The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 26 (Mammoth Books)

by Gardner Dozois

  Some say the Earth is the place to plant roots,

  But we plant ourselves on the Moon with our boots;

  Maybe we’re loony, but we’ll see who’s right,

  But from now unto then just leave on the light!

  VI

  For the second time in a row, Drew had no idea where he was spending the night. He’d remained in the Luna II dome because he’d not known where else to go, but he still needed a place to stay. Not that there were hotels in Luna II. It was just a dome full of people who worked for a living, sans Skyview, casinos, and fancy restaurants.

  He’d never been this broke before. Never been truly broke at all, actually, though going into the program certainly felt like it at first. For good or ill, he’d gotten used to the money he’d once shunned. Odd. Work like hell for that track scholarship so he didn’t have to let the family buy him college . . . then let them buy him again afterward, until eventually he was laundering their damn money for them. Though that final step hadn’t just been the money. It’s time to step up, they’d insisted. Because blood was thicker than water. Because it was his duty. Duty to do what, he only asked later. Throw away his life as though “family” was some kind of disease everyone succumbed to eventually? If that was family, who the hell needed it?

  The Moon was his chance to prove nobody owned him. If only he’d thought of it before he went in the program. When he’d suggested it afterward, his handlers had been livid. Too risky, they’d said. We can’t protect you there. You can’t afford it. Even if we gave you the cash, any sudden source of money isn’t going to pass unnoticed. Better to disappear into suburban . . . where? St. Paul? Spain? Seattle? Not a place where real, true new starts were the name of the game. Live or die, it was useless without the new start.

  “Don’t tell me I can’t do it,” he’d said, shocking himself with his vehemence. Everyone had told him he couldn’t do things, all his life. First, running in middle school. Then high school. Then college. It had only been in the Olympic Trials that he’d finally hit his limit. I will save enough money, he’d told them. But making it last now that he was here—that was a different problem. Middle class people who visited the Moon saved for years. Immigrants cashed everything and rolled the dice.

  Luna II wasn’t a good place to hide. Every centimeter seemed to be in use, making him realize just how profligate the tourist area was, with its Skydome, promenades, and hotels. Here, there was open space, but not a lot. When the locals wanted more they went and rubbed elbows with those whose travel dollars paid for it.

  If only Loonie immigration hadn’t forced him to buy a return ticket. Then he’d have money to stay anywhere. But to claim a refund he’d have to be able to convince them he was securely employed . . . by which time he wouldn’t really need it. Nothing like a perfect catch-22.

  How long could he remain awake and still functional? Could he get by with bits of sleep here and there, with a real hotel every second or third day? At least the pseudo-beer was cheap. Cheap-tasting too, but better than nothing.

  A voice startled him from his reverie. “Hi, Drew. I’m Detective Razo.”

  He turned to see a large man behind him. Not fat, just big. Tall and broad, with most of his strength in his shoulders. Where’d he come from? Since the shuttle, Drew had definitely let down his guard. Or maybe it was the fatigue. Still, even half-asleep, he didn’t need the introduction to know the guy was a cop. In the last couple of years he’d seen just about every imaginable type. Good, bad. Friendly, gruff. This one seemed to be going for world-weary.

  “Mind if I sit down?” the cop said. “Just like I would if I were asking friendly like about what a tourist like you is doing here in Luna II?”

  Drew nodded cautiously.

  “Good.” The detective eased onto the bench beside him. “But I don’t need to ask any of that because I already know.”

  There were a lot of responses to that. Drew went for the simplest. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Sleeping in hotel stairwells, by the way, isn’t legal, even on the Moon.”

  “Oh.” Briefly, Drew thought about saying he hadn’t done it, but another rule that had been drilled into him was never to deny the undeniable.

  The detective said nothing, but Drew had seen that one before, too. He took the tiniest sip of his beer. Eventually the detective gave up. “You’re a cool customer.”

  Drew didn’t feel like it but he’d become good at acting. “I figured there’d been a camera.”

  “No. We don’t have a lot of those. We may live crammed together, but Loonies like their freedom.”

  This time, Drew saw no reason not to bite. “So how’d you know?”

  “Locator beacon on your emergency suit.”

  “And you just happen to track those things?”

  The detective chuckled. “So now you’re curious. Let’s just say I don’t care about a little bit of vagrancy, so long as you don’t break anything.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Didn’t think so.” The detective leaned back, to all appearances totally relaxed. “And while I have to admit you make me curious, there are a lot of things that make me curious.”

  “Such as?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Whether there’s life at other stars. Why frogs cross the road. What makes for quiet, cautious types like you.”

  “I’ll keep out of stairwells.”

  The detective gave a theatrical sigh. “Well, I don’t know everything, but sad to say, I don’t rule the universe. If you’ve got secrets, kid, as long as you keep your nose clean, that’s none of my business. Folks here, most of us came to start over.” He glanced at Drew’s duffle. “And by the way, those transponders are never off. Luna Tourism is dead-set against losing tourists. Though, of course, you’re no longer a tourist, right?”

  The detective levered his bulk off the bench, grunting even in the plaza’s Luna-gee.

  “And when Grace asks, be smart and say yes. Lousy sunner but that woman can cook.”

  What the hell had that been about? Drew picked up his beer, preparatory to nursing it for a long time. Inexpensive, yes. Free, no. It was odd how the liquid sloshed, slow motion, as he raised it. So much about this place was similar to what he’d grown up with, but so much was different. And not just the gravity.

  Maybe it was the fatigue, but this cop seemed different. He’d practically told Drew that someone—his handlers perhaps—had tipped him to . . . well, something. Then, the cop had hinted that he really could have a fresh start. And what was the bit with the emergency suit? Why give away his advantage by telling him he could be traced simply by carrying it around?

  He took another sip of the beer. It would take a long time to figure this place out. As long, perhaps, as it might to discover who he really was and re-invent himself in its image.

  Detective Razo was barely out of sight when Drew became aware of yet another person heading his way. What was this, Grand Central Station? Or was it just that he was new in what amounted to a small town, where anything new drew attention?

  This one was a gray-haired woman in coveralls, nearly as large as Detective Razo but moving with a much more purposeful-seeming stride. No cop-act world-weariness here.

  “You Zeigler?” Even in the continuing racket from Archie’s, her voice had no trouble covering the distance.

  Don’t lie beyond the cover unless absolutely necessary. But nothing said caution wasn’t good. “Last time I checked.”

  If smiles were in her, she didn’t offer one. “You need a place to stay, right?” She turned and started walking away, her gait as quick as Detective Razo’s had been slow. “You hungry? I’m starving.”

  “Who—? Why—?”

  She twisted back without bouncing out of contact with the ground, oddly graceful in the low gee. “You always been this stupid or you been practicing? I’m Grace. Grace Dorfman. Lum asked me to keep an eye out for you. Said to give you a hand if you looked all right. My husband Bernie says it’s okay and Raz didn’t arrest
you, which means you must be all right.”

  Too much information. He grabbed one bit. “Who’s Lum?”

  “Geez you really were born stupid. Luckily, he’s got a soft spot for wannabes ’cause he was one himself. Likes to make sure they got a place to stay, first coupla’ a nights till they get on their feet. So c’mon if you’re coming.” She did the pirouette thing again and started off, again at the surprisingly brisk pace. Maybe on the Moon extra mass was an advantage.

  * * *

  That night Drew ate better than he had in weeks. It left him feeling wonderful, then sick, then hurled him into slumber on the Dorfmans’ couch.

  The next thing he knew it was 8:00 am.

  How could he have been so stupid as to not set the alarm? But no, he remembered setting it.

  It must have been the food. Or maybe that for the first time in years he’d felt safe, the first time he’d felt truly content since the day Coach happened to be walking by as he was getting out of the car he should have known better than to accept. The gift car from his uncle. The bright red Python all the girls had loved, with its gyroscopic suspension, full-immersion senses, ultracapacitor electrics that recharged nearly as fast as they went zero to ninety.

  He knew what gifts meant in his family. But somehow he’d pretended “no strings attached” was for real. Until, in a series of steps he later could never quite reconstruct, he found himself turning his back on the family-away-from-family he’d worked so hard to build. He could still see the slump of Coach’s shoulders when he’d dropped his scholarship and sold his soul back to his birthright—the tightlipped disappointment that was the only rebuke Coach ever needed to give. Coach knew Drew’s past, had helped him escape it. And then Drew had gone back because . . . because of the damn car. Or maybe the girls. They really had liked it. Enough that most never wanted to know about the lifestyle that paid for it. Enough that most never really wanted to know Drew.

  The good thing about sleeping on a couch is that you’re already dressed. Drew yanked on his shoes, the resulting gravity bounce reminding him in the nick of time not to move too abruptly. Then he was in the corridor, hitting the grab plates at full stride.

  That at least was the plan. He’d not gone twenty paces before he nearly crashed into a tattooed man with a nose ring, dodged, lost the grab-plate trail, hit a wall, and bounced ignobly to the opposite side of the corridor.

  Nose Ring appeared above him, as Drew tried to find a graceful way to lever himself off the floor.

  “I’m Lum Arbuckle, and the only reason you still have a job is because you were running. What, Gracie get you drunk?” He laughed and hauled Drew to his feet, like a fisherman landing a big one. “Of course, if I ever catch you running the grab plates again there better be a damn good reason. I don’t like paying workers’ comp for stupid injuries. You got me?”

  There was only one response. “Yes, sir.”

  A few minutes later, Drew found himself in a chamber that looked and smelled like the locker rooms that had once shown the path to something better than the life he’d thought himself strong enough to flee. Though this locker room’s ancestors must have mated with a dry-cleaners. Looping behind the benches and stools ran one of those overhead chains used by dry-cleaners the world over to recall sweaters, slacks, and blazers from the establishment’s bowels. But rather than pinstripes and tweeds, this one carried spacesuits. None of which, apparently, were his.

  “Sarah, your new trainee is here!” Lum called toward the doorway from which the suits emerged.

  He cocked his head, nose ring dangling, as if looking at Drew from an angle gave him a better shot at sizing him up. “What are you? A little over one-eighty cm?”

  “One-eighty-three.”

  Lum turned back to the doorway. “Get him a trainer. Medium ought to do.”

  Wherever Sarah was, her voice echoed. “One medium glowball coming up.”

  Drew didn’t like the sound of that. “I went through the class, back on the shuttle . . . “

  “Obviously,” Lum said. “But it’s different to work in one all day. You get the training suit. The controls are simpler and people know to keep an eye on you. You’ll be less likely to get yourself killed before your first paycheck.”

  Then the overhead chain was whirring.

  Drew looked around. “This place is . . . kind of large.”

  “And you’re kind of late.”

  The suit arrived. A near-fluorescent lime green, larger than the others—not for a bigger man, but in design. Built for safety, not mobility. Behind it came a woman in a skinsuit built more for mobility. Or maybe exhibition. With the helmet off, it didn’t leave much to the imagination, even with the billow of blonde hair that tumbled semi-discreetly across its formfitting torso.

  Lum had obviously seen this reaction before. Surprise, the most beautiful woman on the planet is about to be your boss. Even if it is a small planet. Maybe it was a test. Stare too much and you’re too easily distractable for the job.

  “Drew, this is Sarah,” he said. “Sarah Janes. When you’re here, consider her God.”

  More like a goddess, but that was clearly the wrong thing to say. “Uh, sure.” Once, he’d been good with beautiful women. Now they made him nervous. Past attacking present. Maybe that was how it always went.

  And maybe this really was a test. It couldn’t be like she didn’t know the impact she’d just had. She had to be at least thirty. No woman like her got to that age without knowing the effect she had on men.

  If so, he apparently hadn’t failed yet. She pulled the suit off the rack, shoved it in his arms. “No way you’ll get lost in that.”

  “I’ll never be able to walk far enough to get lost.”

  “Hah, he’s a quick one.” Sarah turned to Lum. “You want me to take him all the way up?”

  “No, just to the rim. Walk him around, make sure he’s not a vomiter. Cut him loose when swing shift shows up. He can go to the PEL tomorrow.” He turned to Drew. “See me in the office when you’re done. If Sarah doesn’t shitcan you, I’ll give you an advance. Can’t have you mooching off Gracie forever.”

  VII

  Razo was reviewing shift reports when Archie rang his private line.

  Nobody used that line for chitchat. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Remember that guy Zeigler?”

  “He in trouble?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t think so. But Leo just told me a guy came by asking about him. Definitely not a local; called himself Beau Guest.”

  “And?”

  “Well, that’s a novel, not a name. Beau Geste, get it?” Archie pronounced the G the soft, French way. Like gendarme. “It’s a classic. About mercenaries, among other things.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, don’t you read?”

  Raz snorted. “Wish I didn’t have to. Nothing worse than admin stuff. What’s the point?”

  “It’s like he thinks we’re stupid. What kind of guy names himself after a novel?”

  “What did Leo tell him?”

  “Whaddya think? Told him to get vacced.”

  Raz laughed. He wasn’t sure who Leo was, but he knew about the hello outsiders got from Looney Toos protecting their own. It spoke well of Zeigler that the boy had gotten so far in only a few days. “He still up there?”

  “This Jester guy? I’ve not seen him.”

  “Damn, I was hoping for a—”

  “Picture?” Archie was all grin. “All you gotta do is ask. Gimme a moment and I’ll zip over what my bar cam got.”

  Raz chuckled. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. But be careful. This guy gave Leo the willies and Leo’s seen a lot. You and your folks may take a lot of flak out here, but fact is, not much of it amounts to much. Without you, a lot of us would’ve long ago packed it in and moved central. Leo says this guy’s serious as a pressure leak.”

  VIII

  When he’d had the car and all the things that eventually went with it, Drew knew why beautifu
l women were attracted to him. Scrawny guys who ran cross-country and track didn’t get them. Football players did. Or people with hundred-thousand-credit cars.

  Drew still wasn’t a football player. And he no longer had the car. But Sarah seemed to like him. Off-duty anyway. She was always there, in Archie’s or the Waddup or just sitting in Dome Gardens. Twice, he’d spent no-longer-so-precious credits to take the Overway back to Central, with all that a night on the town entailed.

  For his new identity, it was perfect. They were simply two of 17,000 residents, blending in with the other 16,998. Him because his life depended on it. Her . . . well, he wasn’t quite sure. All he knew was that when she fell asleep on the Overway, which she did both times on the return, her mouth dropped slightly open, revealing ever-so-slightly crooked teeth. Teeth that on Earth would have been fixed, but which here didn’t matter. More than anything else, her sleeping face revealed total, complete trust. Trust in him as protector? Or simply that the Moon was a safe place—safer, for sure, than anything he’d known on Earth?

  Off-shift, that is. On-shift, both Sarah and the Moon were different. In the case of the Moon, the reasons were obvious. The job involved vacuum work, with heavy equipment and sometimes-long hours. Tourism wasn’t Luna C’s only cash cow. Lunar industries relied on power. But power generation had never been the safest work. And the damn solar panels were dust magnets—even the rim-side reflectors for the volatiles stills down on the crater floor, where the only sunlight in four billion years was that focused in by the panels’ adaptive optics.

  Nobody knew why every grain of dust seemed to wind up on the panels—which, of course, everyone found immensely amusing, at least when they weren’t stirring up more dust, changing out panels for refurbishing or hoisting new ones onto the ever-growing array.

  For once, Drew was glad his cover gave him a degree in political psychology. It spared him from being the brunt of egghead jokes. “Four years of campusology,” he explained, risking a word he’d picked up from his maternal grandfather, who’d always managed to stay at least a bit aloof from the family business. “With just enough basket-weaving to graduate.”