by Homer Hickam
Including Crater Trueblood.
She guided the jumpcar along its new vector, every minute taking it farther away from whatever was happening up north. Worry furrowed her brow. The worry was not for her grandfather, who could take care of himself—he always had and she believed he always would. But what about Crater?
Her heart almost physically hurt when she thought of him. Three years before, she and Crater—both sixteen at the time—were scouts on a convoy across the moon. They had fought crowhoppers together and then were launched into space aboard a Cycler, there to collect a special package for the Colonel. During all this, though she had not wanted to, she found herself more and more attracted to the orphan boy. He was smart, filled with the potential for greatness that she admired, and he was a nice-looking, good boy too. Maria admittedly had always been more attracted to the bad boys, the ones who were smart and capable and poised but a little dangerous. Crater was a bumpkin in almost every way, kind and honest, yet when she wasn’t paying attention, somehow that dusty bumpkin had stolen her heart.
The days they’d spent aboard the Cycler, however, had not gone well. It had been up to her to keep the secret of what was in the package from everyone, and that required her to lie to Crater. And then the Demons, genetic monsters who wore red armor and carried axes, ten times worse and vastly more maniacal than the crowhoppers, had swarmed aboard the Cycler to steal the Colonel’s secret package. They had been defeated but only after Maria had suffered a terrible wound exposing her to the vacuum in space.
Weeks later, after she was well enough for visitors, the Colonel came to her and told her Crater had taken his great horse Pegasus north with the package and delivered it to the Russians. Since it was meant to go to the Czarina anyway, the Colonel did not blame Crater, but Maria blamed him for not coming to see her or making the slightest attempt to communicate with her. As the weeks turned into months, now nearly three years, she’d finally accepted that he hated her. She had recently written him a note of farewell. It was a business-like note and she wondered what he would make of it, or if he would even read it—and if he did, would he care?
Now she looked north, wondering what he was doing. Would he live through the day? Her eyes filled with tears. She missed him! “You are the ruin of my life, Crater Trueblood,” she muttered, then pushed the throttles forward as if velocity could tear the pain from her heart.
When she realized the little spacecraft was rattling from the fiery jets at full throttle, she pulled them back, then kept the jumpcar steady, giving her passengers the best ride possible. Thirty minutes later, with Frau Mauro off to the right, Maria eased the jumpcar into a slow rotation, then began to back down to a landing using the Montes Riphaeus mountain range as a reference. She touched down three hundred meters from the Apollo 12 landing site at Mare Cognitum, Latin for The Sea That Has Become Known, a place explored robotically by Surveyor 3, Ranger 7, and Luna 5 before Apollo 12’s Intrepid had landed. Two American astronauts, Pete Conrad and Alan Bean, had spent over a day exploring the lava flow basin. They had also cut a piece of tubing off Surveyor 3 to carry back for analysis. It had been an exciting mission and only the second to carry humans to the moon.
Maria climbed down from the cockpit and opened a view-port that allowed a perfect view of the site. The base of Intrepid was all that was left of the lander, the upper portion flown to a rendezvous with the Apollo capsule Yankee Clipper. The remnant of the lander looked dull and dusty. The American flag erected nearby had turned white, the red, white, and blue colors long since blasted away by the fierce sunlight that swept the moon, unhindered by a protective atmosphere.
Maria provided her passengers with binoculars. “The site seems to be in good shape,” Amy said. “No sign of any visitors at all. The boot prints are all Apollo treads. We’re lucky to find it still so pristine, considering the lunatics.”
“And no truck tracks around either.” Jessica grinned. “Immaculate. Amazing after all these years no one has come visiting.”
“Since there are no hills nearby,” Lauralei said, “we’ll need to build a tower for observation. Maybe a hundred feet high.”
“Several towers,” Jessica said. “And a fence to surround them.”
“Too expensive,” Amy replied. She caught Maria looking northward where there were no Apollo 12 artifacts. “Maria? Are you paying attention?”
On one level Maria was listening, but her mind was also wandering. She wanted to get on the comm unit and get an update on the military situation up north. She forced herself back to the business at hand. “It’s expensive, yes,” she said, “but it isn’t our charter to worry about where the money comes from, just what needs to be done to protect the site. A fence with a security system is without a doubt required, although I don’t think we need more than one tower if it’s placed where most of the activity area can be seen and studied.”
Amy nodded. “Agreed.”
“Let’s talk about it on the way back,” Maria said.
“I’d like to study the site a little longer,” Jessica said.
Maria tamped down her frustration. “Of course,” she said, then said a silent prayer for the men who were out there fighting. Especially one of them. Please keep Crater safe!
“Did you say something, Maria?” Amy asked.
“Just a little prayer for somebody,” she said. “An old friend who may be in trouble.”
“What is that thing up there?” Lauralei asked.
Maria followed Osinski’s point and saw a small black spacecraft coming in from the west. It stopped, its jets funneling downward so it could hover, stirring up a cloud of dust. Electrostatically charged, the dust hung above the surface, a portion moving ominously toward the Apollo 12 site. Then the craft flew straight at the jumpcar, passing overhead so close Maria could see its seams before it zoomed straight up, its jets turning from two bright orange bursts to twinkling amber stars in seconds.
“What was that?” Amy shouted.
“A warpod scout,” Maria replied as she clambered up the ladder to the cockpit. “Robotic and likely unfriendly. Belt yourself in. We’re in for a chase.”
::: THREE
Stack the bodies over there,” the Colonel directed his Irregulars, and silently they did his bidding, placing the lifeless creatures into a crowhopper pyramid. Asteroid Al wasn’t with them. He sat crouching in a small, deep crater gouged out of the Sea of Rains a billion years ago. He hadn’t fired his rifle once during the short battle. He’d tried but just couldn’t do it.
Al took a breath of biosoup oxygen, stood up, and began looking for Crater. His search led him into a field of craters where he found Freddy Hook lying alongside Doom. The boy was on his back, clutching his stomach. Doom was dead, his helmet shattered, his face turned purple. Al knelt beside the boy and checked his suit. It was holding normal. The boy’s eyes were hollow, his lips pale. “What happened, Freddy?” Al asked.
“Three attacked us, sir. Mr. Doom got two of them but then his helmet exploded. I felt like something puffed up inside me and I got sort of tired and had to lie down.”
Asteroid Al felt helpless, incompetent, and worthless. Not only was he not much of a soldier, he was certainly no medic. He barked at his do4u, demanding a direct connection to the medics which, because of the color of the suits they wore, were called greenies. “Al here! Need a greenie now!”
It was the Colonel who answered. “Let’s show a little professionalism, Al, and calm down. Why do you need a medic?”
Asteroid Al felt a surge of resentment against the Colonel. Why had that old fool let a mere boy get involved in a dirty battle? He choked down his feelings, took a breath, and answered, “It’s Freddy Hook, Colonel.”
“Freddy who?”
“Mrs. Hook’s boy. I think he’s hurt bad.”
“What is he doing out here?”
“I don’t know. All I know is he’s been shot. Doom was with him, and he’s dead.”
“Greenie on the way,” the Colonel answered.
Al took Freddy’s hand. “It will be all right, Freddy,” he said. “Help’s coming.”
The boy didn’t respond. Blinking occasionally, he just kept looking at the sky. “Are you looking at the stars?” Al asked.
“No, sir. I’m looking at the darkness between them,” Freddy said.
“Why?”
“Because I know what stars are. I don’t know what the darkness is.”
Al wiped at a tear, only to brush his glove against his helmet faceplate. The moon was a tough place to cry.
Then Crater came limping up with the smallest crowhopper Al had ever seen. “Sit!” Crater said to the creature, pointing to the ground. When it didn’t move, Crater shoved it down. Since its hands were tied behind its back, it had nothing to catch itself and fell heavily on its side, its helmet thumping on the dust.
“What’s that?” Al asked.
“A problem I’ve decided to create for myself,” Crater replied. “Don’t ask me why.”
“May I ask why you’re limping?”
Crater demonstrated his leg and the knife sticking from it. “It got me with an elk sticker. I’ll need a few stitches. The biolastic membrane is holding so far.”
Then Crater noticed the two Irregulars in the dust. “Doom’s gone,” Al said. “Freddy . . . well, there he is.”
Crater knelt beside the boy. “Hey, Freddy. How you doing?”
“I’m burning up,” Freddy said. “There’s a fire inside me. It hurts everywhere.”
Crater gently peeled Freddy’s gloved hands from his stomach, revealing a stain of blood on his gray coveralls. The biolastic membrane had healed itself, but the flechette that had caused the wound had clearly gone deep.
“Help’s on the way,” Al said, just as one of the green-suits arrived along with the Colonel plus two Moontown Irregulars carrying a stretcher.
The greenie made a cursory inspection, then said, “Let’s get him to the popup.” Freddy was gently placed on the stretcher and carried off.
“What about Doom?” Al asked the Colonel.
“We’ll pick him up later. By the looks of the dead crowhoppers in this crater, Doom was a good soldier to the last.”
The Colonel turned to Crater and the black-suited figure lying on its side with its knees pulled up. When he saw it twitch, he demanded, “Why isn’t that thing dead?”
“It seems to be a young one,” Crater answered. “I thought somebody ought to look at it.”
The Colonel squinted. “All right, I’ve looked at it. It is a biological monster. Dispose of it.”
Crater’s expression remained neutral. “Do you want me to shoot it or slit its throat?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Since it’ll be an execution in cold blood, I just wondered what your preference was.”
The Colonel’s eyes went hard. “Don’t hand me that scrag, Crater. I can assure you that thing is at this very moment plotting your death.”
Crater shrugged. “Life is death. Death is life. That’s their mantra.”
“Charming,” the Colonel growled. He pondered the small crowhopper, then said, “I don’t care how you do it, just as long as you do it.”
The Colonel stalked away, Crater glaring at his back. Al watched Crater and wondered what he was thinking. Only nineteen, Crater was an astonishing young man. He was not only a fine soldier but a language savant—the latest count was eighteen languages—and an accomplished musician—expert on the violin, guitar, piano, and drums. He was also the best engineer Al had ever known. Crater’s inventions included a sensor that regulated electrical output in biofuel cells, and a device that found water molecules in the lunar dirt and gathered them into pools that could be tapped. Both were revolutionary, the sensors increasing the range of moon vehicles using biofuel cells by twenty-five percent. The water device, although not in production, might very well make the moon a home for hundreds of thousands of people, rather than the seven thousand or so who presently lived there. Up until now, Al was certain any decision Crater made was based on facts and physics, but the little crowhopper still alive in the dust didn’t make sense. Had Crater finally snapped? Al had seen it happen before. The moon, especially under the dictatorial hand of Colonel Medaris, was a place where any man could break beneath the strain.
Crater turned toward Al. “What are you looking at?”
“I was just trying to figure out if you’d finally lost your mind,” Al said.
“Why?”
Al nodded at the crowhopper. “Yeah, well, maybe I have,” Crater acknowledged. “But what’s done is done. Keep an eye on it for me, will you, Al? I need to get my leg looked at and have a few more words with the Colonel. You got some mine wire on you?”
Mine wire, thin cable on a spool, was common equipment for miners and handy for a lot of things. Al fished a spool from his pack and handed it over. Crater wrapped it around the crowhopper’s boots, ran the wire up and around its gloves, then wrapped it tight. “That ought to hold it. But if it gives you any trouble, shoot it.”
“I didn’t pull a trigger once during the entire battle.”
“You’re not much of a soldier.”
“I told you that.”
“Are you soldier enough to defend yourself?”
“I guess so.”
Crater shrugged. “Well, I guess I’ll find out when I get back.”
“Thanks for your vote of confidence.”
Crater raised his thumb to Al in a hopeful gesture, then shoved off. Al sat down on the rim of a small crater and rested his rifle in his lap. He watched the mutant for a few minutes but boredom set in and he looked up, ignoring the pinpricks of light that were the stars and searching the darkness between them. He recalled Freddy thought there were answers there, but Al saw nothing but the absence of light. He looked toward the little crowhopper and noticed its boots were against a boulder and it had gathered itself in a ball. He wondered why it had gotten itself into such a contorted position, just before it launched itself like a spiked guided missile. Al promptly stepped aside and the spike on the little crowhopper’s helmet slammed into the crater rim where Al had been sitting just moments before. Crumpling, the creature slithered to the base of the rim. Maybe it killed itself, Al thought with some hope, but was disappointed when it moved its head, then sat up.
Al considered putting the thing out of its misery. It would be so easy. All he had to do was insert the muzzle of his rifle anywhere along the base of the creature’s helmet and pull the trigger. What kind of life could it possibly have, after all? Most likely, if the Colonel didn’t kill it, it would be locked up somewhere, maybe even tortured. Crater had not done the thing any favors by making it a prisoner.
The creature looked at Al. Its eyes, all he could see of them through the slit in its helmet, were filled with hate. Al had not fired his rifle once during the entire battle. If he was ever going to do it, maybe now was the time. He walked up to the thing and was astonished when it raised its head, offering the sweet spot at its throat. When Al pushed the muzzle of his rifle there, the creature’s eyes softened as if begging him to go ahead. Al pulled the trigger.
::: FOUR
Crater caught up with the Colonel at the popup surgery. The greenies had Freddy stripped of his biolastic membrane and were working diligently on his wound. When Crater entered through the airlock, he heard the conversation the surgeon was having with the Colonel. “We can’t save him, Colonel.”
“I provide you the best field hospital money will buy,” the Colonel growled, “and you let this boy bleed out?”
“There is nothing we can do. The flechette splintered inside him. His liver, kidneys, spleen, and intestines are shredded.”
The Colonel noticed Crater. “Why are you here?”
“I have a medical situation,” Crater answered.
The Colonel’s eyes drifted down to the knife protruding from Crater’s leg. “I can’t believe you’d be so careless as to get stabbed. Did you kill that thing?�
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“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t want to.”
“Your insolence is beginning to irritate me.”
“Next time you have a battle, leave me behind and you won’t have to deal with it.”
The Colonel’s eyes turned brittle. “You’re going too far, Crater.”
Crater shrugged. “All I want is to get back to work on the scrapes.”
“You’re a smart fellow, Crater, but you just don’t know what’s good for you. Work on the scrapes? You’re far too good for that. You’ve invented a way to recover water from moon dust! It’s revolutionary and worth millions—but you refuse to sell it to me.”
“That’s because I think I can make it better.”
“Sell it to me and I’ll make it better. You can just count your johncredits.”
Crater shook his head. “I don’t work that way.”
“No, you don’t, and it’s a shame.”
“Colonel?” It was the surgeon. “Freddy’s leaving us.”
Colonel Medaris walked over to where the boy lay and took his hand. “Well, Freddy,” he said, “we have the enemy beaten. Congratulations. Your valor won the battle.”
Freddy’s eyes fluttered. “Sir? I didn’t do anything. I just got shot.”
The Colonel forced a chuckle. “That’s the drugs they give you. Makes you forget things. You’re going to get a medal, Freddy. The highest one it’s possible for me to award a soldier. The Medaris Company Medal of, um, Supreme Honor. How old are you?”
“Twelve, sir.”
“Well, there you go. The youngest recipient of the Medaris Company Medal of Supreme Honor ever. Your mother will be proud.”
Freddy moaned. “I need my mother. Can you call her for me, sir?”
“We’re a little out of comm range, Freddy, but I’ll call her up in just a minute.”
Freddy twisted his head, his eyes fading. “Mom?”