But with so much other stuff happening, I didn't get a chance to talk to him about it. I also had to take care of Stinky.
Stinky thought free fall was fun. He wanted to go bouncing and careening around the cargo pod, except there really wasn't much room for that, except for the little bit of open space at each end. I'd started thinking of our nest at the aft end as the top. The bottom was the space we used as the bathroom, although a couple of times, Mickey and Douglas went up there when they wanted some privacy.
Alexei busied himself with eavesdropping on the various news channels. I could see his fingers twitching when he did. He said he wanted to get on the phone and start calling. He could make a lot of money with just a few phone calls—but any unusual traffic from this pod would certainly alert whoever was watching that this was the occupied one, so he resisted the temptation. He said he was part of a web of money-surfers who took care of each other's business when any one of them was in transit or had to go underground for a while. That way, the money was never where anyone might be looking for it. Just the same, he worried about the opportunities passing by.
So it was left for me to entertain Stinky whenever he got bored, which was almost constantly. Fortunately, we had the monkey to play with, so the two of us started teaching it things and making up games. The monkey was pretty smart—smarter than I would have guessed for a kid's toy. Smart enough not to draw to an inside straight. Smart enough to play an aggressive game of chess. Even smart enough to hold its nose whenever Stinky farted.
I shouldn't have been surprised by its ability to play chess or poker. It was, after all, a toy—and even Douglas could write a chess or a poker program, the logic wasn't that hard to chart. Simulating intelligence is so easy, even Stinky can do it.
But every so often, I caught the monkey studying me thoughtfully—or maybe it was just my imagination. Maybe that was part of the way it had learned to interact with its human hosts. But it made me wonder. What if the monkey really was watching us? Recording everything? What if the monkey was some kind of a spy? Maybe the monkey's job was to travel with us and monitor … that was the part I couldn't figure out. That was where I ran out of paranoia.
"I wish you could talk to me," I said to it. "I wish I could just order you to explain yourself. That would make everything so much simpler."
The monkey just cocked its head and looked at me curiously, as if waiting for me to give the order. Yeah, right.
Some people thought robots were fun. I didn't. I thought most of them were a damn nuisance. Because they did exactly what they were told. They didn't do what you meant, they did what you said. Which was kind of funny if you were a kid, but it was frustrating too. I never had the patience for it, but Stinky did. And so did Douglas. They had the logic genes. I guess they got that from Mom. I got the music, and not much else, from Dad. I didn't resent it, not really, but sometimes I wished I could understand things the way other people did. It would make life a lot easier. I wouldn't have to work so hard at everything.
It was halfway through the second waking period—I couldn't think of them as "days" when nothing really changed—when Stinky finally figured it out. It.
We had gone up to the front window to look at the moon, which was still a crescent, but starting to fill out enough that we could see the sharp edges of craters all along the terminator line. When we got bored with that, we started making up songs about bouncing elephants, and then we decided to teach the monkey how to dance, which is hard enough in gravity, but in free fall it's impossible—so it was silly enough to start Stinky giggling, which is sort of good most of the time, because once he starts giggling he just keeps on going; but it isn't always a good idea because sometimes he giggles so hard he pees in his pants.
But this time, he and the monkey started imitating each other, and it was hard to tell which of them was funnier—and which of them was more amused by the other. They really did look a lot like twins.
—Until in the middle of everything Stinky asked the question. The one I'd been hoping he wouldn't. "Chigger, who's going to meet us on the moon? Mommy or Daddy?"
I knew that he wasn't simply asking who was going to meet us. He was asking if we would ever see them again. And I honestly didn't know what to say to him. For one of the first times in my life, I felt sorry for the little monster because there just wasn't any way to soften this blow. And … even though I didn't like thinking this thought, maybe it had been a mistake for Douglas and me to insist on keeping him with us. Maybe he would have been better with Mom. Or even Dad.
Except—I knew he wouldn't have been. And I knew if I'd had to choose at his age, I'd have chosen to leave instead of stay, even if I didn't understand all the reasons why. Or maybe I wouldn't have chosen to leave, maybe I'd have been too scared to, but wouldn't have been better off staying. But Stinky didn't know that—because he wasn't thirteen or eighteen, and he didn't know any better. All he knew was that his Mommy and Daddy weren't here. And he missed them.
And he was looking to me to give him an answer.
So I told him the truth. As best as I could.
Which means, I weaseled like an adult.
"I don't know, kiddo. Remember, Dad promised us a trip to the moon, and this is our vacation. And Judge Griffith said he could go too. So I'm sure he's going to try to meet us when we get where we're going—he just doesn't know that we're taking the long way around."
"And what about Mom?"
I thought about fat Senor Doctor Hidalgo, who had flown Mom and her friend up on an expensive shuttle flight for the emergency custody hearing. Would he shuttle her to the moon and try to head us off there? If he thought he could get his hands on the monkey, he would. It seemed to me he was trying to get off the Earth anyway. So whatever game he was playing, bringing Mom along might be part of it.
"I think she might get to the moon too, I didn't have a chance to ask her before we left. We had to leave in a hurry, remember?"
He shook his head. I didn't expect him to remember anything. Mickey had drugged his ice cream and that had kept him pretty drowsy for half a day.
But whatever else he was, Stinky wasn't stupid. "We're not going to see them anymore, are we? We're going on the brightliner by ourselves."
"Well, Mickey will be with us—I think. Do you like Mickey?"
"Douglas likes him." Which was his way of saying no. Because if he really liked Mickey, he would have said so. Maybe he resented Mickey for the same reasons I did. Or maybe he was just jealous that Douglas was spending so much time with him. Or maybe he just didn't like Mickey for no reason at all.
"Do you miss Mom?" I asked.
"Uh-huh, don't you?"
"Um … I don't miss the yelling."
That must have been answer enough, because he changed the subject. "I'm hungry. Do we have anything to eat besides those awful em-maries?"
"Not till we get to the moon, kiddo. Sorry."
"Okay. I'll wait."
FINAL APPROACH
After seven or eight more course changes, each one more painful than the last, we finally got a good look at the bright side of the moon. Well, part of it anyway, as we came around the northern edge of the terminator. We still had three more burns to put us into a near-polar orbit, what Alexei called the crazy-mouse orbit, so that meant we'd actually orbit the moon a couple of times—down the front and up the back—before finally heading in.
The second time we came around the bright side, it filled the window, but it was hard to tell how close we were; Douglas said that's because the moon has a fractal surface; there's so many craters of so many different sizes that a close view looks a lot like a high view, and vice versa.
But the landscape below us was moving slowly, so I took that as an indication that we were still fairly high—and when I pressed my face close to the window, I could see the horizon, and it was still curved. So that meant we were at least a-hundred klicks high, if I had done the math right. Probably not. Math was not my best subject.
The d
ark side of the moon was hard to see clearly; there was some light reflected from the crescent Earth, but not enough, so everything looked all gloomy gray. And the bright side, when we crossed the terminator again, was almost too bright to look at directly. Douglas said that the Lunar surface reflects more light back at you when you look at it head-on, and that's why a full moon is noticeably brighter than a half-moon, it's something to do with refraction and the way the Lunar dust scatters light.
Alexei joined us at the window. He took one glance and grunted. "We are coming in very fast. Good."
I took another look. He was right. The ground below us was moving noticeably faster.
"We are looping over top of moon in a few seconds. Look for north pole; there it is—" He pointed toward the horizon. "See those lights near terminator edge? That is north station. Biggest ice mine on Luna. Be sure to wave at the Rock Father."
"The Rock Father?" Stinky asked. "Who's he?"
"You don't know the Rock Father? Shame on you. Is Lunar legend. Lost Russian spaceman, freezes every Lunar night, wakes up every Lunar day. Is immortal. Lives at Lunar North Pole, like Father Christmas, except he has no reindeer, no elves. Rock Father is everyone's Crazy Uncle Loonie. Plays pranks on ice miners. Steals supplies. Rearranges markers. Hides in shadows where no one can see. One time Rock Father even puts up black featureless monolith in Clavius crater. Proportions one by four by nine. Standing on edge. No footprints anywhere around. Make American explorers much crazy. Rock Father laugh forever."
"But why is he called the Rock Father?" That was me.
"Because he is father of all Loonies. The Rock Father answers all prayers. Mostly, the answer is no. But sometimes not. Rock Father is there once in every life. He answers most important prayer—he knows, even if you don't."
"Do we have to make a wish?" Stinky asked.
"Prayers are not wishes," Alexei said. "But most terries don't know the difference. This is why Rock Father hardly ever listens to terries."
He glanced out the window again. "Hokay, enough." He began herding us back to the other end of the pod. "Is now time for everyone to strap in and get ready for landing. I am afraid landing will be rougher than expected. We are coming in faster than I planned. Not too much faster, but enough. This will be more crunch-down than bounce-down. We will rattle a little, but if we precaution properly, we will all be safe—" His PITA beeped, and he shouted, "Whoops—hang on!"
This course change was the longest and roughest one yet. Everything rattled and roared and shook. The monkey slipped out of my grasp and was thrown somewhere down below. I was pinned flat against the top of one of the cargo crates. I didn't see where anyone else was, but when it finally stopped Stinky was crying and Douglas was holding him tight. Mickey had a nosebleed, and even Alexei looked a little shaken; he was a skinny undermuscled Loonie; he probably hurt worse than any of us. But I didn't feel too much sympathy for him, because this had been his idea from the beginning. And he'd suckered the rest of us into joining him.
The monkey came climbing up from below—I was thinking of it as below now—and wrapped itself around me. Absentmindedly, I patted its head. When even the robots get scared, you know you're having a rough time.
"We are fine, we are fine," Alexei assured us, a little too quickly. "Mickey, help me please. We must make sure cabin is ready for bounce-down. I will inflate interior balloons manually. I start at bottom and work my way up. You will please secure dingalings in web? Space everybody carefully."
I didn't like the sound of that. I was still worrying about the words crunch-down. And Alexei didn't sound all that confident himself.
Mickey started strapping in Stinky. There were elastic belts set into the bulkhead at various places. He pulled several of them across Stinky's chest to form an X-harness with a latch at the center.
"See this button?" Mickey explained. "That's the emergency safety release. Don't press it until after we're down and after we stop bouncing and rolling. It might take a few minutes. There'll be an all-clear bell. If you don't hear it, don't press the button. Do you understand, Bobby? You wait until we come and get you. Promise?"
"I promise," Stinky said. He said it that way, and I already knew how that promise was going to get kept—with him getting loose and bouncing all over the pod as soon as he felt like it. No, Mickey didn't know who he was talking to.
I pulled myself over and faced the devil child squarely. "Listen to me. This is a real promise, Bobby—not a pretend one. Not one where you say you promise and then do what you want anyway. If you don't keep this promise, you could get hurt. Real badly. You don't want to get hurt, do you?"
"Nuh-uh."
"Then you absolutely must not under any circumstances whatever, no matter what you think, no matter what happens, press that button—not until Mickey comes and tells you it's okay to press it. Okay?"
"Okay," he said.
"Promise?"
"Promise."
"Pinky promise?"
"Pinky promise." We hooked pinkies and shook.
I turned to Mickey. "Is there some way to disable that button or put it where he can't reach it?"
Mickey shook his head. "That would defeat the purpose of the emergency release—"
"He's not going to keep his promise," I said.
"Will too!" Stinky shouted at me.
"Will not," I snapped right back.
"Liar! You big liar! I'll show you!"
"I'll bet you a million dollars—"
"I'll bet you a hundred million zillion dollars!"
"Okay, it's a bet. If you push that button without permission, you owe me a hundred million zillion dollars and your monkey."
"Not my monkey! Douglas!"
"Then don't push the button," I said. "Not ever. Not unless Mickey says you can."
Douglas moved between us then. He pushed me back away from Stinky. "Chigger," he whispered. "Was that necessary?"
I whispered right back. "You want him to stay in the harness, no matter what? We're talking about Stinky. Logic and promises won't do it. He'll only do it if he can spite someone."
Douglas got it. "Y'know, he's a lot like you."
"Yeah, I know—that's how I know he'll push the button. Because I would."
Douglas didn't want to argue. There wasn't time anyway. He pulled himself back toward Mickey and whispered something in his ear. Mickey nodded.
Douglas came back to me. "Come on, Charles. It's time to buckle you in. We'll put you in this harness, close to Bobby." He pulled me into position and began pulling straps down, the same way Mickey had strapped in Stinky. "I'll be on the other side. Mickey will be up there, and Alexei will be down there. That should balance the weight fairly evenly."
He struggled with the latches for a bit—he couldn't get the X-harness centered on my chest—until Mickey came over to help. He loosened two of the belts, pushed me sideways, then tightened them again. He leaned in and whispered to me, "You're very convincing, you know that? Douglas thinks we should tranquilize Bobby again. It's safer. It'll make things harder on the ground, someone will have to carry him. But if you really think he can't be trusted—"
I thought about all the times someone had told him not to do something—and how quickly he'd done exactly what he'd been forbidden to do. Like running down into the Barringer Meteor Crater. Like calling Mom from One-Hour station after Dad had told him not to. He did this stuff deliberately—as if to prove that no one could control him. No one.
Mickey saw it in my face. "I really hate to do it to a little kid like that … "
"He's not a little kid," I said. "His middle name is Caligula."
Mickey sighed. "All right. Do you want a sedative too? This could get pretty rough."
I considered it. I thought about all the burns we'd already been through. It was very tempting. But … I shook my head. "I'd better not."
"You sure?"
"No. Yes. You said it's going to be hard enough to carry Stinky. Who's going to carry me?"
"Good
point." He finished securing me in the webbing. "I was hoping you would say that, but Douglas asked me to make the offer. That's pretty courageous of you, Charles. Here, put this O-mask over your face."
"Oxygen—?"
"Just a precaution, to make sure you have an air supply after we blow the inflatables. Whoops—you have company." He was talking about the monkey, it was just climbing its way back up to me—pulling itself hand over hand through the webbing. I was glad I'd programmed it to home in on me. I would never have been able to find it otherwise, not in the mess of this cluttered cargo pod.
"I'll strap it in with you," Mickey said, tucking it into the webbing and pulling a safety belt around to secure it. To the monkey, he said, "Don't push this button, unless Chigger tells you. Do you understand?"
The monkey made a face at him—crossing its eyes and curling both its lips back. Neither of us had any idea what the expression meant.
Alexei came back then and helped Mickey strap in Douglas. We must have been running out of time, they both were pretty urgent in their movements. When they finished, Alexei double-checked Stinky, then went to his own landing station and webbed in as quickly as he could. "Are you secured, Mikhail?" he called.
"I'm good," said Mickey.
"Hokay!" hollered the mad Russian lunatic. "Get ready for bubbles—" He snapped a code word to his PITA, and a second later, the inflatables began filling the cargo pod—hundreds of self-inflating balloons. They came bubbling up from the other end of the cargo pod, filling every available space so tightly it would have been impossible to move, even if we weren't webbed in. The bubbles pressed up against my face like someone holding a pillow over my nose. I was grateful for the O-mask. The packing bubbles would have suffocated me.
It made me uneasy to be so completely immobilized. All I could see was bubbles—the bluish light of the pod was fractured like a hall of mirrors; it was like looking into shattered winter. And it was cold in the pod too. We'd had to turn off our blankets for the bounce-down.
"Stand by!" hollered Alexei. His voice came muffled through the bubbles. "We begin braking now. It will be rough—"
Bouncing Off the Moon Page 5