Bouncing Off the Moon

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Bouncing Off the Moon Page 22

by David Gerrold


  "There is soft-water use and hard-water use," Alexei returned to his lecture. "Hard-water use is determined by laws of physics. No room to negotiate. What you get is what you see. You need twenty-four hours of air to breathe, every day. You cannot get by on twenty-three hours, can you? You cannot get by on twenty-three hours and forty-five minutes, can you? No, you need your full twenty-four hours of air. That requires however many liters it takes to water plants that produce oxygen. Or however many liters you electrolyze. That is hard-water use.

  "Soft water use is negotiable. You can use some water more than once. You can wash yourself in water, then use it again to flush toilet, then use it a third time to water plants. One liter gets used three different ways. Is like getting three liters for one. You do not need fresh water for everything, soft water lets you make water work overtime. But even when water works super golden hours, there is a limit to how hard it can work. You cannot recycle what isn't there—and even softest water turns hard after a while.

  "We have more than three million Lunatics on this globe. That means we need at least three hundred million liters of liquid water to sustain life. If there is not enough water for everyone, demand goes up and prices rise. We have to use more and more soft water, until we reach hard-water limit. That is good day for ice miners, because that is day we all make lots of money—if we can get our water to market. Price of hard water is floor of Lunar economy. Price of soft water is ceiling. Understand, da? Or is it the other way around? Never mind. Is big room to make lots of money. As long as sun shines, is raining soup. Grab a spoon and a bowl. Don't stand there holding fork and wondering why you are hungry. This is why Lunar sharecroppers sometimes sell extra water to invisible economy. Not to leaseholder. But leaseholders have to buy at fair market price, so if sharecropper is in it only for money, is wise to be legal. But I am not in it only for money."

  He guided the Beagle into a docking bay and brought it to a careful halt. The front wheels bumped firmly against a bar of foam, set across the end of the bay as a shock absorber. Alexei locked the engines down, then began punching a column of buttons to his left, watching as the light next to each one flashed green. From behind and below us came the familiar clattering sounds of an automatic hatch connection. Somebody must have gotten very rich from that patent.

  The docking bay was a deep trench carved into the Lunar surface. Beside it was a flattish dome with a spindly power-tower rising above it like an old-fashioned oil derrick. Multiple light-pipes fed down from the lens arrays at the top and into channels all around the edges of the dome, so the dome glowed from underneath.

  Alexei finished locking the vehicle down and put it in standby mode. He stopped to frown at one display. "I will have to take this machine in for service, very soon. We have put on too many miles, too many hours. Never mind. Let's get you safely put away."

  He unfastened his safety harness and bounced aftward. He pulled open a floor panel, revealing a hatch set into the very bottom of the cabin. The panel next to it flashed green with confirmations. He punched the unlock, armed the connecting circuits, lowered the pressure tube, connected it, checked the connections, pressurized it, checked the pressure, confirmed it, unlocked the hatch, and popped it. He unzipped the three openings to the pressure tube.

  There was a flat cabinet mounted on the ceiling; Alexei stood up, opened it, and dropped the end of a retractable plastic ladder down the hatch. Every door on Luna was a locked hatch. There hadn't been a death caused by accidental decompression in thirty years. And that one, according to Alexei, had been so horrible that every hatch on Luna was replaced in the next five; though some places off the map might still have some of those old hatches installed—probably with extra warning stickers on them.

  Alexei climbed down the ladder. Even though the distance from the floor of the Beagle to the hatch on the ground was low enough to jump, he still climbed down the ladder. Both Mickey and Alexei had cautioned us—more than once—that more bones had been broken by Terran overconfidence than any other particular brand of stupidity. It was what Alexei called "the Superman mistake." Just because you can jump that high doesn't mean you can land safely.

  The pressure tube was like every other one we'd seen, an extendable plastic column. The ladder went down the center of it. At the bottom was the outer hatch of whatever airlock we were dropping down into. We pulled up the plastic ladder so Alexei could rezip the three zippers at the top of the pressure tube; then he unzipped the three zippers at the bottom. He worked the controls on the lower pressure hatch, popped it, stuck his head in, and took a deep breath. He flashed us a thumbs-up signal and we unzipped the top three zippers and lowered the ladder again, so we could climb down through the pressure tube. A week ago, I would have asked, is all this checking necessary? Now I knew enough not to bother asking.

  As I climbed down, I noticed that the pressure tube was made of the same stuff as the inflatable, maybe a little thicker; it unnerved me. I preferred solid walls between me and vacuum. Bobby climbed down after me, the monkey riding on his back.

  Alexei helped each of us down through the next set of hatches. "Ladder is strong, but it might be slippery from condensation. Please use feet here," he said. We lowered ourselves down into Krislov's Fortress of Solitude—into a surprisingly warm and humid atmosphere. Once out of the inner airlock, we were on a room-sized shelf, overlooking a wider, deeper space. The walls were rock, but the floor was the inevitable polycarbonate mesh decking.

  I peered over the railing, down into a rocky shaft. It looked about ten meters across and thirty meters deep. The walls were sparkly gray and very shiny; light pipes snaked down them and plugged into the rock in haphazard fashion. Catwalks and ladders wound up and down everywhere. Platforms hung from the walls at odd intervals all the way down. Everything was suffused with indistinct illumination, the seepage from the light-pipes.

  The air had a wet smell, like a shower room just after all the showers have been turned off. And it sounded wet, as if things were dripping all over. And some of the light pipes looked wet with condensation.

  Alexei followed us down after securing the top hatch. "You are first people I have ever brought here," he said. "This is my very private space. Is ice mine and water factory. You will see how it works very quickly. I give you whole tour. But be careful, is slippery sometimes." He pointed us down a set of permanent ladders; most of these were anchored in the rock walls; they led all the way to the bottom of the shaft—with occasional detours across various plastic-mesh decks, shelves, and catwalks. He was right, some of the ladders were dripping with condensation, some of the platforms were damp.

  "Comets hit Luna everywhere," Alexei explained. "Millions of years. Make lots of craters. Man in the moon has bad case of pizza-face acne or maybe even smallpox—except smallpox is extinct, except maybe for small vials here and there that nobody is supposed to know about. Never mind. Comets are made of ice, da? Sun shines on most of Luna. Ice sublimes, turns to vapor, and is gone. Everywhere but place where sun never shines. So ice is still here. North and south poles, the light comes in very low and sideways, can't get over steep crater walls to look down into shadow-valleys. So ice doesn't melt. Dig down into crust, what do you find? Crunched comet. Lots of it. Shine light on it, what do you get? Nice hot ice. Make tea, da?"

  He stopped us on a mesh shelf halfway down and pointed around at tangling bright tubes. "Light-pipes bring hot sun down into shaft. We drill horizontal tubes, angling slightly up. I pump light in, ice melts, water drips out. I have free electricity, free light, sun does all the work. All I need to do is collect water and sell it. But here is big joke. Ha-ha. I cannot sell my water. Is not cost-effective." He shrugged and waved us on down to the next level.

  "You see storage tanks upside? If I had a pipeline, I could sell every drop. If ground could hold pylons, I could send water out by train. But we are too far away, too far for pipes, too hard to build train. Lots of water, but not enough to justify expense. So I am sitting on a million wat
er-dollars that I cannot afford to sell. I have so much water here, I could start farm like Miller-Gibson. More than I could use in a lifetime, it feels sometimes. This place was very good bad investment, da?"

  We reached the bottom of the shaft—well, not the bottom, but as far down as we could go. We were on a wide mesh deck above an open-topped tank. "Loose water drips everywhere," Alexei said. "Easier to let it just drip. Water beneath must be recycled anyway. Is not unsafe, but is fllled with minerals. Earth-style hard water." He pried up a floor panel, so we could see below. The bottom of the shaft had been lined with plastic. Over a period of time it had fllled with water, turning it into a huge indoor pool.

  "Da, you can go swimming if you want," Alexei said. "Water is warm enough. Water is good for storing heat. Keeps shaft warm, helps more water melt. Everything stays warm and toasty. Heat from sun is cumulative." He pointed to the side of the pool. "There is ladder to get out. And diving shelf too. But be very careful diving. You can go very deep in water and not notice how deep because you will not feel same water pressure until you go six times as deep. You can go too far down and not have enough air to get back up. Here is question for you to ponder. Will it be harder or easier to swim in Lunar gee? Will it be harder or easier to float on top of water?"

  I frowned in thought. Before I could answer, Douglas said, "It shouldn't make any difference, should it? The relative densities are the same."

  "Very good," said Alexei. "You might survive. Some terries make Superman mistake in water too. Come with me, I show you sleeping quarters. Are you tired? No? Do you want a real bath? We have hot showers too, even a steam room. Is no shortage of water here, hot or cold." He grinned at us. "You feel this is wasteful, da?. All this water, and it cannot be used by anyone else? I admit it, I am water hoarder. Not as bad as some though. Some folks have enough water to run fishery. Trout, catfish, shrimp, lobsters, all very big, very tasty. But I am not water hoarder by choice. The problem is always cost of shipping to market. I make more than enough to live, but not enough to sell profitably. This house will never pay for self."

  Alexei led us over to one wall where a cluster of partitions had been set up to define specific areas. A plastic canopy hung over everything to keep water from dripping down into the living spaces. "Here is room for Charles and Bobby. Here is place for Mickey and Douglas. Is clean clothes for everyone, as soon as we unpack Beagle. Over here is shower. Take as long as you want. Is only luxury we have. And over here is table for eating and kitchen for cooking. I have small farm here too. You will find fresh vegetables for salad. LunaFarm meals in fridge. You will be very comfortable. Mickey, here is library, many books, and untraceable link to network. You can make phone calls, send e-mail, buy videos, whatever. You will be very comfortable."

  "It sounds like you're leaving us here," said Mickey. He glanced sideways to Douglas. Alexei didn't notice it.

  "Da," he said. "I must run errands. You will be safe here. I will not be gone too long. Only two or three days. I have to fill Beagle with water, I will take him off to invisible farm where they will service him in exchange for water. Everything from new food in fridge to new Palmer tubes on chassis. And in return, I will pump fresh water into invisible economy. Every little drip drip drip counterbalances Lunar Authority."

  Douglas had a thoughtful frown on his face. "You're a subversive, aren't you?"

  "Da!" said Alexei excitedly. "You have figured it out. Good for you, Douglas Dingillian. I am Free Luna Libertarian. The rights of the free market are the only rights. Everybody benefits from free market. Where the market isn't free, is the job of subversives to make it free for all."

  Mickey looked amused, as if he already knew this. Douglas had a sour expression; he didn't want to get into this argument. Unfortunately, he'd already pushed the on button, and Alexei didn't have an off button.

  "Do you know there are no taxes on Luna? Sounds good, eh? But instead of taxes, we have user fees on currency. You put dollar in bank, Lunar Authority takes half penny. You are paying guarantee for security of legal tender. You take dollar out of bank, Lunar Authority takes another half-penny. Most of time, you don't notice. But every transaction of dollars, you pay a little slice to government.

  "No law requires you to use Luna Dollars, but Luna Dollars are primary medium of exchange, each one supposedly backed by one liter of clean water—but Luna Reserve adjusts money supply up of down to thwart free market. Is really just price control so Lunar Authority can provide guarantee of stable currency. I say it is chicken and egg argument. They adjust currency to justify charging fee. Then they charge fee so they can justify manipulating currency. This makes it harder for freelancers to make profit, except by going invisible and selling in the wet market.

  "Is very complex to explain, is very simple in practice. Sometimes users have lots and lots of dollars to transfer, and do not want to pay fee, or they do not want the transaction logged—then what? Then they put money in invisible bank, move money through invisible economy. How? Pump it as water. Money arrives where it needs to be without losing anything to friction. Lunar Authority does not get to sand extra zeroes off end. We guarantee our own value. Is very hard to inflate water. In fact, it used to be that water was the only barter system in invisible economy—at least, until we figure out how to transfer dollars without government fingers helping to count."

  "How'd you do that?" Mickey asked, and I had a feeling it wasn't just casual curiosity.

  "Is all done with intelligence engines," Alexei said, as if that were explanation enough. If you have one, you can be a bank or any other kind of corporation. Or even a government. Mikhail, pay attention here—it doesn't matter how many stupid processors you put into render farm; you still need intelligence core. That needs quantum chips. If you have that, you can make money jump out of here and into there, without passing through intervening space. At least, that is how it is explained to me."

  "A shower sure sounds good," I suggested, hoping to derail this particular conversation.

  Mickey looked annoyed; I guess he wanted to hear the rest. But Alexei's hyperactive mind had already leapt on to the next thought. He was already pulling back a plastic divider. "Is good question, Charles. Over here is drying area, when you get out of shower. Is heat pump, like sauna. And you can stand under sunlight here. But do not stand too long. You will get badly sunburned." He pointed at my borrowed hair. "Be careful with wig, please. In case you might need it again. Or maybe you will want to wear it again just because it makes you look so pretty. Don't look to me like that, the nights are two weeks long here. Some Loonies like to play dress up, phone friends, play games. Now we must hurry and unload Mr. Beagle so I can take care of errands."

  HIT THE SHOWERS

  Alexei didn't leave immediately. He still had several hours more talking to do before taking his tongue in for its one-hundred-thousand-kilometer checkup. Fortunately, he didn't need to do it with us. He headed off to a space above the living quarters that was partitioned as an office; it had a ceiling and angled windows overlooking the living area. There he started making phone calls. Through the glass we could see him gesticulating wildly and hollering at his unseen victims. Occasionally, we could hear wild Russian phrases that defied translation, although at one point, it seemed as if Alexei was very upset about a lot of chyort and gohvno. He stamped back and forth through the office, waving his arms and shrieking in fury.

  It was like when we were on Geostationary and he was talking on the phone to people all over everywhere, making all kinds of business arrangements. He said he'd made a lot of money off the information Mickey had given him—but for a rich man, he sure didn't act very rich. He acted like the guy who ran the comic-book store in El Paso. Like every comic was a million-dollar deal. Well, some of them were—like Mad #5—but not every one.

  So just what was Alexei screaming about? And to who?

  Hell, if I had an ice mine on the moon and a rolling Beagle-truck, I wouldn't worry about anything. I'd hang speakers all over th
e shaft and play Dvorak's Symphony #9 "From the New World" as loud as I could. Dad had recorded it with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra once. I'd always liked that recording, it was one of my favorites. That, and his recordings of Beethoven's nine symphonies. Dad had used the Bàrenreiter edition of the score, and period instruments tuned to the traditional A at 415 hertz, not 440 as was done later on. And he'd accelerated both the tempo and the dynamic range of the orchestra. I liked Dad's interpretation—and not just because it was Dad—but because he made the music frisky and energetic, as well as thoughtful and elegant. He brought grace and dignity to the third movement of the Ninth, playfulness and spirit to the first movement of the Fourth.

  The recordings had sold very well and Dad was invited to conduct all over the country. Newsleak even called his set "the definitive Beethoven." I was very proud of him. So was Mom. Things were going well for us. And then Mom got pregnant with Stinky and everything changed. Mom and Dad started arguing over his career and all his traveling and his responsibilities—and then one night Dad got so angry, he asked her if the baby was even his—

  And after that, it was never the same again. Some things can't be fixed.

  And that only made me wonder all the more about Alexei. There was something very strange about the way he was super-polite to us, and then turned raging-belligerent to invisible people on the other end of the phone. What he was shouting looked an awful lot like the kind of stuff that couldn't be fixed—that the people on the other end wouldn't forgive.

  So who was he yelling and screaming at—and why did they put up with it? What kind of relationship was it that they couldn't each go their separate way? Or was this the way Loonies behaved? Polite always in person, angry only when they couldn't be touched?

  It didn't seem right to me. There was a lot that puzzled and annoyed and frustrated me about everything—and after Mom and Dad declared war on each other, I started speaking up too. I mean, why not? If everybody else was going to say what was wrong, I wanted to be heard too.

 

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