Avengers of the Moon

by Allen Steele

  The moment Joan met the rest of Curt’s family, when she’d traveled with him and Grag from Armstrong crater to the nearby valley where the Comet stood, decloaked and visible in the lunar sunlight, he realized something he’d long since taken for granted: Otho, Grag, and Simon were stranger companions than most people had. He’d never thought there was anything unusual about growing up with an android, a robot, and a cyborg, but Joan’s reactions to them reminded him otherwise.

  And there was also Joan herself.

  Not including his mother, whom he remembered barely at all, Curt could count the number of females he’d met in his life on one hand and still have a finger or two left over. The years he’d spent hiding beneath Tycho Crater had not prepared him for the full range of normal human contact, and meeting members of the opposite gender was one of those things with which he’d had little experience.

  It was times like this when he regretted his upbringing. He’d never before had a female passenger aboard the Comet, particularly not one as attractive as Joan Randall. He very much wanted her to like him, at least just a little, but his interactions with the opposite sex were limited to a few random encounters … except for one notable incident from his teenage years that he preferred not to think about. So he didn’t know what to do, and worse, everything he did do seemed to be wrong.

  Curt deliberately fixed his gaze on the instruments, all too aware of the young woman hovering just inches away. He knew that, if he moved just a little bit by accident—or even deliberately, if he cared to do so—he’d brush up against her, perhaps without her noticing it. From the corner of his eye, he saw Otho carefully observing him; his expression was neutral but his green eyes were sharp and watchful. There was no question that Curt would behave like a gentleman, even if he hadn’t already been inclined to do so. But still …

  This was a woman.

  His mouth was dry and his heart was pounding, his hands were greasy with sweat and his skin felt like it was itching in a dozen places at once. There was an uncomfortable sensation in the pit of his stomach; it seemed as if he was picking up a subtle fragrance from her, one that he wanted to wrap around himself and—

  “They’re all coming in now,” Joan said.

  “What? Excuse me?” Startled, Curt jerked slightly in his seat.

  “Looks like they’re bringing the last ship.” Joan nodded toward the window. “A big lunar freighter just finished mooring on the other side of the spine. We should be launching soon.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Joan looked down at him. He glanced away, but not fast enough. She studied him for a a few moments, then pushed herself away from the porthole.

  “When you speak to me,” she said, her voice quiet and yet remonstrative, “I’d appreciate it if you looked at my face, not everything below my neck.”

  Curt’s face suddenly felt a little too warm for comfort. He couldn’t look at her. “I—”

  “If no one objects, I think I’ll go below and help Grag make Eek comfortable.” She paused. “Permission to leave the bridge, Captain?”

  Curt didn’t know whether she was addressing him by his status as the Comet’s captain or by his nom de guerre. “Yes, sure, that’s fine—”

  “Thank you.” Joan performed a graceful somersault, kicked off the ceiling, and propelled herself headfirst down the manhole, carefully avoiding making any contact with the Brain as she went past.

  Curt watched her go. He let out his breath once she’d disappeared and was about to return his attention to the console when he caught a look from Otho.

  “This was a mistake,” he murmured.

  Otho didn’t reply. He only shook his head and, with a faintly amused smile, looked away.

  II

  A little less than an hour later, the Leigh Brackett gently coasted within range of the photonic laser thruster positioned at L-1 between Earth and the Sun. Powered by sunlight focused through an immense lens one and a half miles in diameter, a stream of photons shot forward like bullets of light, striking the mirror-bright surface of the beamship’s seven hundred–foot polymer sail. Slowly at first, then gradually moving faster, the Brackett began to sail forth into interplanetary space, leaving Earth and the Moon behind as it let out on the long, shallow arc of its trajectory to Mars.

  Inside the Comet, its passengers felt the slow yet persistent return of gravity as the beamship entered the outbound thrust phase of its journey. There was no need to strap in again, yet everyone was cautious about planting their feet against the deck as the ship caught the photon beam, lest they find themselves falling—albeit in slow motion—to the floor. The only person aboard who didn’t have any difficulty was Simon; he continued to move about as freely as ever, his impellors whirring softly. But while Eek seemed to like having his paws on a stable surface again, the little dog was vexed to discover that he couldn’t follow Grag from deck to deck as he’d learned to do in freefall.

  “I don’t see why you had to bring him along.” Otho scowled at the moonpup as he lounged at the dining table in the middeck wardroom. The Brackett had broken lunar orbit several hours earlier, and now the Comet’s crew was relaxing after a pasta dinner Grag had prepared in the galley. “He’s just going to get in the way.”

  Grag bent over to place a small bowl of freeze-dried kibble in front of Eek. The dog’s tail happily wagged as he devoured his food, a parting gift from his former owners. “If I had left him behind, the two men chasing him might have put him out through the airlock,” the robot said, kneeling beside its pet to stroke his fur with surprising tenderness. “And we didn’t have time to return to Tycho. Besides, there would be no one there to take care of him while we’re gone.”

  “Really,” Joan said. “How interesting.”

  Otho closed his eyes. Although she already knew, from what Curt had told President Carthew, that they secretly resided beneath the ruins of Roger and Elaine Newton’s lab, she was still unaware of a number of details, such as exactly how many people lived there. Grag had let this little piece of information slip. It might be trivial, but a sharp IPF inspector like Joan Randall might find anything useful, no matter how inconsequential it might seem.

  She seemed to sense Otho’s unease, because she put down her coffee mug and gazed at him from across the table. “Oh, c’mon. I already get that it’s just the three of you—”

  “The four of us. You’re leaving out someone.” He didn’t have to ask whom she was neglecting; Joan apparently considered Simon to be less human than him or even Grag.

  “Whatever … and I’m willing to trust you that Curt didn’t go there to kill Carthew. So you don’t have anything to hide from me anymore, do you?”

  She was baiting him, of course, but Otho wasn’t about to fall for it. There was no reason why she needed to learn that Curt’s objective really had been to take out Victor Corvo. Plotting to kill a senator was nearly as bad as plotting to kill a president; she could easily put him under arrest as soon as the Brackett reached Port Deimos.

  “No, not really,” Otho replied. “I’m just not certain how much you need to know about us.”

  Joan toyed with her mug as she quietly watched Grag play with Eek. Curt had returned to the flight deck to stand watch; he’d said little during the meal, a curtain of embarrassed silence hanging between him and Joan. Simon had gone down to the airlock deck and hooked himself up to a charger pedestal, the closest he came to sleep. Now it was just her, Otho, and Grag, with Eek as an easily distracted bystander to what amounted to after-dinner conversation.

  “Look, I’m not asking as a cop,” she said. “I’m asking as someone who’s just curious.”

  “About us?” Grag said. “Or about him?”

  Joan looked around to see herself reflected in the lenses of the robot’s unblinking red eyes. She was still getting used to the fact that Grag was capable of posing questions of its own. “Him. As I understand it, the two of you raised him—”

  “The three of us.” Otho’s eyes narrowed. “Inspector
Randall, let’s get one thing straight … Simon might not appear human anymore, but he knew Curt long before either Grag or I came along. Simon was with Roger and Elaine when they came to the Moon, even though he died almost as soon as they got there. So maybe he looks a bit strange, but in many ways he’s just as much Curt’s father as Roger was. Maybe even more.”

  “And yours as well, as I understand.”

  Folding his arms across his chest, Otho sat back in his chair. “Yes and no. I consider Roger and Elaine to be my parents, albeit not in a biological sense, so in a way I’m Curt’s half brother. But I’ve never forgotten the fact that I was originally meant to be Simon’s replacement body. If my brain had been less efficient in its development, or if Roger and Elaine had lived long enough to find an ethical way of overwriting my emerging intelligence, it would be him who’d now be sitting here, not me.”

  “And this doesn’t bother you?”

  Otho shrugged. “Not really. The way I look at it, I’m like a child who was dropped on their doorstep, with Simon becoming a sort of foster parent. Would you ask an orphan if he resents the stepfather who adopted him or the boy who was raised as a younger sibling?”

  “My apologies. I didn’t mean any offense. It’s just that he’s … rather weird, isn’t he?”

  “Simon? Or Curt?”

  All four of you, if you must ask, she thought, but kept it to herself. “Curt’s a bit odd, too, now that you mention it.” Glancing at the open ceiling hatch, she lowered her voice. “I picked up on that when we first met and—”

  “He kissed your hand?” Otho grinned. “I hope you’ll forgive him for that. I’m afraid he hasn’t … well, had a lot of experience with women. Aside from the usual casual contacts, he’s met very few.”

  “Really? And how many would that be?”

  “Four,” Grag said, with the precision of memory that only a robot can provide.

  “Not to mention the first to whom he’s ever had any attraction,” Otho quietly added, and snapped his fingers. “No, wait … there was that young girl he met when we visited Venus.”

  “True, but it didn’t go anywhere,” Grag said. “Simon made him break it off before it became serious. I’ll hasten to add, though, that Curt is well educated in human sexuality. Simon’s lectures in biology have included a dissertation on reproductive practices that featured visual demonstrations of—”

  “Fine. I understand.” Joan’s face turned red, but something the robot said prompted another question. “So you’re saying that the Brain … Dr. Wright, I mean—”

  “He doesn’t have a problem with being called the Brain,” Otho said. “I gave him that nickname when Curt and I were young and it stuck.”

  “Like Captain Future,” Grag added, “although I’m not sure Curt likes it.”

  “Then he’s lived in isolation all his life,” Joan said.

  “Not true.” Otho shook his head. “When he was about ten, we started taking him out regularly on excursions, first to the Moon, then to other places in the inner system. Once we altered this ship’s registry and changed its name from the Cornet to the Comet, we were able to go anywhere without people recognizing this craft as Roger Newton’s yacht. And when we’ve gone farther than near-Earth asteroids, Simon, Curt, and I have booked passage aboard commercial spaceliners, with the Brain posing as an ordinary drone. So we’ve not only visited Mars, Venus, and a couple of lunar cities, but we’ve also been to Earth a couple of times—”

  “Very educational trips,” Simon said. “Curtis learned much from them.”

  Joan looked around to see the Brain ascending through the manhole from the airlock deck. Apparently his recharge period had come to an end. This time, she made a conscious effort to hide her emotions. It was easier to pretend that he was simply a highly advanced ’bot much like Grag and not think about the fact that there was a living human brain behind the telescoping stalks of his eyes.

  “We’ve done our best to raise Curt while at the same time keeping him hidden from Victor Corvo,” Simon continued, gliding over to the table where Joan and Otho were seated. Eek growled and shrank back from him, and Grag responded by nestling the little dog in its lap and scratching him behind the ears. “It hasn’t been easy. Otho has helped tremendously by escorting him to places where Grag and I would have stood out, but even so, opportunities to meet other people have largely been limited to brief exchanges in public places.”

  “So he’s pretty naive when it comes to human behavior,” Joan said.

  “I wouldn’t necessarily say that.”

  “No, she’s right.” Otho nodded in reluctant agreement. “I’ve done my best to acclimate Curt to the human race—not just terrans, but also aresians, aphrodites, jovians, and all the others—but there was only so much I could. After all, I’m an android.”

  “Well, I’d say you’re as good as a human being,” Joan said.

  Her remark was meant as a compliment, but Otho’s eyes narrowed. “And I’d say I’m better than a human being and don’t you forget it. If you want to patronize someone, try buckethead over there.”

  “And I’m better than either of you,” Grag said, its voice low as not to startle Eek.

  Otho glared at it. “Hey, anytime you want to—”

  “Quiet, both of you,” the Brain said, his tinny voice taking on an edge. Grag and Otho obediently became silent, and Simon’s eyestalks turned about to face Joan. “Curtis is a very knowledgeable person. I’ve done my best to give him a superior education and improve his mind, while both Otho and Grag have worked hard to train his body. If there are any deficiencies in the way we’ve raised him, they’re not important. Not for the task at hand, at least.”

  “Which is?” Despite her instinctive revulsion, Joan gazed straight at Simon, focusing on the two visual receptors aimed at her. She’d told Curt to look her in the eye when he spoke to her; time to follow her own advice when it came to Simon.

  “Bringing Victor Corvo to justice, of course.”

  “Well, then…” Joan pushed back her chair and stood up from the table. “You’re going to have to work harder, because right now he’s got some problems he needs to overcome if he’s ever going to fit in with the human race.”

  “And I trust you’ll help us?” Otho asked. “Particularly with … that is, what we were talking about just a few minutes ago.”

  He spoke tactfully, not looking at Simon. Joan hid her expression by carrying her mug over to the recycler and shoving it in. “That’s above my pay grade, gentlemen,” she said, resuming the coolly detached tone of a law officer. “Not my job.”

  The circular walls of the Comet’s middeck were lined with small, closet-size staterooms, four in all. Joan went to the one Curt had assigned to her before they’d lifted off from the Moon. She slid shut its pocket door, then unfolded the hammock from the wall. In a little while, she needed to send a message to Ezra, let him know what she’d learned.

  But not just yet.

  Joan slowly let out her breath and allowed herself to fall into the hammock’s webbing. “Only the fifth woman he’s ever met,” she whispered to herself. “Well … that explains much, doesn’t it?”

  III

  The Leigh Brackett raced through the everlasting night. Its boost phase complete, the ship was now in the unpowered cruise phase of its journey, coasting until it turned about to receive the deceleration beam of the Mars photon laser. Down the long spine of its main spar, a half-dozen smaller vessels clung to it like parasites, drawing power, water, and air from its forward tanks. It had been nearly two full sols since the beamship had departed from lunar orbit, and already it was more than twenty-five million miles from the Moon. Earth was a bright, blue-tinted star at its stern, and even the Sun had diminished slightly in size.

  Within the ships being ferried to Mars, things were quiet. As was customary for outbound voyages, their crews had adjusted the internal chronometers to match those of Mars’s Central Meridian. So just as it was the wee hours of the morning in Galile
i on the Chryse Planitia, so it was within the Blake Freight 209 and the Princess of Mars, the Zephyr and the Dirty Old Man, the Smiling Baron and the Comet.

  On the Comet’s middeck, the doors were closed to the staterooms where Curt, Otho, and Joan slept. Outside, Grag sat alone at the table, silent and strapped down, an electrical conduit leading from a small port on the left side of its midriff to a bulkhead outlet. The robot wasn’t asleep, but neither was it fully awake, having powered itself down for a six-hour recharge and internal maintenance period. On the other side of the room, Eek was curled up on a makeshift dog’s nest made from a discarded suit liner tucked into a wall web, his paws twitching as he chased a cat in his dreams. The lights were dim, and the only sound was the low hum and hiss of the life support systems.

  Up on the flight deck, Simon Wright hovered above the pilot’s chair. Having already recharged his cyborg form, the Brain occupied his solitary time as he often did when Curt and Otho were asleep, with games. Tonight he was playing chess with the Comet’s computer net, trying again to outwit the ship by pitting its faster calculation rate against his knowledge of the winning moves of classic tournaments. So Simon was working a Kasparov gambit from the late twentieth century when trouble came to the Comet.

  Sixty feet up the central spar, an outer hatch silently opened in the Brackett’s main hull, revealing a solitary figure within its airlock. Holding onto a door rail, the vacuum-suited figure leaned out of the hatch, reaching for the ladder that ran the length of the spar. This was dangerous, but the man in the vacuum suit possessed the kind of fanaticism that makes a person fearless.

  Like his former companion who’d recently lost his life in Armstrong Crater, he belonged to the Sons of the Two Moons. He had also participated in the attempted assassination of President Carthew. Once a servant in Corvo’s household, he’d provided access to the craterhab for the president’s would-be killer. But he’d done more than that. When the attempt occurred, he was hiding in a closet near the front porch, ready to fulfill his part of the mission if the assassination succeeded.