Luna

by Garon Whited

  I was enjoying the ride. At least, until Kathy nailed me with the laser. It had to be her; no one else had the eyes and hands to hit a moving target at that speed.

  “Max! Come in, Max.”

  I braked—it’s mushy slow, trying to stop a go-buggy. With low gravity, the tires don’t have the same grip you’d expect. It takes a while to get used to it. It’s like driving in slow motion; you have to remember to act like you’re really going six times faster than you think you are.

  Once stopped, I let my lasercom hunt for the communications tower back at base. It couldn’t hold a beam steady while I was chugging along, but it locked in quickly once I stopped.

  The light blinked green. I answered, “Max here. Go ahead.”

  “Anne wanted me to remind you not to dawdle. The solar radiation is bad for you.”

  “For this, I pull over to chat. Okay. But I thought four hours was the limit?” I asked.

  There was a pause. “Yes, that’s normal,” Kathy relayed. “But she’s worried about genetic damage and Captain Carl agrees with her.”

  What the—? Genetic damage? Cancer, sure, that’s always a risk for astronauts. But—

  “You mean to tell me the usual dosage limit allows two-headed kids?” I demanded.

  Anne took over the microphone. “Max, that’s not the way it works.”

  “That’s what I’ve just been told!”

  “I’m sorry for the miscommunication, Max. For a male, four hours would normally be the limit for safe exposure. But a male produces reproductive cells constantly; any damaged cells are replaced in a matter of days. Genetically speaking, your kids are safe. A female carries a limited number of ova; any damage to them is permanent—That’s why the maximum exposure for a woman is set so much lower. And, incidentally, why you’re alone in setting up the remote. Captain Carl can’t leave, and the rest of us can’t safely take the radiation dose.”

  “If four hours is so safe for me, why the rush?”

  Anne paused for a long second. “Max, the Captain feels that it would be wise not to risk damage to any of your germ plasm if it can be avoided.”

  “Tell him ‘thanks.’ If it’s temporary, why all the worry?”

  “In case any of it gets used in the near future,” Anne replied. She had that tone of you-asked-so-I’ll-tell-you. The “you idiot” was unspoken but implied.

  Medical doctors have absolutely no sense of shame. I wondered if my face was red. It sure felt hot. Worse, I was sure I could hear Julie’s giggle from my headset, in the background. Just my luck to have all three ladies—and probably Captain Carl! —in the control room for this. Lord knows I felt like an idiot just then.

  “Ahm. Right. I better get moving. This thing won’t set itself up. Max out.”

  Kathy came on again. “Roger. Be careful, Max. Base out.”

  I gunned the engine and sent lunar dust flying. Dust doesn’t settle like it does on Earth. It all comes down at the same time, slowly. There’s no dust cloud, just ruts in the surface and pretty, fan-shaped rills where the dust falls.

  Because the site for the base was Copernicus—about twenty degrees lunar west and ten degrees north, give or take—Earth was always in the same spot, high in the sky, but wobbled a little from libration as the Moon swung in her orbit. The plan was for me to drive like hell to the northeastern arc of the ringwall, mount laser relays on the edges of our crater and a smaller one, set up a radio on the far side of that nice, thick stack of mountain, then drive like hell back to base. The trip itself could be done in the time allowed, no problem. Setting up the radio and the laser link in the time left after that—that could be tight.

  The problem was twofold. First, the Moon has no handy ionosphere to reflect radio waves. Radio is strictly line-of-sight. If you can’t see my antenna, I can’t hear you. So before you can communicate with anyone, you have to be able to aim at them. That’s why the base had such a tall tower, even on the mountaintop: to get a better, more distant horizon line. Although, if the guys who planned it wanted a large horizon, building the base in Mare Imbrium or Mare Serenitatis would have been perfect. Then again, there wouldn’t have been handy mountains to dig into, either.

  Second, we needed a way to send and receive to the portable transceiver that wouldn’t be detectable from Earth orbit. That’s where the laser relays came in. By using a laser beam as a communications medium, we could pinpoint the receptor of the signal—the ultimate tight-beam transmission! The relays were really just folding mirrors with a couple of servomotors to help align them. On the crater rim, one would bounce the beam from base to the one on the smaller crater’s rim, then down to the transceiver and back. Then we could use the laser link to talk to the transceiver and it would convert our laser signal into a radio signal.

  If someone decided to nuke our remote transmitter, well… at least we would know to keep quiet. The distance and the crater wall should prevent any real damage, provided they didn’t drop anything in the strategic range.

  Unfortunately, that also meant that I was out of touch during transit. Radio isn’t ideal for tight-beam communications; there’s always some leakage. While the tower could laser me with a wide beam, the portable laser/radio rig I brought wasn’t nearly as sophisticated. Which meant whenever I got a call, I had to stop and waste time in the sunshine.

  Again, the Moon doesn’t have an atmosphere. The Sun shines like a big fusion bomb, naked and glorious and deadly. I wasn’t happy about coming to a halt and discussing the need to hurry. I kept muttering about chair-warmers back at HQ—with my suit radio off—and drove as fast as I dared in the terrain. True, the suit radios hadn’t gotten us nuked when we first landed; we were on proximity channels, very low-powered. I still wasn’t taking any chances. I’m allergic to plutonium.

  Copernicus is about sixty-five kilometers across, surrounded by a crater ringwall between three and four kilometers high—about average for lunar geography. The ringwall looks all gentle and terraced from space, but so do the Rocky Mountains or the Alps. It’s covered in spacedust, very rugged, and the rocks are sharp. It’s not at all easy to climb; there’s no erosion on the Moon to wear mountains down. I drove as close as the go-buggy would get, turned it around, and unpacked my gear.

  Up to this point, things were easy. That was about to change.

  The transceiver wasn’t that big or heavy; it was about the size of a five-gallon bucket. With the antenna dish and solar panels unfolded, it was a lot larger, of course. The laser relay was even smaller. Folded up, it was the size of a fat textbook, along with a telescoping tripod, like a camera. I could carry the transceiver and one relay on my first trip over in the jump rig. The second relay would be trickier.

  On Earth, people have tried to build jet-packs for decades. We’ve even built some that work. Unfortunately, they’re good for only a minute or so of flying time. There’s too much gravity and too much atmosphere to make them practical. That’s not a problem on the Moon. One can strap on a backpack harness and almost reach orbit!

  I wasn’t going to orbit, not even close. But, once I parked the rover, I was going over some darn big mountains—only slightly shorter than the Andes. After a practice run to place the transceiver—a simple ballistic curve, up and down and back again—I’d align the laser relay on a second trip.

  For anyone who’s never flown a jump rig, I highly recommend it. I parked the rover, unstrapped the jump rig from it, and started strapping it on. In lunar gravity, it’s a lot like getting into a parachute while wearing a spacesuit. There’s a lot of bulky, annoying, can’t-quite-reach straps, but it’s all worth it.

  The vibration of the rig against my suit let me hear the roar of the rocket engine as I lifted off from the surface. I felt the surge of acceleration and it was almost as though I was back in a full gravity again. It was just like in the simulator back on Earth, watching the lunar landscape drop away beneath me.

  I counted seconds while watching the terrain and touching my attitude jets to keep myself alig
ned properly—again, there’s no atmosphere; one can’t stick out an arm to change airflow and orientation! Kathy and Carl had worked out my flight plan; all I needed to do was follow it. I cut the rocket while the ringwall was still looming before me. My momentum kept me going in a nice arc, up and over.

  Man, I was glad I didn’t have to climb that! It had all the appeal of a three-day pizza for breakfast—a cold one, with anchovies. Tumbled and jumbled rock slid past my field of view, looking knife-sharp under the dust and just as unfriendly.

  I touched my attitude controls to tilt me forward; you can’t look down in a hardsuit without moving your whole upper body. The helmet isn’t just a half-bubble of clear polycarbonate; it’s more like a cockpit window. In some ways, it reminds me of an old diving helmet, but with better visibility. There are four squarish, clear windows, one front, one to each side, and one for looking up. Each has its own exterior sliding plate to cover it, mainly for blocking out sunlight, but also to minimize air loss if the window breaks. The wearer’s head can move around inside the padded helmet freely, but the windows don’t provide a view down, toward the feet, and only a limited peripheral vision. Getting around in a hardsuit has been compared to driving a car with all the glass blacked out except for the windshield.

  To help with this problem, the engineers came up with a simple solution. The jump rig has a mirror, much like the rear-view mirror for a truck, on a strut that swings over one shoulder and locks in place. It’s mainly to see where the pilot’s feet are, and helps a little with altitude judgments. I, on the other hand, wanted to look at the upper edge of the ringwall with some care; I would be trying to land on it soon and I needed to get an idea of where to park. The ridge along this side of the crater didn’t look promising.

  I was flying for a while; I couldn’t go over the ringwall any faster. The Moon’s gravity had to do the work of slowing me down and bringing me back. On Earth, this would be a lot quicker, but the fuel required would have been much greater—overcoming six times as much gravity, and contending with air resistance. On the Moon, or slightly above it, I was just a ballistic projectile. The wait seemed endless.

  Then I was over the ringwall and headed past it, coming down well outside the crater. The drop was much shorter; Copernicus is a lot like a hole in the ground. An extremely wide hole—about ninety kilometers. The ringwall is tall and medium-steep from inside, but once outside, it wasn’t nearly so intimidating. It tended to taper off more gradually beyond the peaks.

  My landing point was near the edge of a small, nameless little crater just slightly east of due north, about eight to ten kilometers across; it would make a great spot for decoying nukes. Several names had been suggested for it, from the Captain’s “Infernus” to Julie’s “Cheese.” I dubbed it “Hellhole” in my mind; it was going to look like Hell if someone shot at it.

  My chronometer—built into the helmet—told me how long I’d been in flight. I watched the numbers tick down and reflected that the Moon looks awfully big when it’s falling on you. I waited, finger on the firing trigger, and watched the readout on my laser rangefinder-altimeter.

  The proper second ticked into place. I squeezed the trigger and the rocket fired. I was slowing down at about one gravity of thrust, but the Moon looked very, very close…

  …I touched down with a slight bump and instantly let go of the trigger, killing the rocket. I also lost my balance, tumbled like a broken gyroscope, and finally came to rest lying on my face.

  There’s something to be said for simulation runs. There’s something more to be said for low gravity and thick dust if you botch your landing. Any landing I could walk away from was a success, as far as I was concerned.

  I got up and brushed myself off. I checked my packages; they seemed intact. I set up the laser relay at the minor crater rim and all the lights blinked green at me. That much was a go.

  My landing mirror strut was nicely bent; I’d landed on it and it bent backward, over my helmet. It took me a few minutes to get out of the rig, bend the strut roughly back into shape, and get the rig back on again. A little fiddling with the swivel and I was ready to go.

  I jogged off like a light-footed bear so my rocket exhaust wouldn’t damage anything before I fired my jump rig again. This time it was all downhill, but I had to fire the rocket to get some lateral vector; the sides of Hellhole were pretty steep. That landing went better; I didn’t plant my faceplate into the dust nearly as hard. I was very glad to get the bulk of the transceiver out of my way.

  Heading back to the go-buggy was figured as a single solution for me; I got my bearings by the laser relay on the rim of Hellhole, fired my rocket, and did my best to keep my horizon indicator on the line Kathy indicated. Again, I counted seconds, accelerating upward. I shot out of Hellhole like the proverbial bat, but a whole lot bigger. I started paying attention to the crest of Copernicus’ ringwall again. I found a spot that looked good—wide enough to land on, high enough to have line-of-sight on the base and the second laser relay. In another twenty minutes I’d find out for sure.

  Landing near the go-buggy went almost smoothly. I was ready for the ground when it arrived; I didn’t fall, although I staggered like a tripped drunk. It took another minute to jog over to the buggy and get out the other relay package.

  Now the tricky part.

  I fired the rocket again, counting seconds, but a lot fewer of them. This was the end of the preprogrammed flight plan. Parking myself on the lip of Copernicus’ ringwall was something that couldn’t be planned; I would have to do it myself, by sight and touch.

  I wished for more practice. A good tumble on that ridge and I’d be plunging down a long, long way. Terminal velocity on the Moon isn’t a maximum falling speed; it’s any speed fast enough to crack a suit on impact.

  The arc was much shorter this time, designed so deliberately. My aim was good and I wound up sailing right over my chosen spot.

  Manual flight time.

  I touched attitude controls and gave the rocket little bursts, changing my course. It’s not an easy thing, flying a spacesuit for a precision landing. The helmet gets in the way, for one thing. For another, you never really know how fast you’re going without wind screaming past your ears. Everything is done by eyeball.

  Jumping around on the Moon is fun. Landing on a ledge as wide as a bed and harder than a creditor’s heart is a nightmare.

  Four times, I found I was coming down wide of my mark or with too much lateral vector; each time, I took a bite out of my remaining fuel by blasting for some altitude to try again. I never did hit the ledge I wanted. I came down close enough to it to climb the rest of the way and was happy with that—I was nearly on my bingo mark.

  “Bingo” means “The minimum fuel needed to get on the ground safely.”

  I climbed. I set up the laser relay and watched it seek both the tower at base and the transceiver on the far side. Once the lights blinked green, I took a lumbering jump off the edge of the cliff. All I needed to do was get out away from it far enough to keep from hitting rocks on the way down. A couple of short bursts did that. The rest of the trip down was a breeze. I even spiked the landing, all the way up to my knees; the dust was thick.

  With the jump rig stowed, I wound out the engine and headed for base.

  * * *

  Captain Carl took my report in the control room with everyone present. I told him about the mission and reported it a success. We had connection with the remote radio.

  “Good work, commander. Report to the infirmary for a full physical.”

  “Excuse me, sir?” I never had any aversion to doctors, but I was wondering what was on his mind.

  “You say you landed badly a couple of times. I want you looked over.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” I assured him. “Low gravity, soft soil. It was like landing in a sandbox. Better. More like a pile of pillows, really.”

  “We’ll err on the side of caution,” he remarked. I noticed that Julie had an unhappy expression at that. Do
ubtless, she felt he was being less heroic than he might. I wasn’t arguing with either opinion. I’m fond of my skin, but I’ll get holes in my hide if I have to. Nobody ever said I had to like it, though.

  So I wound up in the infirmary. Anne examined me about nine or ninety ways, from eyeballs to elbows to turn-your-head-and-cough. She also drew blood, which I hate. Needles bother me. I’ll strap a rocket to my back and launch myself at the sky, but I hate needles!

  “What’s the blood for?” I asked.

  “Cancer check,” she replied.

  “How likely is that?”

  “Not very. You were back only a little after the four-hour limit. You could take more, really, but four hours is a conservative safety measure. Now get dressed and get out of my infirmary.”

  “Yeesh,” I commented, but reached for my clothes. “I thought you took lessons on bedside manner.”

  Anne’s tone softened a little. “I’m sorry, Max. I don’t mean to be brisk.”

  “It’s okay. We’re all under a lot of stress. I’m just glad you’re not trying to get a sample of my damaged germ plasm.”

  She arched an eyebrow at me. “I am going to assume you didn’t mean that in a negative way.”

  I reviewed what I’d just said. Taken one way, I’d just implied that I found her sexually unacceptable and insulted her femininity. I wound up blushing again. I managed to take a full physical exam from a female doctor without more than a resigned sigh at the inevitable, and now my face had to be as red as a traffic light at rush hour.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” I admitted.

  “It’s all right, Max. I know what you meant. You have a pair of admirers, I’m sure. If they’re half the women I think they are, they’re either chasing you at full thrust or playing get-away-closer. Just see to it that neither of the two catches anything in the next week.”