by M.A. Harris
End of Stage
Paul stepped onto the landing and smiled tiredly, “Hello Betsy, how’s business?”
Her smile wasn’t as warm as it once had been, “Good enough Mr. Richards. I think we’re winding down for tonight.”
“Yeah, I got a late start.”
Betsy nodded, and led him into the dining room. There were only four or five diners here now. It seemed part of a trend; it appeared as if business was down all over town.
Paul ordered a mixed grill with a salad and potato and settled back to drink the glass of wine he had ordered, wondering if Ted would make an appearance tonight. They had only spoken once since his overnight stay.
“Did you know an old man by the name of Charles Martin Murdoch, Paul?” Ted turned the rail back chair on the other side of the table around and sat down with his arms across the back. The old eyes were hooded, the expression dour.
Paul set his glass down, “No more than I read in the gazette Ted, never met the man. Seems like he was a bit of an unknown to everyone from the tone of the article about his death.”
“He was a friend of mine and I didn’t even know his full name, or that he owned a nice little spread nearby,” Ted shook his head, “goes to show how little we know of our fellow man.”
“We hardly know ourselves,” Paul replied a bit sourly. He didn’t like the direction of the questions, he’d noted where the old man had been camping when he had apparently tripped and fallen over the edge of a cliff. It had been near the Hollow, no mention had been made of surveillance equipment but it would have been a wonderful place to set up a camera.
“You know where he died, you saw the article, I assume you read the last paragraph?”
“You mean the one about mysterious goings on at Ship Plateau? Yes I did.”
“Betsy’s husband Mike is the Sheriff, Paul, and a good tracker. He’s had a couple of his friends up at the ledge. He says that there are signs that there were other people on the ledge with him and that he had more than his camping gear with him. But the signs were fairly expertly erased and the equipment is gone.”
Paul thought about his answer, Ted was very obviously in no mood for verbal sparring. “Ted, I don’t know what to say.” He hesitated, all he could do was end weakly, “I don’t believe that anyone from the Hollow would have killed him on purpose.”
“Paul, he was beaten up by a couple of Aristide guards a couple of months ago. He’s been chasing down rumors and inklings about the Canal project. I think he’d found some pretty damning evidence, though of what he didn’t seem sure. And it’s pretty certain that whatever it is you’re testing over at the Hollow is some kind of flying contraption, it’s been flying for getting on a year now and I don’t think it’s directly linked to the Canal project at all. I’m beginning to suspect that the only reason you’re here at all is because the Canal provided a good cover and Primus Junction is so far out in the back of the beyond that you could control things pretty well.”
Paul let Ted’s words run down, “Ted, I’m not Aristide Industries, I don’t even formally work for them, I’m still a contractor. I don’t know what Old Chuck found out about the Canal program, or really if there is anything to find out. I am sorry he had a run in with the guards, I’ve met a few of them myself and they can be intimidating as hell in the early morning. As far as I know he was clambering around on a cliff in the middle of the night and fell off, I’m sorry but it happens.”
He saw Ted’s face stiffening with anger, realized he was getting angry himself, his own fears fueling a too quick and strong defense of activities he had no knowledge of. Paul took a deep breath as Ted made to leave, pleaded quietly, “Ted, please believe me. I don’t think that your friend’s death had anything to do with what I’m doing, and I pray that’s true. Whatever turns out to be the truth, I had nothing to do with it. And even in the worst possible scenario…there was no need for anything bad to happen at all. We are not doing anything wrong...” That last was weak, technically they were in violation of a lot of regulations and laws, most of them minor, a few international in scope but indeterminate in meaning.
Ted stood, though more slowly than he had started, “OK Paul, I think I know you well enough to trust you. But things are getting out of hand, rumors and or reality, people are getting angry, they are also beginning to ask some very hard questions about Aristide Industries, the Canal Project and the Hollow.”
Paul shrugged, “I know, it’s not surprising, hopefully in another couple of months it’ll all be over.”
“I don’t think Aristide Industries has a couple of months, rumor has it that a big audit team is on the way here. Not sure what triggered it but a friend of mine in Salt Lake tells me that the state and federal governments have decided to send in the accountants.”
Paul shrugged, “Auditors rarely act quickly Ted, it’ll be months before anything works its way out.”
“Months of rumors, innuendo and growing suspicion.” Ted sighed.
“Aimless wandering and inaction as well,” agreed Paul, shaking his head.
Ted chuckled, “The government’s as changeless as the moon, Paul.”
With a flick of astonishment Paul looked up to meet Ted’s intent gaze. He hesitated, but a little demon in the back of his mind had its way, “More changeless these days.”
Ted’s left eyebrow flew up; his eyes got a little rounder. Paul looked away, “How long till dinner Ted? I’m getting hungry and mother always gets worried when I’m out late.”
After a moment Ted chuckled dryly, “It’ll be out in a couple of minutes Paul. I’d hate to see a young man go hungry.”
“Yeah well, I’d hate to feel me go hungry, the heck with whatever young man you’re talking about.” Paul smiled up at his friend, who nodded and turned away.
-o-
Paul stared towards the horizon, or an image of it at least, displayed on the huge high definition flat panel behind Howard Conrad’s desk. The sun was down and the only thing defining the horizon was the mist of stars, a mist that simply ended in a rolling line of utter black. Somehow the image was very appropriate, the utter black of the barren ground eating the faint beauty of the sky as it wheeled above.
He was sitting in a very nice leather chair that was oddly less comfortable than the skeletal frames called ‘moon stools’ that were rapidly gaining favor as the preferred seating here. The chair was one of several in an office that he had never realized existed, a startlingly plush office in a specialized prefab unit that must be near the end of the Garrison’s network of buried modules.
Paul had almost begun to think that Conrad and Olarik would ignore his visit with Ted; he had never even really considered the chance that they did not know. He was by turns too busy or too tired to spend a lot of time brooding about the confused state of mind that had driven him to drive into Primus Junction after reading the article about Old Chuck. He still couldn’t decide what he thought, why he had defended AI against Ted’s dark suspicions, then turned around and almost told Ted that the most incredible rumor that had started floating around in Primus Junction in recent weeks was true.
The man on the other side of the desk and his message told Paul what the consequences of his actions were to be. Those consequences were both confusing and revealing, “So I am no longer the Chief Pilot??”
“No, Mr. Aristide and I believe that you’re too valuable to spend all your time on the operational side any longer. Don’t get me wrong Mr. Richards, your performance has been excellent, but we have other good pilots now. And we have no one else who understands the Stacks as well as you, or what Dr. Paaly is doing, and while he improved in many ways after coming to the moon and has far outlived his predicted span, he is now sinking again. I need you to capture everything you can from him before he passes beyond our ken, as it were.”
Paul realized that by not mentioning the breach in security Conrad was damning him to uncertainty. He couldn’t help smiling, Conrad frowned, “You find s
omething about this amusing or pleasing, Mr. Richards?”
“Not really Mr. Conrad, all this still seems odd. So you said that you want me to stay here unless I’m needed for a flight if someone’s sick, or we have a special cargo of some kind?”
“Yes, I have someone clearing your personal items out of the bungalow at the plateau; they will be shipped up on the next run, so you needn’t worry about that. As you know, we have set up a covert laser link to Earth so you can send and receive e-mails with your parents. For the moment the light speed delay between the moon and earth is going to prevent your calling them so you’ll need to tell them you’re out of the country on some kind of special assignment.”
Paul almost protested further but he knew he was in no position to do anything about any of this. And he still didn’t want to end his fantasy, yet. That realization opened a yawning pit in his stomach, realizing that he’d been lying to himself and others for a long time to protect his fantasy. But discipline came to his rescue, he clamped down on the fear and the self-condemnation that followed that surge of understanding.
Howard Conrad’s eyes sharpened as Paul’s silence stretched, at last he nodded, “I see we understand each other Mr. Richards?”
Paul nodded, “Indeed we do Mr. Conrad. I’ll talk to Conti about a permanent housing allocation for me.” He stood.
“Thank you and good day Mr. Richards.” Conrad leaned back in his chair.
Walking past the blank, mirrored side of the guard shack at the Garrison’s entrance made Paul want to shiver, he could almost feel the cold eyes following him. The ‘Security Detachment’ had a lot of what Conti called hard cases. A lot of the security folks from the Plateau were up now and Paul found that here they were different people. The ones he had never met were even worse; he was fairly sure, as was Conti, that every one of them was an experienced Mercenary, which meant that they had killed, probably many times. You could almost see it in their eyes; see that they cared little if you lived or died.
“What the hell do you mean you’re no longer the Chief Pilot?” yelled Conti a quarter of an hour later.
“I told you I went and talked to my friend in the Junction about the death of that old man. Conrad claims he wants me up here working with Cooper for however long he has left, but I think it’s that breach that triggered this.” Paul shrugged fatalistically.
“Paul!” Conti sighed, “I told you that you were going to get in trouble if you didn’t keep a rein on your temper.”
“Wasn’t anger Conti, not in the end, it was fear, fear of my own suspicions.”
Conti shook his head, they stared at each other in worry, nearly fear now. Conti closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, “You know Cooper’s started slipping fast again, we all thought that he might even beat it here he was so good, but it’s too strong for him and it’s dragging him down. Luna Haven gave him a lot of good months he wouldn’t have had, but the disease never gave up. He could just ignore it better here.”
Paul’s shoulders sagged, “I know, I thought it was going so well, but in the last six weeks he’s slipped so far, so fast! I almost cried when I saw him yesterday.”
Conti nodded but knew that there was nothing he could say on that subject, so he changed subjects, “How’s the work on the Stack going?”
“Good, very good, I think the next gen Stacks are going to be a lot more efficient and we have figured out how to make them smaller. It’s going to be hard to make larger ones until we come up with a better substrate than silicon or someone starts making even larger silicon boules but that’s pretty minor. Bigger ships are not what we need anyway, not right now. Looking at some other things as well that are pretty interesting.”
Conti nodded, “If you’re going to become a loony are you interested in becoming a part time teacher? Some of the kids need a broadening teacher and think you can give them some financial, business and operations insight. I give ‘em what I can but I’m just not a good communicator with kids.”
Paul grinned, “Sure Conti, sounds like an interesting gig,” anything to pull him away from his dying friend once in a while.