Luna

by Garon Whited

  “All right, fine. I’m staying out. Do you mind if I wander off and splice wire?” I asked, sarcastically.

  “Is useless,” Svetlana insisted. “You cannot control the robot well enough to fight.”

  “I’m not,” I replied. I drove the thing over to the break in the wire. “See? I’m staying away from you and splicing wire together. Really.”

  “I see. You know it is useless, Max. Just stay in the shade and minimize your radiation dose. You did your best, and you have been defeated.”

  “Sometimes we can’t just do our best,” I told her. “Sometimes we do what’s necessary.” I parked the robot so it was facing away from the bunker entrance, then hopped down and smashed the camera—just in case. I doubted she would relinquish control of her guard ’bot, but there were other remotes down there with her, and I didn’t want her to see what I was doing. I took a wire cutter off my belt and got to work.

  “What is necessary, Max?” she went on.

  “Well, killing Captain Carl isn’t necessary. Nor is killing Kathy. What did they ever do to you? I mean, Captain Carl sent us to rescue you! Kathy flew the ship! Don’t you think you owe them something?”

  “Perhaps,” she said, softly. “But they are not you, Max.”

  Great. I never thought I’d regret keeping someone alive.

  While we talked, I picked up the detonator cable and stripped the ends. Then I opened the dust cover over the robot’s wiring. Some of the circuits inside the ’bot were high voltage. If I could route power down the wires, maybe I could at least get the sparkers to go off… probably not, but I had to try.

  The robot shuddered and rolled away from me, veered to one side, and kept rolling. I swore again, with feeling.

  “I cannot let you have electricity, Max.”

  That lost me my temper. I threw down the cable and the wire cutters. I stomped over to the edge of the ramp and pointed an armored finger into the eye of the robot camera.

  “Do you remember what I told you about ripping off a head?” I demanded.

  “Da,” she whispered, lapsing back into Russian. I think I scared her.

  “Be advised that I’m going to exactly that unless you move this thing out of my way!”

  “I cannot,” she said, thickly, still whispering. “Gospodi, pomogi mne.”

  I dove for the robot. She tried to catch me with the gripper arms, but missed. I don’t think she expected me to go that low. I slid down the ramp, between the treads, until my boots rang on the grader blade.

  “There is no way through, Max,” she said, quickly. I was very close, even though behind a thick chunk of aluminum. Much closer than she liked. She sounded even more scared. “Please, just go back out. I will let you. Just give it up, or I will have to scrape you out.”

  The construction robots were designed to grind their way along through lunar dust a meter deep. This gave me enough clearance under it—barely—to turn around. I did so.

  “You don’t dare,” I told her. “If you do, you know I’m faster than the ’bot. I’ll be around it and down the hole before you get it fully into reverse.” She didn’t answer. I readied myself.

  Four tons is a lot. That’s four thousand kilograms. But divide by six. Four metric tons on Earth turns into two-thirds of a ton on the Moon. Even at my best, that isn’t something I can casually pick up. Lucky for me I only wanted one end off the ground; all I really had to lift was about half that. A third of a ton is still intimidating, but I had my own reduced weight working for me. I weighed a little over a hundred kilos on Earth, but that just meant I was short around eight-five kilos for purposes of lifting me. That third of a ton, minus eighty-five, was effectively only a quarter-ton.

  Math is such a lovely thing. It can help give confidence in the face of difficult tasks.

  I got as far back as I could, squatting under the support frame of the grader blade, my knees drawn up as far as I could get them and actually touching the blade. I set my shoulders against two of the struts, and tried to get my back as straight as possible. I had to crouch a lot lower than I liked, and at a poor angle for my back… but I lifted.

  It was heavy. Two hundred and fifty kilos is nothing to laugh at. That’s not even half the world record, but that’s still a lot like putting a very large man over each shoulder while another one rides piggy-back, and then trying to stand up. I’m not a professional weightlifter; I’m just big and strong and in shape. It was heavier than anything I ever tried to lift, including a couple of stuck cars. At least the ground was solid. I planted my feet and heaved.

  The whole robot shuddered. It rocked on its tracks as I grunted and shoved. For a horrible moment, I thought I wasn’t going to do it… and then the rear end started to rise.

  “Chyort!” I heard Svetlana scream. “Max!”

  I kept lifting. I straightened my back and pushed harder with my legs. Sweat started on my forehead and I could hear myself making a low, deep noise in my throat. I couldn’t see well; my hardsuit torso and helmet were forced down against the internal padding. I hoped the suit wouldn’t crack from compression forces. My hands slid under the edge of the grader blade and took some of the weight while I snarled and grunted and gasped, shoving harder.

  The whole ’bot tilted slowly, very slowly, because it still massed the same, with the same inertia, even though the weight was reduced. It tilted up and forward as I shoved it off the ground like Atlas shifting the world. I felt like it. My legs complained forcefully at the mistreatment, and a hot line ran down the left side of my back. I grunted as the upper surface of the ’bot thudded against the overhead of the ramp tunnel.

  Svetlana panicked. I can’t say I blame her. If someone lifted the back end of a robot bulldozer just to get to me, I’d be a bit panicky, too. She hit the controller and tried to drive the ’bot out the ramp tunnel, hoping to scoop me along with it. The forward section of the treads were in firm—very firm!—contact with the ground and the motors certainly had enough power.

  Unfortunately for her, I was in close contact with the machine. Through my suit, I heard and felt the vibration of the gears switching from reverse to forward. As the whole unit lurched forward, I pulled with my hands, yanking myself under the grader blade like a kid swinging under the monkey bars at a playground. In Earth gravity, the blade would have slammed down six times faster; it would have caught me and cut me messily in two. Of course, in Earth gravity, I would never have budged the thing.

  But this was the Moon.

  I shot under the slowly-descending blade with a shout and skidded feet-first toward the far wall. Svetlana screamed. The robot slammed into the ground, hard, and I could hear it as a secondary noise from the vibration in the rock. My shoulders were numb, my back was on fire, and my legs were tingling, but I was alive and inside the bunker. I stood up, and Svetlana screamed again. She tried to run, climbing up the back of the robot as it clanked up the tunnel.

  I didn’t say a word; I didn’t have the breath. It hurt to stand, it hurt to walk, but I plucked her off the ’bot and jabbed the manual talk control on her helmet radio; her shrieking cut off. Once she was quiet, I picked her up by a handhold usually used for racking suits and held her off the ground and out of the way. With my other hand, I punched buttons on the remote, awkwardly; the robot finished its ponderous roll up and out of the ramp tunnel, then turned aside and parked itself. I followed it out, Svetlana still kicking and struggling like a kitten held by the scruff of the neck. I hung her by the wrists, using the gripper arms of the ’bot as both manacles and rack.

  Then I spliced the cable in a hurry and pelted hell-for-leather back down into the hole. I checked the charge on the capacitors—still full; she hadn’t drained them. I threw the switch, and the meter dropped like a jilted lover’s heart. I waited, counting seconds, and right on schedule I felt a very minor tremble in the rock.

  Well, something went off. Now to assess the damage. I went wearily up and looked at the ringwall. It was still there, but a huge cloud of debris and du
st was spreading upward from behind it. Obviously, the explosions were big enough to be felt, but not enough to shatter a notch out of a mountain range.

  Damn. I went back down the ramp.

  “Luna Base, this is the blast bunker. Anyone there? Come in.”

  No reply. Well, if I still couldn’t raise the base…

  “Blast bunker calling Luna. Do you read me, Luna?”

  “Roger that, Max,” Kathy answered. “What’s the story?”

  I gave her a brief report on the situation. I felt better about my outburst of language; Kathy outdid me in eloquence, duration, and intensity. Most of it was directed at what to do with the repeatedly-and-unprintably-qualified traitor. When she finally calmed down, she took three slow breaths and was all officer again.

  “So we’ve flunked mountain moving one-oh-one?” she finished.

  “That’s a big affirmative. The ringwall is still intact, or at least intact enough. I don’t know what kind of damage has been done to it, but it’s still standing.”

  “Roger. I’m still not raising anyone at Luna Base. How bad is the damage to the car?”

  “The motor is shot, and I’d guess the batteries aren’t in much better shape. The discharge through the short probably gave them fits. Even if I had a way to charge them, they probably can’t hold enough to make it back. I might scrounge a battery and motor from a ’bot, or rig something up with the fuel cell here in the bunker. That’ll take a while, though.”

  “Okay. Let me think a minute.”

  “Take your time,” I assured her. “I’m not going anywhere until sundown.”

  “That’s four days, Max.”

  “Yeah, but I can’t go slogging out in the sunlight. I can’t even ride a ’bot—the radiation, remember? They’re all too slow. Besides, it’s a lot less than four days to sundown. The shadow of the ringwall will cross this point a lot sooner, and I’ll ride a ’bot then.”

  “Can you go that long without water? Food, yes…”

  “It won’t kill me,” I assured her. At least, I hoped it wouldn’t kill me. Radiation poisoning or death by dehydration. Tough call. “Besides, you’ll be back in eighteen hours or so. If you can figure out how to land that bird near the base, you can drive out with the other rover to pick me up.”

  “Maybe. I have another idea.”

  “Oh? I’d be happy to hear it.”

  “Do you have any fuel still out there?”

  “Well, yes. A dozen drums of it or so in our rear supply dump; I didn’t tell Yen when to stop. Do you want me to try and blow a notch with a second charge?”

  “No! Just leave it there.”

  “Okay. So what’s the plan?”

  “You’ll see. But get all your robots over by the bunker; I don’t want them in the way.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Now I have to sign off. I have an orbit to calculate and a course correction to make. I’ll see you in a little while. Luna, out.”

  “Blast bunker, out,” I agreed, frowning. There was no telling what Kathy planned, but it would have to be darn clever. The height of the ringwall wouldn’t let her set down here, but if she came down farther from the ringwall, her angle could still be shallow enough to land near Luna Base. She might be able to get enough drag from the lunar dust to scrub off whatever momentum was left after the retro burn. Then she and the Marines could hoof it back to base and sort out whatever was going on over there.

  And if it took an extra day or two to sort things out, well, that would have to be fine, too. I’d survive. Or not.

  I got busy with the remotes, recalling all the robots and instructing them to form ranks near the bunker—Svetlana’s included. The landing trap came with them; I had intended to set up the net and the dust-drag anchors after clearing a runway. Fat lot of good it was going to do now. Kathy was correcting course and adjusting things… there was no telling where she would actually touch down. Maybe next time.

  Patience looked like my only option. I practiced it for a while.

  * * *

  After resting and worrying for three hours, I exchanged my suit tanks for fresh ones. One of the heaviest portions of a modern space suit is the closed-cycle air system. The air one breathes is circulated through the suit, scrubbed of carbon dioxide and most of the water, and fed back in again with the oxygen replaced from a tank. That carbon dioxide is kept, compressed, and stored, as is the water vapor, each in its own tank. In a limited-resources habitat, the weight penalty was considered worthwhile.

  I wished for a way to get at that water to drink it. I was already thirsty. Designing a filtration and reclamation system in my head helped keep my mind off it. The usual problems—size and weight—were the tough parts.

  One bright guy suggested using an algae tank to recycle the carbon dioxide, thus giving the wearer an unlimited breathing time, at least as long as there was light. But the maintenance on that design was a nightmare. It weighed about the same, but was also larger, and a lot more fragile. Still, it was clever, and I appreciate clever. Someday I’d build one, if I survived.

  Once I switched tanks, I gave serious thought to Svetlana’s air supply. For about two minutes, I considered whether or not to give her fresh air. Many of the people I know wouldn’t have even considered it. A few more would have decided against it. But I was raised to be gallant and polite and kind, even when angry. Well, at least to try.

  I was also an officer and a gentleman; that’s what finally swayed me. She might be executed after her trial, but I wouldn’t just leave her to suffocate. Or roast in the Sun, for that matter. I went up, changed her air tanks—she didn’t kick up a fuss about it—and then I started salvaging demolition wire.

  After I coiled up about a hundred meters of it, I had the robot lower her to the ground without letting her go of her wrists. I maneuvered around so I could see inside her faceplate, which involved getting another ’bot over to act as a sunshade; the polarization was a pain. I looked in and keyed my radio so she could hear me.

  “Now,” I said, reasonably, “you can nod if you want and I’ll see it. I’m not turning your vox switch on again because you did a lot of screaming last time, and I’m still aching from my exercise. I’m tired and feeling nasty and I don’t want to hear your voice even for a ‘Yes, Sir’ or ‘no, sir.’ So you’ll nod if you agree, shake your head if you don’t. Are we clear?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. Now, you’ve got fresh air, and you’re welcome; don’t try to thank me. So, do you want to stay up here in the sunlight until I have to change your air tanks again?”

  She shook her head.

  “I thought not. But if I take you down into the bunker, you’re going to be tied up. I said I was tired and I meant it. I won’t have you loose while I’m asleep in a space suit. Are you going to give me any trouble about being tied up?”

  She shook her head again. So I tied her up. I looped the wire around her ankles, tied a knot, and then looped it around the other direction, tied a new knot, and kept working my way up her legs. She didn’t struggle a bit.

  “I’m going to have the ’bot let go of your wrists. Do you know how long it takes to drown in vacuum?”

  She shook her head.

  “Do you want to find out?”

  She shook her head quickly.

  “Are you going to hold perfectly still and let me finish tying you up?”

  She nodded. So I freed her, one wrist at a time, and tied each one to the wire around her waist and to her own suit’s tool clips. I kept on looping and tying, looping and tying, until I was out of wire and she looked like a high-tech mummy. Then I got another length of wire, carried her down into the bunker, laid her down by a block, and tied her to the block.

  “Now listen very carefully,” I told her, and she looked attentive. “I should be quizzing you within an inch of your life about your part in this, but there’s nothing I can do about it right now, and I’m too beat to care. I want you to think about what’s going to happen if I wake up gr
ouchy and you don’t tell me what a want to know. Got it?”

  Svetlana looked at me through our faceplates, read something in my expression, and nodded.

  I was tired, aching, and sore, as well as angry, frustrated, and worried. I couldn’t do anything about the aching and sore, nor could I do much about the angry, frustrated, or worried. But I could deal with the tired, now that Svetlana was secure. I made sure my air alarm was set for a thirty-minute warning and then stretched out on the deck for a nap.

  * * *

  Things were not going well. I was in the back of my Uncle Jim’s old truck, pumping frantically at a drum of water and spraying it everywhere. Uncle Jim was driving all over the meadow, dragging that length of pipe the explosion hammered through the bed. A flaming rain of burning ants continued to drizzle from the sky—an unforeseen aftereffect of dynamite and gasoline.

  The pump stopped working, and I had to fix it. Uncle Jim kept driving, back and forth, around and around. I sprayed more water, trying to keep the flames from consuming the flowers. After a while, it was hard to tell which were the flowers and which were the flames. They were all yellow, white, or red, and dancing madly in the wind.

  Then the wind turned cold and the Sun was obscured. The clouds were brown and grey, like dirty smoke, and thick as a rookie assistant. The field seemed to be alive with fire-flowers, all blooming upward and spreading. Where I soaked them down, they went out, but left behind only black ashes.

  The flames spread faster, as though reaching for us, and I turned to shout in the window.

  Uncle Jim looked at me from empty eyesockets.

  “There’s nothing to be done, Max,” he said, and smiled. His smile spread to the sides, wider and wider, until his face split in two and the skin peeled back and the muscles pulsed and bled and blackened and burned—

  * * *

  I sat up sharply, fast enough to bounce myself completely up from the deck. My heart was hammering and my whole body was trembling. I don’t usually have bad dreams, much less nightmares; I wished Kathy was close enough to hug. That field of flowers was still burning in my mind’s eye.