prospector's jumpsuits . Patty wore a blue pinafore. Maura wore an ill-fitting dress and an unhappy glower. "Why can't I wear a jumpsuit?" I asked. "Because in a jumpsuit you look too much like a boy," said Mickey. "A boy with tits," said Douglas. "A disguise is about meeting people's expectations," said Mickey. "They'll see what they want to see if you'll just give them the right cues. You need the dress and the makeup to sell the look." "Mikhail is right." Alexei said, "Here. Give me monkey. I will put it in my bag for safekeeping." "Uh, no-" I said it a little too quickly, but there was no way I was going to let the monkey out of my control-not even for a moment. "Wait. Let me try something." I loosened the sash around my waist to let the dress hang loose and began stuffing the furry little robot under my slip. I wrapped its long arms and legs around my middle; the monkey seemed to figure out what I wanted and settled itself into the least uncomfortable position it could manage. "There," I said. "I'm six months gone. Maybe seven. That's why I can't wear a jumpsuit." Patty laughed. Mickey and Douglas grinned at each other. "The kid is smart." "Da, that is good thinking." Alexei nodded, frowning. "We will
have to adjust story though. Now you are going to Gagarin Dome to get officially married. Samm, you would not marry Maura until she could give you heir. Now you go to Gagarin to confirm that child is healthy male. If you are satisfied, you will marry Maura. If not, Janos must return her to Earth. What you do not know is that child might be Janos's baby. Nobody knows for sure. Does Samm suspect? Nobody knows. Never mind. Janos will marry Maura if Samm will but Samm does not know that. Janos and Maura have decided to arrange marriage with Samm so that ice mine and all its wealth will remain in family after Samm dies. But what Samm has not told Janos and Maura is that ice mine is big dry hole. He has no income except for the electricity he sells; he barely survives. And he does errands for others that no one wants to talk about. Much secrecy for everyone. No one talks about anything. Everyone has secret. Da? Any questions?" I didn't know why Alexei felt such storytelling was necessary, I didn't care. I was uselessly trying to readjust the monkey around my belly. It didn't help. Even in the Lunar gravity, I felt unbalanced; I had to lean backward to carry it comfortably. Already, I was feeling pregnant . Was this what it was like for women? How did they stand it? I looked to Alexei. "When am I due?" "End of summer. You are not certain, because Luna has upset your metabolism. Not uncommon. Also, pregnancy lasts a week or two longer on Luna than on Earth. Because gravity does not pull baby down. But you are embarrassed to talk about it because you don't know who is baby's real father. Everybody stays very close to everybody. I will talk enough for all six of us, including the baby. You will glower at me, as if my chatter annoys you much. That should not be too hard for you to act, da?" That wasn't why I was glowering at him. And I wasn't going to tell him either. He must have thought we were all awfully stupid. He was acting enormously pleased with himself for making up such a baroque plan. He wouldn't have been so happy if he'd known what I was thinking.
BELIEVING
WHILE I FINISHED DRESSING, ALEXEI busied himself deflating the portable airlock. He'd anchored it outside, now he was pumping its air into the tanks of Prospector's Station so he could take a gas-credit for it. When he finished, he carefully folded and repacked the inflatable, and the bubble suits too, in case we needed them again. Even though each item had its own monitor chip and automatically logged its own use and projected expiration date, Alexei took the time to enter his own notes too about what each bubble had endured. Mickey came over to me. He looked serious. "How are you doing?" "I'm okay," I said. My tone of voice said the opposite. "Once we're all dressed and made-up, it'll be easier to believe." I didn't answer. "Listen to me, Chigger," he said. "The only way this is going to work is you have to believe it. If you walk around pretending to yourself that you're not really doing this, we might as well just hang a big flashing sign over your head. Look, I'm really a boy." He put his hand on my shoulder. "This is the big secret of life. Not just here. Everywhere . Once you believe in the part you're playing, everyone else does too. Because when you believe, that's what people see-your belief- and then they believe it too. This is the secret: You are what you pretend to be. "When I worked on the Line, I believed that I was someone who could make people happy and safe and comfortable. That's what they wanted and needed to see, so they believed it too. When my mom goes
into court, she believes she eats human flesh-raw. And that's what the guy on the other side of the room is afraid of, so he believes it too, and that's why she's so good at beating other lawyers. When your Dad conducts music, he believes in the music, doesn't he? People see your belief , Chigger, whoever you are." I looked into his eyes. He believed what he was saying. And I wanted to believe it too. "Okay, what do I have to do?" "It's called a visualization exercise. You close your eyes and just listen to what I say. You don't have to do anything else. Just follow the instructions, and look at whatever pictures come into your head. Whatever feelings you get, those are the right ones for you. All you have to do is listen and notice what you're feeling. You ready?" I nodded. "All right, close your eyes," he said. "And just relax. Bobby, you come over here. I want you to do this too. Close your eyes and just feel yourself floating in the air. Shake your hands loose, let them hang free. Rotate your head around until your neck feels relaxed. That's it. Very good. Just relax.... No, no, keep your eyes closed, Charles." "What are you doing? Trying to hypnotize us?" "No, there's no hypnosis at all. It's just an imagination exercise. That's all. Just imagine what it would be like if you were turned into a girl right now. Close your eyes again, and whatever I say, just let the pictures float into your head. Whatever pictures may come, those are the right ones, there's no wrong way to do this. Attagirl. Relax now and think of your name. Maura.... And Patty.... Maura, think of your husband. What's his name? Samm, right? Think about why you're marrying him. Very good. Patty, who's your mommy now? Reach out with your hand, that's right, very good, and your mommy will take you by the hand. As long as Maura-mommy is holding your hand, nobody can hurt you, right ... ?" Mickey went on like that for a long time, letting us visualize our roles on Luna. He had us visualize ourselves as a mom and her daughter , living with Samm and Janos, expecting a new baby, wearing dresses and makeup and nail polish, washing our hair together to save water, thinking that was enough-still not realizing that real Loonies saved even more water by shaving their heads. Not realizing that real Loonie women keep hair short and only wear makeup at festival time. But we weren't real Loonies yet. We were still halfway between Earth and Luna. Strangers. Not sure if we wanted to stay here in this airless
paradise. That would explain any stumbles or unfamiliarity. And Loonies are disdainful enough of Earth people that most will just glance once and look away, deliberately ignoring. Finally, he had us imagine ourselves as simply female. "Imagine what it would be like to be a girl, a woman, for real. What would it feel like? That's who you are now. You really are Maura. You really are Patty. The people you used to be are on vacation somewhere else. They'll come back later when you need them. Tonight, just relax and enjoy the ride. Maura, let your husband take care of you tonight. Trust your Maura and Patty on the moon, open your eyes...." On one of the lockers, there was a full-length mirror. Nobody said anything as I went over and studied my reflection. I turned this way and that. With the makeup, I looked okay. I would pass. Maybe. If no one looked too close. I wished I were prettier. I'd feel safer. I didn't know if Mickey's visualization exercise had done any good. I didn't feel any different-or maybe I did. I still looked like a boy to me. But I didn't feel as embarrassed about being a boy. I just felt ... whatever. I tugged at my hair, wishing the wig didn't look so awful. At least it was comfortable, and it kept my bald head warm. The air in here was cold. My ears were freezing-and I didn't like my earrings. They jangled , and they were cold too. And they were the wrong shape for my face. Was this what women did every day before leaving the house- worry about their hair and their makeup and their earrings? And that they weren't pretty enough? The dress wasn't a perfect fit, even with the padded bra, but it was a lot more comfortable than the bubble suit-it was even more comfortable than the all-purpose jumpsuit, especially if I had to go to the bathroom, because I didn't have to get half-undressed to do it. But the important thing was that it meant we were back in a shirtsleeve environment . No more Lunar excursions. No more bubble suits. All we had to do was get to Gagarin Dome, and from there to wherever. Stinky tugged at my arm. He was wearing a silly-looking dress, a brown curly wig, and little gold hoops in his ears. His cheeks had been very lightly rouged. He looked like a cute little doll. I would have felt
sorry for him-except he was having too much fun. He laughed and pointed. "We look silly." I dropped to one knee-not easy with the monkey wrapped around my belly-and turned him to face me. Her. Her. Her! "Listen, Patty- cakes ..." "I'll be good," she said earnestly. "Really! Please don't put me to sleep again. Please?" I pulled her close to me and wrapped her in a hug and held her tight and whispered in her ear. "I'll be your mommy now, all right? And you'll be my little Patty-girl for a while? You stay close to me and Daddy. Douglas will be Daddy and I'll be Mommy-right? Here's how we have to do this. Little girls aren't allowed to talk on the moon. You can only whisper in Mommy's or Daddy's ear. Can you remember that?" Bobby hung on to me as hard as he could. "Will you really be my mommy ... ? Really?" He sounded so bleak and desperate I thought my heart would break right then and there. I held him as tightly as I could, and said, "Patty, I will be your mommy as long as you need me to be. I promise. Forever and ever. Believe me." He didn't answer. He just held on for the longest time, sniffling into my dress. Until, finally, I said, "Okay, it's time to start being Patty again. Okay? Pattycakes?" She nodded. Something clanged onto the roof of the pod, the whole tube rattled. We looked up, startled. "Ahh," said Alexei. "The train is here. Everybody gather bags. Leave nothing behind. Not even trash." He went quickly through the pods, double-checking that we had picked up after ourselves and that everything was in the same working order as when we arrived. When he was satisfied that we were done, Alexei pulled a credit card out of his belt and swiped it through a wall reader. "Samm Brengle-Tucker has just paid for the air and water he and his family have used. Plus a generous tip to cover future maintenance of Prospector 's Station." There was some clanking and thumping from the storage end of the station tube. The outgoing mail was being picked up. A few moments later, similar noises came from the opposite end of the station. Incoming mail was being delivered.
Finally, after an interminable silence, there was another set of thumps and bumps directly overhead. "Hokay. Everybody ready?" Alexei looked up to the hatch expectantly . The panel next to the overhead hatch lit up green. Then there was a brief high-pitched hiss of air as atmospheric pressure equalized. Finally , the hatch popped and slid sideways. A spindly plastic ladder dropped down and Alexei scrambled immediately up it. He pulled himself up only by his hands; he didn't bother to use his feet. Janos pointed to Samm. "You go first, brother dear. I will come up last and bring the luggage." Samm, who still looked a lot like Douglas to me, nodded. He pulled himself up the ladder, just like Alexei. It felt like we were leaving a submarine. Then Patty followed her stepdaddy. I looked at Mickey. "I feel really embarrassed," I said. He leaned close, and whispered, "You look very pretty." "That's what I'm embarrassed about." "Yeah, I know." He patted my shoulder, and that made it a little better. I reached for the ladder- "Use both your hands and feet," he whispered. "Remember you're pregnant and Lunar gravity scares you." I'd wanted to pull myself up by my hands, just like the others, but Mickey was right. I needed to stay in character. I climbed carefully up through the pressure tube. My husband, Samm, was waiting at the top for me. As soon as I stuck my head up through the floor, he offered me a hand. I pushed myself quickly upward and as I floated into the cabin, he grabbed me by the waist and swung me safely around to the side. Dear sweet Samm. His eyes were in such bad shape, he couldn't see very well, but he still insisted on taking care of his young wife. He was very concerned about my condition. That was why we were heading to Gagarin. He said it was for the health of the baby, but perhaps his eyes were the real reason for the trip. Would he need transplants? Or would they be able to regenerate the nerves? It was closely cramped in here-there were storage crates everywhere . This wasn't the industrial luxury of the orbital elevator, that was for sure. Brother Janos came up last. He bounced into the cabin, then turned back to the hatch and pulled up our bundled luggage. There
wasn't much and it didn't take him long to stash it in the inevitable wall webbing. Alexei and someone else I didn't recognize were already sealing the hatch behind us. She was very tall; she had very dark skin and an infectious smile. She was wearing a blue jumpsuit covered with several bright insignia. She glanced at us knowingly, especially me, but her smile remained professional. It was obvious that she and Alexei knew each other very well. When the hatch was sealed, they exchanged a more-than-friendly kiss. We were inside another cargo pod, identical to the one we had just left. Same orange webbing. Same polycarbonate mesh decking. Same close-packed cargo containers. I wasn't surprised. Waste not, want not. Despite all the imagined glamour of Luna, most of it was still built from scrounge. Even the trains. "Everyone, this is my fiancee," Alexei said. "One of many, da. We are building a Lunar-contract family. We have filed to select site. Pogue Crater. We need a family group of fifteen. We will put dome over crater and build first private lake on Luna. Tourist hotel too. Low-gravity paradise . I will be King Alexei the First. All we need are the rest of the husbands and wives. Let me introduce best husband-getter on Luna, Gabri Kalengi. You can trust Gabri, she is my cousin. She is beautiful, da? Who wouldn't want to marry Gabri? Not Samm, of course. He already has lovely young wife, but maybe brother Janos?" "Alexei..." Janos said warningly. Alexei ignored him. "Gabri, this is my dear old friend Samm Brengle-Tucker, his wife Maura, her daughter Patty, and fellow with ugly scowl is brother, Janos." "I'm happy to meet you." Gabri exchanged double handshakes with all of us, even with Patty. Loonies don't shake hands like terries. They shake both hands to both hands. Maybe that's to keep from bouncing each other up into the air, whatever. It was all right that Maura and Patty didn't know better, but husband Samm almost blew his cover when he offered only his right hand. But then again-as a famous hermit , he might not be expected to have all the social skills expected of the average Lunatic. Gabri seemed friendly enough, even a little bit amused by Alexei's endless monologue. I got the feeling that she understood a lot more than she was saying. If she really was Alexei's fiancee, he probably trusted her enough to tell her who we really were. On the other hand,
maybe he was just kidding around with her, and this was just a game they played. We didn't know enough to be sure. So we just nodded and stayed silent. Even Patty kept her mouth shut. Alexei was about to explain something else, but Gabri held up her hand and cut him off in mid-phrase. "Enough, already! We have a schedule, Alexei, remember? Take your passengers upstairs and get them settled please?" "Hokay, let us make trains run on time. I will not keep you from work any longer, Gabri." To us, he explained, "Gabri is Chief Engineer, Southern Luna Transport Agency. She drives train, she is Captain, her word is law. Aye, aye, sir."
TAKE
THE A-TRAIN HADN'T SEEN ANY TRACKS as we'd approached Prospector's Station- but then I'd had a lot of other stuff on my mind at the time, like the fifty degrees of Celsius inside my bubble suit. Possibly, that had distracted me. Now that we were settling ourselves in on the upper deck, I saw why I hadn't noticed any tracks before. Lunar trains don't use them. The "train" was another set of three cargo pods, linked together horizontally-identical to Prospector's Station. But it hung from a carriage riding on high overhead cables, like an aerial tramway. Whenever it reached a settlement or a station, it lowered itself from the lines and linked up its air hatches to transfer passengers and/or cargo. When the transfers were complete, it jacked itself back up to the cable-carriage and continued on its journey. The top level of the train was lined with windows, front and back, overhead, and all along the sides. We had a dazzling view, the best look at Luna we'd had yet. Patty and Samm and Janos and I moved from one window to the next, whispering and pointing, ignoring the other few passengers in the cabin, we were so lost in the moment. The train was gliding silently above a landscape that seemed both colorless and dazzling. It rolled away in waves, some places smooth, some places all broken and jumbled, blanketed with tumbles of rocks and everywhere pocked with desolate craters. But here and there, it sparkled with flashes of light-like sprites in a bizarre dream. They
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