The Long Run

by The Long Run (new ed) (mobi)

  Nathan.

  * * *

  Wandering into the kitchen, Trent found the cold spot to be nothing more than a vacuum enclosed partition set in shadow. Trent fried himself a chicken sandwich; it wasn't until he caught the aroma of the frying chicken patty that he realized how ravenously hungry he was. He ate it while frying another two sandwiches.

  Back in the garage, Trent seated himself in front of Nathan's computer. It was at least twenty years old, probably older. The caps on the pointboard were worn down so that the letters could not be seen on most of them. The unit had a bulky monitor rather than a holofield for viewing. There were jacks on the unit for tape and infochip and MPU attachments, but none for the standard optical interface Trent's handheld used. It took Trent nearly two hours before he had the pinouts on the keyboard's MPU slot traced correctly; the computer's System Tools were almost useless. The protocols the system used were clearly an ancestor of the protocols Trent had grown up with, but they were incredibly slow and lacked options as basic as autohelp and abbreviated command syntax. It took him most of the first hour to find the help file that listed the MPU slot's pinouts, and another hour, using invisibly thin drops of cold solder, to link the handheld's MPU slot to the MPU slot on the pointboard.

  Johnny Johnny said, "Checking ... got it. You misconnected pins 105 and 241 on my end, and pins 241 and 98 on the other end. I'm compensating. Also I have crosstalk on the other end from pins 62 and 63, but there's nothing critical on those lines. What now?"

  "What can you tell me about where we are?"

  "Checking ... not very damn much. Local infobases are supposed to be small, but this is ridiculous. There's only a half terabyte of local storage and three quarters of it is empty. What the hell is this thing, anyway?"

  "Uh ... FrancoDEC RISC Mark II, it says on the monitor. There's nothing on the pointboard, and I'd guess the processors are actually in that."

  "Whatever, it's slow damn hardware, Boss. Is there a traceset around here anywhere? I could really use some help."

  "Afraid not, Johnny. I lost the traceset somewhere along the line."

  "... lost the traceset, lost the ship, lost the goddamn full sensory all the way back on another planet--" Johnny Johnny's voice was rising.

  "Johnny!"

  "--what?"

  "Command, set null emote."

  There was a brief pause; Johnny Johnny's voice resumed without notable emotion. "Gotcha. Sorry about that, Boss."

  "It's all right, I wrote the code. Remind me to debug you when there's time. Postcrisis routines."

  "Will do. Let's see ... can't tell you much about where we are, Boss. The system connects to a private enterprise LIN--that's moontalk for 'Lunar Information Network,' Boss--connects to a LIN satellite through a maser link up on the surface. Aristillus Investment Group owns the satellite. We're about fifteen meters beneath the surface. The system has no outside sensors, no eyes, no ears. It does control the radar; there's a pretty good radar system scanning the approaches to the--bolt hole, I guess it's called?"

  "That's the phrase Nathan used."

  "Okay. We're on the east edge of a fairly small crater, just beneath a small overhang; except at sunset the entrance should be in shadow all the time. We're pretty well hidden." Johnny Johnny paused. "We need to be extra careful about going dancing in the Lunar InfoNet, Boss."

  "How so?"

  "Only one channel in and out of this place. Assuming web angels--are there web angels on the Moon, Boss?"

  "Don't know. We'll find out."

  "Assuming web angels, tracking us back to our point of origin would be so simple it scares me. There's also security everywhere like I've never seen before outside of Space Force and PKF Boards. Requests for help are met with demands for ID and/or passwords, everywhere I go."

  "Chill things a bit, Johnny, there's no hurry. What do you legitimately have access to?"

  "Half a dozen public access Boards, Luna City Library, and the Aristillus Investment Group's Board. Basically what 'Sieur Dark Clouds has available to him. Interesting thing about 'Sieur Dark Clouds, Boss--he's not AmerIndian."

  "You're sure? He looks it."

  "Gene chart is all wrong, Boss. He has his med records in here; genetically he's a fairly standard European gene chart--Caucasian, of English, German, or quite possibly French descent. No mongrelization to speak of. Positively no Mongoloid genes."

  "Fascinating," Trent murmured. "That's fairly major biosculpture, then." He filed the subject for the moment. "I want data, Johnny. Data on Lunar InfoNet, biosculptors, inskin vendors."

  "About time!"

  "Save it. Also Lunar society, maps, businesses, Peaceforcers, SpaceFarer-associated businesses, Johnny Rebs and Erisian Claw, Syndic and Tong. Am I missing anything?"

  "Yep. 'Immigrant and Visitor's Guide to Survival,' by M. Garcia. Subtitled, 'Learn Quick Or Die.' Procedural on soft pressure suits and how to buy one, what to do in case of emergencies with rolligons or crawlers or Bullet--the Bullet's called a 'monorail' up here--first aid for people subjected to temporary death pressure, specifics on anoxia and pressure suit air mix. Lists the seventeen commonest ways visitors and immigrants to Luna die." Johnny Johnny paused. "I highly recommend you audit this."

  "You have?"

  "Just now. Good book, Boss. There's a section on 'scalesuits'--word comes from either 'scaled-down spaceship' or else from the fact that they've got armor that looks like fish scales on them, nobody seems to know--that you really need to read."

  "Store it in the handheld."

  "Done."

  "Let's get to work."

  Some of you, said the brochure, will have played at webdancing on Earth. It's possible you are inclined to attempt webdancing while visiting Luna.

  Don't.

  On Earth webdancing is a misdemeanor; in Luna it is a felony punishable by deportation to Earth, assignation to convict labor, or immediate execution.

  There is a one and one-half second lightspeed delay in communications between Earth and Luna, a three second roundtrip delay. Effectively, this means that Luna and Earth have--must have--separate InfoNets. Policing Earth's InfoNet, with its hundreds of millions of Boards, with nearly three billion adults who interact with the InfoNet on a daily basis and six billion who interact with the InfoNet in an average week, is effectively impossible. Despite the valorous efforts of the Earth-based DataWatch, only the most egregious violations of InfoNet procedures are ever punished.

  Luna is a hostile new world. The line between survival and death is a fine one; we cannot allow the tools of our survival to be corrupted for any reason whatsoever.

  Therefore, the Lunar Bureau of the United Nations Peace Keeping Force DataWatch has created the LINK, the Lunar Information Network Key. There are currently nine thousand, four hundred and two Boards on Luna; new Boards must be licensed before they can rent lasercable access. Every transaction--every single transaction--which takes place in the Lunar InfoNet is keyed and tracked on an item-by-item basis. The basis of this unprecedented degree of InfoNet security is the Lunar Information Network Key. The Key is an unbreakable encryption device which the DataWatch employs to validate and track every user in the Lunar InfoNet. Webdancers attempting unauthorized access, to logic, to data, to communications facilities, will be punished to the full extent of the law.

  The last paragraph of the brochure said:

  Those webdancers who call themselves "Players" are invited--no, encouraged--to attempt to crack the Lunar InfoNet. Images are illegal in Luna; possession of Image software or coprocessor hardware is a capital crime.

  "Gee, Boss," Johnny Johnny muttered, "are you sure we can't go home?"

  "Afraid not. Not for a while, Johnny." After a moment Trent added slowly, "You could look at the LINK as a challenge, I suppose."

  Johnny Johnny's answer was immediate. "Let's not."

  Trent was sitting before Nathan's terminal, reading on the handheld's holofield, when Nathan Dark Clouds returned.

  He had no warni
ng, not even from the radar system; the first he knew of Nathan's return was when the airlock cycled open and a pressure-suited figure strode through carrying a limp pressure suit over its shoulder. Nathan hung the second pressure suit on a hook next to the other two empty pressure suits; it hung a full ten centimeters lower to the floor than the first two. He unlocked his neck ring and pulled his helmet off. "Hello, Trent. You're looking well. How do you feel?"

  "Not bad," Trent said mildly. "I'm probably going to need to see a real doctor, or at least a good medbot, for my knee. But in this gravity it hardly matters."

  Nathan glanced at Trent while wriggling out of his pressure suit. "There's advantages to living in Luna, to be sure. Even to living in Unification territory. Living longer and healing faster than downsiders are two of them."

  "Except that to take advantage of those advantages you need to avoid being one of those foolish criminals who die from crashing and blowing up their stolen Rolls-Royce yachts."

  "You've been in my system."

  "Yes."

  Nathan nodded thoughtfully. He was almost out of his pressure suit; Trent watched him with interest as he finished wriggling out. His guess had been correct; you were not supposed to wear bulky clothing or boots inside a pressure suit. "For a fact," Nathan said at last, "you've had a fair piece of luck. Those stories you've been reading on my terminal aren't just official line; the PKF really thinks you're dead."

  Trent turned off the holofield and the book it was displaying. "You know so well what the PKF thinks?"

  The muscles in the back of Nathan's neck tensed visibly, then relaxed. "Space Force has no significant presence downside, I know that. How many Peaceforcers are there on Manhattan Island, Trent?"

  Trent did not even need to think. "Two hundred and ten thousand."

  Nathan hung his suit, took a soft cloth off a hook on the wall next to it, and began wiping the suit down. "Out of a permanent population of what, twelve million?"

  "Counting the spacescrapers, yes. There's three million just in the spacescrapers."

  "Trent, Manhattan is renowned for the huge number of Peaceforcers who are stationed there. It's practically a cliche. But when you do the numbers it only comes out to being one Peaceforcer for every sixty permanent Manhattanites. Taking into account the daily commute onto the island, the number drops to nearly one in ninety. There are," said Nathan Dark Clouds evenly, glancing up at Trent, "twenty-eight million people in United Nations territory in Luna." He knelt, began wiping a fine layer of dust off the pressure suit's boots. "Eight hundred and fifty thousand of them are either PKF or Space Force. It comes to about one in thirty-three. The next war, Trent, it's not going to be fought on Earth, and the U.N. knows it. Folks in Luna," he said quietly, "SpaceFarers and immigrants and native loonies alike, watch the Peaceforcers as though their lives depended on knowing what the PKF is going to do next. They watch Space Force almost as closely."

  Trent said mildly, "Okay, so I'm dead. It's fine by me."

  Nathan looked at him sharply, seemed about to say something, and then said, "What've you been doing?"

  Trent leaned back in the webchair, put his feet up on the table before the terminal. "Auditing the Boards you have access to, reading."

  "About?"

  "The Moon. The Lunar Information Network, PKF on the Moon, SpaceFarers, major Lunar cities, Space Force on the Moon, natives of the Moon and their prejudices against immigrants and which of those prejudices are valid and why. Accounts of attempts Players and webdancers have made to dance in the LIN, and why in the past the Key encryption has stopped them. Scalesuits--they sound fascinating, Nathan. Why don't you own one?"

  Nathan shrugged. "A matter of taste. I don't trust them. They've only been around eight, nine years, and the technology's not really ironed out yet. The PKF uses them because it's cheaper than turning a man into a cyborg and gives you some of the same results. They're very popular in Free Luna for the same reason--the powered assists and radiation armoring and airplant. I don't like them much; there's a lot of metal in them, and if anything goes wrong with the servos assists you're stuck there with two hundred ten kilos--mass, not Lunar weight--of not-very flexible metal armor to haul around on your own muscles. Somebody fresh from Earth can do that, mind you, or anybody who's kept up his weight training--me, for example--but there's not many in Luna that description covers. Native loonies are really stuck with the damn things; they need the power assist more than immigrants from Earth do, for obvious reasons, but if the suit dies out in the field on them, where help isn't close, it's practically a death sentence. Damn things are a disaster waiting to happen, some ways. And now," he concluded, "with all that, you might still want to look at one when you come to Aristillus with me. They have a regenerative airplant that's the nicest innovation I've seen on a p-suit in my lifetime; stretches your time in the field up to thirty or forty hours, and with the radiation shielding built into them it's practical to stay out that long." He changed the subject abruptly. "What else have you been up to?"

  "Aside from reading? Not much. I opened an account with the United Nations Interplanetary Bank at Aristillus, transferred funds from a pair of accounts on Earth, and then paid your account at UNIB Aristillus one thousand CU--for the trouble I've put you to."

  Nathan stood slowly, hung the rag on its hook on the wall. "You moved Credit from accounts on Earth, accounts that DataWatch may or may not have tagged, to UNIB Aristillus, and from there to my bank account?" The man stared at Trent.

  Trent said flatly, "It was safe."

  "If you--"

  "It was safe." Trent said evenly, "You have to trust me on that. I'm a good liar, Nathan, and I'm a good thief and a decent painter. Nathan, I'm a great Player. I know the InfoNet on Earth better than DataWatch ever will. Nathan, it was safe."

  For a long moment the man did not even blink. Finally Nathan sighed, nodded, accepting it. "Okay. Thank you for the thousand CU. I hadn't planned to make a profit from helping you, but I certainly don't mind."

  Trent nodded also, and continued. "One other thing I got done while you were gone: I figured out why I was alive."

  "Well, there's a straight line if you like."

  "Seriously, Nathan. The missile Vance sent after me. Melting temperature."

  "I'm not following."

  "Vance is a smart man. I didn't think brass balls came that smart. It took me three hours to work this out; he thought of it in something like twenty seconds. Say you fire three, four missiles in their silos--even knowing they'll simply be destroyed. The heat from those explosions would have melted the fineline I tied them with long before it significantly damaged the other missiles; those things are designed to fly through rocket exhaust. Shock would probably kill a couple of nearby missiles; flak would kill a lot of the rest. But if you fire your three, four missiles, all from one end of the bunker, there's a good chance that the missiles at the other end will survive long enough to get a couple out. That's all it would have taken, Nathan. Two missiles instead of one; I'd be dead."

  Nathan said softly, "Boy, you should be dead twenty times over no matter how you look at it."

  Trent was silent for several seconds, and then smiled at Nathan Dark Clouds. "That's truer than you know. I owe the Peaceforcers a lot." He was silent again, and then said softly, "An awful lot."

  Nathan said quietly, "What are you going to do?"

  "I haven't decided yet."

  "You can't beat them, Trent."

  "Oh?"

  "When I was young," said Nathan Dark Clouds, "and stupid--about six years ago--I was a member of the Speed Enthusiast's Organization."

  Trent nodded. "I'd guessed you were a Speedfreak."

  "All we did, Trent, was we wanted to drive our own cars. And the fuckers went and outlawed them." Even after all the time, the amazement was still there in the man's voice. "So my reaction time isn't as fast as a chip's. My judgement's a hell of a lot better." He was silent a moment, then shook his head. "Water over the bridge. The argument's done,
we lost it. But we attempted civil disobedience, Trent, almost two million of us set out from San Diego in a convoy, set out to do the Long Run. That's what we called them, the Long Runs, all the way around the world without stopping, without ever touching down on the goddamn dirt. We'd done thousands of Long Runs by '63, as individuals and in convoys. Speedfreak chapters used to pay to send members on the Long Run as presents, or rewards.

  "In '63 two million Speedfreaks set out to do the biggest damn Long Run ever. Out of San Diego, to Hawaii, to Australia, over India, through Israel, through France, and then into the Atlantic for the trip to Capitol City." Nathan's voice had grown harsh, strident. "The Unification Council called it treason, and we died, Trent. The Bureau of Weather Control hit us with a goddamn typhoon and eighty-five percent of us died and the ones who didn't were mostly picked up and tried for treason, they executed two hundred and thirty Speedfreaks and sent fifteen thousand into Public Labor for the rest of their lives." The fierce glare did not leave Trent for an instant. "I was there. I was on the Long Run and I survived."

  It took Trent a moment to find his voice.

  "Faster, faster, faster," he said softly, "until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death."

  Nathan blinked, and then smiled almost against his will. "Where did you hear that?"

  Trent said distantly, thoughtfully, "You made mistakes, you know. First, there were too many of you. You stood up and let them take aim, and then you were surprised when they blew you to hell."

  Nathan was staring at him. "Son, they shot my wife. They killed most of my friends. They--"

  Trent cut him off. "They're practical." Trent looked up, met Nathan's stare. "Very. That's the first thing to know about the Peaceforcers, they always do the sensible thing. The second thing to know is that you can beat them. I have to believe that, Nathan. If I don't believe that, really believe it where it counts, I might as well have died out there in that crashed Rolls."