Helium3 - 1 Crater

by Hickam, Homer

  When he saw Crater looking at it, he said, “It holds fifty million johncredits.”

  Crater was stunned. “Are there really that many johncredits in the universe?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed. It is to establish a UCW office in Armstrong City.”

  “Why?” Crater asked.

  “Because the UCW has passed a law that regulates the quality of Helium-3 that enters our various countries. The office I am going to establish will house a team of inspectors.”

  Crater pondered the answer, then asked, “Has the quality of heel-3 delivered to your countries been low?”

  “Not that I know of,” Vanderheld replied. “But this way we can assure it will always be high.”

  Crater pondered some more, then said, “The fusion companies that buy heel-3 would know right away whether it was good or bad. And there are lots of companies producing heel-3, so if one company produces a bad product, another will step in and take its place. It’s a competition thing.”

  The UCW man smiled. “I’m sure that’s true, Crater, but the inspectors will act in the interests of the public.”

  “The public?”

  “The people, you see. The little people. Those people who can’t fight the big heel-3 companies and the fusion companies.”

  “Why would they want to fight them if they provide good, cheap energy?”

  Vanderheld had kept a smile during their conversation, though it had become more fixed than real. “Well, this way we make sure they continue to provide good, cheap energy.

  Everybody wins.”

  Crater was still confused. “But isn’t that the business of the fusion companies? I mean, if they don’t provide cheap energy, they go out of business.”

  “Oh, we intend to regulate the fusion companies too,”

  Vanderheld said.

  Crater just couldn’t wrap his mind around it. “The heel-3 companies are mining and shipping their heel-3 and are happy, the fusion companies are getting their heel-3 and producing energy and are happy, and the public is getting its cheap energy and they’re happy too. Why would you want to interfere with that?”

  Vanderheld’s smile vanished. “You clearly don’t understand the delicate balance between government and business.”

  Crater felt like he was trying to put his arms around smoke, but somewhere in his mind there was a little truth knocking around. He nodded toward the briefcase. “Where did all that money come from?”

  “The member nations gave it to me.”

  “Where did they get it?”

  “From their people.”

  “The little people?” Crater scratched his head. “Is this why they stay little?”

  Vanderheld’s expression had by then turned sour. “I’m sorry I wasn’t better able to explain to you my purpose,” he said.

  Crater’s brain was worn-out, and he didn’t want to talk to the UCW man anymore. Changes were coming to the moon, he could see that, changes that probably nobody was going to like, maybe not even the people who were bringing them.

  Crater was just too tired to think about it. He also had some more praying to do. So far, his prayers had not helped Maria.

  She kept getting weaker with every passing hour.

  We turn dreams into reality.

  Crater visited the Cycler’s machine shop and began to develop a microwave device similar to the one his parents had designed to gather water beneath the Earthian deserts. If it was going to work on the moon, it would have to be far more powerful. He fiddled with it on the Cycler’s puter by putting in variables such as the thickness of the lunar soil that had to be penetrated and the sparseness of the water. Using those results, he kept improving his design, then built a prototype.

  It was at least an interesting intellectual and physical exercise that kept him from going entirely crazy while Maria lay possibly dying and the Cycler flew in stately fashion to the moon.

  Crater also built a neutron emitter to find water. Since water absorbed neutrons, Crater reasoned that sending out a constant stream of neutrons into the lunar rubble would find any water that was there. He attached micro-biofuel cells to both devices to power them.

  At last, the Cycler came within distance of the elevator, and the rocket ferry came alongside. The captain came down to honor CP Strickland as his shrouded body was reverently carried aboard the ferry. With Dr. Arnold hovering over her, Maria was also transferred.

  Crater carried both the awful bag with its moldering contents and the devices he’d built in the Cycler’s machine shop.

  “Good-bye, Captain Fox,” he said.

  “Just get off my ship, Mister Trueblood,” Captain Fox replied.

  But he then added, “You fought for the Elon Musk and for that, at least, I’m grateful.”

  Crater wanted to reply, to say again how sorry he was for what had happened, but the captain turned away and headed back to the bridge. At least Ensign Klibanoff shook hands with Crater. “Keep me apprised of her condition,” he said, nodding toward Maria, and Crater promised he would.

  The ferry ride to the elevator was uneventful, as was the long, slow ride down the ribbon to the surface where Crater and Maria were met by the sheriff and an ambulance. After

  Maria was carried off, Crater handed the duffel to the sheriff, who was surrounded by three big men, presumably employees of the Medaris family. They climbed aboard the tram for the ride back to Armstrong City. Once there, they walked to the offices of the Medaris Mining Company. The sheriff put the duffel bag on a table and sat down. “A lot of trouble for this,” he said.

  Crater saw no reason to say anything. Of course it was a lot of trouble, not to mention people getting killed and Maria nearly so.

  “Sadly, it’s not going anywhere anytime soon,” the sheriff went on. “Nobody and nothing is. A convoy coming up from New Bombay was attacked two days ago. A lot of drivers were killed and all the heel-3 cans were destroyed. The dustway is closed and all jumpcars grounded by order of the Helium-3 Producer’s Council until further notice.”

  “The Helium-3 Producer’s Council?”

  “The Colonel organized it. He convinced the other heel-3 company owners they needed to come together to defend themselves. Unfortunately, General Nero and the Russians are holding out.”

  “Was it crowhoppers who attacked the New Bombay convoy?”

  “Most likely. We’re not sure where they’re coming from.

  We’re not sure who’s hired them. We’re not sure of anything.

  It’s like we’re in a war but we don’t know who we’re fighting.”

  Crater thought about that, then asked, “How can we fight a war? We’re just a bunch of heel-3 miners.”

  “Exactly.” The sheriff shifted in his chair, his hand unconsciously going to the powder gun on his hip.

  “Have you seen Petro?” Crater asked.

  “Saw him once or twice around town while you were gone.

  I’m not sure where he is now. Maybe he joined a convoy. If so, he’s probably stuck somewhere in the wayback.”

  Crater could feel everything shifting beneath his feet.

  He’d done the Colonel’s bidding, fought his way across half the moon, then flown nearly all the way to Earth for a bag of stupid bones and none of that mattered. The moon was being attacked for a reason nobody could figure.

  The sheriff sensed what Crater was thinking. “I think those bones, placed in the Colonel’s hands, could help the situation.

  It’s a shame they’re stuck here.”

  Crater left the worried sheriff sitting in the chair in the little office and walked to the hospital where at least he could be with Maria. When he got there, he first sought out Mr.

  Justice. Nurse Soichi came out to talk to him. “He isn’t here,” she said.

  “Do you know if he’s with Pegasus?” Crater asked.

  Nurse Soichi touched his arm. “He’s dead, Crater.”

  Crater’s legs nearly gave way. “How is that possible?”

  The gillie cam
e out of its holster. It, too, seemed shocked.

  “Someone came in the clinic and stabbed him to death,” she said. “We have vidpix of the man we think did it. No one has identified him. Would you care to look at it?”

  Gillie show.

  That fast, the gillie had tapped into the hospital’s puter and produced the vidpix. It showed a big man with legs the size of heel-3 cans striding into the entrance of the clinic, then another angle showed him leaving. He was wearing a tunic and leggings, dressed normally except for a dust mask on his face, but his size gave him away. “I know him,” Crater said. “It isn’t a man. I met it on the dustway. It’s a crowhopper.”

  “Then it has likely already escaped.”

  Crater asked about Maria, and Nurse Soichi said, “I had her transferred to my ward. Our best doctors are on her case.

  It will be many days before the microbes can repair her liver.

  Give it time, Crater, and let her rest.”

  Crater nodded, then thought of Pegasus and wondered if the giant crowhopper had also taken his revenge on the horse.

  He was relieved when he found Pegasus being spoiled by the mechanics in the maintenance shed, which also gave him an idea. It was a crazy idea, an insane idea, but the more he thought about it, he realized that everything that had happened had somehow put into his hands everything he needed.

  We turn dreams into reality.

  If his idea worked, it would cause the fulfillment of the Colonel’s purpose in dispatching Crater across the moon and into cislunar space. It might even justify the terrible pain that Maria was enduring. If Crater’s idea didn’t work, then there was a high probability he would die. And so would Pegasus.

  Crater felt his heart fill with resolve. “We’ll do it,” he whispered to the great horse who, sensing something magnificent was about to happen, nickered conspiratorially, then stamped his great hooves on the deck of the maintenance shed.

  :::

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The airlock door to the maintenance shed slowly rose, and the moon’s vacuum sucked out the air within and dispersed it into the nothingness. Crater, dressed in improvised padded armor with an elk sticker prominently strapped to his waist, stepped from the airlock into the dust leading Pegasus in his magnificent war suit. The long shadow was still on Armstrong City. At Crater’s request, no lights shone from the airlock. All was darkness except for the bluish glow of the great star field overhead.

  Crater, with the gillie in its arm holster, climbed aboard Pegasus, made certain both their helmet starlight scopes were switched on, then turned the horse to face in a northerly direction. “Now we fly, boy,” Crater whispered, and the great horse responded, walking, then trotting, then galloping through the tortured field of small craters and hillocks that led away from the city.

  Behind Pegasus’s saddle was lashed the bag of bones and the neutron emitter and microwave transmitter Crater had constructed aboard the Cycler. Also slung off the saddle was a sack containing horse food pellets, food bars, and detpaks. There was also a holster for Crater’s railgun rifle. They were as nothing to the big warhorse as Pegasus bounded across the rubble and craters. Crater leaned forward, his rump off the saddle, his hands clutching the bridle, letting Pegasus run on the rim of the moon beneath the vast, ebony, star-sparkled sky.

  All day, boy and horse flew across the Ocean of Tranquility until they reached the Carrel way station. There they stopped to rest, replenish, and bed down in the maintenance shed. The small contingent of workers at the Carrel crater, which was used principally as a signal tower to serve Armstrong City, were delighted by Pegasus and were glad to provide shelter. The next morning, the trailing edge of the long shadow had advanced to the middle of the Tranquility basin, providing enough light for Crater and Pegasus to do without their starlight scopes. They pushed on in the strange, milky light of the lunar terminator, going farther into the vast emptiness.

  Dawes crater, which provided an outpost for a contingent of Earthly scientists, was their next stop. There, Crater asked for shelter in their garage. “Where could you possibly be going with that poor animal?” the chief scientist demanded. He had a goatee as silver as the wig he also wore. It was clear to Crater that the man was given to putting on airs of scientific authority.

  “North,” Crater answered, and then held his peace.

  The chief scientist peered at the gillie. “That thing is illegal!” he declared.

  “It knows that,” Crater replied.

  “What are you doing with it?”

  The gillie climbed out of its holster and eyed the chief scientist, or would have had it any eyes, then said, Gillie is Crater’s friend.

  “I guess that sums it up,” Crater said.

  The chief scientist leaned forward until his nose was just inches from the gillie, then sniffed it. “It has no odor. Intelliactivated slime mold cells, I recall. Might I study it? If you’ll agree, you may spend the night here and we will provide water and food for both you and your animal. Does the gillie eat?”

  This was a question that had never occurred to Crater. “I honestly don’t know, sir, but as for studying it, I will have to respectfully decline. The gillie doesn’t like anyone touching it.”

  Gillie is sensitive, the gillie said.

  To Crater’s surprise, this made the chief scientist laugh. He drew back and waved his hands to his research subordinates.

  “Give them whatever they need. I shall be in my laboratory if required.”

  After a night in the garage tube of Dawes, Crater rode Pegasus northerly until they reached the black lava barrier that marked the boundary between the Ocean of Tranquility and the great nothingness that was the Sea of Serenity. “We’re on our own now, boy,” Crater said. “One hundred miles of dust that no one has ever crossed from this approach. Out there lies Le Monnier crater and New St. Petersburg. We’ll have to find water if we are to make it. Do you understand?”

  If Pegasus understood, and Crater believed he did, he stamped his hooves and seemed to be girding himself for what lay ahead. Crater said, “Let’s go.” Twelve hours later, Pegasus began to slow, and finally began to falter. “We need water,”

  Crater said, his mouth feeling as dry as the dust they were crossing. He had been using the neutron emitter but the readouts had been consistently disappointing. Crater knew they were in trouble. No neutrons were being absorbed. Beneath them was just dry rubble and regolith.

  Then, when he began to think dark thoughts about their chances, the digits on the readout began to move. Crater reined in Pegasus and climbed off to set up the microwave transmitter. If his theory was correct, exciting the dispersed water molecules below with microwaves would turn them into clusters. After that, the increased vapor pressure would cause them to rise. He ran the instrument for an hour, then unfolded a small shovel and dug.

  Water—blessed, ancient, and pure—filled the resulting hole. Before the pool could evaporate, Crater used a hand pump to fill a collapsible container, then used it to fill Pegasus’s water tank. The horse greedily drank as Crater used a straw in the port of his helmet to suck the refreshing liquid into his mouth, swallowing it with a great deal of satisfaction and relief. “You were right, Mom and Dad,” he said, suddenly feeling very close to them. “We turn dreams into reality!”

  The onrushing terminator chased the long shadow away as Crater and Pegasus ran along north. The sun then blasted the sky apart over the vast Serenity lava flow. They were only about twenty miles away from New St. Petersburg when the crowhoppers found them.

  The silvery jumpcar flew in on a parallel track and attacked.

  When the first flechette flew past his nose, Pegasus swerved and began to gallop in a zigzag pattern, the way he had been taught to respond to aerial attack on Earth. Nudging the horse with the reins, Crater brought Pegasus beneath the jumpcar where its electric guns could not track them. Holding a detpak, he reached up and pushed it into the belly of the jumpcar, but it wouldn’t stick. The jumpcar was made of a slic
k, composite material.

  Gillie fix, the gillie said.

  The gillie jumped onto the detpak and spread itself across it, holding the explosive charge in place.

  “No, gillie!” Crater cried, just as the crowhopper jumpcar swerved away. A few seconds later, the detpak detonated.

  Out of control, the jumpcar nosed upward, flew briefly, then pitched over and slammed into the dust.

  Before Crater could register what had happened, he saw that the impact of the jumpcar had caused a lava tube to collapse. The tube was at least a hundred yards wide and the collapse was coming straight at them. “Go, boy!” he yelled, and Pegasus responded, racing away. Behind them, the giant lava tube fell in on itself, a massive trap at least three hundred feet deep. Crater looked over his shoulder and saw that the collapsing tube was coming too fast and was going to catch them.

  “Jump, Pegasus!” he cried.

  Pegasus, with a strangled exhalation, made his leap. As they soared, Crater and Pegasus were wrapped in a cloud of frothy dust hurled up from the forming trench. When they burst into the clear, Crater saw they were not going to make it.

  Pegasus, sensing the same thing, stretched out, his hooves just catching the edge of the trench. He dug desperately, got hold of the vertical wall with his rear hooves, gave a mighty shove, and fell forward, Crater flying out of the saddle. The warhorse took a wrenching tumble, turned beneath his neck, his legs flailing, and then fell onto his side where he lay still.

  Crater crashed into the dust, bounced, and rolled until he stopped. When he was able to sit up, he said, “Gillie, check suit,” but then he remembered the gillie couldn’t answer.

  Crater climbed to his feet and loped over to Pegasus. The great horse lay in a heap, his eyes rolled back in his head. Crater knelt beside him. “Pegasus,” he moaned. “Please, please get up.”

  But Pegasus didn’t get up.

  That was when Crater sensed something behind him.

  When he turned, there stood a spiderwalker, and perched on it was the giant crowhopper he’d encountered so long ago at the Dustway Inn. “Would you like to know my name, child?” it asked.