“I want,” I said. “I want. I want.”
He filled out an official Service chit for ten thousand credits, good as cash anywhere in half the Galaxy. He was actually grinning as he gave it to me and you can bet I was grinning as I took it.
How he intended accounting for it was his affair. The point was that I wouldn’t have to account for it to Hilda.
❖
I stood in the booth, one last time, signaling Flora. I didn’t dare let matters go till I reached her place. The additional half-hour might just give her time to get someone else, if she hadn’t already.
Make her answer. Make her answer. Make her—
She answered, but she was in formal clothes. She was going out and I had obviously caught her by two minutes.
“I am going out,” she announced. “Some men can be decent. And I do not wish to see you in the henceforward. I do not wish ever to find my eyes upon you. You will do me a great favor, Mister Whoeveryouare, if you will unhand my signal combination and never pollute it with—”
I wasn’t saying anything. I was just standing there holding my breath and also holding the chit up where she could see it. Just standing there. Just holding.
Sure enough, at the word “pollute” she came in for a closer look. She wasn’t much on education, that girl, but she could read “ten thousand credits” faster than any college graduate in the Solar System.
She said, “Max! For me?”
“All for you, baby,” I said. “I told you I had a little business to do. I wanted to surprise you.”
“Oh, Max, that’s sweet of you. I didn’t really mind. I was joking. Now you come right here to me.” She took off her coat, which with Flora is a very interesting action to watch.
“What about your date?” I said.
“I said I was joking,” she said. She dropped her coat gently to the floor, and toyed with a brooch that seemed to hold together what there was of her dress.
“I’m coming,” I said faintly.
“With every single one of those credits now,” she said roguishly.
“With every single one,” I said.
I broke contact, stepped out of the booth, and now, finally, I was set, really set.
I heard my name called.
“Max! Max!” Someone was running toward me. “Rog Crinton said I would find you here. Mama’s all right after all, so I got special passage on the Space Eater and what’s this about ten thousand credits?”
I didn’t turn. I said, “Hello, Hilda.”
I stood rock steady.
And then I turned and did the hardest thing I ever succeeded in doing in all my goddam, good-for-nothing, space-hopping life.
I smiled.
J. Timothy Hunt
Moonflower
“Moonflower” is an eerily poetic variation on the threatening-alien-life form tale. Its author, J. Timothy Hunt, an ex-Montanan now living in New York City, is both a playwright and computer consultant. He has held professional writing residencies at The Writers Room in Greenwich Village and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, Taos, New Mexico.
ON THE FROZEN SURFACE of Europa, Christopher skated with wild abandon under Jupiter’s familiar glow. Red and orange, white and yellow, the looming specter of the giant filled half the afternoon sky, dwarfing the distant pin-spot of the sun and the lonely figure of a young man turning figure-eights upon the ice.
Europa was as smooth and brightly polished as a billiard ball. Her solid face of ice was’ever moving, ever changing; thawed here by the warm tug of Jupiter and refrozen there by the blackness of space. Only a lace of cracks criss-crossing the plains marred her burnished blue-white face.
Three o’clock Solar Standard Time was Christopher’s appointed hour to check the distance between the topographical markers on the Belgian ice flow. Although strange work for a young botanist, it was a simple task almost anyone could do. With a bale of Telfano filament, some stakes and a few other tools, he would straighten loose markers, point a laser rifle at their reflective tips, record the data—the whole process took less than an hour.
As he punched in the column of figures for the day, he noticed one of the markers, B17, was moving faster than the others. In two Earth days it had drifted nearly four meters from compound marker zero. “We’re moving now!” Christopher whooped. He burst into a homemade song about chasing ice racers and danced around in a happy little circle. The shouting and the singing in his helmet hurt his ears, but as the only human being within ten million miles, there was little reason for him to contain any enthusiasm or impulse.
Christopher recorded the latest progress of B17, then crouched down in a runner’s starting block stance. He quieted himself by listening to the soft hiss of oxygen being fed into his helmet, and then in a shot, propelled himself forward. In the silence of the moon, he ran as fast as he could to pick up speed, then straightened up and skated again across the ice.
It was with this typical fervor Chris turned each day’s outdoor work hour into a one-man Winter Olympics. Gathering speed clown a slight incline, he let himself ski the lunar slope with the smooth soles of his atmospheric pressure boots, and then, only meters from the approaching marker, slammed down his toe crampons and skidded to a halt in a shower of ice. “The winner! From Jupiter Moon Europa... Christopher... Adams!” The oxygen hissed louder and, in his mind, the crowd went wild.
The final marker on his rounds lay at the top of “The Hill.” In truth, The Hill was the acme of a five percent grade, but on the ice planes of Europa it was comparatively alpine. Crossing a cable bridge over a seventeen-meter-wide ice crack, Christopher summoned his courage. He made up his mind time was right to attempt “the big jump.”
He shot his laser at the last marker’s reflector, noted the meter readings on his recording device, then paused... and pushed off.
On airless Europa, he imagined he felt the wind whooshing past his helmet. He neatly skirted a large ice boulder, then another. I la ha! This was great! The frozen surface slid under him silently in the vacuum. Christopher could hear the roaring of the oxygen crowd ringing in his ears.
Directly ahead of him was a third boulder and then the cable bridge over the crack. Speed. He needed more speed. Maybe if he bent his knees a little more. Yes! That was it! He was flying. Rounding the boulder he saw the crack in the ice before him and readied himself for the jump.
Later, when he had time to relive the moment, Christopher realized it was his preparation for the jump that proved his undoing. By extending the body a split second too soon, his toes dropped, digging the crampons into the ice. Hurtling head first, Christopher plummeted directly to the bottom of the deep ice crack.
Softly and silently, a spray of splintered ice crystals descended on Christopher as he lay at the bottom of the chasm. Lying still for a moment, wondering breathlessly if there were any broken bones, Chris checked for signs of pain. There were none. Fortunately for him, it turned out that the only thing fractured was his fantasy. With a quick shake of his head, he slowly sat up and looked about him.
The blue-white walls of the ice crack stretched above, silhouetted by the orange light of Jupiter. The frozen chasm was a shattered dream of Christinas and Halloween. Christopher stood slowly on his own two legs and started looking for a way to the surface before his oxygen ran out.
The filament from his utility belt, of course. All he had to do was throw one end up and over the bridge above and then shimmy up the cable. Chris gathered the Telfano filament in a loose loop in his left hand, and then with his right, whirled it round and round. Up shot the end of the cable and down it fell to the bottom of the chasm, missing the bridge by several meters.
Chris was looking around for a chunk of ice to weight the end of the cable when his eyes fell upon the flower. White as paper, it lay wedged in a distant nook of the chasm, a strange symbol of organic life on a supposedly lifeless moon. It was beautiful. White lace leaves and white stick stems, the flower rose from the crevice, showing its spherical buds to the glo
w of the gas planet. Christopher stared agape at the plant, not knowing whether to cheer or run.
All around the base of the plant was a layer of grey dust and several long, bonelike stones. Chris knelt beside the flower and cautiously ran a gloved finger along the prickly stalk. The filigreed lace of the leaves and the whiteness of the buds and stalk looked like petrified white fur, freeze-dried and long dead.
Once he realized the moonflower was not alive, Christopher snapped off a stalk with the largest dried bud and took a careful sample of the lace leaves. These he dropped into a specimen pouch attached to the hip of his suit and then, tieing the Telfano filament around one of the long white stones from the plant’s base, tossed the lifeline up and over the cable bridge above.
Christopher climbed the rope and did not look back to see the small drop of red rising from the broken stalk of the moonflower.
❖
Upon his return to the vapor lock at the compound, Chris could hear his name being called within. Once the air pressure in the lock stabilized, he whipped off his helmet and burst through the inner door. Careening through the compound’s greenhouse, he made a dash for the communications console.
“Hello?” he panted, “Base five two.”
“Adams, that is not your base number and you know it,” said a woman’s voice from the speaker.
“Hi, Witten.”
“Chris, you’re supposed to give your correct base number when hailed.”
“Well, if you already know who you’re hailing, why do I have to give my base number at all? It’s not as if there’s any other base at Jupiter you could mistake me for.”
Captain Alice Witten of the UWSS Andrea sighed and agreed. “You don’t need to point out the finer ironies of UWSA code,” she said. “Although it seems silly to you, I have to record these conversations. It’s my job. Just say it for me.”
“This is Base five two mark eighteen, The Voice of Europa. How are you doing, Captain Witten?”
“We should be arriving at Europa in approximately one week, three days. Do you think your supplies will hold out that long?”
Chris looked around and chuckled, “I think I’ll be able to manage. I haven’t eaten half the dehydrated feast you sent with me, the greenhouse seems to keep the oxygen cycle going and as for water...” he paused, removed his gloves, and kicked off a pressure boot. “As for water, the recycling system is so good here, I’ve had the same glass of water three hundred times. So when are you coming over?”
“I told you; ten days. I’m bringing your replacement.”
“And I’ve got a present for you, too.” Chris reached for the specimen packet attached to his side. “I picked you some flowers today, Witten.”
“I’ve got flowers growing in my own ship’s garden, thank you.”
“No, I picked these outside, in an ice chasm,” he said and withdrew the dried white moon thistle from the pouch.
“There is no note of life forms on Europa, Chris. You’ve been instructed to leave anything you find alive out there alone, and certainly don’t bring it back into the compound.”
“Too late, I’m holding it here in my hand. Anyway, it’s dead. Ouch!”
“What’s the matter?” Witten sounded concerned. “You’re holding it in your hand? You’re wearing gloves, of course.”
“No, I took them off. Don’t worry, I just stuck my finger on this damned stem. It’s full of tiny spines. It almost looks like fur.”
“Listen,” Witten’s voice said firmly through the speaker, “put on some gloves, seal that thing in a specimen container and don’t touch it again. Do you understand me?”
“I love it when you’re angry,” he chided while sucking the pricked spot on the tip of his finger. Witten signed off and Christopher reached for a specimen container and dropped the flower stem and leaves into it with tongs. Placing the container in a sealed compartment, he went on with the remainder of his day’s chores in the compound greenhouse.
Later that night he dreamed of Alice Witten. Although he had no idea what she looked like, he imagined that she had short blond hair and enormous brown eyes. In his dream, Witten went skating with him on the Belgian Ice Flow and they tumbled and fell, laughing, into an ice chasm. As they lay in a heap at the bottom, she brushed off the snowlike crystals from his face, kissed his fingers, and then lit them on fire.
Christopher awoke with a scream. His hand. His fingers were burning. He looked down and the forefinger of his left hand was swollen and white, like a small peeled potato. While the rest of his hand burned, the bloated forefinger had no feeling at all. Staggering to the medical supply unit, Chris rummaged through its contents and found a length of plastic bandage which he wound around his entire hand. He prepared a hypodermic with the strongest pain suppressant there was in the compound and with trembling fingers injected himself in the left wrist. Sedated, his breathing slowed, his body slumped and Christopher crumpled back onto his sleeping platform.
The following morning, Chris could not drink enough water. Water was all he could think about. Whenever he tried to focus his thoughts on any of his daily tasks the overriding message in his brain was water, water, water. He forgot about his hand and paid the bandage no attention whatsoever as he sipped his twentieth tumbler of liquid.
He felt so slow. The interest in his daily chores drained from him as fast as the water poured into him. By the end of the morning, he had no desire to do any work at all. As with any comparable job back on Earth, Christopher was allowed to take an occasional sick day, but even if he were ill he was expected to run a minimum amount of inspection in the greenhouse. If any of the plants should die, his botanical experiments would be worthless.
With his drink in one hand and the bandage on the other, he shuffled into the greenhouse and stood silently at the door.
The plants! It was as if he were seeing them for the first time. Although he cultivated those flowers and vegetables for a whole year, at that moment, Christopher found all of his plants unspeakably beautiful. The long and sensuous fronds of the Boston fern, the luscious and heavy bloom clusters of the fuchsia, the wickedly tantalizing bowl of the pitcher plant all delighted him, all excited him... all aroused him.
Christopher got down on his knees and, like a wild animal, rubbed his face in the clover. This was madness, he thought, and yet he could not stop himself. His breathing slowed; his palms moistened. He was driven by an urge that seemed to go back beyond the animal part of him, back to something slower and greener.
Gently kneeling among the vegetables, Chris let his tongue explore the roundness of the ripe tomato hanging on the vine, being careful not to bite it, but to tease it as one would an earlobe. Nuzzling tenderly up the stalk, he rubbed his stubbled cheek against the soft green tomato leaves and breathed in the heavy warm scent of the sap. His heart pounded in his temples; his lips forgot how to form speech. Sweat rings grew beneath his arms and his fingers trembled.
Christopher rolled over and glanced up at the begonias, beauties all. They seemed to hang before him, solely for his pleasure and approval, like pageant contestants before a judge. The sensual part of him admired their wild, wild offshoots, but the gardener part of him declared that they badly needed pinching back. Immediately, the thought seemed to shock and repulse him. “How barbaric,” he mused, “that I would even think of something so hideous.”
“Don’t worry,” he said to the plants, “I’m not going to pinch you today. I’m not going to pinch you ever again.” He heard himself mouthing these words and quickly shook his head to try to wake up. “God, what am I saying?” he scolded himself. “I must be sleepwalking or something.” And then, as if to show himself who was boss, Christopher reached over and snapped off a begonia stem.
Waves of nausea overcame him and he crumpled to the ground, retching. It was as if he disemboweled his best friend.
Lucid once more, Christopher panicked. He feared he was losing his mind. At the very least he was losing his ability to concentrate, and for a man al
one on a distant moon, that was disaster. He forced himself up onto his knees and crawled over to the console to signal for help. His hand reached for the touchpad to hail Captain Witten, then it dropped back. He forgot why he came across the room. His only thought was that he wanted more water.
Later in the day, instead of venturing outside to ski and measure the ice flow markers, he took another tumbler of water and curled up on his sleeping platform. Christopher was usually much too energetic to sit one place for long, but that day all he wanted to do was be still and think.
With a straw in his mouth, he daydreamed of white forests and sipped on his water. Wouldn’t red blooms in a white forest be beautiful? Yes. Red blooms would be happiness. Red blooms in a white forest. He noticed for a brief moment that his thoughts were not even coming in words, only images and feelings. He felt slow and wet and heavy and happy.
The communications console came to life and Christopher heard his base number being hailed by Captain Witten. She waited for a reply, then hailed again. Chris watched the console from his bed across the room and did nothing. He had no desire to rise and answer her call. Soon, the water in his tumbler ran out and it was very important for him to refill it. As he poured more water, Alice Witten’s voice sounded again and Christopher sat down to talk to her.
“Hello,” he said softly.
“Chris? Is everything all right? Why haven’t you been answering our hail?”
“I don’t know,” he said and swallowed some water.
“Arn Daniels, your replacement, wants to ask you some questions about the data you’re gathering on the Belgian Ice Flow movements. I think it would be best if you transmitted your data to him directly each day until we arrive. It will help him get a leg up on the project and maybe you can give him a few tips. What do you think?”
“Fine,” was all Christopher could think of to say.
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