Bouncing Off the Moon

by David Gerrold

  "Who do you work for, Mickey?"

  "I was really starting to care and I was hoping—"

  "Mickey. Just answer the question."

  He shut up. He took a breath. He met our eyes. "Not all the tribes are Lunatics. There are cousins' clubs in the asteroids, on Mars, at the Lagrange colonies. On the Line. Some of the tribes are multiplanetary."

  "Yeah? And which one do you work for?"

  "Does it matter? Do you really care?" Mickey started pulling on the jumpsuit. "You feel betrayed. And I don't blame you. And there really isn't anything I can say to you that will make you feel different. Alexei used you; you figured that out, both of you, real fast. And everybody else tried to use you too—everyone on the Line—so, I figured it was only a matter of time until you figured out that my hands aren't all that clean either. But before you give your speech, and I know you will, let me remind you that you were using everyone else too. Everyone uses everyone. You were using Alexei and me to get to the colonies. Don't deny it, Douglas. So whatever else is going on between us, there isn't any moral superiority on either side. We used each other. You used me and I used you—we're equally wrong." He straightened his collar and pulled his zipper up. "I know this doesn't excuse anything at all, but I really did care about you the whole time. And I know you cared about me too."

  Douglas pulled his own zipper up. "Between you and Chigger," he said, "you guys don't leave me a lot to say. You guys had it all figured out, didn't you? Only one thing you forgot—all this damn logic and believing and caring and all this other crap everybody's been throwing back and forth—nobody ever stops to realize how much they're hurting everybody else in the process!"

  Both Mickey and I started to make noises of comfort, but Douglas held up both his hands, and said in the loudest voice I'd ever heard him use, "NO! Enough is enough. Both of you shut up already! Haven't you done enough damage for one day?!"

  And that's when Stinky came in, and said, "Don't cry, Douglas, I still love you." Which was probably the one thing he could have said which would have made both Mickey and me want to cry.

  Douglas scooped him up in his arms and held him tightly, and I realized that as all alone as Stinky had felt without his monkey, as all alone as I had felt these past few days, Douglas was the one who was most alone now—because everything he had wanted and believed in was forever broken. He sat down on the edge of the bed and held Stinky as tight as he could, rocking him gently. The two of them sobbed quietly together, each inside his separate loss, each inside his own particular hurt. I sat down on one side of them and Mickey sat down on the other and we all took turns crying in each other's arms about how shitty we'd all been. It didn't change anything between us, but at least it kept us from killing each other.

  DOWN THE TUBES

  After a while, Mickey went and got us some damp towels and we all wiped our faces clean and looked at each other and giggled in embarrassment a little bit. Maybe we'd all overreacted. Maybe it was the fear and the anger and the exhaustion all coming out at the same time. Maybe we had to test ourselves.

  And maybe we were just catching our breath for the second round.

  Mickey spoke first. "Look, you don't have to trust me anymore. But the way I see it, if Alexei's got the monkey now, then he doesn't need us anymore. And we're just sitting here waiting for the executioner to arrive. I think we need to get out of here."

  "Oh—?" said Douglas. "How?"

  Mickey laughed. "Come look at what I found." He led us up to Alexei's office and punched up a Lunar map on the big display. "This is a satellite photo," he said. "And this overlay shows where all the known settlements are. And this overlay shows where all the suspected settlements are. And THIS overlay shows the RF cousins—"

  "RF?"

  "Rock Father. Alexei's tribe."

  "Where did you get all this information?" I asked.

  "Alexei isn't the only one with a cousin," Mickey reminded us. "Al-exei knows who my cousins are, and I know who his cousins are. We've cooperated enough times in the past—but probably never again, so it doesn't matter. Anyway, look at this map. Where are we? Where's Brickner 43-AX92?"

  Douglas and I took a moment to study the display, searching the labels of the different stations. Finally, we both gave up. "Where is it?"

  "There is no Brickner 43-AX92. That's a fictitious location. All the Brickner stations are false." He looked up at the ceiling and shouted. "Do you think you were fooling us, Alexei? We knew it all the time." Back to us, he said, "Just in case he's listening."

  "Do you think he is?"

  "If he's not on the phone, talking someone's ear off."

  "So are we on the map or not?" I asked, still searching the display.

  "Oh, we're here," Mickey rapped the image on the wall. "We're just not where Alexei said. Do you know why there are so many fictitious people and stations on the moon? The invisibles do that; it's the haystack in which they're hiding. False data. The more inaccuracies they can generate, the better. It drives even the intelligence engines crazy, so I'm told."

  "So where are we?" Douglas asked.

  "I'll show you. I'll show Alexei too. Here—look, here's Gagarin. Right here." He pointed. "And over here, this is the train line. This is Wonderland Jumble, and the line goes right straight across here—see this spot here? Wait, I'll enlarge it. See that? That's Route 66. See where it crosses the train line? Right there at Borgo Pass—and if you follow the road around here and here and here, you come to this Y-shaped junction here that Alexei called his turnoff. Now, do you remember the zigzag flight path we took? It sort of looked like we were heading over here toward the left, remember? That was what Alexei wanted us to think. And he kept the sun bouncing around in front of us, so we wouldn't be able to look and see where we were going. All that tacking back and forth, you thought we were going northeast, didn't you? The truth is, we went southeast first and then northeast and then finally due east, and when you take out all the zigs and zags, we mostly went east. And we came down here! This is where we are."

  Douglas and I both peered close. Douglas said it first. "We're at Gagarin!"

  "Not quite. It's just over the hill. We're walking distance."

  "And we didn't see it because the sun was in our eyes!"

  Douglas grinned. "Edgar Allan Poe's 'Purloined Letter.' The safest place to hide something is in plain sight. Only what was Alexei hiding—us or Gagarin?"

  "Both," said Mickey. "Listen—Charles, Douglas? Can you trust me for just a little while longer. I mean, I can get us out of here. I can get you to safety. And to a colony bid. After that, if you never want to see me again, I'll understand that too—what do you say?"

  Douglas looked to me. I could see he wanted me to say yes. "Chigger?"

  "It's a fair deal. If he'll live up to it." Maybe I was still being too suspicious, but somebody had to be.

  "I don't want to hurt you any more," Mickey said to us, but mostly to Douglas. "I'll keep my word."

  "All right." Douglas offered his hands for a Lunar handshake. "Let's do it."

  Mickey grabbed both of Douglas's hands in both of his and the two of them looked at each other and shook hands. And then I put my hands on top of theirs and Stinky put his hands on top of mine, and we all shook together.

  And then we laughed and broke apart and Mickey snapped immediately into problem-solving mode. "All right, girls. Let's find our bubble suits. According to the map, there's a local road. See? It's less than a kilometer. It's all in shadow. We can be there in an hour. Grab some food and water, extra air tanks just in case. Reflective blankets. Headsets. Everything we had from the pod. I think Alexei packed them all in the blue case. Didn't we leave that one up by the hatch?"

  "Uh, Mickey—" I said softly.

  He glanced to me.

  I gestured toward the ceiling. What if he's listening?

  "Let him listen," he said, loudly enough for any hidden microphones to hear. "We'll be safe at Gagarin long before he can catch up with us."

&n
bsp; We found the bubble suits and other supplies exactly where Mickey had said. We unpacked them quickly, but Douglas held his up, frowning. "These suits have expired, Mickey. They're only good for one wearing or six hours, whichever comes first. And we went beyond both of those limits."

  Mickey snapped back, "I know what those suits are tested to, Douglas. Some of them have lasted as long as ten wearings and over six hundred hours. All we need is thirty minutes, maybe less. Do you have a better idea?"

  He didn't. We started dressing ourselves for a trip across the surface. I was already dreading this, but we were too busy going through the separate drills of zipping and unzipping, checking air and water supplies, tightening the Velcro straps on the jumpsuit shoes, grabbing the inflatable airlock, all that stuff.

  But we didn't actually put on the bubble suits themselves until we were standing under the exit hatch. Mickey stood beneath it, happily punching at the controls, occasionally swearing, canceling things out, and going back to do it again.

  This wasn't the same airlock we'd entered through. This was a larger one, with multiple hatches. There was one hatch overhead and at least half a dozen more spaced around the walls. The hatch in the floor led back down to the living quarters.

  "All right," Mickey announced. "I've got it. Everybody get your suits on. Douglas, seal that floor hatch—"

  "Wait," I said. I went over to the hatch and sang down into it, "I would dance and be merry, life would be a ding-a-derry, if I only had a brain ..." All three of them stared at me, as if I'd suddenly gone crazy.

  "Chigger, what the hell are you doing?" He made as if to close the hatch.

  "Wait, dammit!"

  "We don't have time—"

  I sang down into the hatch again. This time louder. "I would dance and be merry, life would be a ding-a-derry—" That was as far as I got. The monkey came flying up out of the hatch like something out of an animated cartoon.

  "What the hell—?" That was Mickey.

  "My monkey!" Bobby shrieked. The monkey flew into his arms and hugged him excitedly. They still looked like long-lost twins.

  "Chigger—?" Douglas grabbed my arm.

  "I did it, yes. I told the monkey to hide and stay hidden and not come out until I called it. So Alexei wouldn't get it. Or anyone else—"

  Douglas gave me a look of exasperation and rage. He turned and dogged the hatch. His face was working furiously, while he tried to think of what to say. Finally, he turned around. "Your little brother hasn't stopped crying—"

  "I know, and I feel like a shit, okay?! I'm sorry, Bobby! I didn't do it to hurt you. I told the monkey to hide so no one could steal him—"

  "Everybody stop arguing!" Mickey shouted. "We've gotta go!" He armed the airlock. "Get into your suits now."

  Bobby gave the monkey one more hug, then bounced onto Douglas's back, the monkey jumped onto mine. We pulled on our suits quickly and zipped ourselves in.

  "You haven't heard the end of this, Chigger!" Douglas called across to me. "You told me you wanted me to be honest with you—and you didn't tell me the truth about the monkey?!"

  "I didn't want Mickey to know. I wanted to tell you first."

  "Yeah, you've always got an excuse."

  "Shut up, Douglas! Chigger did good. We're still alive right now because Alexei couldn't find the monkey!"

  "He should have told me!"

  "I was going to—I didn't get a chance."

  "It's all right, we've got it back now," said Bobby, trying ineffectively to be a peacemaker.

  "Shut up, all of you! I can't concentrate!" And as he said that, the hatch opposite us popped open. Not the hatch above! "Go!" Mickey shouted, pushing me toward it. "Come on!"

  "Huh?" But I was already moving.

  "You're not the only one who can keep a secret. Let's go, Douglas!"

  I bounced through into a horizontal tube that stretched ahead forever. It was the same stuff as the inflatable pressure tubes that linked one vehicle to another—a spiral coil with plastic walls; you extended it wherever you wanted it to go—only this one was longer. It stretched away like a tunnel. It had a collapsible mesh deck for a floor, with several pipes and tubes running along underneath it. Outside the plastic, I could sense more than see that the tube was half-buried in Lunar dust. Farther out, lay the dim outlines of a shadowy horizon.

  "How far does this go?" I called back.

  Mickey was sealing the hatch behind us. "At least a kilometer. I hope. Go as fast as you can, Chigger. We're right behind you."

  "But this isn't the road!"

  "I know it. But maybe Alexei won't. I cut all his visual monitors to the airlock. At least, I think I did. So he's going to think we took the road."

  "But how'd you know this tube was here?"

  "Call it a lucky guess. But I know Alexei better than you. Keep bouncing." I didn't look back, I could hear them pounding behind me. "See, you wouldn't have noticed it, Chigger. You're a terrie. Sorry, no offense. But I knew that the Brickner station wasn't working the minute we climbed down into it. It wasn't hot enough! You can't melt Lunar ice without heat, and you've got to pump a lot of heat into the ground to get the ice to melt. And it wasn't hot enough! So where did all that water come from then?"

  "It was here from before—? When the station was working?" I offered.

  "Maybe. But remember, I know Alexei better than you! Why do you think I asked him to smuggle you up the Line? Why do you think I trusted him to smuggle us to Luna? Because Alexei Krislov is a brilliant scoundrel. Brickner station is a double-decoy. Yeah, he sells a little bit of water back to Gagarin. That's his cover—look down, you see those pipes under the deck? What do think is in them? Which way do you think it's flowing?"

  I was too busy bouncing to focus, and I didn't want to stop to look. "Um, the green one is breathable air?" I guessed. "The blue one is water?"

  "And the orange one? What do you think that is?

  "That's ammonia," said Douglas. "Remember what Alexei said about nitrogen and ammonia? You need nitrogen to make breathable gas. And for fertilizer. You need ammonia for refrigeration."

  "Right," said Mickey. "The key to Lunar technology isn't water. It's nitrogen. That's what everybody needs the most. Even more than water and electricity. Alexei isn't selling any of this! He's stealing it! Brickner isn't a water-production plant; it's a holding tank for water skimmed off Gagarin. And all the stuff in the other tanks as well. There were too many. There's too much storage there."

  We bounced a little farther down the tube, while I thought about that. The pipes below our feet weren't that thick. I guessed they didn't need to be.

  "Doesn't Gagarin know?" Douglas asked. "Can't they tell?"

  "Maybe Alexei is only siphoning off a few liters a day. With the number of people coming and going into Gagarin Station, with the scale of industrial processes they've got going, they could write it off as loss due to normal usage. But if he's siphoning off any more than that, then someone at Gagarin is covering it up. That's my guess, that this is how legal resources are being funneled to the tribes of invisible Luna. I wonder if they're doing the same with electricity. You heard him talking about factories and what they needed. Dammit. We knew they were moving ahead. We didn't realize this—" And then he trailed off into a string of muttered curses.

  We concentrated on bouncing down the tube. We couldn't see very far ahead from any given point, because the tube snaked and wound its way over the Lunar terrain, up and down, around and over. Every so often we passed a joint where two sections of tube had been sealed together. Several times we had to pass through manually operated airlocks. We zipped our way through.

  "Bobby? Did you do something?" That was Douglas. They were in the same bubble suit again.

  "I didn't do anything."

  "What are you guys talking abouti' Mickey asked.

  "It smells like piss in here," said Bobby. "I didn't do it!"

  "How bad?" asked Mickey. His voice sounded strange.

  "Not too bad," Douglas
said. And then he got it. "Oh."

  "Would somebody explain it to me?" I asked.

  "Ammonia," Mickey said.

  "What's ammonia?" Bobby asked.

  "It's good for cleaning your glasses," I said.

  "I don't wear glasses," Bobby said.

  "Then don't worry~about it."

  "Charles, please—" That was Mickey. "I'm trying to figure out how far we've come. I don't want to turn back."

  "I think we can make it," Douglas said. "I'll turn up my oxygen."

  "That'll help—a little bit." He added, "Alexei probably keeps the tube pressurized with ammonia to keep folks from wandering through it casually. Besides, it's another useful storage area. Do the math. A kilometer-long tube, nine meters in diameter, pressurized to two-thirds sea level, I'd guess. Can you figure it out, Douglas?"

  He was trying to distract Douglas, I was sure. And maybe me too. I was trying to figure out if there was anything else we could do. "Monkey, if you've got any ideas, now's the time to talk—" It didn't respond.

  "It really stinks in here!" wailed Bobby. "I don't like this!"

  "How are your eyes?" Mickey asked.

  "Watering—badly." Douglas coughed suddenly. Bobby was coughing even worse. The leak must have expanded—

  —and then I got it! "The inflatable! The portable airlock!" I could barely get the words out fast enough. Even as I stumbled to get the words out, Mickey was already pulling it from his pack! I bounced back to him and together, we pushed Douglas and Stinky through the first zippered entrance. We zipped it behind them, unzipped the next, pushed them through, zipped it behind them—

  Douglas was already turning up the oxygen on his tank. Mickey pushed the gloves into the inflatable, and without worrying about proper procedures unzipped all three of the zippers on Douglas's bubble suit. Douglas and Bobby lay on the floor of the inflatable, coughing and choking, their eyes streaming. Douglas held the breather tube in front of Bobby's nose, then his own, then back to Bobby. It probably still smelled of ammonia in there, but at least they had a chance now.