The Deirdre

  “Sweet Jesus,” said Merriwether. “But he can’t do that.”

  “That’s what they said,” I insisted.

  “Oh, the crazy bastard would try it no doubt, only there’s no way he could have escaped the Ds. There’s just the one way out and—” He paused significantly. “Chalk. Winters. Did you leave your post?”

  “Why, never in life, Cap’n,” said Chalk. “Hardly at all, Cap’n. Only once or twice ta have a piss and replenish our air.”

  “Deserting your post is a hanging offense, Gottschalk,” growled the captain.

  “‘Twere only for a minute.”

  “I’m going to see if I can help Bemis,” I said. I was fond of the resonance engine, to be sure, but Bemis—well, Bemis was my partner.

  “Well, go help him then,” Merriwether grumbled. “We’ll all be along soon enough.” I sensed from his tone that he was preoccupied—likely with selecting the cordage for Chalk’s hanging. Of course hanging was too good for Chalk, at least in this case, because, despite all the good intentions in the world, hanging a man is a tedious and unfulfilling operation on the Moon, and the man on the business end of the rope is far more likely to laugh at your efforts than die as he should—inadequate gravitation being the culprit once again. No, on the Moon a nice firing squad is the thing. I hoped the captain was busy in his mind selecting the bullets.

  I climbed to my feet and charged down the tunnel toward the airlock. Over the radio I heard the captain shout, “Fire in the hole,” and even halfway back to the belowdecks I could feel the ground jump and tremble beneath my boots.

  Chapter Ten

  I reached the airlock and worked my way through in a minute or two, although it seemed to take the better part of an hour. I watched the needle on the ‘lock’s big pressure gauge crawl up to near fifteen pounds per square inch, then removed my helmet and cranked open the inner hatch. The electric bulb in the small chamber just inside was still alight, and from this I surmised that Jones hadn’t destroyed the resonance engine, as yet. I plunged into the tunnel that led first to Mister Kent’s galley and from there to the belowdecks. It was not strictly the fastest way to Mister Lovelace’s realm, but I had realized that I had brought nothing with which to defend myself, let alone help Bemis and Lovelace to defend, or retake, the precious resonance engine, and I thought Mister Kent might provide something: perhaps a butcher’s knife to wave around, or a pot of boiling slush to pour down the access shaft onto Black Johnny’s head.

  I found Mister Kent in an agitated state when I arrived, tugging furiously at his beard and “flitting from pillar to post,” as my old nanny used to say.

  “Clemens,” he barked upon seeing me. Then, “Where’s the captain? Where are the others?” I’ve never thought of myself as particularly vain or self-aggrandizing, yet I found that being greeted in this manner rankled a bit.

  “They are busy blowing up the D line,” I said. “Have you seen Calvin Bemis?”

  “I have not,” said Kent. “But I have met the notorious John Jones, I regret to say, and feel fortunate to have survived the encounter.”

  “Where is he?” I said anxiously, glancing around the cavern as if I might have overlooked him.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know,” he said. “Fortunately, I’d set Mister Lang up in the hammock in the chicken coop—you know it well from your convalescence, I’m sure—and thus I was able to convince the villain that he had expired.” Kent twisted his beard. “Otherwise I fear Jones would have shot him again.”

  “Clemens!” came a croaking cry from the direction of the chicken coop. I turned and walked the dozen or so steps to the tiny noisome chamber full of cackling hens. Despite all reasonable expectations, this closet had its own electric light, since it had been discovered that a hen will not lay if dawn never arrives, even if the daylight is only an electric bulb. Lang lay in the hammock, wrapped in a tattered blanket. “Clemens,“ he said, “where is the captain?” I resolved then and there to spend some time, when I could spare it, improving my efforts at self-promotion.

  “Blowing up the D line,” I said.

  “Did you bring the pistols? I very much need to put a bullet into Jones before he destroys the Deirdre.” And with that he tried to climb out of the hammock.

  Kent had followed me into the chicken coop, and he stepped to the hammock and gently but firmly held Lang in place. “No you don’t, Percy,” he insisted. “Not today. There’s plenty of men can deal with Jones.”

  I felt profoundly foolish. A pot brimming with boiling oil would have provided drama and novelty, but securing one of Captain Merriwether’s six-guns would have been the more prudent, and obvious, course. “I’m afraid not,” I said.

  Lang snapped, “My God. Then what the hell good are you, sir?” That was a question worth considering, I reckoned, but only after I’d found Calvin Bemis and saved the resonance engine.

  I turned to Kent and said, “I gather from what you said earlier that Jones carried a pistol.”

  “Yes,“ said Kent. “And I believe he would have shot me, just for good measure, if he’d dared. He hates all Deirdres indiscriminately, I believe. I can only assume he didn’t due to a shortage of ammunition.”

  I said, “What do we have that can be used as a weapon?”

  “A knife perhaps?” he said, and he led me to his store of implements.

  I selected the longest and most evil-looking of the items on offer, and made my way to the belowdecks, which was entirely free of loafing Deirdres for perhaps the first time in my experience. I saw Calvin’s hastily discarded pressure suit lying on the deck, and following his lead I stripped mine off in record time. I would wish I’d left it on if Black Johnny succeeded in his awful mission, but the suit’s extreme awkwardness when not pressurized (exceeded only by when it was pressurized, of course) argued against retaining it. I had managed to leave the helmet behind in the galley in any case, and without that, the remainder of my suit was useless. So, free of my haggis and with carving knife in hand, I ran to the steamy vestibule containing the shaft leading down to Mister Lovelace’s engine room.

  From the top of the shaft, all appeared copacetic to my untrained eye. I heard the usual cacophony of mechanical noises, and felt the expected miasma of wet steam rising from the shaft’s mouth. Poised to brave the descent, I realized that, stripped as I was to my under-drawers, I had no place in which to sheath my weapon. So, feeling every inch the buccaneer, I clasped the knife between my teeth.

  I then began to climb down the shaft, holding onto the center pole and proceeding hand-over-hand. However, after descending halfway to the opening above the engine room catwalk, I stopped, deciding that dropping into the chamber feet-first—stockinged feet first, in my fancy red under-drawers—was likely to make me conspicuous. I turned myself over and went the rest of the way upside-down—that is to say, head first. This maneuver would have been impossible for anyone but a trapeze artist on Earth, but in the Moon it is not only possible but reasonably easy to do.

  After turning turtle, I crept down the shaft until my head was mere inches above the opening, and hung there like a bat. A singular bat to be sure: one sporting unruly red hair, a fine red mustache, bright red under-drawers, and a knife between its teeth. Steam-shrouded light filled the circle below me, and over the rumble and clatter of the still-churning machinery, I heard the unmistakable voice of Black Johnny Jones.

  “Now, I don’t want ta shoot you men, as you had no part in my demise, least as I remember. Still, I will if ya try ta stop me.” This was in line with what Mister Kent had surmised. Black Johnny must have been cruelly short on bullets. After all, he had shot at me repeatedly without even knowing my name. In any case, it seemed clear that he indeed had a pistol, and it was almost certainly trained on Mister Lovelace, and likely Calvin Bemis as well.

  I inched myself lower, until I could just see around the lower edge of the shaft, and there, still in his blackened haggis but without the helmet, stood Black Johnny. And providence was with me, becau
se he was standing with his back to me when my head appeared. If he’d been facing my way, I fear that, despite the shortage of bullets, there would have been a new and darker shade of red added to my ensemble. As I’d expected, Calvin and Mister Lovelace stood beyond Jones, Bemis in under-drawers matching my own, and Lovelace in his usual overalls. I saw Calvin’s eyes go wide upon seeing my bat imitation, but he caught himself immediately and feigned nonchalance thereafter. I could not tell from Mister Lovelace’s expression whether he had seen me or not, which was just as well.

  I have mentioned before that a typical pressure suit has no pockets. Jones’s blackened haggis was no exception, and he had a canvas sack slung over one shoulder. I could tell from its contours that it held at least two sticks of dynamite.

  Meanwhile, Black Johnny was holding forth like an after-dinner speaker deep in his cups, and Bemis and Lovelace seemed to be encouraging him in it—reckoning, I can only suppose, that Black Johnny talking them to death was a great deal better than Black Johnny blowing them to pieces.

  “But, Jones,” said Lovelace, “why aren’t you dead?”

  “Because I got the drop on ya, didn’t I,” said Jones.

  “No, sir,” corrected Lovelace. “I mean to say, how is it that you survived the collapse of, what is it, of D2?”

  “Ya mean, what did I do once the tyrant Merriwether sent the roof down on me and left me for dead? Same as any man in my position woulda done. I screamed bloody murder at them, pleaded with them, cursed them, begged them for mercy, then damned them all to hell, but they’d wanted me dead all along and now they’d done it, so they—”

  “It’s not my department, but I believe the men dug out the tunnel after it collapsed,” Lovelace said. “And your body—that is to say, you weren’t there.”

  “I knew then it was a trap they’d laid for me—” Jones was saying.

  “A trap?” said Bemis, urging him on.

  “The cave-in, man. Don’t tell me that was an accident. They meant to deal with their jonah, an’ they did, the barstards. Did it in fine style. Only I weren’t killed in the rock fall, was I, only my lamp busted and left in a dead-end spur with no way out. If’n that ain’t dead, then I’d like ta know what is. I was mightily upset by then, ya could say, and damning the Deirdre and all who worked her to hell like they deserved, when I set a boot too far afield in the blackness and fell down into a hole.” That accounted for the slush I’d seen on the crevasse’s walls. “I lost my wits entirely then and don’t recollect how I got there, but when I came to my senses I found myself at the bottom of that hole, least as far as I could tell with no lamp, and natur’ly I set to grieving over my fate at the hands of the accursed Deirdres, sending oaths abroad in the aether until I lost consciousness from lack of air, certain that Lang and Merriwether and the rest had kilt me dead at last.”

  As Jones told his story, I saw Bemis and Lovelace exchange a glance, and Calvin took a step sideways.

  “Don’t move, you,” Jones growled, “else you’ll taste a bullet.”

  Calvin stopped moving, but Jones took a step back, toward me. Gripping the pole with my legs, I took the knife from my teeth and held it poised, prepared to bushwhack Black Johnny should he come any closer. All that was lacking, as usual, was any knowledge of how to go about it.

  “So why aren’t you dead?” asked Lovelace a second time.

  Black Johnny attempted a laugh and failed, to startling effect. “Hoist upon yer own bloody petard, aren’t ya, ya thievin’ barstards.” I saw Bemis and Lovelace exchange another look, this time of puzzlement. “That’s the Hammer ‘n’ Tongs territory down there. They heard my laments and cursing of the Deirdres and they come and dragged me out. Or so they told me later, seein’ as I was largely insensible at the time.”

  As Jones spoke, Bemis continued to drift gradually to port. The excruciating level of nonchalance in his movements signaled, if only to me who knew his ways, that he was up to something.

  “And I gather you’ve been planning your revenge ever since,” Lovelace said. He scrupulously avoided looking at Calvin, so I knew he was in on it too, whatever it was.

  Black Johnny said, “It’s all that’s kep’ me goin’ since ya kilt me, i’n’t it. And now I’ll be blowing up your precious engine here, to guarantee the Deirdre’s end.” He used the hand not holding the pistol to draw a bundle of three sticks of dynamite, with blasting cap already attached, from his sack. ”And the two a you as well, seein’ as you love the thing so. Then it’s on to plant a bullet in Merriwether’s gut, and that tattooed little troll Gottschalk after that.” Then he glanced at the pistol in his glove. It was an exceedingly brief glance, but it exhibited what the gamblers call a “tell.” I was suddenly certain he had only one bullet in the pistol, and he was saving it for Captain Merriwether if he could. What he said next only cemented my certainty. “I believe I’ll throw the little barstard into the vacuum in his under-drawers an’ watch his eyes pop outta his ugly head. But first it’s the engine and the pair a you.” Although I couldn’t see anything of his face, it was clear from Black Johnny’s tone that he was, after all those days and months of misery, at last enjoying himself.

  “There’s no call for that, Jones,” Lovelace said. “You said yourself you didn’t want to shoot us. And Mister Bemis here had no part whatever in your—troubles. He was not even in the Deirdre until several months ago.”

  “Ain’t that too bad.” Jones shook his head. “I said I didn’t wanna shoot ya. I never said I didn’t want you dead. No, I mean to kill the lot of ya, one way or the other.”

  “And how do you expect to get away then?” Lovelace asked, figuring, correctly as it happened, that Black Johnny would not be shy in detailing his plans for escape.

  “How d’ya think? Once I’ve set the charge I’ll jump up the shaft and set ‘er off from yer accursed belowdeck. I got plenty a wire, haven’t I.” And as he said this he pulled a spool from the sack. “Enough talk,” he barked. “You, the new man.” He aimed the pistol at Bemis. “You keep well back now, and stay the professor here, or else he’ll have a bullet.” As he spoke, he waved the hand holding the dynamite, and I watched the blasting cap pitch about as he did so. I silently exhorted it to work itself loose, but alas it did not.

  Meanwhile, Calvin had moved several feet to one side, while Lovelace held his position in front of Jones. He was no nearer to Jones and the dynamite than he’d been before, but considerably closer to a collection of hoses and valves leading from the boiler, each valve with its attendant gauge standing guard above it. Calvin glanced at a gauge, then directly at me. Jones saw the direction of his glance and started to turn to see who or what might be behind him, when Calvin reached out, gripped a thick hose in both hands, and yanked it free from its housing. He yowled in pain—apparently the hose was rather hot—then ducked and fell to the catwalk as a geyser of steam hissed from the exposed valve. The fountain of scalding-hot steam caught Black Johnny just on the neck ring of his haggis and spattered gobs of soot-blackened slush into the air. He screamed and staggered backward, and I knew that at last my time had come.

  I turned over, released the pole, fell down into the engine room, and landed on Black Johnny’s back, holding onto the pair of air cylinders he had not taken the time to remove. He roared his shock and defiance, and simultaneously fired the pistol. I thought I heard the tinkle of shattering glass over the clatter of machinery and hiss of boiling steam, then I saw a new, nearly invisible geyser of foul-smelling gas spray into the cavern. I tried to bring my long-cherished carving knife to bear on Black Johnny’s scalded neck, but he spun and shot up toward the roof of the cavern, with me still aboard. (Leaping involuntarily into the air, and finding yourself out of reach of anything with which you might improve your trajectory, is all too common on the Moon.) I tried once again to bring the knife to its business, but my wrist struck a pipe, and the knife flew out of my hand and was soon lost amongst the confusion of machinery below.

  The smell in the engine room wa
s suddenly that of Hades, and Lovelace shouted, “He’s punctured the waste reclamation tank. The hydrogen sulfide you smell is highly flammable, Jones. Fire again and you’ll kill us all.” This, in my judgment, might have served more as an inducement for Black Johnny than a cause for restraint, but then in my judgment he was also out of bullets. Still, breathing the gas that was flooding the chamber might produce the same result, only slower.

  As if to verify my prediction, I saw Mister Lovelace collapse to the catwalk, and in the same moment, as Jones hollered and twisted and flailed his encumbering haggis to shake me loose, Calvin shouted, “Can you hold him, Sam? I have to get Mister Lovelace up the shaft.”

  I had no idea how long I could entertain Black Johnny. Until he managed to kill me, I supposed. He caught hold of a vertical pipe as we fell back toward the catwalk, and used the leverage to whirl around and slam my unprotected body against the upper side of the resonance engine. I felt the prominent knobs, gauges, and presumably the very verniers themselves dig into my back.

  “I—I’ll try,” I said, but what I really wanted was to determine the current location of the dynamite. Had he dropped it when I’d attacked him? Then I saw that the sticks, with the blasting cap in place, were still in his left hand, clutched to the chest of his pressure suit and dripping with black slush. It was fortunate that I was holding tight to his air cylinders, the only part of him not slippery with grease.

  “Let go a me, ya barstard!” Jones hollered, and slammed me against the gauges again. He held the vertical pipe with one hand and the dynamite with the other—so I had been correct, I thought—he had tossed away the pistol in favor of a handhold, so clearly all its bullets had been spent.

  Six or so feet below us, I saw Calvin carry Lovelace (conscious or not, I could not tell) to the escape shaft, place the engineer’s arms around the pole, and throw him bodily up the shaft.