Helium3 - 1 Crater

by Homer Hickam

  “A trick or a deception,” Crater replied. He felt like he’d just lost a battle in a war he didn’t even know he was fighting.

  “Precisely,” the Colonel said. “So what do you say? Besides doing me a great favor, it might be just the adventure for a young man. Wish I was your age again. I’d be out of here and on that fastbug scouting for the captain faster than you could say the name of my great-grandmother, Penny High Eagle Medaris.”

  Crater, who’d read the historical accounts of the Colonel’s ancestor, said, “She was a prodigious woman, wasn’t she, sir?”

  “Yes, she was, Crater, and she would approve of what I’m asking you to do. She loved the company she and my greatgrandfather formed, out of which all of the present Medaris family companies were spawned.”

  The Colonel held every card. If Crater refused, he might lose his job or be kept as a scragline picker for the rest of his life. “I guess I can do it,” he said slowly. “But can I come back and get my old job afterward?”

  “Why of course!” The Colonel smiled tenderly at the boy.

  “You are a first-rate lad. I always knew that. That’s why I let you stay at the Dust Palace after your parents—that is to say your foster parents—passed. I don’t think you had a defender in my company. They all said you should be sent to Armstrong City to fend for yourself but I said, ‘No, this lad’s a survivor, that’s what he is, and smart as paint. Let him stay, let Q-Bess raise him—she has but one child, the Prince of Wales or Petro or whatever he’s called—and she loves children.’ So I solved another problem to everyone’s satisfaction.”

  The Colonel looked pleased with himself, then said, “Now, Crater, get thee to the company administrative office and tender your resignation. Then seek out Captain Teller who will take you on as a scout.”

  It was all too fast. Crater was already scared, and he hadn’t done anything yet. The Colonel took no notice, saying, “There’s another thing I am going to ask you to do. My granddaughter, Maria? She and I are joint owners of the convoy company. Like all Medarises, she knows the best way to run a company is to learn it from the inside. She has decided, therefore, to be a convoy scout on a few runs. I’m against it, but she has me twisted around her finger. That’s true for just about anybody she meets, so watch yourself, eh? A convoy across the moon has significant dangers. Captain Teller is quite competent, but Maria is headstrong and more than a little arrogant about what she can and cannot do. Things can happen out there. You will be working alongside her and I expect you to keep her safe. That, of course, includes giving up your life for hers if necessary. Agreed?”

  Crater didn’t know what to say. Look after Petro’s new girlfriend? He supposed he could do that, especially since Petro wouldn’t be around. “Of course, sir.”

  “Splendid. However, presuming you don’t die in defense of my granddaughter, your next most important duty is to get to the Cycler Elon Musk on time. If you don’t, there may not be another opportunity to acquire this artifact. I’ve already tried twice but had to call off the show. Don’t let me down, Crater, hmmm?”

  “I’ll do my best, sir.”

  “I expect you to do better. Now, the convoy leaves in two days. It will take approximately ten days—twelve at most— to get to Armstrong City. So if it’s twelve, the Elon Musk will rendezvous with the elevator’s ferry one day after that. By my calculations, um, sixteen days from today I expect you to be on the Cycler. Got it?”

  “Fifteen days, sir, and I won’t fail you. Maria will be protected and I will get to the Cycler on time.”

  “It’s all set then,” the Colonel said. “Off you go.”

  Crater rose, searched his muddled thoughts for something adequate to say, finally settling on a pallid “Thank you, sir,” and left the office. To his surprise, the sheriff was in the waiting room. The gillie was with him in its holster and he handed it over. “How’d it go?” the sheriff asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Crater said.

  “Was the Colonel smiling when you left?”

  “Smiling, sir? I’m not certain. Should he have been?”

  “No, of course not. A silly question. Well, on your way, lad.”

  After Crater left the waiting room, the sheriff went inside to see the Colonel. “Your receptionist called and said you wanted me to visit after Crater, sir.”

  The Colonel was still at his desk. “I was going to congratulate you for finding him. Now I don’t know,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, sir. Did he not prove to be good, honest, naive, and loyal?”

  “Perhaps too much.”

  “Shall I look for someone else?”

  The Colonel took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. “No. I need him. But have I done the right thing?”

  The question startled the sheriff. “The right thing, sir? I don’t know much about right things. Now, if you asked me about the expedient thing, that I could advise.”

  The Colonel allowed a small, sad smile. “Do the names George Taylor Grange and Lawrence Zummer mean anything to you?”

  “Why, yes, sir,” the sheriff answered. “They are employees of yours, stationed in Armstrong City, and recently deceased.

  Their files crossed my desk. Natural causes, I believe?”

  “So we allowed everyone to believe. Both were murdered.

  Grange got it with an elk sticker in June. Zummer was poisoned in September. I had assigned them a particular duty.

  They were to go up to the Cycler and retrieve a certain artifact.

  The same artifact I’m sending Crater after.”

  The sheriff processed that information. “Who killed them?”

  “I have no idea. There are many candidates but I really don’t know. All I know for certain is I’m sending that fine, innocent boy on a mission that may get him killed. No, will probably get him killed. What say you now, Sheriff?”

  “One does what one has to do, sir.”

  The Colonel nodded. “One does, indeed,” he said, though he allowed himself a brief pang of regret, then rejected it as unworthy. What was one orphan, even one as smart and good as Crater? The Colonel allowed himself to relax. He’d done the right thing, the only thing to be done. It was for the good of his family and their various enterprises, which meant it was for the good of the moon.

  When Crater arrived at the Dust Palace, he found Q-Bess with both a smile on her face and a tear in her eye. She held up her reader. “Crater, it says here you’ve quit the mining company and joined the convoy company. Is it true?”

  When Crater said it was true and that he was to be a scout on the next heel-3 convoy, she took him into her arms for a big hug. “Oh, my darling boy,” she sobbed through a proud smile.

  “Don’t get yourself killed out there, but do good. Do real good!”

  “I’ll make it back, Q-Bess,” Crater swore. “And I’ll do good too,” he added, although he had his doubts about both propositions.

  :::

  Part Two

  THE CONVOY

  :::

  EIGHT

  Acceptance of his application to be a convoy scout came instantly, and Crater test-drove the fastbug assigned to him. Thinking it a bit sluggish, he asked Captain Teller if he could work to make it faster. Teller approved as long as Crater strengthened the fastbug’s frame. “Speed is good, Crater,” he advised, “but I can’t afford to have one of my scouts break down out there.”

  Crater told the captain he understood, then beefed up the fastbug’s frame with lunasteel bar stock. He also installed a heavy-duty torsion beam suspension and modified the fastbug’s fuel cell with a design of his own utilizing a sling blade pump. Crater figured it would give the fastbug at least a quarter more power and speed on the dustway, as the convoy route that started in Moontown and ended in Armstrong City was called.

  Petro showed up to help install the modified fuel cell.

  After cranking down a few bolts, he said, “Just so you know, I’ve quit the scrapes and joined the convoy. I’m going to drive
one of Carlos Sepulveda’s trucks.”

  Crater angrily tossed down a wrench and grabbed the one Petro was holding. “Maria’s one of the scouts. Guess that’s why you’re going along.”

  Petro took the wrench back. “That’s not why I’m going.

  Maria’s a sweet girl but not my type. When I took her out, all she wanted to talk about was business and profits and, oh yeah, you. Kept wanting to know what you were like. I told her you worried too much about everything. Don’t even think about grabbing this wrench again. I’m gonna help you whether you like it or not.”

  Crater reached for the wrench but Petro pulled it away.

  “Maybe you’re right about me being a worrier. If so, you’re a worry I don’t need. I’m going to ask Captain Teller to kick you off the convoy.”

  Petro studied him. “Why would you do that? Haven’t I always looked after you?”

  “No, you haven’t. I can’t think when you ever have.”

  Petro frowned, then assumed a crooked grin. “You don’t mean a word of that. It’s Maria, right? I already told you that’s not going anywhere. Anyway, the captain’s already signed my papers. One of Carlos’s drivers came down with kidney stones and is flat on his back. Both he and the captain were glad to have me.”

  Crater knew Carlos Sepulveda mostly by reputation. He was an honest trucker, quiet and reserved, although he had an eye for Q-Bess and perhaps vice versa. Whenever he was in town, she always did something with her hair.

  No matter what Petro said, Crater was sure he had joined the convoy so he could chase after Maria. Petro wasn’t one to let a girl get the better of him. He would figure out how to win her and kiss her beneath the stars out there on the dustway.

  It made Crater’s stomach hurt to imagine how it would all develop. “If you’re going, Petro, it’s because you’ve got some angle, not because of me,” he accused.

  “Don’t be silly, brother,” Petro said.

  “You’re not my brother,” Crater snapped. “We just used to live in the same tube.”

  Petro threw down the wrench. “Fine. If that’s the way you want it, you and me—we’re through. You’re on your own.”

  “What else is new?” Crater demanded, then pretended not to care when Petro stormed out.

  The night before the convoy began its journey across the wayback, Captain Teller ordered his scouts to the east maintenance shed for a briefing. Crater and Maria sat cross-legged on the mooncrete floor beside the two scout fastbugs while the captain went down on one knee. Behind him was a big, boxy truck filled with spare parts, food, water, puters, and bunk beds. It was Teller’s truck, which he called the chuckwagon.

  The black tunic Teller wore was severely plain, excepting a white collar. It reminded Crater of pix he’d seen of the Pilgrims who’d settled old New England. All Teller needed was an ancient, cracked Bible in one hand and a blunderbuss in the other. Based on the flurry of directives and rules that Crater had received on his reader, the convoy commander was a man who was careful, meticulous in thought and manner, and tightly wound. He had set forth how-tos on everything that had to do with a convoy: the order of march, the route, the minimum distance between trucks, even the average joules a truck solar panel should collect in an hour’s soak. At the bottom of each directive, Teller had written, “You will study and understand everything in this directive or be subject to immediate employment termination.”

  “Hear me, scouts,” Teller said. “Once we get rolling, we’re pretty much on our own. Our radios are short-range, line of sight and the moon’s horizon is never far away. That means you get a few miles from the convoy, I can’t hear you. Or if a hill or crater rim gets in the way, same story.”

  Crater raised his hand. “Captain, my gillie can communicate farther than any do4u.”

  Teller frowned at the interruption. “Your gillie is illegal.”

  “It knows that, sir.”

  “You ever had that thing out on the dustway?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then you don’t know what it can do, so be quiet and listen. You’ll see communication antennas here and there that can connect with a relay-sat, but those have to be in your line of sight. Even then, you can’t depend on them. Truckers have been known to knock one down by accident or just for the scrag of it.

  I’ve got a sat-phone for emergencies, which lets me communicate directly with the Colonel, but it’s expensive. Anyway, when we get a hundred miles or more out into the wayback, there’s not much the Colonel can do for us.” He allowed a sigh. “Crater, I can see by your expression you have another question.”

  “How about a jumpcar if we need one?”

  “Why would we need a jumpcar?”

  “Well, it could fly in supplies if we needed them, or fly out somebody who maybe got hurt.”

  Teller shook his head. “Number one, too expensive. Number two, both of the company’s jumpcars are broken. As a matter of fact, we’re expected to bring jumpcar parts back with us on the return convoy. Just get it through your thick skull right now, Crater. It’s going to be you, Maria, and me against a thousand miles of dustway and eighteen crazy drivers who’ll do everything they can to drive us nuts. You’re going to have to play nursemaid to them every foot of the way. That means if they break down, you help immediately, not ten minutes later, because the convoy can only go as fast as its slowest truck.

  We’ll be averaging, if we’re lucky, about fifteen miles an hour, probably less. Best case, if we’re able to run twelve hours a day, which is unlikely, that’s one hundred and eighty miles a day.

  We’ll have to stop a couple of times and refit, and that’ll take its toll on our time.”

  “Can we make it in ten days?” Crater asked, thinking again about his requirement to catch the Cycler Elon Musk.

  “That’s the plan. If we don’t, we’ll be caught by the long shadow, and once the sun goes down, it gets spooky out there.

  I don’t want that to happen. Tomorrow first thing, Maria will take the point. Crater, station yourself at the Copperhead Bridge. That’s the first hurdle, and it’s a big one. A lot of the truckers get nervous about crossing that fool bridge, especially when they’ve got a full load. You may need to kick their tails to get them across. When everybody gets across the bridge, run alongside the convoy where the terrain allows it. Otherwise, squeeze into the line.”

  “Try not to run into any of the trucks,” Maria advised with an impish grin, “or get lost. Just watch what I do and you won’t mess up too much.”

  Crater ignored her. “When I’m on point, what do I look for?”

  “Anything that will slow us down. Holes or cracks in the road, a collapsed lava tube, a wreck, or sabotage. There are some people out there who’d just as soon not see us make our delivery. For instance, the Umlaps stopped a dustway convoy and begged for money a few months ago.”

  Crater knew something of the Umlaps, but they were a mysterious bunch. He’d met three of their peculiar citizens when they’d lived at the Dust Palace. One was named Runs Away Again, a young Umlap who’d done just that. The other two were Walks On Dust and Tells No One, both kicked out of the Umlap town of Baikal for unknown reasons. They’d come to Moontown seeking jobs, which the Colonel had given them despite the objection of some parents who were worried that their children would be traumatized just by seeing one walk by.

  The history of the Umlaps was a pathetic one. A genetic experiment in a remote compound in Siberia, they had been created for a Russo-Chinese company to work their scrapes after their first miners had been struck down by the effects of low lunar gravity. Developed in secret and carried to the moon as cargo, the Umlaps were put to work on scrapes near the Piton crater field. They proved to be well adapted for the work because they were very strong, required 30 percent less oxygen than standard humans, and had an IQ of something south of average. After a disgruntled miner who’d lost his job to the Umlaps blew the whistle on the experiment, the company was forced to show both Moonians and Earthians thei
r gene-tweaked slaves.

  It was a shock to the two worlds upon seeing pix of the Umlaps for the first time. They had big hands, short legs, robust chests, lantern jaws, and no ears—just holes. Even on war-torn Earth, countries and organizations condemned their creation. The compound where the Umlaps were created was burned to the ground, the scientists who’d done the work imprisoned, and the Russo-Chinese heel-3 company put out of business.

  This, however, left around sixty Umlaps on a thousand square miles of lunar regolith where, ever since, they had been spectacularly unsuccessful. Now, after decades of defaulting on loans and losing their land put up for collateral, the Umlaps had but a small area left. The dustway ran through a corner of it, and though, by common consent of the companies, the route was treated much as the oceans were on Earth—that is, it belonged to no one and everyone—the Umlaps apparently now had a different opinion.

  “What will we do if they try to stop us?” Crater asked.

  “They will be dealt with,” Teller said in a grim tone. “Let me worry about that. Now, let’s get some sleep while we can.

  We’ll not likely get much until we get to Armstrong City.”

  Crater didn’t want to go back to the Dust Palace since he’d already said good-bye to Q-Bess, Asteroid Al, and the others, so he bedded down beside the fastbugs. Maria left to stay in town, although where she was going, she didn’t say. Crater suspected it was somewhere dark where probably she and Petro could meet and hold each other. He fought back jealous outrage before finally dipping into a shallow, fitful sleep.

  :::

  NINE

  Beside the east maintenance shed, the convoy trucks sat with their rooftop solar panels tilted toward the sun, the panels turning rainbow colors as they soaked energy into the bio-driven fuel cells. Before the convoy could roll, the panels would be lowered and a cover deployed to keep them free of dust.

  Teller sent Maria to count the trucks. When she came back, she said, “Eighteen trucks, sir. No drivers yet. They’re in the maintenance shed.”