Helium3 - 1 Crater

by Homer Hickam

  Teller nodded. “All right, let’s go roust them out. We need to be on the road in thirty minutes.”

  Teller, Maria, and Crater went into the shed to find the drivers lounging around, some talking, others sitting in huddles, and a few stretched out on the mooncrete, apparently asleep. Crater noted they wore a variety of old fabric ECPs— Elastic Counter Pressure suits.

  “They don’t look like much,” Teller said, “but most of these fellows have made the dustway trek at least a dozen times.”

  Some of the drivers were singing, their voices echoing in the cavernous shed.

  Pretty little girl wearin’ a wedding ring,

  Waitin’ for me like I was a king,

  Singin’ Dustway Trucker, why do you roam?

  Dustway Trucker, ain’t you ever stayin’ home?

  Honey, I’m on the dustway pushin’ east,

  Steerin’ my way ’cross the Lunar beast.

  Heel-3 to deliver, off to roam,

  It’ll be more’n awhile before I get home.

  Petro got up from the floor and came over. “Even though you’re mad at me for no good reason, I bid you greetings, moon scout,” he said to Crater, then winked at Maria. A jealous tide flooded Crater’s brain.

  Crater didn’t see if Maria had winked back but she said, “We’re leaving in thirty minutes.”

  “You will find me and my truck ready, my lady,” Petro said with a mock gallant bow that set Crater’s teeth on edge, especially when Maria smiled.

  The drivers kept singing.

  Pretty little girl wearin’ a wedding gown,

  Got the best lovin’ in old Moontown.

  Singin’ Dustway Trucker, why do you roam?

  Dustway Trucker, ain’t you ever stayin’ home?

  Teller got on the loudspeaker. “The water trucks have arrived, people, and they were all that was holding us up. Get to your trucks, get behind the wheel, and prepare to move out. We leave in thirty—that’s three zero—minutes. Any driver and truck not ready will be left behind and you can answer to the Colonel. He won’t allow you to stay at the Dust Palace, he won’t sell you food at the company store, and any water you drink will be what you brought with you. It’s up to you.”

  The response from the drivers was a variety of smirks, ugly hand signals, and more singing.

  Honey, you know I got to be free,

  Got a truck to drive, craters to see,

  Heel-3 to deliver, off to roam,

  It’ll be more’n awhile before I get home.

  Although Crater was certain Captain Teller was going to yell at the drivers, he pretended not to notice their gestures and waited them out. After they’d established their independence, they zipped up their suits, plunked on their helmets, and trudged through the combo locks out on the dust to their trucks. Crater heard Petro call out, “Good-bye Moontown, hello Armstrong City!”

  “A thousand miles to go, noogie!” a driver called back at him. “If you make it.”

  “You’ll be sor-r-r-r-ry!” another driver sang.

  After the drivers all got into their trucks, Teller called up the convoy frequency and gave them their first orders. “Comm silence, people, and listen up. I will now read the official rules.

  “The lineup has been arranged by the convoy commander.

  Do not change it.

  “Fastbug scouts have authority over all drivers. You will follow their orders as if they were mine.

  “All communications will be across the convoy frequency.

  No talking on private freqs. An hourly test of comm will be made by the convoy commander.

  “In the event of a mechanical failure, drivers will immediately notify the commander either by comm units or by signaling and pulling over. The entire convoy will pull off the dustway to a safe location until the failure is corrected.

  “Passing other convoy trucks is prohibited.

  “Don’t separate from the convoy. If you get lost, immediately stop and communicate with the commander or the scouts. Bottom line: don’t get lost.

  “Questions?” Teller barked. When none of the drivers said anything, he said, “Take down and secure your solars.”

  Petro went through the procedure on the control panel to stow the solar panels, then got out to make certain they were locked in place. He climbed back into the cab, closed the door, and heaved over the latching lever. His side view mirrors showed Crater on one side and Maria on the other, running down the convoy, making their checks. He was proud of Crater for making such a big decision, quitting the scrapes and all, though it wasn’t much like the boy. He wondered if Crater’s visit with the Colonel might have had something to do with it, but his mum wouldn’t talk about it so he didn’t know. And, after all, it didn’t really matter. What mattered to Petro was getting himself out of Moontown and on to his destiny, whatever it was. As for

  Maria, she wasn’t his kind of woman. Too young, just sixteen, for one thing, and she had a bit of mouth on her. Besides that, she had sometimes wanted to talk about Crater. If there was one thing Petro couldn’t stand, it was a woman who wanted to talk about somebody else other than him. No, Crater could have her if he could handle her—which, of course, he probably couldn’t.

  “Truckers are authorized to pressurize their cabins and take off their suits,” Teller said over the comm loop.

  Petro told the truck puter to attend to the pressurization, and the hiss of air into the driver compartment told him it had begun. He watched the gauge that measured air pressure.

  When it reached Moontown standard, he unlatched his helmet faceplate. The air from the truck supply smelled a bit oily but it would do.

  “Drivers, mix your cells.”

  The truck’s fuel cells thrummed when Petro started their mixers. The digital readouts blinked the numbers, and Petro was gratified to see all his numbers in the green. He heard two truckers report one or more of their cells were dead, and Teller didn’t hesitate to kick them off the convoy. Another driver called to report he was too sick to drive. Before the convoy had moved a foot, three trucks were out.

  Maria drove to the truck that had the sick driver. When she called him, he lifted his head, his expression one of sheer wretchedness. “I need a doctor,” he said.

  “And you’ll get one,” Maria answered, “but not until you’re in the maintenance shed.”

  The driver presented a disrespectful hand signal, then allowed his head to droop.

  “Alcohol,” she said to Crater on their private channel as he drove up.

  “Maybe he’s really sick,” Crater said.

  “He’s not sick, just drunk.”

  “How do you know?”

  Maria responded curtly, “You can’t be soft, Crater, or the drivers will have you wrapped around their axles. Never believe a word they say.”

  Before Crater could answer, not that he had an answer, Teller called. “Crater, you still here? Stop dawdling and head for the bridge and wait for us there like I told you!”

  “You ever cross the bridge?” Maria asked. When he shook his head, she said, “Prepare to be impressed. Now, get going.”

  Crater turned his fastbug around, ran along the line of trucks, then went ahead, following the worn tracks of the dustway. When he reached a small rise in the road, he stopped and looked over his shoulder. Already, Moontown was out of sight. “Well, here we go, gillie,” he said, forgetting gillies weren’t for conversation, then pressed hard on the accelerator, wheels spinning and dust flying. They were on their way.

  :::

  TEN

  The bridge that crossed the Copperhead Rille was five years old. On the Colonel’s first trek to the Alpine Valley, he’d picked his way through the rugged hills to the northeast and skirted the rille to cross into the main valley. Once he’d established his scrapes, his pioneering route proved to be a difficult track for fully loaded heel-3 trucks, so he authorized the construction of a bridge across the halfmile-wide and five-hundred-foot-deep abyss. The engineer he chose to design and bui
ld the bridge was a Japanese refugee who also had an artistic flair. His design was a suspension bridge of spaghetti-thin lunasteel cable and soaring mooncrete towers on opposing abutments. It was an elegant bridge—constructed to take advantage of the low gravity—but it was also one nearly everyone was afraid to cross. The problem wasn’t its design or structural integrity. The problem was that most humans didn’t trust a bridge, however elegantly designed, that looked so wispy and weak. Even if born on the moon, their minds still conceptualized things as if they were within the deeper gravity well of Earth.

  Crater admired the bridge from a small hill a mile away, then ran his fastbug up to its approach. He got out, summoned up his courage, then walked out on it. He thought he felt it sway under his tread, but he knew that was impossible. He didn’t weigh nearly enough to affect the bridge, not even in his fastbug. He’d heard of the swaying phenomena. Nearly all truck drivers thought the bridge was moving beneath them even when instruments proved it wasn’t moving at all. It was a trick of the mind.

  What wasn’t a trick was the sympathetic resonance that a convoy of trucks could apply to a suspension bridge, especially one so finely constructed. As the trucks crossed, they sometimes built up a cascade of vibrations that had the bridge resonating like a tuning fork, threatening to demolish the entire structure. That was something the Japanese designer had forgotten to include in his calculations. To diminish the problem, no more than three trucks were allowed on the bridge at any time with a full minute after to give the bridge time to settle down. This was Crater’s job, to keep the number of trucks on the bridge to the magic three and the equally magic one minute between them.

  Before long, Maria came boiling down the dustway, the first trucks following about fifty yards behind. She gave Crater a wave and kept going across the bridge. Crater wondered if her fastbug counted as one of the three trucks. He decided it didn’t, fastbugs being so light, and, anyway, he thought she’d probably be across before the first truck arrived.

  He waved the first truck on, then two more, then stepped out onto the road and held his hand up to stop the next one, which, to his amazement, didn’t even slow down. He had to dive out of its way as it rolled past, its driver hunched over its wheel. This meant there were now four, maybe five vehicles on the bridge. Crater hoped the captain wouldn’t notice, which proved to be a forlorn hope.

  “Crater! I told you no more than three trucks on that bridge!” Teller roared. “Get control of the situation. Now!”

  After two more trucks whizzed past, Crater jumped in his fastbug and drove it onto the road to block the way. The next truck, dodging him, ran off the road, skidded, spun around, and finally stopped with its front bumper inches from the edge of the rille. The driver was a fellow Crater had seen around Moontown named Brian “Irish” Murphy, a hothead by reputation.

  The captain yelled, “Doggone it, Crater. Get Irish back on the road and keep the convoy moving! What’s wrong with you?”

  Crater didn’t know what was wrong except everything was happening too fast. He also thought the captain had given him contradictory orders. Which was he supposed to do first? Take care of Irish or move the convoy that was blasting onto the bridge, one truck zooming after the other. There were at least six on it now.

  Choosing to save the bridge, he drove onto the road, completely blocking the trucks. The next driver skidded to a stop just inches away from Crater’s fastbug and began to curse. Crater ignored him and ran over to Irish and jumped up on the running board of his truck. “Get back in line,” he demanded.

  Irish, who’d been staring into the deep rille, turned and looked at Crater. “I would’ve died if I’d gone over the edge.”

  “It was your own fault. Now, get back in line.”

  Crater hopped off Irish’s truck and ran to his fastbug, moved it out of the way, and waved three trucks through, then stood in the road to stop any more. If they were coming, they’d have to run over him. He was not going to move. After a minute had passed, he waved on another three. The third one was driven by Petro, who yelled, “Here I go!”

  Crater waved him on, then bodily blocked the road again. The next three trucks included Irish’s. He provided Crater an insulting hand gesture, which changed to a salute as he passed. There was a rhythm now. Crater kept waving trucks on, three at a time. Finally, it was just Captain Teller and his chuckwagon.

  “A poor job, Crater,” Teller admonished. “And don’t just stand there with your mouth open. Your day’s just starting. Catch up with Maria. Go! ”

  Crater went. Driving on the bridge was breathtaking. The rille, probably a collapsed lava tube, was so deep, it looked like the Big Miner had reached down from the stars and dragged the prong of a gigantic pick through the dust.

  Before long, Crater caught up with Maria. “All the trucks are across the bridge.”

  “I heard you had a little trouble,” she said in a snarky tone.

  “Well, they got across.”

  Maria looked dubious, then said, “Why don’t you scout ahead?”

  “Because Captain Teller didn’t tell me to.”

  Maria’s expression turned as cold as a shadow on the moon. “Crater, let me explain something. I own this company and I employ Captain Teller. I give him the authority he has. I also employ you. Any questions?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Then get going.”

  Crater mashed the accelerator and his fastbug’s modified fuel cell kicked in, throwing up rooster tails of dust that covered Maria. Grinning while she sputtered in outrage, Crater sped away. Ahead lay the open dustway, the endless plains and craters, and the wild territories of the wayback. All of a sudden, Crater couldn’t wait to see them.

  :::

  ELEVEN

  The convoy plowed on for twelve more hours with Crater and Maria alternating at the point. Then Teller ordered a halt for the drivers to rest. The blazing sun bore down as they raised their solar panels and pulled down their sun shields, most of them crawling into curtained bunks behind the bench seats for a nap. Crater joined Maria and Teller in the chuckwagon. “A good first day, absent Crater’s failure at the bridge,” the captain said. “Get yourselves something to eat and drink, then some sleep.”

  Maria went to the cupboard. “Peanut butter sandwich?” she asked Crater while Teller busied himself at his puter.

  Crater was smarting from Teller’s criticism, but he was also hungry and glad to have the sandwich. He poured faux powdered orange juice in plaston cups while Maria made her peanut butter and bread creations, adding strawberry jam— all of it artificial from the biovats, of course. She brought the sandwiches and sat down at the compact table. Crater joined her and they ate and drank in silence.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Maria asked after she’d finished the first half of her sandwich.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re so quiet.”

  “It’s hard to talk and eat a peanut butter sandwich at the same time,” Crater pointed out.

  “I think you’re pouting because the captain said you did a poor job at the bridge. Well, you did, so what else was he going to say?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Crater said.

  “You also don’t like it when I tell you what to do.”

  “Now I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  Maria took a bite out of the second half of her sandwich, chewed it thoughtfully, and then noticed the gillie move in its holster. “Would the gillie talk to me?”

  “Gillies are only supposed to answer questions.”

  “Petro said yours does more than that.”

  The mention of Petro made his jealousy bloom again but Crater remained calm, at least on the outside. “What else did he say?”

  “He said you loved that little blob of slime mold cells.”

  “I don’t love it. I don’t love anybody.”

  Maria apparently enjoyed needling Crater. “I would like to ask your gillie a question. Is that all right?”
>
  “Sure, but it won’t answer unless I tell it to.”

  “Then tell it. What’s the harm?”

  Crater thought it over. He supposed there was no harm, other than general stupidity for Maria to think she could stump the gillie. In fact, he thought it might be fun for the gillie to show off a bit so he said, “Gillie, this girl is going to ask you a question. I give you permission to answer it.”

  Maria blinked her big brown eyes. “Why did you call me ‘this girl’? I have a name.”

  “I didn’t think I should use the first name of my boss.”

  “Give me something of a break, Crater.”

  Crater shrugged. “Gillie, Maria”—he pronounced it with some disdain—“is going to ask you a question. Please answer it.”

  “Gillie,” Maria said, “do you think Crater is nice?”

  “It doesn’t answer personal questions,” Crater snapped.

  Define nice, the gillie said, crawling out of its holster to Crater’s shoulder.

  Maria gave Crater a triumphant glance, then said, “Is he kind, brave, and clean? And does he like brunettes?”

  The gillie turned a crystal blue and managed to look thoughtful, then said, He is kind. He is brave, though he doubts himself. He generally bathes when he can, but he has at times worn underwear that is not clean. He likes girls, and the color of their hair does not matter.

  “How about me? Does he like me?”

  “No more questions,” Crater growled. For some reason, his face was feeling decidedly hot.

  The gillie preened, changing its color to a golden yellow.

  He alone can answer.

  Maria laughed softly. “Well said, Gillie. So, Crater, do you like me? Not many boys do. They think I’m too bossy.”

  “Well, I agree with them,” Crater said.

  “That was an honest answer,” Maria said, though she didn’t sound grateful. She didn’t look grateful either. “I guess we’ve established at least one thing with your gillie. You don’t like me and, guess what, I don’t like you either.” She raised her chin. “But we’re professionals, are we not? We’ll continue to work together, me telling you what to do and you doing it.”