Love and Other Metals

by K. P. Redmond

  They look so small and unhappy as I look back, walking out to the corridor. My gut feels like there’s a jagged rock punching through. But I keep going; I have to. Like Old Tanner says, life is a crap sandwich. The sooner they learn that, the better off they’ll be.

  * * * * *

  “So, I was told you got in,” says Marshal Baumann, pulling back a chair and sitting down at the table with me. “Congratulations.” His casual jumpsuit looks freshly washed. His badge shines on the left side of his chest as he leans forward in the chair, expectantly.

  “Yup,” I say, washing down the last of my sandwich with a gulp of flat soda. It’s been a long, trying day and all I want to do is eat and hit the rack. Everything is going to change for me tomorrow and I need to get an early start. But now here’s Baumann again, his scrubbed face smiling at me from across the table, like a bright red wart that won’t go away no matter how much you cut on it.

  “Well, that’s good Straker,” he says, “very good. When is the launch?”

  “We sally early tomorrow,” I say. “I gotta hit the sack in a bit.”

  He nods. “Oh, of course. Of course you do. I just wanted to remind out about our little agreement.”

  “I ain’t forgotten. But I gotta say, the Corps seems mighty concerned with keeping things secret from Malapert.”

  “Of course they are! We in government respect that. But we do have a job to do, and that means we have to watch and make sure everything is on the up and up—keep everyone on a level playing field. You understand that, don’t you Straker?”

  “Yup, I get it,” I say, “But you promise to keep everything secret from Nifty Jim and his people, right?”

  “Nifty Jim?” he says, with a dismissive chuckle. “I would no more tell Nifty Jim than I would tell the man in the moon!”

  It’s stuff like that remind me that Marshal Baumann spent most of his life on Earth. The man in the moon? Just one man? Ain’t we all men in the moon? Dumb. Baumann looks around furtively, then once satisfied that nobody is watching, pulls out a medication bottle from his pocket. He hands it to me. “What am I supposed to do with this?” I ask, studying the bottle. “Don’t need no pills.”

  “No, no, and keep your voice down,” says the marshal, pushing my hand with the bottle down out of sight. “Put your own medication in there. It’s not the pills that matter, it’s the bottle itself. It has circuitry inside; it’s a communication device. I’ll send instructions to your wristy. The file will by encrypted, use the key ‘all is good’, spelled out as one word.

  “Allgood, all is good. I get it.” The bottle looks completely ordinary. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to make it. I put it in my pocket. “Hope you don’t get me killed,” I say.

  He shakes his head and gives me a friendly smile. “Oh Straker, nobody is getting killed. And you won’t get caught anyway. Once you’ve got the run of the ship, there will be plenty of opportunities to transmit. Just remember, a new life is waiting for you. When you get back, we will set you up and you’ll never have to come back to this godforsaken town again.”

  “Yea,” I say, nodding. “No inquest, right?”

  “Told I’d handle it,” he says.

  “OK,” I say, “I reckon that’s it then.”

  We shake hands. Baumann stands and looks around one last time. “Good luck, Straker. And remember, you’re doing the right thing,” he says, as he adjusts the color-coordinated handkerchief in his jacket pocket.

  “Yea,” I say. The marshal walks off. I feel like I’ve made a deal with the devil but it’s kind of a way of life here in Shacktown. I snarf down the last of my dinner and leave also. My quarters are about 10 minutes away by foot, down Corr G, then turn left and into a narrow, darker passage and through the door to the bachelor’s quarters. Cold rock walls, small rooms, bunkbeds, nasty common hoohouse. That’s a bathroom in earthspeak—the kinda room where you sit and do your business and then say hoo that was a good one and then you clear out for a good long time on account of the airflow is just short of suffocation. No roommates since the last guy got a job at a blast furnace and moved to Tycho. He was smart.

  I pack up a personal backpack with all my stuff—which ain’t much—and putter around for a bit. I read the stuff that’s come to my wristy and sign the ship’s articles specifying the agreement. When I’m finally ready for bed, I do what I always do to keep the demons away: pick up my little guitar and play it until my eyes become heavy. I play until my mind is clear and calm and ready for sleep.

  In the morning it will be next to me on the bed like the lover I’ve never had.

  I’m in the hanger cave. It’s wide and tall and dimly lit; thick cables striped in red and black snake along the floor, technicians buzz this way and that. Every voice, every clank of metal, every rrrpppt of a distant power tool echoes against the rocky walls. The place smells of batteries and hydraulic fluid. I navigate past one big vehicle after another, each parked in its striped yellow space, some fresh from the outside and still dripping with dust-wash, some in partial states of repair with open hatches, some being cursed at by frustrated technicians.

  My wristy guides me to the mustering station; I should be right on time. I’m still sleepy on account of it’s a mite early but I’m pretty excited too. Most of the few things I own are in the tattered backpack that I lug over my left shoulder.

  True to their word, the Corps gave me a duffel bag with coveralls, grooming supplies, diapers, training chips and a bunch of other stuff. Ain’t had time to read any of training. They also loaned me a ‘casual’ suit: a sort of basic spacesuit. I’m wearing it now. It ain’t new, but looks to be in good shape, with relatively few scratches on the helmet, working electronics, trusty-looking tanks, and tubing that don’t leak. It’s basic protection in case of a pressure breach and for that it’s good enough.

  I hold the big duffel bag in my right hand, feeling like a pack critter, wondering if I should shift my load as I walk. The suit’s heavy gloves make it harder to grip. But before long I find the right station and present myself to the man in charge.

  “So, you are the Yuuta kid,” he says. He’s a tall and skinny man of sallow complexion. He studies me with a frown. “You quite resemble your father. I am the first officer. My name is Nastez.” Curly hair peeks out from under his open visor; his hands are in perpetual motion. He’s wearing an officer’s black casual suit. Grim face—one of those faces that signals contempt even when at rest. His eyes turn down to the pad in his hand as he is talking to me. “You will receive instructions later, Yuuta. Right now, up the ladder and into the tube. Bags first, then crawl through. Use your elbows. Get going.”

  “Aye,” I say, trying to sound authentic.

  The vehicle before me is tall and imposing. I’ve ridden in rovers before but this thing is much bigger and complex than I’m used to seeing. And it’s a convertible: from rover to launch vehicle. I stumble up the metal ladder, sliding the duffel bag on the hand rail best I can. When I get to the landing, I lift the duffel bag past the open hatch into the docking tube. The tube is the passageway into the pressure vessel of the vehicle.

  Somebody on the other side grabs the duffel bag. I push in my backpack. Someone grabs that too. Finally, I crawl in and like Nastez said I pull myself through like a commando because there ain’t enough space in the tube to get through any other way. I bang my big helmet against the side a few times; that’s probably where the scratches came from.

  I make it to the inside: the tunnel opens into the cabin between the pilot and co-pilots seat; the walls curve in over a couple of rows of padded seats a little farther back. The captain—the lady I recognize from yesterday—is already seated and busy at her console. The chamber is hushed and well-lit and smells pleasantly of old plastic.

  I am ushered to a seat in the back by a young woman in an officer’s black suit. Can’t see much of her with her visor half down but she’s very business-like. What I do see don’t look half bad. She shows me how to strap into the seat and plu
g in the umbilical. The suit puffs out a bit when I connect and sends a stream of air across the back of my neck, which I don’t much care for, but it cools the stuffy suit down pretty quick. Up to now it’s been hard to talk or hear with the helmet on, but now my headset comes alive with chatter between the captain and Nastez. Nastez dogs the hatch up front. He plops into the co-pilot’s seat up front beside the captain. Together they start stepping through their pre-flight testing. The building noise of pumps and actuators and whining gyros comes through the hard plastic of my helmet.

  My back is against the rear wall of the crew compartment; all the bags are stashed in the cargo area behind the wall and strapped down. The meds bottle that the marshal gave me is in my bag—I’m hoping that nobody takes too much of an interest in my stuff. There ain’t no windows but the interior walls are covered in display film. The film shows the outside of the rover as if the entire top of the vehicle were glass. I expected to feel claustrophobic but I don’t at all.

  A guy straps into the seat beside me. He glances over at me and nods but don’t say nothing. I study him: he’s wearing a khaki casual suit like mine so he ain’t an officer, and from what I can see of his face he’s got a few years on me. Judging by the bulges in his form-fitting suit, he’s big, beefy and thick-necked. Maybe an Earther. From the patch on his shoulder, this ain’t his first flight.

  I don’t got patches. I ain’t been off Luna since I was a kid so this is all pretty new and strange to me. New and strange and, if I’m honest with myself, kinda scaresome. Not everybody can take it. Hoping hard that I can.

  “OK, everyone, visors down and seal up,” says a woman’s voice through the intercom; I figure it’s the captain. “It’ll take a couple of hours to get to the launch site. You can buzz me with questions if you like but otherwise keep the chit-chat to a minimum.”

  I pull down my visor like she said and feel the air pressure pushing my ears. I wiggle my jaw to clear them but even when they’re clear I can’t hear much that ain’t coming in over the intercom. We’re rolling now; I feel the uneven wobble of the big wheels and the rocking motion in my seat as the rover lumbers into the airlock, waits for a few minutes for the air to drain out, then rolls outside when the lock’s big outer door opens up.

  The big wheels churn through the dust. Soon the hanger is out of sight. It’s still night at this corner of the crater—there ain’t much to see excepting the blue lights that mark our path. If I crane my neck, I can see a patch of sunlight reflected from tippy top of the crater wall above us. A billion stars, like suspended diamond chips, pepper the black sky. And the big machine plods along through the rocks and dust. It’s exciting at first; I can hear my own breath in the helmet and feel my heart pumping as I think about what’s coming.

  The guy next to me is concentrating on his wristy. In front of me all I can see is the shiny back of the young lady officer’s helmet. It’s warm and quiet inside the cocoon of my suit. Everything is bobbing pleasantly along. My exhilaration soon turns to boredom as I watch blue light after blue light meander past us. Now I feel the lack of sleep. I end up dozing off.

  * * * * *

  I wake up when my helmet lurches forward from the rover braking. We’re at the launch facility—I can see the strobe lights flashing on the long rails that stretch out to a vanishing point at the distant horizon. I feel more movement as a big yellow robot arm pulls the entire crew cabin smoothly along on rollers off of the rover chassis and onto the space chassis, which is an open frame bristling with rocket thrusters. A few more minutes pass as one by one a series of clamps grip the cabin onto the chassis, each ramming home with a loud clang. The intercom crackles loudly with a voice I don’t recognize. “Consortium transport, this is launch control South-One. You are at the head of the line. The system is charged and ready to initiate on your signal.”

  Then another voice. “This is First Officer Nastez to the crew. Check your seals and straps. We will launch immediately.”

  I try to relax and breathe steady like I was taught in class. The instructors described this moment but they also said nobody can really tell you what it’s like; even with the simulations, they say, you just have to experience it for yourself. A loud buzzer sounds, and then the acceleration comes on—and it comes on fast. One second I’m thinking back on my instructions, the next second it’s like a big, invisible spatula is smashing me back hard into my seat. What a punch in the gut.

  The launcher screeches horrendously loud even with my helmet on. Tall white girders rip by with increasing speed until they blur to an even gray—even inside the cabin, everything looks fuzzy on account of the vibration being so strong that it’s about to shatter my teeth. In my imagination I see the whole cabin shaking apart and I’m being instantly torn to small bloody pieces and I would blow chunks right now if I could and don’t panic; remember to breathe…

  We’re free. Just like that, gliding along smooth as silk. The launcher vanishes behind us. My stomach ain’t sure it’s too happy; could be butterflies or could be weightlessness. My arms feel light and floaty so I reckon it’s both. The guy in the next seat looks over at me and pushes his talk button. “You gonna be sick? Oh crap you better not be sick.”

  “No,” I say. “I’m settled. Are launches always that bad?”

  “Ha. Oh that weren’t bad. The last one I did was bad. That weren’t bad.” He shakes his head and goes quiet again, a sly grin on his face.

  Easy for him to say. For me, that was the worst launch of my life. Also the best. Now all I hear are occasional swooshing sounds from the attitude thrusters. I watch the pockmarked face of Luna recede in the displays around me, just like the simulators but more so—I can see Shackleton and Malapert and Haworth and Shoemaker; all craters I’ve worked at one time or another in my life. So big when you’re in them, but so small from here.

  The craters shrink to little bumps as the surface of Luna rounds out and turns beneath us, revealing landscapes unfamiliar to me. I can just make out the headlights and strobes of a solitary rover making its way in the blackness far below. The intercom comes alive. “We’ve achieved orbit,” says Nastez. “You can loosen your straps if you want to, but stay sealed and stay put. We’ll dock in a few minutes.”

  Within a half hour we’re turning around and I catch my first glimpse of the ship, bathed in brilliant sunlight. Wow, I say to myself. No photograph can really capture the size of this thing. The captain and first officer exchange technical comments in quiet, calm tones as we inch towards the ship’s docking ring. I hear a thud as we bump the mechanism, which responds by bringing our little craft to a quick stop, robbing us of our last little bit of forward momentum. The impact pushes me gently into my straps. The short mechanical arms of the docking ring bring our cabin in closer, as if in a lover’s embrace. The romance ends in a machine kiss as metal clunks against metal. There is a loud hissing as the transport and the ship open valves to share gasses. True love. We’re docked.

  This ship is long. The display films above me show an industrial-looking craft, the expanse of its trusses and tanks and antennae and the big rocket motors stretching far off to the right, blocking the stars. Big steel boxes to hold the enriched ore neatly line the trusses on all sides. The carousels, in which the crew will bunk under simulated gravity, rotate majestically on long tubular spokes, intermittently blocking the sunlight across the displays with a lazy strobe-light effect.

  I can see the CM—the Command Module—at front of the ship out the left display, peppered with portholes and studded with antennae. That’s where the flight deck and most of the weightless areas are. So we’re docked amidships, close to the bow. I look right and see drones scooting around hovering over the CM and back aft, like hummingbirds over an especially juicy flower, topping off the consumables and delivering last minute supplies.

  “We have good atmo. You can open visors and free up.”

  I open my helmet visor. The guy next to me has already floated out of his restraints, his shoes uncomfortably near my
face as he pulls bags and supplies from the rear compartment and hands them to the others in the aisle way. I unstrap. It’s a very strange sensation—weightlessness—now that my arms and legs are free to experience it. I follow the rest of the crew out of the cabin, floating single file through the tube, past the docking hatches and into the ship.

  The first chamber I come to is the docking bay cluttered with heavy and complicated evasuits and other Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) equipment. A stainless steel plaque on the wall displays the letters L.S. Allgood. There are little paintings of cratered balls on the bulkhead under the plaque; I count nine. Nine stroids visited so there must have been nine successful returns. A fair, sturdy ship that takes her spacemen and spacewomen far, far away and then returns them all the way home, alive. Hopefully I’ll be that lucky too.

  I rush to keep up as the group pushes through the next hatch into an airlock big enough for two or three fully suited crew members; it ain’t used for much right now but will be the main entry to the CM once we land. We continue on into another cramped room where spacesuits are fastened to the walls and overhead, large and pale and ghostly like corpses at a funeral home, impatient to be embalmed. We float through the next hatch to the mess deck—a much larger room.

  The captain is at the forward end of the room with two women wearing light-blue jumpsuits, holding her helmet in one hand and a tablet in the other, scrutinizing the ship’s inspection report. The rest of us form an uneven semicircle and wait. The captain signs off and shakes hands with the two women, who smile politely as they pass by the rest of us on their way off the ship. The captain turns to us, her body floating at a slight angle from her sticky boots in the weightlessness. Her penetrating eyes slowly survey the crew, her black-suited figure silhouetted against the open hatch to the flight deck, and its massive front windows showing the spectacular view of Luna beyond. Everyone gets quiet.