by Ben Bova
Tray pulled off the straps that had held him down and got to his feet. At least, that is what he tried to do. Instead of standing on the dining room’s polished floor, though, he rose majestically upward and floated toward the ceiling.
His surprise was overcome by the hollowness he felt in his stomach. Zero gee was not a pleasant sensation, he realized.
Para came soaring up after him.
“Zero gravity can be upsetting at first,” said the android, grasping Tray’s shoulders.
Tray nodded dumbly. His stomach was telling him that it wanted to empty itself. While Tray’s innards throbbed and his throat felt as if it was going to erupt, Para used the small vernier jets built into its body to gently bring him back down to the floor.
“We only spent a few moments in zero gravity when we boarded Jove’s Messenger,” Para said to Tray as the two of them stood shakily among the others. “Not enough time to acquire your space legs.”
Tray nodded shakily. The motion made his stomach lurch.
The android yanked one of the emergency bags from the seat and handed it to Tray, who happily, ingloriously, vomited into it.
Through tearing eyes Tray saw Loris staring at him, her face distraught. Bricknell was chuckling. Others either gawked or turned away. Nobody else seemed to be affected by zero gee the way he was. Tray felt totally miserable.
Para said, “One of the disadvantages of modern spaceflight is that passengers are rarely exposed to zero gravity for more than a few minutes.”
Bricknell put on a sympathetic face. “Why didn’t you put on a zero-gee adaptation applicator, Tray? They were sent to each of our quarters.” He pointed to the tiny flesh-colored circle pasted to the side of his neck.
“I … I didn’t think I’d need one,” Tray replied weakly, feeling he’d made an ass of himself in Loris’s eyes.
But she said, “It’s all right, Tray. All’s well that ends well.”
Tray felt grateful to her.
* * *
Under zero gravity, one of the ship’s crew led Tray and the others, bobbing and wide-eyed, to the ship’s main hatch, three levels below the dining area. Harold Balsam was already there, together with a trio of underlings. Balsam looked unhappy, impatient.
“Your luggage is being handled by the robots,” explained the young, pale blond crewman leading them down to the exit hatch. “Should be in your quarters by the time you get there.”
“How long are we going to be on the Moon?” Balsam asked.
The youngster shrugged. “That’s up to the investigating team. But don’t worry, you’ll have complete communications capabilities in your quarters. You’ll be only one-point-three seconds away from whoever you want to talk to on Earth.”
The eight of them stopped when they reached the ship’s exit hatch. The hatch was firmly shut; three officers in slate-gray uniforms—two men and a woman—were hovering there.
Their crewman escort announced, “We got seven passengers and an android.” Turning back to Tray and the others, he smilingly said, “This is as far as I go. You’re now officially in the hands of the Selene security department.”
The woman turned out to be the head of the trio. She glided over to Tray and his companions. “Selene Immigration Control,” she corrected sharply. “We’ll take over from here.”
IMMIGRATION
The woman was slightly shorter than Tray, lean of face and figure, with short-cropped light brown hair.
“Welcome to Selene,” she said flatly, as she nodded to one of her male associates.
He pecked at the control box mounted on the bulkhead, and the heavy metal hatch slowly swung inward.
“We’ll fly you down to the surface and our immigration processing center. In a few minutes you’ll be under lunar gravity and we’ll all feel a lot better.”
Only then did Tray realize that the woman’s bleak expression was her reaction to zero gravity. He felt pleased that he wasn’t the only one suffering.
They shuffled through the hatch one by one, with Balsam and his assistants in the lead, and took seats in the spacecraft’s narrow interior. Loris sat one seat ahead of Tray; Bricknell took the seat on the other side of the aisle from her.
“Fasten your safety belts, please,” said the security team’s leader as she glided to the front of the passenger compartment. “You’ll be feeling some gravity again once we lift off.”
Tray looked forward to it.
The two male officers had remained at the rear of the compartment, by the hatch. Turning in his chair, Tray saw the ship’s hatch swing leisurely inward and secure itself firmly.
“Ready for departure,” one of the men called.
The woman made the slightest of nods and spoke softly into the slim black communicator she held in her hand. Tray felt a slight thump and then a push against his back.
“We’re off!” Bricknell announced.
Tray smiled inwardly as his insides calmed down. Gravity, he thought. Man’s best friend. At least, his digestive system’s best friend.
* * *
The flight from orbit to the surface of the Moon was brief and uneventful. There was nothing to see, since the shuttlecraft had no viewports. But a few minutes after they left Jove’s Messenger Tray felt another surge of weight and then the slightest of bumps.
“We’re down,” said the woman. “We’ve arrived at Selene’s spaceport.”
Tray unfastened his seat belt.
“Please remain seated,” the woman instructed, “until asked to get up.”
Tray impatiently drummed his finger on the seat’s armrests. Para, sitting across the aisle from him, sat perfectly still, as if asleep.
After several minutes, the hatch at the rear of the compartment popped open with a soft sigh of air. The two security crewmen stood aside and a young woman stepped aboard, smiling brightly. Her hair was red and curly, her figure lean and lithe. Her uniform was coral red, nicely complementing her hair. Tray figured she was nearly his own height. She looked perky.
“Good morning,” she said. “Welcome to Selene. My name is Connie Seventeen. I will guide you to your quarters. Please follow me.”
Tray glanced at Para and then back at Connie Seventeen. She’s an android! he realized. It was hard to believe, she looked so lifelike.
Balsam came striding down the aisle in ponderous steps and put out his hand to the android. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Seventeen.”
The android dimpled like a human. “And an honor to meet you, Mr. President.”
Tray let Loris go past him before stepping out into the aisle ahead of Bricknell. He smiled at his minuscule victory over Mance as he followed Loris toward the exit hatch.
* * *
Connie Seventeen led them from the shuttlecraft’s hatch to a waiting bullet-shaped bus that swiftly sped through a long tunnel.
“Our spaceport is several kilometers from the city proper, of course,” Connie Seventeen was explaining to the seated passengers. “Although Stavenger Spaceport has an excellent safety record, we simply cannot take the chance of a spacecraft mishap damaging the city itself.”
Raising a hand, Loris asked, “Isn’t the city almost entirely buried underground?”
Standing at the front of the speeding bus, the android replied cheerfully, “Yes, of course. But a spacecraft loaded with many tons of highly combustible propellants is still a considerable safety risk. Better to keep the spaceport a reasonable distance from the city itself.” It hesitated a moment, then added, “We’ve had to move the spaceport outward three times over our history as Selene proper has expanded.”
Bricknell raised a hand. “How much traffic does the spaceport handle?”
Connie Seventeen smiled momentarily, then began to answer, “Most of the flights outward to Mars and the Asteroid Belt, Jupiter, Saturn, and the further extremes of the solar system, of course. Inward flights to Venus, Mercury, and Sun orbiters. And now we’re doing interstellar missions, as well.”
“Numbers?” Bricknell insi
sted.
The android smiled again. It’s checking the records, Tray realized. That smile is a delaying tactic.
Connie Seventeen rattled off numbers until even Bricknell’s face glazed over.
Balsam half-grumbled, “How long is this bus ride going to take us?”
Its smile more gleaming than ever, the android replied, “We are slowing down now. We will be pulling into your debarking station within three minutes.”
* * *
The next half hour was spent answering questions. Connie Seventeen led Tray and the others to a row of desks where large square viewscreens displayed a long series of boring questions.
Name? Occupation? Purpose of visit to Selene?
It seemed to Tray that they must already know the answers; all they had to do was access the records from Jove’s Messenger. But each of them—even Para—had to sit and sift through the questions, one by one.
Tray noted that Balsam was not subjected to such an investigation. The president of the Interplanetary Council was met by a small cluster of officious-looking men and women and whisked away from the others, together with his trio of assistants.
Rank hath its privileges, Tray said to himself.
At last, though, the inquisition ended and the monitor screens showed THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION. WELCOME TO SELENE.
Tray frowned at the words. Welcome to Selene, he thought. That’s the third or fourth time we’ve been welcomed. But we’re still not in Selene, not really.
Connie Seventeen was apparently not programmed to show the slightest disappointment. She gathered up the four of them and pointed to a door in the far side of their interrogation center.
“On the other side of that door is Selene proper. Are you ready to enter?”
“Hell, yes,” Tray snapped irritably.
The others nodded agreement. Even Para.
SELENE
Connie Seventeen hesitated at the hatch. “I know you’ve heard these words several times earlier, but … well, Welcome to Selene!”
With that the heavy hatch popped open and swung outward.
The first thing to hit Tray’s awareness was the noise. Selene hummed. It buzzed. It bustled.
Tray stared out at a wide-open area, covered high above with a dome of some sort. Down at the ground level, people were walking, striding, hurrying along paved walkways that curved through lush growths of beautifully colored flowers. Trees soared overhead. Tray’s eyes oogled at people flying through the air on broad colorful wings. And everyone seemed to be talking, jabbering, pointing, gesticulating at once.
Connie Seventeen smiled at the gaping expressions on the faces of Tray and the others.
“It’s a lot to take in, all at once,” the android said. Gesturing out toward the hustling, energetic, spirited crowd, it explained, “Selene is a city, like Tokyo or London or New York, not some tiny research center or mining facility. Our population is over four million and still growing. Our people are proud to say you can find anything you want in Selene. And then some!”
Tray oogled at the passing parade. He had been in cities much of his life: born in Oakland, educated in Montreal, he had done his astronaut training in the Greater Orlando region. But Selene was beyond any of them. It seethed; it vibrated like a living organism.
Leading them through the hatch and onto a moving slidewalk, Connie Seventeen explained, “We’re in the Main Plaza, where people go for restaurants and recreation—you know, theater, concerts, swimming in the Olympic-sized pool…” The android pointed. Beyond the crowds thronging the walkways Tray could see youngsters diving off a platform that must have been at least thirty meters high, twisting and tumbling in midair as they slowly, dreamily dropped toward the water.
“We’re in one-sixth Earth-normal gravity,” Connie Seventeen said cheerfully. “That allows some spectacular athletic performances. And of course,” the android pointed overhead, “you can rent wings and fly like a bird.”
One of the fliers swooped low over their heads and shouted something in a language Tray didn’t understand. But he waved at the guy, and realized he was a grizzled old-timer. With a huge grin splitting his face.
Turning to Loris, striding along beside him, Tray said, “I’d like to try that—flying like a bird.”
“Looks like fun,” she agreed.
From her other side, Bricknell groused, “You can break your neck on one-sixth gee just as well as on Earth.”
Tray grinned at him. “But it takes longer,” he wisecracked.
Bricknell shot him a disgusted look.
As they walked along Tray saw in the distance a massive concrete shell and concluded that that was where concerts were performed. They don’t have to worry about the weather, he realized.
At last they came to a set of moving stairs that led underground. The android watched its human charges step warily onto the escalator before it—and Para—got on themselves.
“Most of Selene is underground, of course,” Connie Seventeen pointed out. “The Moon’s surface is bathed in harsh radiation, with temperature swings of more than four hundred degrees Kelvin just by stepping from sunshine to shadow. Plus the constant meteoric infall. Much safer underground—and more comfortable.”
The escalator ended in what looked to Tray like a broad, comfortably furnished lobby.
“Welcome to Hotel Luna,” said Connie Seventeen as she moved to the head of their little group. “You’ll be staying here while the accident investigation team does its work.”
Tray glanced around. The lobby was impressive: dark wood paneling, thickly lush multihued carpeting, expensive-looking easy chairs scattered here and there. The front desk seemed almost a kilometer from where the escalator ended.
“Your expenses will be covered by the investigation team’s budget, of course.” Then the android added, “Within reason.”
“Will that include calls down to Earth?” Loris asked.
“I’m afraid not,” said Connie Seventeen. “You are to be kept incommunicado until the investigation is finished.”
“How long will that take?” Bricknell inquired.
The android hesitated a split second, then replied, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know.”
“We could be here for weeks!” Bricknell complained.
“Perhaps.”
Tray thought it over quickly. Aloud, he said “Not so bad, actually. Like an all-expense-paid vacation.”
“Not all expenses,” Connie Seventeen reminded.
“Close enough,” said Tray, with a careless shrug. He was thinking, A week or so in Selene with Loris shouldn’t be too intolerable. As long as we can ditch Mance.
* * *
But once Tray had registered at the Hotel Luna’s reception desk and he and Para had been escorted by one of the hotel’s robots to his room he discovered two things.
One: his meager overnight bag containing his travel things.
Two: a notice on the ceiling-high viewscreen in his bedroom to report to the accident investigation team’s headquarters at 0900 hours the next day.
He plopped onto the comfortably yielding bed and called Loris. Her lovely face filled the screen, bigger than life, warm, inviting.
“Yes,” she replied, once Tray told her of his summons. “I got one also, for eleven hundred hours.”
Nodding, Tray suggested, “Maybe they think they’ll be finished with me in two hours.”
Loris smiled slightly. “Let’s hope so.”
INVESTIGATIVE BOARD
The following morning, with Para guiding him through Selene’s broad, busy, chatter-filled passageways, Tray arrived at the investigative board’s hearing room thee minutes before nine a.m.
It was a small, almost bare room, with no furnishings except a curved banc raised almost a full meter above floor level and an empty chair and desk facing it. Tray looked around hesitantly. The walls looked bare, but he detected the faint glow of display screens from floor to ceiling. No windows, of course, since they were several levels below the Mo
on’s harsh, lifeless surface.
Tray turned to Para. “Are you sure this is the right place?”
Before the android could reply, three humanform androids filed through the door behind the raised banc and took their seats facing Tray. They wore no clothes, but their anodized “skins” glistened in the subdued lighting from the ceiling.
“Good morning,” said the one in the center. “Are you prepared to begin?”
Tray nodded, then said, “Yes, I am.”
“And you?” asked the investigator, pointing at Para.
“I am ready for your questions,” Para replied.
“Good. Then let us start.”
They started by asking Tray’s name and home address.
Once Tray answered, the investigator on Tray’s left asked, “That’s a mental facility, isn’t it?”
“A recuperative facility,” Para explained. “Mr. Williamson is being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from the destruction of the Saviour spacecraft and its entire crew, except for himself.”
Its entire crew, Tray repeated silently. Including Felicia. But the pain he expected was muted, softer than it had ever been before.
The interrogator on the other side of the three-person team said, “We are here to look into the loss of the Athena spacecraft, and the deaths of Jordan Kell and Gyele Sheshardi. The Saviour incident has no bearing on this investigation.”
Not to you, Tray thought.
The chief investigator, seated in the middle of the trio, nodded in a very humanlike fashion.
“Mr. Williamson,” it said, focusing its diamond-hard eyes on Tray, “can you tell us in your own words what happened aboard the Athena?”
Tray licked his lips, then replied, “I can tell you what happened, but I can’t tell you why.”