"Wait a moment," Kontarsky broke in, holding her hand up in front of the Simba City Judge. "What did you say before? About Dredd?"
J'aele blinked. "I said Dredd is on his way back to Earth."
She shook her head. "No, you said within the hour. You said that Dredd would be on his way back to Mega-City One within the hour."
"Yes. I passed him in the flight bay just before I came down here. I tried to talk to him about what happened, but he told me he was on the next Earth-Direct out of here. He took a Skymaster and headed off toward the spaceport."
The confusion on Kontarsky's pale face was suddenly replaced by a dawning realisation. She bolted up from the table and made for the door. "I have to go!"
Foster watched her depart in surprise. "What was all that about?"
J'aele shrugged and sipped his synthi-caff. "I think that for Dredd, the girl has a 'thing'."
"A 'thing'?" Foster repeated. "For Old Stony Face? Jovus, it must be that chin, or something..."
Kontarsky vaulted up the stairwell, taking the stairs two at a time, dodging past a pair of chattering servo-droids as she reached the vehicle park. Without waiting to get confirmation from Justice Central flight control, the Sov-Judge straddled the saddle of her zipper bike and kick-started the anti-gravity motor. Her Skymaster shot into the air, making a beeline for the spaceport terminal in Armstrong Territory.
On its lowest setting, the STUP-gun still packed enough charge to neutralise the prissy desk-bot in the landing bay office and Dredd carefully stepped over the twittering machine to work the controls that released the security lockout. The Justice Department command code that Tex had issued him had yet to be revoked, despite the fact that the Judge-Marshal had ordered Dredd home - a piece of luck that was working in his favour.
Dredd threw a glance out of the window to the spaceport bay below. There were three moon hoppers parked on launch cradles, each one an identical wedge-shaped craft resting close to the ground on a cluster of thruster modules. At full burn, cruising low over the lunar surface, one of them would be able to get him across the terminator to the far side in a couple of hours. The Mega-City Judge recovered a control key card and took the elevator down to the bay.
There were no humans down here, just a handful of maintenance droids and a bulky overseer unit working to strip down the drives of another hopper. Dredd had ensured that his timing was spot-on, in the ten-minute gap between shift change over between the human supervisors. As long as he didn't run into any problems, he would be well on his way before anyone realised that the moon shuttle was missing.
Dredd stepped up the ladder to the hopper's airlock and used the key card to open it. The security lamp flashed green and the outer door obediently opened. He was already clad in a Justice Department-issue environment suit, the helmet held under the crook of one arm and he had to shift his weight to move his suited form inside. Outside the influence of the gravity-field generator plates in the city proper, Dredd was careful not to let himself stumble under the lunar G-force. He was reaching out to tap the "close" control when he heard her words echoing through the launch bay.
"You told J'aele that you would be on the next Earth-Direct flight home," Kontarsky's voice issued out from above him, "but the port authority reported a magnitude nine solar flare today. Every Earthbound transport is grounded until the all-clear."
Dredd looked up and spotted her, the red rad-cloak catching the strip lights as she descended in the maintenance lift. She kept speaking. "Piloting a moon hopper alone under severe flare conditions is not recommended. A navigational malfunction could leave you stranded."
The lift deposited the Sov-Judge on the lower level and she approached him. Dredd's hand drifted toward the butt of his pulse gun. Knocking out a robot was one thing, but firing on another Judge? He wasn't sure he wanted to cross that line unless he was forced to. "Thanks for the tip. I'll bear that in mind."
"You're going out to interrogate Moonie? What do you hope to find?"
"Answers," Dredd replied.
"What if there are no answers, Dredd? What if Tex was right when he said that Moonie isn't involved? At the very least, you'll be deported from Luna-1, at worst you'll be up on disciplinary charges."
"I came up here to do a job," he grated. "And I'm going to see it through. You know as well as I do, Kontarsky, CW Moonie has some connection to the Kepler riot, to Rodriguez and Maktoh. If I can't find out what it is, this city will tear itself to pieces."
She nodded. "You are right, Dredd."
"Good. Now move back. The thrusters on these hoppers burn hot and you'll get fried if you're too close when I take off."
Kontarsky shook her head. "No, I don't think so." She took a step closer. "You're not going anywhere alone in this thing. You need a co-pilot."
"I can manage just fine on my own, rookie. I don't need your help."
"Really?" she said sharply. "Which one of us has the better training for this kind of vessel? You, someone who hasn't been inside a lunar craft for over two decades, or me, the winner of the Baikonour KosmoDome space pilot excellence medal for three years running?"
"And if I don't agree?"
She shrugged. "Then you are going to have to shoot me, because otherwise I'll alert Justice Central and you'll barely make it over the Sea of Rains before you are discovered."
"You're bluffing."
Kontarsky shook her head, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "No, I'm volunteering."
Dredd gave her a long look, measuring her sincerity. "I doubt that will look good on your spotless record with the Kosmonaut Directorate."
The Sov-Judge stepped up into the airlock, gathering an e-suit in her hands. "Like you said, Dredd, there's a job to be done. I can worry about my records later."
"Take your station, then," he said, with a curt nod.
They kept off the main aerial corridors between Luna-1 and the outlying domeplexes, flying nap-of-the-moon over craters and between mountain ranges. Kontarsky proved her worth immediately by programming in a new, faster course that skirted the Heraclides Promontory and took them up and through the Jura Mountains. The solar flare was at its height now and with their suits and the hopper's rad-shields they would be able to survive the brief exposure to the sun's hard radiation; nevertheless, the trip was a risk. If the hopper got into trouble and ditched on the surface, both the Judges would be cooked before any rescue craft could reach them.
Other vehicles were few and far between and Dredd made sure to keep any mining rovers or transports at the extreme edge of sensor range. The flare meant that any communications except hyperchannel and landlines would be severely curtailed for the duration, preventing word of their abscondment spreading too quickly. The added bonus of the solar radiation was its disruptive effect on lunar orbital spy-sats, enough to make a visual or sensor sweep of the Moon's surface difficult. They dropped into the Bay of Dews and Dredd pushed the hopper's engines to full burn, skating the shuttlecraft over the compacted grey dust at high speed, the gravity-repulsors along the ventral hull pushing a thin bow-wave of powder out behind them.
At last, they crossed over the terminator and as the Earth disappeared behind the curvature of the Moon, a wave of shadow embraced the hopper. Kontarsky felt her breath catch in her throat as she peered out of the shuttle's windows; looking up at a star-filled sky that was brighter and denser than anything she'd ever glimpsed from home.
"Incredible..." she whispered, losing herself for a moment in the sight.
"Look sharp," said Dredd abruptly, interrupting her reverie. "Registering approach pattern to Farside Penitentiary."
Kontarsky shook off her moment of distraction and nodded. Now was not the time for sightseeing, she had to concentrate.
Judge-Warden Lee had to concentrate just to be sure that he'd heard the hailing message correctly. He asked the communications monitor to repeat the signal and the droid obediently did so. When he heard it the second time, his mouth went dry. Dredd? A surprise inspection by Judge Dredd? L
ee had noted the Justice-Net dispatches that the former Judge-Marshal was in Luna-1, but like most things that took place on the near side of the Moon, Dredd's arrival was far off and none of Lee's concern. Never in a million years had he expected that Dredd would stick his nose in here.
Farside Pen was an outpost in the outer face of the Moon, virtually alone except for a couple of nearby mining concerns and the massive radio telescope array to the south. Judge Lee liked it that way. It was quiet here out in the dark, there was little or no trouble and it gave him time to put his feet up and read while the sentry-bots patrolled the prison proper. It was calm and controlled at Farside Penitentiary, but the warden instantly felt a sick feeling in his gut: Dredd's arrival was about to change all that.
Lee met Dredd and Kontarsky at the main airlock. The senior Judge wasted no time and ordered the warden to take him into the secure iso-cube blocks. "Had I known you were coming, Judge Dredd-" Lee began.
"If you knew I was coming, it would hardly be a surprise inspection, would it?" Dredd surveyed the corridors branching off as he strode along the main thoroughfare. "How many officers have you stationed here and what's the inmate count?"
"Ten Judges, including me. We have four hundred convicts spread over five sub-blocks."
"Ten men to handle forty times that number?" said Kontarsky.
"My staff are the best," Lee added defensively. "And we have an extensive force of servo-droids and armed sentry drones. Farside is secure."
Dredd halted at an intersection and pointed to a sign. "Block E. Special Conditions Unit. That's where you're keeping Moonie, right?"
"Moonie? Oh, of course, you were the arresting officer," nodded Lee. "That was before my time, but yes, he's being detained there. In fact," the warden smiled, warming to the subject, "a number of the felons that you were responsible for apprehending are incarcerated here. Lucius 'Geek' Gordon, the Weatherspoons Gang, Luufy McMarko, William Carmody, aka 'Wild Butch' Carmody-"
"But why is Moonie in there and not in the general population?" the Sov-Judge demanded.
Lee beckoned them to follow him. "Come with me." The warden led them through a double set of airlocks and into a hermetically sealed access tunnel. "Prisoners in the Special Conditions Unit are kept isolated from the rest of the convicts for medical or biological reasons. Some of our inmates have genetic traits or peculiarities that prevent them from associating with other people. Prisoner Moonie is just such a case." He gave Dredd a look. "Did you explain Moonie's, uh, condition to Judge Kontarsky?"
Dredd shook his head. "Feel free to clue her in."
They reached an observation gallery, located high over a deep pit. Ten iso-cubes radiated out from a central dais like points on a star. The warden picked up a data pad from a monitor station and studied it. "Clinton Wendell Moonie, aka Mister Moonie. Former owner of Moonie Enterprises, he was an independent astronaut explorer who came to the Moon in 2014 during the Lunar Rush. Moonie was responsible for many ore discoveries and ice finds, but he was mostly known for winning a ten million credit prize from the International Astronautics and Space Administration. He discovered alien life here, a form of primitive bacteria in Cleomedes Crater."
"Da, that is a matter of historical record. He became a crime lord by exploiting his fellow workers and attempted to take clandestine control of the Moon through his ruthless capitalist-imperialist business empire."
"Uh, yes," said Lee, "but what's not on record is why he became a recluse after winning the prize." The warden touched a control and a monitor screen lit up. Kontarsky's eyes widened as she saw the frail human figure displayed there. For a moment, she thought the screen was distorted in some way, but then she realised that the prisoner it showed had a hugely disfigured head, well over two or three times the size of a normal person's. The bony balloon-skull was pinkish-grey with veins pulsing visibly beneath the papery skin and the surface was pockmarked with lesions that looked like tiny lunar craters.
"Chyort Vozmi! What happened to him?" she asked, unable to look away.
"We call it Selenite Hydrocephalus Syndrome, more commonly known as Moonie's Disease. The bacteria he discovered did that... It softens the bone matter of the skull and causes it to swell until it pops. Most victims died, but Moonie, well, he was rich enough to keep himself alive. Immunisation wiped out the virus, or so we thought."
"You thought?" snapped Dredd. "Explain."
"The alien bacteria was only dormant. It mutated and became active again a few years ago and we couldn't cure the new version, so we were forced to put Moonie in an isolation module. He's been there ever since, cut off from human contact and tended by robots." Lee tapped a finger on his temple. "There's not a lot of him left up here, if you get my drift."
Dredd studied the monitor grimly. "Get me a hazmat suit. I want to go in and have a little chat with our friend."
The multiple airlocks slammed shut behind Dredd and he took a step into the isolation cell. Two droids slowly orbited the aged man lying on the recliner-bed, one a spidery Robo-Doc, the other a simple servo-droid that hand-fed the prisoner thin vitamin gruel. "Hello, Moonie. Remember me?" Dredd's voice was hollow and muffled inside the thick polypropylop of the one-piece hazard suit.
Moonie slowly raised his bulbous head and blinked. "Who?"
"Judge Dredd. I've got some questions for you, Moonie."
The frail little man made a sad face. "Oh, I can't help you, Judge Dredd. I'm old, old, old, now. Forgotten so much. So much. Ha ha."
"I told you," Lee's voice said in Dredd's earphone. "He's senile. It's a side-effect of the virus."
"I don't buy it!" Dredd growled.
"Buy?" said Moonie, suddenly animated. "But I'm not selling! Oh no, I only bought the Moon! And bought it all, all of it was mine, mine, mine! Ha ha."
"You never let it go, did you?" Dredd approached him, stern and serious. "Publicly you were cut off from MoonieCorp, but behind the scenes you're still pulling the strings, right? How did you do it? Who is your contact?"
The prisoner made the same sad face again. "I'm old, old, old, now. Forgotten so much. So much. Sorry, Judge Dredd. Sorry. Ha ha."
"Don't test me, creep!" Dredd spat. "You're not fooling anyone. I know you're behind the riots and the guns, I know you're trying to turn Luna-1 into a bloodbath!"
"Bath?" Moonie repeated. "Blood? Bath? Sorry, Judge Dredd. Sorry. Ha ha."
Dredd grabbed a handful of the convict's shirt and hauled him up off the bed. The skinny little man was surprisingly heavy. "You wanna do this the hard way, Moonie? I'll be happy to oblige."
"Dredd!" Kontarsky yelled. "Restrain yourself! He's just a feeble old man!"
But even as the Sov-Judge spoke, something like hate and anger flickered across Moonie's distorted face. "Unhand me!" He shouted and with a snake-fast movement, the prisoner snatched at Dredd's hazmat suit and viciously shoved him backwards. The attack caught the Judge unawares and Dredd stumbled, his plastic-booted feet losing purchase on the smooth cell floor. He fell and landed hard, the breath singing out of him in a gasp.
"Grud! Creep's got a punch like a pile-driver!" The Judge could feel the familiar sensation of a bruise forming on his sternum.
"Dredd! Your suit!" Kontarsky's voice contained an emotion he'd never heard from the Sov-Judge before - panic. His gaze dropped to his chest, where Moonie had grabbed him. There was a ragged tear where a fist-sized piece of the hazard suit had been torn away. "Y-You... You've been exposed!"
"That's impossible!" he heard Lee shout. "Those things are rip-proof!"
Dredd looked up to see Moonie, back to his earlier manner, sitting down on his bed. "Oh, I can't help you, Judge Dredd. I'm old, old, old, now. Forgotten so much. So much. Ha ha." Moonie repeated the exact same words he had spoken before, the patch of orange material falling unnoticed from his hand.
"Lee. What are the symptoms of Moonie's Disease?"
"Uh, the first signs are bleeding from the nostrils, muscle cramps, acute headache..."
"How long?
"
"No more than two minutes from contact until the virus takes hold."
Dredd eyed Moonie and then shrugged off the rest of the hazmat gear. He looked up to where Lee and Kontarsky were watching, horrified, in the observation gallery. "That isn't him," he said simply.
"How can that be?" Kontarsky demanded.
"We'll know for sure in..." Dredd flicked a glance at his chronometer, "just under ninety seconds."
11. HIGH NOON
"Is he insane?" Judge-Warden Lee watched Dredd kick his discarded hazmat suit into one of the cell's dim corners. "He's just willingly exposed himself to an incurable alien viral strain!"
Kontarsky found herself hesitating before she answered. Ever since she and Che had walked in on Dredd's argument with Marshal Tex, a doubting voice in the back of her mind had started to question the Mega-City Judge's stability. He was taking a serious risk down there in the cell, just to prove a point. She shook the thought away with a turn of her head. "How long has he been in there for?"
Lee checked the clock on the monitor console. "Too long. If he's infected, he'll be feeling it right any second."
The Sov-Judge tapped her helmet microphone. "Dredd. What is your condition?"
There was a long second when Dredd did not speak and Kontarsky saw him rub a gloved hand over his upper lip, looking for any telltale traces of blood. If he collapsed in there now, it would all come down on her shoulders.
"Four-square," Dredd's voice grated over the comm. "No infection, just like I thought."
Lee shook his head. "But... but that can't be. Moonie is the carrier, he's patient zero! How can you be all right? Unless the virus has gone back into a dormant state again..."
For his part, the prisoner seemed to be oblivious of Dredd and the conversation going on around him. The Judge indicated the Robo-Doc. "If that were true, your droid would have reported it, right?"
"Well, yes..." The warden's brow furrowed. "But these inmates are checked by an independent, off-base medical technician every six months. The last visit was very recent and Moonie here was still classified as dangerously infectious."
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