Apollo's Outcasts

by Allen Steele

  School occupied only the first part of my day, though. When the magic hour of 1200 rolled around and I'd close my pad, I had a choice of what to do with my time between lunch and dinner.

  Back home, I would have usually gone down to the school gym, change out of my street clothes, then join Logan and the rest of the swim team in the pool, practicing for our next meet. Here, the very idea of a pool was absurd. Nicole, who'd been born and raised on the Moon, was appalled that anyone would waste water by swimming in it. "Do you know how many gallons of urine we have to recycle just to grow one tomato?" she once asked me, and I had to admit that I didn't. But there were other ways of having fun.

  One of them was moonball. Apollo High had its own team, with Mr. Speci as the coach, which practiced on a court behind the school. Moonball was like a cross between soccer and volleyball. It was played on a fenced-in court with artificial turf and a big net slung halfway across. The ball was about as big as a volleyball, and two teams of five people each bounced it back and forth until someone missed. You couldn't use your hands, though; legs, feet, chest, and head were the only parts of your body that could touch the ball. But you could bounce the ball under the net as well as above it, and the surrounding chain-link fence could be used for ricochet shots.

  In one-sixth gravity, you could do stuff that was impossible on Earth. One slick move was the flip-dunk: leap straight in the air, do a forward somersault, kick the ball with your feet, then make a two-point landing that would have you ready to intercept it when it came your way again. Another was striking the ball under the net so that it would come up beneath an unwary opponent's legs. Or simply jumping up and slamming the ball over the net so hard and fast that the other team's rear guard wouldn't be able to stop it before it hit the rear fence.

  After watching a few games, I tried my hand at it. Or feet, rather. I gave up after a couple of games, though. I was in pretty good shape for someone who'd spent most of his life in a mobil, but I'd only recently learned how to walk without relying on a pair of crutches; my reflexes simply weren't up to a sport as hard and fast as moonball.

  While Mr. Speci was willing to let me try out for the team, Billy was the captain, and he wasn't about to give me a break there either. "Go find a wheelchair, Crip!" he'd yell at me when I'd miss a shot and fall on my face. "You can't play this game!" Mr. Speci had a few words with him about this, but after awhile, I had to admit that Billy was right. Like it or not, a lifetime of sitting in a mobil wasn't good practice for moonball, and so I dropped out.

  Rover racing was another sport. Apollo had a couple of teams, mainly comprised of adults but with a few kids as well, which customized lunar rovers for higher performance and raced them across Ptolemaeus. I wouldn't be able to join a team until after I learned how to wear a moonsuit, though, and it would be a while before I reached the point where anyone would let me enter an airlock on my own.

  I was about to give up on doing anything after school besides sweeping walkways. By then, I had to volunteer for a Colony Service job, and since spacecraft maintenance was a bit beyond me, I had to settle for menial labor. Custodial work wasn't so bad, though; it gave me a chance to learn my way around Apollo, and it wasn't long before I knew where all the ramps, stairs, and elevators were located. It also let me see Eddie and Nina. Eddie had taken a job working in the solarium gardens, and although his little sister wasn't old enough to be required to do Colony Service, she often went along to help him. Eddie seemed to like what he was doing, and that eased my mind about him. At least he was having an easier time fitting in than I was.

  Paragliding was even more risky than moonball, and I thought Logan was crazy to try it, but then I saw how he was using it to make time with Nicole, so...

  The crater floor was ringed by a series of air vents, circular shafts that allowed warm air to rise from the atmosphere processing plant beneath Apollo. The vents were evenly positioned about a hundred yards apart from each other, and paragliders had learned how to use the updrafts to keep themselves aloft.

  The trick was catching these thermals before you descended too far for them to be useful. Nicole and Logan had turned to head for the nearest vent, and I wasn't far behind them when they passed above its black slats. They abruptly rose, their descent braked by the rising air, then Logan made a deft maneuver by pulling in his arms for a second and going into a quick, shallow dive, then stretching out his wings again and using the added velocity to pass Nicole from underneath.

  Nicole laughed out loud, obviously impressed. Okay, I thought, two can play that game.

  A couple of seconds later, I passed above the shaft. A warm current of air passed across my body and I felt myself beginning to rise. I kept my arms and legs stretched out as far as I could and allowed the thermal to lift me until I was slightly higher than her and Logan.

  And then I pulled in my arms and legs and dove toward them.

  Almost immediately, I knew that I'd made a mistake. An experienced paraglider could safely pull a stunt like that, but I wasn't ready for aerobatics and I was too close to the ground. I threw my arms and legs apart again, but I'd already spilled too much air from the suit's membranes. The crater floor was rushing toward me...and worse, my friends were in the way.

  "Watch out!" I yelled.

  Nicole looked back in time to see me coming. She banked to the left, but Logan didn't react quickly enough. He was still flying straight ahead when I came down upon him from on high. For a second, it seemed as if we were about to collide. We didn't, but I came close enough to him that our hands brushed each other's as I swept past.

  "Idiot!" Logan shouted, but I barely noticed. All thoughts of trying to score points with Nicole had vanished; my only concern was making it to the ground without breaking my neck. The next nearest vent was about two hundred feet away, but the heads-up display in the left lens of my goggles informed that this was also my present altitude. I'd never make it. Even at lower gravity, I was coming down too fast....

  "Use your chute!"

  Nicole must have dived to catch up with me. When I looked to my right, she was beside me, only twenty feet away.

  "Use your chute!" she yelled again. "Pull the cord!"

  Our parachutes were intended to be used for landings, but they were also there for emergencies. If you get in trouble, my instructor had said, don't try to be a hero. Pull the cord and make apologies later.

  Good advice. The rip cord extended through my right sleeve and into the palm of my right glove, its ring firmly attached to my middle finger. I yanked my arm straight up to pull the cord, and a giant claw reached down from the ceiling and grabbed me from behind. The chute had opened; seconds later, I was drifting toward the floor.

  It was not a graceful landing. I came down in a goat pen. Anyone standing nearby would've seen my final descent, and I'm sure they were properly amused. I wasn't, and neither was the billy goat that decided I was a menace to society.

  I was gathering my chute and trying to avoid being bitten or head-butted when a cart pulled up beside the pen. Mr. Porter was driving, and Hannah was in the front passenger seat. The city manager didn't look very happy with me, but before he could say anything, Hannah jumped out and ran over to the pen, hopping over the fence as if it wasn't there.

  "Jamey!" she yelled. "Are you okay?"

  Her eyes were wide and her face was pale, and if I hadn't been so angry with myself I might have noticed that she was genuinely concerned. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," I grumbled, then looked upward. Logan and Nicole were still airborne, but it looked as if they were headed for the designated touchdown point about a half-mile away. If I knew Logan, he'd have some fine words for me the next time I saw him. "Just great..."

  "I was..." Hannah started to reach for me; maybe it was the look in my eyes when I yanked off my goggles that caused her to stop. "When I saw what was happening, I was worried about you."

  Great. First moonball, and now this. My humiliation was complete. "Maybe I should stick to sweeping floors," I murmured as I
opened the pen gate and carried my chute out of there. "Or chess. You can't get hurt playing chess...maybe."

  Hannah was trying not to laugh, but her hands were over her mouth when Mr. Porter approached us. I was too embarrassed to wonder why he and Hannah would have come out to meet me when I landed. "I'm very sorry, sir," I said. "If there's been any damage, I'll..."

  "There isn't. Least not as far as I can tell." There was a certain look on his face which stopped me short; all at once, I knew that this wasn't about my attempt at paragliding. "Jamey, something's happened. You need to come with us at once."

  "What...?"

  Hannah answered me before he did. "There's been a message from your sister Jan."

  I thought Mr. Porter was going to take us to City Hall. Instead, we went somewhere I hadn't been before: the Main Operations Center, located on the same underground level as the storm shelter.

  Before Mr. Porter and Hannah retrieved me, they had dropped by the flying school to pick up the clothes I'd left in the locker room. I was glad that they had. I didn't want to go walking around in my paragliding outfit...and, to be honest, I wanted to avoid seeing Logan. No doubt he'd have a few things to say about the midair collision we'd nearly gotten ourselves into; the longer he had to cool down, the better.

  I changed into the homespun trousers, shirt, and sneakers that had lately become my everyday wear. Apollo manufactured its own clothing from bamboo grown in Ag Dome 1; it was plain but durable, and cost less than clothes imported from Earth. Mr. Porter and Hannah were waiting for me outside; we entered a corridor leading into the crater wall and stepped into an elevator.

  A couple of minutes later, Mr. Porter pressed a finger against a lockplate and let a retina scanner examine his left eye. The metal door in front of us clicked, and he pulled it open and led us inside. We found ourselves in the back of a large room with a floor that slanted downward to accommodate rows of control consoles facing an array of wall screens. The lighting was subdued, coming mostly from ostrich-neck lamps; men and women in ISC jumpsuits sat at the consoles, their voices a quiet, constant drone interspaced by the occasional electronic beep, burr, or buzz. The screens displayed split-screen images that changed every few minutes: trucks approaching the industrial park; harvesters moving across the regolith fields; a heavy-lift freighter being prepped for launch; a maintenance crew rappelling down the outside of Apollo's roof dome. It was the beginning of another two-week day, so the sunlight cast long shadows from everything it touched.

  Gazing at the screens, once again I felt myself longing to go out on the surface. It had been nearly three weeks since I'd arrived at Apollo, but not once had I left the crater except for brief walks down the underground tunnel leading to Ag Dome 1, where Melissa had taken a Colony Service job helping out in the aeroponic farms. Although I had nearly finished Basic Lunar Skills, my instructor hadn't yet qualified me for moonwalking; I knew how to put on a moonsuit, but it would be still be a while before I'd be allowed to cycle through an airlock. I wasn't exactly cooped-up, but it still felt as if I was living in nothing more than an enormous greenhouse.

  "Jamey?" Mr. Porter interrupted my train of thought. "This way, please."

  Looking around, I saw that he and Hannah had stopped at the back of MainOps to wait for me. I hurried to catch up with them, using the fast shuffling gait I'd adopted after ditching my ankle bracelets; the trick to walking safely on the Moon was to never let your feet completely leave the ground.

  Mr. Porter led us to a conference room just off to one side of the operations center. I was surprised to find Luis Garcia sitting at the long table that dominated the room. I'd seen Mr. Garcia from time to time since the town meeting, but had never had a chance to speak with him. Mr. Porter didn't bother to introduce us, though, and Mr. Garcia merely gave us a quiet nod. I wondered why he was there.

  "I've sent someone to get your sister," Mr. Porter said to me once Hannah and I were seated, "but I want to show you something while we wait for her. The reason why I brought you here is that we'll have more privacy than in my office. So everything you see and hear in this room needs to stay here. Understood?"

  I was suddenly nervous, but both Hannah and Mr. Garcia were watching me expectantly. "Yes, sir. I understand."

  Mr. Porter nodded, then reached to a touchscreen imbedded in the table's polished surface. "As Hannah said, we've received a message from your sister Jan. Before I show that to you and Melissa, though, I want you to see another message, one which we received just yesterday." He glanced at Hannah. "You've seen this already, of course, but I think Jamey ought to take a look at it. Is that all right?"

  "Umm...sure, okay." Hannah seemed reluctant, but she nodded anyway.

  Mr. Porter tapped his fingers against the keypad and a wall screen at the end of the table lit up. Seated in an armchair was a middle-aged woman with short blonde hair. Although her posture was relaxed, she seemed nervous; it wasn't hard to notice the dark circles under her eyes. It took me a second to realize who she was: Cynthia Wilford, the former First Lady, Hannah's mother.

  Mr. Porter touched another key and Ms. Wilford began to speak. "Hello, Hannah...how are you?" A brief smile that looked forced. "I know it's been a long time, but I just wanted to get in touch with you again and let you know that everything is all right...."

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Hannah intently watching the screen. She'd raised a hand to her mouth, so I couldn't quite make out her expression, but I could tell that she wasn't pleased.

  "I'm okay here," Ms. Wilford went on. "I'm being kept in protective custody until the FBI tracks down the rest of the people responsible for killing your father--" a derisive snort from Hannah "--but I'm very safe and comfortable." Another tentative smile. "I know how much you enjoy Camp David, honey-bunch. Sorry you can't be here...."

  "Yeah, right," Hannah whispered.

  "I miss you very much, dear, and I want to assure you that there's absolutely no reason why you should stay on the Moon. President Shapar has promised me that you'll be treated well if you come home. The same goes for your friends...their parents are fine, and they'll be detained only until the authorities complete their investigation...."

  My throat tightened when she said that. For a second, I was inclined to believe her, if only because I wanted to. But then Hannah looked at me and shook her head.

  "So, please, sugar plum...come home." Again, the tortured smile. "I love you very much, and I want to see you again."

  Mr. Porter froze the image, then looked at Hannah. "Well?"

  Hannah slowly let out her breath. "That was my mother, all right...but the only thing she said that I believe is that she loves me. Everything else is a lie."

  I stared at her. "How do you know? She sounded..."

  "I know what she sounded like. It's what she said that matters. She mentioned how much I love Camp David, but she knows I can't stand the place and that I hate going out there. I'm not even sure that's where she's being held." Hannah pointed toward the screen. "If you look closely at the background, the walls are plain...but just about every room in Camp David is wood-paneled, and even the chair she's sitting in doesn't look like the furniture there."

  "So this could have been recorded just about anywhere," Mr. Garcia said, speaking up for the first time. "Is that what you're saying?"

  "Uh-huh...and that's not all. She also called me 'honey-bunch' and 'sugar plum.'" Hannah's nose wrinkled in disgust. "When my father decided to run for president, I told him it would be okay with me so long as his first executive order would be to outlaw cute nicknames for girls. It became sort of an inside joke among my parents. So my mother would never call me anything like that. At least, not unless she was trying to tell me something without anyone catching on."

  "Such as, 'don't believe what I'm saying'?"

  "Yes, that's what I think she was doing. She was being coerced to tell me to come home, but she doesn't really want me to, so she threw in some stuff that she knew I'd recognize as being false and hoped that I
'd catch on." A quick smile. "I guess they've given up the idea that I'm being held hostage by the Chinese."

  Mr. Porter turned to me. "We received that yesterday on the standard frequency on which we usually get official US government communiques. I've decided not to publicly release it, though, because I don't want people here thinking that it might be sincere. That's why I'm asking you not to talk about it outside this room."

  "I understand," I said, "but why did you want me to...?"

  The door opened just then and a constable walked in, followed by Melissa. Her hair was pulled back under a bandana, and the damp, rolled-up sleeves of her overalls showed that she'd come straight from Ag Dome 2. Her impatient gaze flickered across Hannah and me before settling upon Mr. Porter.

  "Well?" she demanded. "Where's the message from my sister?"

  "We were just coming to that. Please take a seat." Mr. Porter blanked the wall screen before Melissa could see who was on it, then waved her to a chair next to Hannah and me. "I was telling your brother that there's...ah, a possibility...that the message we received about an hour ago might not be authentic, and we need to listen to it carefully to make sure that your sister is really saying what we think she's saying."

  Melissa peered at him. "I don't get it. Are you saying that Jan didn't...?"

  "What he means is that Jan may not have sent this of her own free will," Hannah said. "You need to listen for anything that might sound wrong."

  "Like, for instance, if she were to say, 'Wow, I'd really love a hamburger,' we'd know that's a lie because she's vegetarian," I added.

  "Oh...okay," Melissa said, but I could tell that she was still a little confused. It might have helped if Mr. Porter had shown her the earlier message, but he was wise not to do so. Melissa was incapable of keeping secrets; back home, something whispered in her ear during homeroom would be all over school by lunch time.