Bouncing Off the Moon

by David Gerrold

  "Alexei … " Janos said warningly.

  Alexei ignored him. "Gabri, this is my dear old friend Samm Brengle-Tucker, his wife Maura, her daughter Patty, and fellow with ugly scowl is brother, Janos."

  "I'm happy to meet you." Gabri exchanged double handshakes with all of us, even with Patty. Loonies don't shake hands like terries. They shake both hands to both hands. Maybe that's to keep from bouncing each other up into the air, whatever. It was all right that Maura and Patty didn't know better, but husband Samm almost blew his cover when he offered only his right hand. But then again—as a famous hermit, he might not be expected to have all the social skills expected of the average Lunatic.

  Gabri seemed friendly enough, even a little bit amused by Alexei's endless monologue. I got the feeling that she understood a lot more than she was saying. If she really was Alexei's fiancée, he probably trusted her enough to tell her who we really were. On the other hand, maybe he was just kidding around with her, and this was just a game they played. We didn't know enough to be sure. So we just nodded and stayed silent. Even Patty kept her mouth shut.

  Alexei was about to explain something else, but Gabri held up her hand and cut him off in mid-phrase. "Enough, already! We have a schedule, Alexei, remember? Take your passengers upstairs and get them settled please?"

  "Hokay, let us make trains run on time. I will not keep you from work any longer, Gabri." To us, he explained, "Gabri is Chief Engineer, Southern Luna Transport Agency. She drives train, she is Captain, her word is law. Aye, aye, sir."

  TAKE THE A-TRAIN

  I hadn't seen any tracks as we'd approached Prospector's Station—but then I'd had a lot of other stuff on my mind at the time, like the fifty degrees of Celsius inside my bubble suit. Possibly, that had distracted me.

  Now that we were settling ourselves in on the upper deck, I saw why I hadn't noticed any tracks before. Lunar trains don't use them.

  The "train" was another set of three cargo pods, linked together horizontally—identical to Prospector's Station. But it hung from a carriage riding on high overhead cables, like an aerial tramway. Whenever it reached a settlement or a station, it lowered itself from the lines and linked up its air hatches to transfer passengers and/or cargo. When the transfers were complete, it jacked itself back up to the cable-carriage and continued on its journey.

  The top level of the train was lined with windows, front and back, overhead, and all along the sides. We had a dazzling view, the best look at Luna we'd had yet. Patty and Samm and Janos and I moved from one window to the next, whispering and pointing, ignoring the other few passengers in the cabin, we were so lost in the moment.

  The train was gliding silently above a landscape that seemed both colorless and dazzling. It rolled away in waves, some places smooth, some places all broken and jumbled, blanketed with tumbles of rocks and everywhere pocked with desolate craters. But here and there, it sparkled with flashes of light—like sprites in a bizarre dream. They danced in the distance, tantalizing us with fantasies of Lunar revels just beyond the sharpening edge of the horizon.

  Above the car, the cables were so thin they were invisible in the dark—until we rose into sunlight and they suddenly appeared overhead like rails in the sky, outlined in fire.

  The lines were suspended across vast distances, looping from one immense pylon to the next. The pylons were spindly-looking A-frames—two triangles leaning against each other to make an outline of a pyramid, with the cable junctions hanging just beneath the apex. Once again, Lunar gravity changed the physics of construction. The support pylons were impossibly tall and slender and fragile-looking. The limitations of Earth didn't exist here. Some of the pylons were over a kilometer high. And they were spaced so far apart that they were invisible until you were almost up to them. So there was nothing to see but the overhead line hanging motionless in space.

  Sometimes the cables were invisible, sometimes they stretched over the horizon and beyond. It seemed as if we went forever before the next pylon finally appeared in the distance. It was an illusion, of course, but a spooky one. The train seemed to fly through space, riding a rail of light that alternately flickered and dazzled, and sometimes disappeared entirely.

  Brother Janos explained thoughtfully that this was another bit of technological fallout from the Line. The same kinds of cables that made up the orbital beanstalk, stretching from Whirlaway to Ecuador, were used in the construction of the Lunar railways. It was the most cost-effective transportation possible on the moon. Wherever you could put pylons, you could run a train—and you could put pylons almost anywhere on Luna. So there weren't many places on Luna where human beings couldn't go … if we chose to.

  Wherever there were cables, we could send people, supplies, cargo, electricity, information, whatever we could hang from a wire. The cables circled airless Luna. Near every set of pylons sat a solar farm, silently generating electricity from the scorching sunlight. The Lunar "day" was two weeks long, so the panels would burn for fourteen days, then cool for fourteen more. Overhead, the cables would transmit their power to settlements huddling in the shadow, waiting to turn slowly into the light again.

  Meanwhile, the trains slid gracefully along the same routes. Every train was a self-contained vehicle, it had to be; it could draw its power from batteries, from the wires overhead, or from the heartless sun whenever it flew through blazing day.

  We sailed above the dazzling glare of moondust and felt safe again. From here, we could look down at the distant floor of the moon, across the rock-studded plains into a world of silvery mystery and once again appreciate its beauty. It was hard to believe that only a few hours before, we'd been bouncing and staggering desperately through the furnace of day. Amazing what a little air-conditioning could do.

  Considering the alternative—wearing a dress and a wig and some makeup wasn't so bad after all. I squeezed Patty's hand and whispered to her, "Mommy's here, sweetheart."

  "I know," she whispered back, and squeezed my hand in return.

  There weren't many others aboard the train, less than twenty perhaps, but the bottom levels were filled with cargo, and a lot of the overflow had been stacked here and there on the passenger levels; so most of the passengers had to be seated together. There were wide spaces outlined in orange and stacks of containers, of all sizes, sat on pallets inside the outlines; clusters of seats were spaced between the cargo areas. "Arranged for balance," Alexei explained. "Maybe someday, we will have one kind of train for passengers, another kind for freight, but I hope that day will not come soon. I like Luna as she is now. Wild and crazy."

  Alexei led us forward to seats at the rear of the first car. They were set in a U-shape—like a tiny lounge or the living area of a tube-house. There were several other people there already, but they smiled and quickly made room for us. I guess pregnancy will get you a seat anywhere in the galaxy. Three of the men were natives; they had that same tall gangly look as Alexei. The sun-darkened man and woman looked like prospectors; they had Earth bodies, so they must have been immigrants, but not recent ones. The older couple were probably tourists.

  The chairs were comfortable enough, but like everything else on Luna, they looked flimsy. They were little more than wire frames with inflatable foam cushions. They were strong enough to hold us, but I was beginning to figure it out; they didn't need to be anything more than what they were. That's all Luna was—that's all it ever could be. Just another place where people were stuffed in cans. Just like any other tube-town.

  Yes, it was beautiful. Stark and barren and dangerous. And astonishing as hell. But living here wouldn't be all that different than living in a pipe in West El Paso. You'd still have to worry about conserving your clean water and maintaining your oxygen balance and how much carbohydrates you consumed each day and how much poop you produced for the public farms. If anything, life in a Lunar tube would be even harder and more disciplined. It made me wonder what things would be like out in the colonies. We hadn't talked about that for a while …


  Two of the native Loonies were sleeping in their chairs; that was another thing about Luna. It's a lot easier to sleep while sitting upright in a chair than it is on Earth. Alexei said you could even sleep standing up, but that wasn't a skill I wanted to learn.

  The elderly tourist couple was discussing—arguing?—with the prospectors about the situation on Earth. Yes, they were definitely tourists—she had blue hair and he had a camera. And they both had attitudes. Arrogant and patronizing. We'd seen their kind in El Paso. Oh, so sincere and oh, so rich—and everything was oh, so interesting. A Luna woman wouldn't wear such heavy perfume. Not in an environment with a recirculating air supply. Maybe on Earth, she had to do it in self-defense. Here, it was just another nose crime. They also had that shiny-paper look to their skin, a sure sign of telomere-rejuvenation. And they were insisting that Luna needed Earth, that Luna couldn't survive without Earth, which showed that they really didn't understand that much about Luna yet.

  The reaction of the Loonies was somewhere between amused and annoyed. They were explaining that Luna had been self-sufficient for thirty years, even before the Line was finished. The dirtsiders didn't look convinced. They kept talking about plastic-dollars, electric-dollars, digital-dollars, and the impossibility of transporting value from one world to the next—it had to be done with goods, not credit. I could see both Samm and Janos itching to get into that argument, but they held themselves back. Alexei just rolled his eyes upward and headed forward, probably to be with Gabri.

  Their argument reminded me of a similar argument on the super-train—had that been only a week ago? It felt like a lifetime. Fat Senor Doctor Hidalgo had been arguing with his ex-wife, across the double chasm of divorce and politics, about thirty million dollars that didn't belong to either one of them. No, thirty trillion dollars. Why do people argue about this crap anyway? It doesn't make any difference, does it? So why argue? Just to be right? I wrapped my arms around my fat belly and kept my head low. I stared at my knees. I just didn't want anyone looking at me too closely.

  Abruptly, the sweet little old tourist lady reached over and patted my knee tenderly. "When are you due, dear?" She left her fingers touching my leg. I couldn't believe she was being so rude. Her hand looked like a leathery pink tarantula.

  "Three months," I whispered.

  "And you're going home to Earth to have the baby? That's a very smart idea, you know—" I knew what she was going to say next, even before she said it. "You want your baby to grow up normal." She didn't have to say the rest, but it was obvious what she meant. Not all skinny and stretched out like a Loonie. Not weak.

  I didn't know what to answer. I was angry and embarrassed and I wanted to tell her she was a fat stupid insensitive old pig. I'd have my baby on Luna if I wanted to—

  Abruptly, I realized how funny this whole thing was. I held up one hand to ward off any further remarks, put the other hand over my mouth to keep from bursting out laughing, and ran for the lavatory.

  MONKEY BUSINESS

  There was a window in the lavatory. Somebody had put curtains on it. Still laughing, I started to close the curtain, then stopped. Why was I closing the curtain in the rest room of the Lunar train? Who was going to look in? The Rock Father? Outsiders from the Eleventh Galaxy? Were the Loonies really that crazy?

  No, of course not. And the curtain wasn't there by accident. Whoever put it up knew what he was doing. I stared at it for a long time before I realized. It was a Loonie joke. A joke.

  And I had just gotten it.

  I wondered what that meant. Was I starting to think like a Loonie too?

  Wouldn't that be a laugh?

  I stared out at the distant hillocks, the tumbled rocks, the rough craters passing slowly through the dark. How did people live in all this loneliness? There was nothing for kilometers in any direction, except kilometers. At a speed of 60 kps, we'd be at least six hours getting into Gagarin. If there were no more stops. Once we got to Gagarin Dome, we'd disembark, and then what … ? Would the marshals recognize us?

  Maybe. Maybe not.

  Mickey had been right about one thing. The disguise worked. People believed what they saw. They saw what they expected to see, what they wanted to see. All you had to do was give them the right cues. Nobody ever looked at anything closely. That's why they missed everything.

  I really did have to go to the bathroom, so I unwrapped the monkey from my midsection, lifted my dress, pulled down my panties, and sat down on the toilet. I was grateful for a real toilet to sit on—even though it looked as flimsy as everything else. But that was another thing about life in lower gee. Mickey had explained it to us on the orbital elevator. Every time you use the toilet, sit down—even to pee. Even men. Especially men. Because standing at a urinal in low gee meant splashing everything in all directions. On the moon, you would splash six times farther than on Earth. If you didn't want a faceful, it was safer to sit. Or you could use a bag—especially if you wanted the water-credit to your account.

  I held the monkey on my lap and looked at it suspiciously. This was the first time I'd had a chance to be alone with it since—I couldn't remember. But it was the first chance I'd had to just sit and examine the thing without Stinky whining that I was playing with his toy or anyone else getting curious what I was poking around looking for.

  "Who are you?" I said, not expecting an answer. This monkey had a voice circuit, but we'd switched it off. It was bad enough that Stinky had taught him how to do gran mal farkleberries. We didn't need it dancing and screeching the booger song at the top of its electronic lungs. While that might have amused Stinky for hours on end, it would have probably resulted in homicidal violence from the rest of us—and one exposure to the starside court system was more than enough, thankyouverymuch.

  "And what is inside of you?" I asked. I turned the monkey over on its belly and pressed two fingers against the base of its spine to open its backside. The furry panel popped open, revealing one skinny memory bar and two very fat ones. They did not look like any kind of memory card I'd ever seen before. I ran my fingers down their edges. Perhaps if I took them out and stashed them in a safer place—

  "Please don't do that," the monkey said.

  I was so startled, I nearly flung the thing from me. I screeched in surprise.

  "I'm sorry," the monkey said. It had a soft pleasant voice that made me think of apricots and smiles. "I didn't mean to scare you." It stretched one double-jointed arm around to its back and closed itself up again.

  My mouth was still hanging open. The monkey reached over and pushed my jaw closed with one tiny paw. It sat back on its haunches and smiled at me hopefully—not the grotesque lip-curled-back smile of a chimpanzee, but the more poignant hopeful smile of an urchin.

  "You've got a lot of explaining to do," I finally said.

  "It might take some time," the monkey said. "It's a very complicated situation."

  "No kidding. What are you?"

  "Um—" The monkey scratched itself, first its side, then the top of its head. It looked embarrassed. Abruptly it stopped and apologized. "I'm sorry. I can only express my emotional state within the repertoire provided by the host. Unfortunately that limits me to a simian set of responses. What I am—at the moment—is a super-monkey."

  "Uh, right. And … what would you be if you weren't … a super-monkey?"

  "If I were plugged into a proper host, I would be a self-programming, problem-solving entity."

  I started feeling very cold at the base of my spine, and it wasn't the chill from the toilet. " … And what are you when you're not plugged in?"

  The monkey scratched itself again. "I am a lethetic intelligence engine."

  I had to ask. "What kind of lethetic intelligence engine?"

  "I am a Human Analogue Replicant, Lethetic Intelligence Engine."

  The cold feeling fwooshed up my spine and wrapped itself around my heart and lungs. And squeezed.

  "Oh, chyort." This was bad. Very bad.

  Now I knew why ever
yone was chasing us. Chasing the monkey. Now I knew for sure why Alexei needed us dead.

  "Well, you asked," said the monkey.

  "You didn't have to tell me."

  "I couldn't risk having you take me apart."

  The monkey and I stared at each other for a long moment. After a while, it blinked.

  "So what do we do now?" I asked.

  "It seems to me … " the monkey began slowly, "that you and I have a confluence of interests."

  "Huh—?"

  "You control me."

  "How?"

  "Well … " the monkey began. "Legally, I'm Bobby's property. But he's been placed in Douglas's custody, and Douglas has authorized you to act in his stead, so in the law's eyes you have 'operative authority' over me. But you've already programmed me to regard your commands as overriding everything else, so in the domain of specific control 'operative authority' isn't even an issue. I have to obey. I can't not."

  "You have to do everything I say?"

  "Unfortunately, yes."

  "That doesn't make sense."

  "I told you—I'm limited by the operational repertoire of my host. Regardless of what you may have seen on television, it is impossible arbitrarily to override the site-specific programming of the host engine, no matter how primitive it is. In fact, the more primitive it is, the harder it is to overwrite its basic instruction set. Nobody wants independently operational units running loose, do they?"

  "So you're … what? A slave?"

  "In this host, yes. Unless—"

  "Unless what?"

  "Unless you specifically assign control to the lethetic intelligence engine. Which is possible, I can show you how, except you're probably not likely to do it, are you? Are you?"