2012

Michael Alexander (1950-2012) held advanced degrees in chemistry and pharmacology and read deeply in many other fields. He was an amateur astronomer and paleontologist with a keen interest in history and a love of science fiction. His stories, published in Fantasy & Science Fiction and Analog,reflect this range. In 2010 he achieved a long-held dream and attended the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop where he met K.C. Ball. K.C. called him her brother from another mother. They were working on a sequel to “The Moon Belongs to Everyone” when Michael died. Those of a fanciful bent may imagine the two of them continuing that work now.

K.C. Ball fell in love with books at a very early age and credited an elderly librarian with feeding her habit. She learned how to turn writing into a profession by working as a newspaper reporter, Public Information Officer, and a Media Relations Coordinator. She moved to Seattle, Washington, in 2007 with her life partner, Rachael Buchanan, where they married in 2013.

In 2008, she began writing full time and the next year won the Writer’s of the Future Award with her story, “Coward’s Steel.” She met Michael Alexander at the Clarion West Writers Workshop and the two formed an instant and lasting bond. K.C. had a quick wit and a wonderful sense of humor and always seemed to bring out the best in those around her. She passed suddenly on August 25, 2018, and is sorely missed by all who knew her.

THE MOON BELONGS TO EVERYONE

Michael Alexander and K.C. Ball

Mankind has always ventured into the unknown.

We take risks, accept surprises and adapt to new experiences. Such quests are worthwhile in and of themselves. They represent one way in which we express the human spirit. This country was built on that willingness to take risks. America is a great nation and a great nation must remain an exploring nation if it wishes to maintain its greatness.

I say today that the sky is no longer the limit.

I pledge that our nation will venture out into the unknown. We will take the risks, accept the surprises and eagerly await what lays beyond the bounds of our world. What we start today with my words will lead to an American walking on the surface of the Moon before the end of the next decade. And before twenty years have passed, I expect to see Americans venturing to Mars.

I want John Gillespie Magee’s hopeful words to become America’s reality. “With silent lifting mind, I have trod the untrespassed sanctity ofspace; put out my hand to touched the face of God. “

—President Richard M. Nixon, State of the Union address,

11 January 1962.

26 NOVEMBER 1979

I eased from the staging-shack airlock, just at the edge of the mammoth cylindrical melting tank. Beyond the open lip of the tank, a forty-feet-long hollow tube of ice waited, gleaming in the raw sunlight. I couldn’t shake the notion it was a mammoth bullet ready to be loaded into the barrel of an enormous gun.

Sixty miles below Odysseys selenocentric orbit, the Moon’s sterile surface looked pristine, crater walls and mountain peaks casting crisp black shadows in the harsh sunlight.

I moved toward the ice. Maneuvering in a pressure suit still felt cumbersome despite eight weeks’ recent training. The resistance of the sandwiched layers of the suit. A steady flow of chilled air. The constant hiss of communications gear.

All that hadn’t become second nature. Not yet.

But I had all the practice I could ever want ahead of me, a twelve-month work contract at Rockefeller Base, with an option to renew. In less than six hours, I’d be on the Moon.

All through the weeks of training, I’d looked forward to being on a different world, doing different work. Beginning a new life. My past refused to let me go, though.

“Laura Kerrigan,” a man shouted, as I disembarked the cislunar tug at Selene Station.

A big fellow arrowed toward me, swimming the station’s zero-gee as if he’d been born to it. He reminded me of Thomas Mitchell, the actor who played Scarlett’s father in Gone with the Wind.

Wide and solid, graying. Just a bit past sixty, maybe.

“How the hell’s your old man?” he called, as he drew near.

I didn’t know the man, but his face jarred loose memories of training-document photos. I’d played job-related undercover games too long to flinch at his approach. I let him wrap his arms around me in a friendly bear hug.

“I’m Tom Garver, Kerrigan,” he whispered in my ear. “Call me Tom. Pretend I’m a friend of your father. Ask me for the tour I promised you.” The name produced more memories.

And so I called him Tom, we played our little scene and I gave up what sleep I might have managed, in the little time I’d have on Selene Station, to ride pillion with Garver on an open-cockpit work sled across the five-mile gap to Odyssey.

The Mars ship.

“I’m construction manager,” Garver said, on the low-power suit-to-suit link, during the ride. “I got a situation that fits your old line of work. I’d be gratefUl for your point-of-view.”

I heard: You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.

It couldn’t hurt to look. God knew I could use a friend in power. That was all I could ever do, though. Look. I no longer wore a badge, couldn’t officially investigate anything.

That bastard, Liam Childs, had seen to that.

I reached the melting tank’s shadow-line. A thin fiberglass cable stretched into the darkness of the tank from the big eye bolt melted into the near end of the ice tube. Sixteen tons of reaction mass for the voyage to Mars, waiting to be melted, and another chunk of ice would be on its way up from the surface in less than three days.

“Odyssey, I’m ready.”

“Roger.” Garver’s baritone rumbled in my headphones.

A thin line ran from a tie-off on the shack bulkhead to an anchor point half-way along the ice. Two suited figures waited for me there. One of them held a heat-cutter.

I focused on memorized procedure. Hook a suit safety line to the cable. Squeeze a quick burp from the maneuvering unit. Don’t use your hands on the line to stop unless you have to. I slid along the line, burped the other way at what I figured to be half-way, and stopped just short of the suited figures.

Just like I knew what I was doing.

The glare visors hid their faces from me.

“Who’s in charge?” I asked.

“I am.” A woman’s voice. She lifted her arm, showed a red supervisor’s band ringing the bicep of her white EVA suit.

Should have spotted that.

I turned to the second figure, the suit marked by a blue band. “You the one who found it?”

“Yeah.” A man’s voice. He tapped the frozen surface with a gloved finger. “Came to rig the lines to pull the ice inside. Saw that in there.”

I moved close to examine the glittering surface, wiped my glove across the ice. “That looks like a—”

The woman interrupted, sounding insistent. “It’s a foreign object in the ice.”

“Yeah,” the man said. “A foreign objectI He sounded as if he wanted to be somewhere else.

“How long will it take you to cut into that?” I asked.

“A few minutes. No more than five,” the woman said. “It’s warmed up quite a bit.”

“Do it.”

“I’m going back inside.” The man tugged at the safety line and pulled himself around to face me.

I blocked his way. “I want that opened. You need to—”

“I don’t need to do anything. This sort of stuff isn’t in my contract.”

The radio crackled. “Garver here. You two want to finish out your contract and get your bonus, do what you’re told.”

“No argument from me, Boss,” the woman said.

Nothing from the man.

“You hear me, McAlvany?” Garver demanded.

“Copy,” the man said, at last.

The woman pulled herself into position and helped the man brace the tip of the cutter against the glistening surface of the ice.

“Clear,” the man called.

He keyed the unit. The resistance coil inside the thin shaft heated fast. The cutter eased into the ice. vapor streamed off into space. With the surety of a butcher opening a carcass, the man ran the cutter in a smooth circle two feet in diameter.

Finally, he backed away. He and the woman braced against their tethers, pushing at the disk with their booted feet. They muscled it into the cylinder.

I got no argument from either one when I waved them to the side. I pulled myself into place and peered into the hole.

The top of a suit helmet showed itself. Its side had been badly dented, but it remained intact. I reached through, still awkward in the suit, grabbed the locking ring and spun the suit.

“Well?” Garver demanded.

I studied the cold, dead face within the helmet. No sign of trauma. Then I rotated the helmet away, so I could examine the rest of the suited figure. A ragged gash ran along the left suit leg.

“It’s not an empty suit,” I said. “There is a body inside. Might be a suicide or unreported accident, but I wouldn’t rule out murder.”

A pause. “Copy that,” Garver said.

I had time to consider what I’d seen outside on the lonely float along the ship’s central corridor. With the minimum light and the quiet, the ship felt sterile, as if it were waiting to be used. As well it should, it was brand new.

We’d read all about Odyssey in orientation classes. A two-year build. Eighty men and women in orbit, sixty on the surface of the Moon. Twelve months of work, three months rotated back to Earth to rest and recover.

That’s what the documentation said, anyway.

Construction had been completed three weeks ago, three days behind schedule. Garver and his finish crew were racing to catch up. Some of the orbital crew still waited on Selene Station for a berth back down to Earth.

Those who remained on-board were there to finish electrical tests, bring the NERVA reactors to full functionality and handle the last of the water uploads.

The schedule had no flex. The launch window for America’s first manned interplanetary shot—on 1 January, 1980—drew near, and all Americans knew that if the ship didn’t launch, the Russians would win the race to Mars.

The remaining workers bunked in the staging shack, back by the melting cylinder. Garver had set up quarters in the crew dormitory onboard Odysseyinstead of staying in Selene Station. I wasn’t sure I’d care to do that. Empty, the ship felt spooky, filled with strange echoes. It smelled funny, too, like the stink of long-used, over-loaded electrical equipment.

At least, I half-expected that.

“First time you go through an airlock, take off your suit,” an instructor had told me, at the tavern down the road from the Florida training site. “You’ll catch an acrid odor. The smell of ozone. We call it catching a whiff ofvacuum.”

He had plied me with drinks and stories most of the night, hoping for the same poke and tickle Childs had been after.

Neither had succeeded.

I grabbed the anchor bar mounted outside Garver’s office, to brace against reaction, and knocked.

“Come on in,” Garver called.

I pushed the door open, pulled myself inside. The room was good-sized, designed as quarters for six crew members. Military tidy, too, but full of Tom Garver. Books velcroed to every open surface. Engineering plans and photographs taped to bulkheads.

A framed photo of Garver in dress Naval uniform—a full commander—hung on the bulkhead above the built-in desk. A shot of Garver and President Reagan, shaking hands, shared the wall.

Scribbled notes stuck here and there. A floating ten-foot-long scale model of the ship, tethered at four points to a work table, took up the center of the room.

Sections of the scale model had been pulled away to show compartments. Two long cylinders in front of a shielded section containing the NERVA nuclear propulsion units, their heat exchangers looking like big ribbed wings. The ship’s ancestry was evident. It had been birthed from modified upper-stage sections of the Saturn V rockets, as had Selene Station.

The place reeked of Captain Black tobacco. I wondered how Garver kept a pipe lit in weightlessness, not to mention how he got away with smoking in the first place.

The man had to have serious clout.

“Thanks for going out there, Kerrigan,” Garver said.

“If I can call you Tom, you can call me Laura.”

“All right, Laura.” The construction manager straddled a saddle at the work desk. He wore his salt-and-pepper hair in a crew-cut, over a round, deeply seamed face that demanded trust. I hoped such trust would be deserved.

Garver waved for me to join him before a compact television monitor. “Come look at this,” he said.

A color broadcast flickered on the screen. Garver tapped it. “Sent a crewman with a hard-wired camera out so I can tape everything while they pull the body out of the ice.”

I watched over Garver’s shoulder. Whoever handled the video camera knew enough to shoot with the Sun. The picture almost matched broadcast quality, caught all the details.

“Good camera work,” I said.

“Good camera,” Garver said. “A Betacam. Great for location shooting. Networks haven’t seen one yet. I got six. They’re for the mission, all mine until the ship leaves.”

“I don’t know that one.”

“State-of-the-art from Sony.”

Japanese?

“Yeah. The little bastards turn out good product.”

The camera image zoomed in on the crushed helmet. The crew finished sliding the rigid body from the cylinder, a tight fit. They weren’t being particularly careful.

“We’ve got to get that ice melted and in-tank,” Garver said. “Sorry if they’re screwing up your crime scene.”

“My crime scene?”

“You’re the only cop I’ve got.”

I shook my head. “I went out there as a favor, Tom, gave you my professional opinion, but I’m not a marshal anymore.”

“I know. I did my research,” Garver said, taking up his pipe. “You got laid off fourteen months ago.”

“I got fired.”

Childs had done a real smear job, made sure my name was deeply buried in the mud. I hadn’t even been able to get a private security job, at a time when companies were begging for former cops.

That was why I’d taken the moon job with LTC. They were so desperate they’d hire almost anyone.

“Want to get back at Childs?” Garver’s hands seemed to move on their own accord, as he packed tobacco into the pipe.

“How could—”

“I know people who owe me favors,” he said.

“But—”

He waved away my words. “I always do my research, I know what he did to you. You handle this for me, you’ll be back on Earth. Full benefits, your jacket cleared. If that’s what you want.”

I felt as if I’d been pushed off safe footing into deep water. My father was a cop, his father before him, too. Working law enforcement had been the only thing I’d ever wanted, had ever done. Having to deal with the loss of my badge, not being able to land another law enforcement job, almost killed me.

“You okay?” Garver asked.

“Yeah.”

Suck it up, kid, my father used to say.

“You want your job back?”

“Yeah.”

Garver nodded. “Five deaths in two years in orbit. All verifiable accidents. The surface rate’s been higher, but that’s mining for you.”

He tapped the screen with his pipe stem. “But this . . . this was no accident and the notion of murder pisses me off no end. I want to catch whoever did it. Even more I want to get my hands on whoever thinks he can mess with my schedule.”

“Has there been other sabotage?”

Garver frowned. “Four times I’m sure of. Others, maybe. I don’t run the show down there, so I don’t see all the paperwork. There’s been money lost, project down-time and injuries. Never murder, though.”

“Could it have been the Russians?” I asked.

“Naw. The military types on Selene Station watch the Reds pretty close. Besides, they’re way too busy with their own Mars ship down in low-earth orbit.”

He glanced at me. “You see it?”

I knew what he wanted to hear. “Ugliest thing I ever saw.”

Garver nodded. “It’s different design philosophy. Brute-force but proven tech. They don’t have nuclear thermal engines, so it’s LOX-hydrogen for the trip out. Hypergolics for the ride home, dump everything and land in a couple of Soyuz capsules.”

He paused to try to light the pipe. The match went out before it caught.

“Why did we go with nuclear engines?” I asked.

Garver shrugged. “Hell if I know, I’m not that kind of engineer. The way I hear it, nukes increase specific impulse, so you use less fuel.”

He struck another match without success.

“And building the ship here in low lunar orbit cuts even more reaction mass, compared to LEO,” he said. “No cryogenics means simpler tankage and so on. Mining metals and water on the moon’s cheaper than fifty, sixty Saturn launches to LEO. It’s all supposed to save time and money.”

“How’s that worked out so far?” I asked.

Garver grinned. “Who can say? Will American free enterprise beat the godless Communists? Not my department. My job’s to make sure this crate’s in shape to leave orbit New Year’s Day.”

He paused and drew a breath. “What were we talking about?”

“The miners,” I said.

“Yeah. Old story. Work conditions suck. They don’t get paid enough, don’t get to go home enough. They want a union.”

I remembered growing up in eastern Kentucky coal country, watching my friends’ fathers come home from work too tired to scrub the blackness from their skin before they fell into bed. Seeing retired miners, old men before their time, slumped on dilapidated porches next to green bottles of oxygen. Appalachian astronauts.

“Will they get a union?”

Garver fiddled with his pipe, not looking at me. “Someday,” he said. “We can’t afford one now.”

I didn’t say a word.

He spread his hands. “Laura, I sympathize with them. My old man was shop steward for his ship fitter’s local at the Philly Navy Yard during the big war. He built the ships and I was a swabbie sailing on one of them.”

This time he looked me in the eye. “Pop could sing The Internationale as well as Debs, but he knew there was a war to be won. Just like now, except the war’s cold.

“I hate having to act like a company asshole, but I’ve got a fast ship to build and I’m sending it in harm’s way. I’ve got to know if there’s more trouble coming at me from the Moon.”

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Go down there. Poke around and stir the pot. Find out who’s screwing with me. I don’t care what you have to do. Just fix it. I’ve got thirty-six days until launch.”

Garver glanced at his wristwatch.

“Speaking of time, let’s get you back. Drop’s three hours and . . . twenty-seven minutes.

“A scheduled truckload. Six engines, you and a guy named Anderson. I expect you know him from the training classes. They’re expecting you, know you used to be a cop, but they know you’ve been through training, too.”

“Understood.”

He studied me for a moment. “Schedule’s tight, but I can give you a little time to think it over.”

I shook my head. “I don’t need to think about it, Tom. I’m in.”

Garver grinned. “I like a woman who knows her mind.”

“So let’s get going,” I said.

He rubbed at his crew cut. “Just one thing—”

“Go on. I don’t bite.”

Garver shook his head. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

I raised my hand, palm out and fingers up. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

He shook his head. “Look, I’m old school. My pop taught me to take care of women, years ago before ERA became the law.”

“I said I’d be all right.”

“Don’t get your Irish up,” he said. “Just be careful.”

I laid my hand on his shoulder. “You sound like my old man. It’s sweet.”

“Make fun of an old man all you like, but I mean it. I’ve read your jacket, Laura, know what you’ve done. I’ll bet you’re hell-on-wheels. But so was Leatherman, the other cop I sent.”

He glanced at the monitor. The camera remained focused on the stove-in helmet. I tipped my chin toward the image. “That was Leatherman?”

“Yeah.”

He struck another match and sucked on his pipe. It wouldn’t catch. He tossed it at the desk, where it bounced back. He grabbed it without looking. “I don’t know why I bother with that thing. Keeping it lit in zero gee’s a bitch.”

I checked my harness one more time. The soles of my feet tingled. My stomach fluttered.

Getting ready to take a no-frills ride.

Another suited figure stood opposite me, focusing on the harness, too. Around us, six recovered ascent engines had been strapped to the open platform of the landing truck, flaring expansion nozzles almost touching.

No pressurized cabin, no flight couches. No one who’d done the drop before to hold our hands and tell us not to worry. America’s Lunar Technologies Consortium didn’t spend a dollar when a penny was enough. I know Armstrong and Aldrin landed standing up, too. They had walls, though, but LTC had studies that said walls were unnecessary mass.

Someone with a nasty sense of humor had named the truck, marked it in big, red letters sprayed on its side. Thumper.

I closed my eyes and tried to think of other things.

The ride up to earth orbit came to mind. Six men and women crammed into a stripped Apollo capsule like stacked bodies in a morgue, going into space in a claustrophobic can. In Low Earth Orbit we had transferred to the cislunar tug for another two days to lunar orbit.

As I waited, I wondered if I’d signed up on the wrong side once again. When I did academy, it all looked black and white. You were either a good guy or a bad guy.

These days, it seemed the only thing I’d ever done, all those years as a cop, was keep the folks who didn’t have a dime from taking one from those that did.

Got to pay the bills, kid, my father used to say. Maybe so, but I wasn’t sure anymore if I cared for the cost.

I checked the telltale on my oxygen. Like the truck, the suits were simplified. No sophisticated adsorption canisters, no complex rebreathing circuit, just a six-hour tank of air.

Four, now.

“Thumper, Selene Station here.”

Below, the lunar landscape slid by. I let the other rider respond. A thirtyish fellow. Anderson. He’d proven during training he loved the sound of his own voice.

“Go ahead, Selene.” Anderson again.

“You all ready for de-orbit burn?”

“Damned straight.”

I answered in the affirmative, as well.

“Copy four, Thumper. Go for DOB. Ignition, thirty seconds.”

I closed my fingers around one of the grab bars welded to the engine cowling and counted to myself. The truck’s engine fired when I reach onethousand-thirty-one.

Not bad.

My feet pressed against the grated floor. I set my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering in time to the vibrations. I felt the roar of the engine in my bones. My stomach fluttered again at the return of gravity. I counted down on the thirty-second burn. The engine cut off on the mark.

“Thumper,; Selene. Burn nominal. Powered descent initiates in fifty-seven minutes at two-hundred-thirty nautical miles from Rockefeller Base.”

“Copy, Selene.” Anderson again.

I took in the view.

We had just under another hour of standing ahead of us, watching the moon roll beneath as we fell toward the surface in a long computer-planned arc following the terminator around the Moon. At the end, the truck would make its final powered descent into the darkness of the polar crater that sheltered America’s Rockefeller Base.

I should be scared, I knew that. I stood on an open, free-falling platform sixty miles up, loaded with heavy equipment. The LTC preventable-accident record sucked vacuum, too.

It didn’t matter.

I had gotten used to the view by now, and I loved amusement parks. The roller coasters and rail slides. The free-fall drops. I figured to enjoy every second on the greatest thrill ride any engineer had ever imagined.

I was facing in our direction of motion. As we came over the south pole I was watching the approaching horizon over the edge of the platform as the earth rose; bright, half full, distant, stunningly beautiful. I hummed the opening notes of Thus Spake Zarathustra.

“What’s that?” Anderson asked over the suit link.

I didn’t bother to explain. “Music from a movie,” I said.

An hour later and fifty thousand feet above the surface, two hundred-thirty miles up-range from target, the engine flared to life again, slowing us.

At ten thousand feet, the landscape below barely crawling by, the truck pitched over to a near-vertical attitude. I saw our destination, a crater filled with darkness.

At three thousand feet, I caught sight of the lights outlining the bull’s eye layout of the buried habitat. At seven hundred feet, I spotted scattered equipment and the base’s junk pile in the lessening shadow near the east rim wall.

Suited figures moved about, here and there. A rover rolled toward the rim. Landing beacons flashed a rhythmic red, west of the habitat. All so familiar, so ingrained in my memory from training films and countless photographs it seemed as if I had come home.

But it felt as if we were coming in too fast.

My hands itched for a steering wheel, the old passenger’s dilemma. There wasn’t any. Either the computer did the job or it didn’t. If it didn’t, Anderson and I, the ascent engines, too, would become part of one more shattered monument to Mankind’s reach for the planets.

The engines would be missed the most.

In the end, the truck slowed, hovered for a moment and sank to the lunar surface without incident, just as it had many times before. The engine shut down. Two suited figures skipped to the truck, began to check the cargo. They ignored us.

“This is Rockefeller Base.” A woman’s voice.

As opposed to, say, Detroit?

“We hear you,” Anderson said.

“You two can come on inside any time you like,” the woman said. “I’ll meet you at the door.”

I unhooked my harness, released the straps that held my duffel and the small equipment case Garver had provided me. I slid between the bells of two engines and stepped to the ladder.

Anderson arrived first. He began his climb down without even a glance at me. He paused at the last rung. “Watch this last step, Kerrigan,” he said. “It’s a lulu.”

He dropped his duffel, let go the ladder and fell slowly the last few feet to the surface.

“Asshole,” I whispered.

I forgot the common band was always on.

Anderson scooped up his duffel, turned away from the truck. And as he skip-stepped toward the habitat, he showed a gloved middle finger over his shoulder.

I hiked to the habitat, almost catching up with Anderson, taking care with the low-gravity gait they taught us in training. A skip-step that had looked strange in demonstration, in the films we’d seen. It worked well enough in practice. Weight isn’t mass, they endlessly reminded us in training. Take your time.

The loose regolith in this area had been sucked up long ago as aggregate for the sulfur concrete used to build the habitat, so I didn’t kick up any dust and left no footprints as I moved toward the rounded gray mounds that were the dormitories and common spaces of the base. Poured tubes half-buried in the floor of the crater. No windows, no exterior lights, except twenty-fourinch tall, green-neon script letters that blinked out WEST ENTRANCE above a rectangle of light. It was a nice touch.

Further to the west, I spotted the adit to one of the rim-wall mines, marked by a red neon arrow, pointing down. Someone had painted ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE in man-high red letters on the wall above the arrow.

As I closed on the entry lock, I passed collections of skeletal equipment. High chain-link fences, topped by razor-wire with access through a locked gate, surrounded some of them. Pharmaceutical plants. The fences kept the riff-raff out.

As we reached the habitat, the broad glass door beneath the sign swung open and a suited figure stepped out. The left leg and the right arm of the suit had been painted in an intricate, colorful pattern. A swirling band of red, blue and green crossed the torso at an angle, intertwining flowers, just like a complex tattoo inked upon a naked body.

Within the blossoms, I made out a name. ZENDER.

“Welcome to the Moon, folks.” The same woman who had called them at the truck. “I’m Posey Zender, LTC personnel liaison. You can call me Posey. Wipe your feet before you come inside.”

I returned the greeting. Anderson waved and moved inside.

Beyond the door, the airlock was a revolving drum, not too different from a darkroom safe door, except with gasketed edges, and made of plate glass, like the front door to some New York City office building. Anderson was already inside, moving like a man looking for the can.

“This lock made me nervous, when I first got here,” Posey said. “But it’s safe. Cheaper and easier than a pressure lock. Fool-proof, too, with fewer complex parts. Cuts down on repair time overhead. LTC figured if you have all the oxygen you need, conservation isn’t a necessity. It just takes a long, hard push.”

I kept my mouth shut and marked the lock as a place not to spend much time near. It might be fool-resistant, but I’d seen too often that nothing ever was completely fool-proof.

Beyond the lock, Anderson headed for a glass door to the habitats. He’d hung his plain-white suit in one of the twenty-five glass-faced lockers that filled the ten-feet-wide habitat section. About half the lockers contained vacuum suits. Most of them had been painted in some fashion.

Not all were as colorful as Posey’s suit, but each carried some sort of statement from of its owner. A full-body skeleton. The alien from that Sigourney Weaver movie a couple years back. Flags of all sorts. Daffy Duck chased by Marvin the Martian.

“What’s with the suits?” I asked.

“It’s called freedom of expression,” Posey said. “Everybody gets free rein to paint their suit anyway they like. There’s always a couple extras at each lock.”

“I’m not an artist.”

Someone will help if you want. Any ideas?”

“I’ll think of something.”

“Whatever. Find a locker, stash your suit,” Posey said. “This is only temporary. I’ll get you a locker closer to your work assignment, once you’re settled in.”

I found a vacant locker, focused on removing my suit and wiping off its surfaces. Posey did the same. She turned out to be rail-thin, a forty-something, horse-faced woman with close-cut russet hair. She wore a green jumpsuit with a name patch over her heart.

Out of the suit, the tube felt chilly. It had a grungy look to it, too. Not overtly dirty but edge-worn, as if someone had been working on it with a dull file. Sounds bouncing from the concrete walls. The expanded metal floor had a hollow echo. The lights burned dimmer than in the trainer, half not even working. A glass door closed off the tube at the far end. A second airlock would have been nice. A scrolling, lighted sign above the door showed time and date. 1320 26 November 1979.

Posey headed toward the door. “C’mon. Let’s get you settled in. You go to work tomorrow.”

“Do I get O.J.T?”

She laughed. “Yeah. Sure.”

29 NOVEMBER 1979

The dark closed in as I stepped out of the airlock onto the surface of the Moon. Sunlight caught the tips of rim-wall peaks three thousand feet above me, but didn’t touch the crater floor. The only real illumination where I stood came from a scatter of lights on the assembly line and my helmet lamps.

Edie DuPree, my shift partner, waited. She had worked with me patiently for the past three days, showing me the ropes. First day, I asked about days off. DuPree smirked and shook her head.

“Read your contract,” she said. “Twelve hours on and twelve off. Seven days a week.”

With DuPree’s help, I learned to set up an ascent engine assembly while getting used to working on the lunar surface. To inspect a recycled RL-10 engine and attach it to the circular support structure. To test the pump tanks and fittings.

I felt confident I was ready to move on.

DuPree agreed. “You got your moon legs, Kerrigan. Let’s build an icicle.”

She waved me on. I moved with her, the low-gravity gait now familiar.

“Remember. Think through every move,” DuPree said, for the hundredth time. “If you don’t know, don’t pretend you do. You can kill yourself, if you have to, but for God’s sake don’t take me with you.”

“Got it,” I said. “Measure twice and cut once.”

“Right. Training’s over. We got to catch up for those three days. Odysseyburns at midnight on New Year’s Eve and we’ve got to finish filling her reaction-mass tanks before she leaves.”

“Why midnight?”

She looked at me as if I were a child. “The bad thing about leaving from Low Moon Orbit is that delta-V change in orbital planes creates a narrow window of opportunity. But it doesn’t have to be midnight. That’s pure show biz. They have to go at midnight because the President says they do, the People say they do, Corporate P.R. says they do. Paper puts up with anything.”

Ahead were four large cylindrical tanks, two of them three times taller than the other two. Ladders ran up opposite sides of each tank.

Over them, a stringer crane ran on a track to the launch area. The engine assembly we had worked on last shift waited in a cradle there.

“Casting tanks,” DuPree said, pointing to remind me. “The short ones for the LOX, tall ones for the liquid hydrogen. They poured one set yesterday after our shift and they’re almost finished cooling. The two at the end are complete. They pulled the cope, froze the caps last shift. Time to build the stack.”

“This whole thing still seems a bit nutty.”

“Yeah, but it works. Since we have to lift the water to orbit anyway, why not save on raw materials and make the water the fuel tanks? It’s fifty degrees absolute down here in the shadow. That ice is rock hard. We shoot it up to Odyssey where they melt it into the reaction tanks. Then they bring the engine assembly back down for another run.”

I looked around. “Where are the winch controls?”

DuPree held up her gauntlets. “Right here. The motor they sent up cracked a bearing from the cold, first month. The second one lasted sixty days. They’ve been promising a redesigned one for eighteen months. Until they send one up, we use muscle.”

“They didn’t mention that in training.”

“Lots of things they didn’t mention, trust me.”

Trust you? Maybe someday.

DuPree grabbed the chain dangling from the gang pulley and dragged the winch over to a short tank. I skipped to the tank. DuPree gestured toward a ladder. “Up you go.”

I hopped up the rungs. As I came over the top I saw the circular disk of ice that would become the top of the tank, looking like a raw glass casting for a big telescope mirror.

“Heads up,” DuPree said.

I grabbed the descending ring and guided it over the ice.

“Let me know when it’s about four inches below the upper edge.” I could hear the effort in DuPree’s voice.

“Down. Down. Down. Stop.” I said.

I saw the chain swing, slap lightly against the tank, and I expected to hear a clang. None came.

Stay alert. No aural cues.

DuPree’s helmet appeared over the opposite side. “Good job, good job. Ice looks good. You steady the ring while I lock it.”

I leaned forward, stretched my arms to each side, trying to get the ring at as even a height as possible. I felt it snug up.

“Hands clear,” DuPree said, grunting.

The ring settled into place.

“Sure it won’t slip and break?” I asked.

“It—oh. Ice. Remember. That ice is fifty degrees above absolute zero. It’s granite.”

“Copy that,” I said.

“Let’s get this baby out of the cradle.”

We both climbed back down.

I was surprised at how much effort something as simple as climbing a ladder at one sixth gee took. Something one of the Florida trainers had said popped into my head.

Half your work will be against the suit itself Take your time. The biggest danger is overheating, even if it’s cold outside. The Universe as Thermos bottle.

“Does the ice ever get stuck?” I asked.

“Once in a while. There’s heating coils in the tank wall just in case. Most of the time, it’s no problem. Let’s give this a try.

We both pulled on the chain. The compound pulley above us rotated smoothly.

“The ice expands when the water freezes,” DuPree said. “The tank’s designed for that. It contracts some as it chills down, enough to give you windage.”

Three more pulls. I looked up to see the ice peeking over the tank rim. “Looking good?” I asked.

“Lookin’ sweet.”

We continued pulling, a bit at a time, until the ice cylinder cleared the tank. “Okay, let’s slide this down to the engine mount.”

We took a step away and pulled. The winch resisted for a moment, then slid a few feet, ice dangling below.

“There’s a clutch fitting that won’t let it run free, not that you should trust it,” DuPree said. “Last thing you want’s for that sucker to take off on its own. Remember, weight isn’t mass. How you doing?”

“Five by,” I said. “Actually having fun.”

“That’s what the virgin said. By this time I’m a hooker.”

I grinned. “In it for the money, huh?”

A pause. “No, I see it as my own small contribution to mankind’s leap for the stars. Of course, I’m in it for the money. It’s my job. Besides, I’m not going anywhere.”

I remembered we were on an open circuit and made no reply. We slowly walked the ice down the hundred yards to the engine cradle, with not much more effort than pulling a child’s wagon.

“Okay,” DuPree said. “When we’re done, that hunk’s gotta be centered, true and flat. Let’s take our time.”

“Copy that.”

We moved the cylinder slowly over the flat circle of ice on top of the engine platform.

“Okay,” DuPree said. “I’m going to lower, you guide. Take your time. Get it right. Remember, that thing masses a lot more than it weighs.”

The placement went uneventfully. I guided with one hand, the way I had steered sections of concrete sewer pipe, two summers on a job during college. “We’re good, let it down.”

DuPree lowered it the last quarter inch, walked over to inspect. “Good. I just got to go up top to check if it’s level. Sometimes the casting can be off a bit.”

“Can I try it?”

I felt DuPree give me the once over from behind her visor. Finally, she pulled a bubble level out of a suit leg pocket and handed it over.

“I’ll hoist you up. Take cross measurements in the middle and at three points along the edge. Gotta be within a degree of vertical. The bubble’s ethane, shouldn’t freeze if you’re quick about it.”

DuPree hopped down past the cradle, grabbed a chain hanging from another pulley. Dragging it over, she handed a hook to me.

“Hold on tight,” she said, and began hauling me up. A minute later I cleared the top of ice cylinder, let go of the chain and stepped onto the surface. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s try this.”

Bouncing to my knees, I put the level on the ice and studied the bubble. Less than half a degree. I inched sideways. Crosswise, dead center.

As I crawled toward the edge something hit me in the back. It wasn’t much, a tap, but I wasn’t expecting it. I fell forward. My chest hit the edge as I slid off the top, helmet down, toward the ground twenty feet below.

I opened my eyes and tried to sit up. “What the f—”

DuPree pushed me back onto the cot. “You’re inside, safe.”

The old line, Must be a definition of the word ‘safe’ I’m not familiar with,popped into my head.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Near as I can tell, when you let go the chain you must have given it a push. It came around and it caught you in the back.”

“I must have hit my head in the fall. It knocked me out.”

“First fall up here’s scary. Maybe you fainted.” DuPree offered a glass of something.

I accepted it, took a sip. It tasted like strawberry Kool-Aid. “The damned fall seemed to last forever.”

DuPree’s lips quirked. “Under three seconds, but no worse than falling four feet, back on Earth. Gives you a jolt, but it won’t kill you. Just don’t try it from the top of a fifty-foot hydrogen tank. That will kill you.”

Was it an accident? Did you try to kill me, DuPree? Or try to scare me?

I took another sip, collecting my thoughts. I wasn’t sure if I had pushed the hook and chain away or not. Either way, I’d have to be watch my step with even more care from now on.

“Just so you know,” I said. “I don’t faint from fear.” I swirled the liquid in the glass. “This stuff’s terrible. Got anything to dilute it with?”

“No alcohol allowed on the base.”

I looked at her. “And you call yourself a miner?”

DuPree grinned. She walked to a desk and opened a drawer, pulled out a plastic container and another glass. “Got a vacuum still out behind the Ruzic cryostats,” she said.

I held out my tumbler. DuPree cut the red liquid with the same amount of clear, then poured herself an equal dose. We touched glasses and drank. It was a surprise.

“I know it’s an old line,” I said, “But this is smooth hooch. Real grade-A moonshine, and I know my ‘shine.”

I polished off the drink in two gulps.

DuPree grinned. “If we ever get decent shipping costs, we could sell this stuff for good money, Earth side. Beats Stoli hollow.” She collected my empty tumbler. “Regs say you rest for rest of shift.”

“And let everyone think I’m a wuss and an incompetent?” I pushed up onto my elbows. “Get the medic to look at my pupils and let’s get back to work.”

“I’m all you get, so we go by regs. There’s no medic, not since the last one did walkabout three months ago. Never did find her and they haven’t shipped in a new one yet. Posey says it’s problematic finding tech staff. I figure the real reason is the Company’s too cheap to pay for one, this close to launch.”

“Posey does seem harried, doesn’t she?”

DuPree looked at her glass. She held the bottle out to me. I shook my head.

“Posey’s like one of those thought experiments I read about in high school. A perfect, frictionless, rolling bitch.” She knocked the drink back.

Later, I lay in my bunk, staring at the ceiling and sorting things out. Item: nobody would talk about Leatherman. Item: there was no evidence that what happened was anything but an accident. Item: It was remarkably easy to have an accident down here.

Posey could have done him in, or arranged it, if she had something to hide in her handling of the project and thought Leatherman was sniffing too hard. Her moonshadow-cold exterior might be cover for a deep insecurity. Or she might just be frozen to the core.

DuPree could have done it. She was hands-down the best roustabout on the surface; everyone I asked said so. Setting up an accident would be easy for her. The question was motive.

For that matter, any of a half-dozen miners could have done it. Bumping shoulders was easy here. The almost total lack of privacy, the grinding schedule, the seeming indifference of the Corporation to legitimate complaints. I’d arrested more than one man who had murdered because, “I didn’t like the way he looked at me.” When the moon was waiting to kill you just because you were here, nerves could get raw fast.

I had insufficient data. I had a long list of suspects with plenty of means, plenty of opportunity, even if motives were unclear. Shift change in four hours. The people I was getting to know would be all over me, razzing me for all they were worth.

Secretly glad it hadn’t been them who’d taken the fall.

3 DECEMBER 1979

Sit-down meals were served every six hours. I wandered into the dining room just after the purely arbitrary 12:00 noon GMT chimed over the public address system. An hour until my shift began. I paused at the door, sniffed and wrinkled my nose. I knew that smell.

Chipped beef.

At the hot table I picked up a plate and spooned what looked like lumpy wheat paste onto toast. At least there was salad. I’d asked DuPree where the fresh greens came from.

“Little bootleg greenhouse, next to the still,” she said. “I’ll show you when we get the chance.”

Last time the still had been in a side tunnel of the biggest mine. It seemed to move around.

I added instant mashed potatoes that looked like they’d been scavenged from old stores in a fallout shelter. There were empty chairs at a corner table with a fellow I had met a few days before.

He looked up as I approached. “Hey.”

I cocked my head. “You mind, Jake?”

He gestured acceptance. “Help yourself.”

I sat down.

“You ready to go home yet, Kerrigan?” he asked.

“You can call me Laura, Jake.”

“You do what you like. I’ll stick with Kerrigan. It’s less personal.” He turned his head to cough. “‘Scuse me.”

I heard home in Kadar’s voice. Eastern Kentucky or maybe just over the Tug River in West Virginia.

I took a mouthful of chipped beef. It tasted the way it looked. “Jake, you’re an old hand here. You’ve been up, what, two years now?”

“Twenty-three months, nine days and—” he looked at the clock on the wall. “—four hours.” He coughed again.

“Excuse me again.”

“You had a doctor listen to that?”

He shrugged. “The last medic told me I had sinus problems, just before she went walkabout. I figure I got Moon lung. The damned dust’s everywhere. Funny thing. I came up here to get away from the dust in the coal mines back home.”

Another thing they hadn’t talked about in training.

“Can’t the company do anything about it?” I asked.

“They could. They’ve talked electrostatic precipitators for years. That’s all they do. Talk. How long you sign up for?”

I chewed, swallowed, decided maybe it was time to lose a couple of pounds. “Year, option for two.”

“It’ll be two, trust me. There’s never enough return berths and the military up on Selene get priority. I’ve been on the wait list so long the ink’s almost evaporated.” He swallowed a mouthful of mashed potatoes and pushed his tray away.

“You know, you sound like Leatherman,” he said.

“Who’s Leatherman?” I asked.

“Who was Leatherman, you mean,” Kadar said. “Short-termer. Asked lots of questions, just like you.”

“What happened to him?”

“Up and disappeared ten days ago. We all marked it off to a walkabout. Sometimes it happens early like that. Scuttle now is they found him in an ice tank up in orbit. Hell of a way to go.” Kadar coughed again. “At least he got off this rock.”

I toyed with a forkful of lettuce. “Didn’t anyone notice he was gone? I mean, there’s procedures. Hell, I memorized a bunch of them.”

Kadar waved his fork. “Sure, there’s procedures. There’s schedules, too. We ain’t met one of those since this operation started. Supposed to be three teams out working on the same rocket, round the clock. That’s what the rules say. We’re lucky to get one full team every shift.”

I sat silent, hoping he’d say more. He did.

“Leatherman probably slipped and fell in. It’s dark out there. Whoever his partner was must’ve figured he went inside for something. Next shift put the cap on. Before you know it he’s on his way to orbit.”

“No one looked?”

“No one looked because no one thought to look,” Kadar said. “There ain’t no procedure seventy-eight, paragraph fourteen. Look for a body inside the tank before sealing. “

“Who was his partner that day?” I asked.

Kadar studied me. “You ask a lot of questions, for someone who says she used to be a cop.”

I didn’t blink. “A guy got killed. You know how old habits are.”

Kadar leaned toward me. “Look, Kerrigan. This here’s a small place. But all that means, you got no room and no right to stick your nose into other folk’s business.”

He coughed, long and hard, hacked up dirty phlegm into his closed fist. When he found his voice it sounded rusty. “We looked everywhere, didn’t find him. Like I said, short-termers don’t go walkabout that much, but it happens. And life goes on.”

I wiped up the last of my gravy with a bit of toast. “How many have gone walkabout?”

“Ain’t answering no more questions.” Kadar pushed back his chair.

“You’d think that would free some return berths,” I said.

Kadar laughed, a thick, angry snorting sound. He scooped up his tray. As he shuffled away, he hummed a tune I recognized.

Sixteen Tons.

5 DECEMBER 1979

Two days later, standing behind a berm under a makeshift roof, I watched as the countdown neared zero. It was the second launch I’d worked on, the first I’d had a chance to watch, and the first time I’d worn my painted pressure suit.

I’d found an image in the base Britannica that haunted me. An Ice Queen. A woman’s face, pale-white skin glistening, icy blue eyes downcast, framed by a mass of silver hair. She wore a crown formed of ice-crystal shards. DuPree helped me copy the life-size image to the chest of my suit. We framed it in part with stark black lines.

“Suits you,” DuPree said, when we were done. So far, no one else had said a word.

Three floodlights illuminated the glistening icicle in its cradle. More light on anything that I’d seen since I arrived. The ice rocket stood roughly the size of an old German V2. The larger hydrogen tank sat atop the LOX tank, both on top of the engine assembly.

Three thin spars ran up the sides with rings around the tanks, providing some additional integrity to the stack. Feed lines melted into the tanks connected them to the engine. The clever idea was to make the payload—the ice—double as the fuel tanks. No need for an expensive and time-consuming development of a metallurgical facility to make metal tanks.

“Does this whole thing really work out cheaper?” I asked.

DuPree made a verbal shrugging noise. “We haven’t tried both ways, so I guess we’ll never know, will we? I don’t worry about it. It’s just a job.”

Under a minute.

“It gave America a moon colony,” I said.

I heard the rancor in DuPree’s voice. “No, it didn’t. We got a mining operation and a supply base, with some corporate manufacturing. This isn’t a restaurant. It’s a fast-food joint.”

Thirty seconds.

“And we got twenty-six days to serve up one-hundred-twelve tons of water.” DuPree continued. “Seven more icicles. And LTC doesn’t care squat about anything else. Neither does that prick Garver.”

“Everything goes well, we’ll be done by Christmas,” I said.

The countdown hit zero. “Here we go,” DuPree said.

There was no swirling water vapor around the rocket, but I saw ripples of refraction at the base as the engine caught. The rocket began to rise, slowly. Moving out of the floodlights it became hard to see, just the barely visible flame of the burning hydrogen.

“I expected it to take off faster,” I said.

“These things are right on the edge in terms of performance envelope. It’s got just enough oomph to make orbit and do the circularization burn on the other side.”

The rocket was climbing faster, beginning to arc over. At two thousand feet it emerged into the sun, a tiny sliver of light. A second later the sliver seemed to blossom into a snow globe of twinkling points.

“God damn it!” DuPree said. “You jinxed that one, you and your If everything goes well. “

“Wha—”

“It shattered. Christ, couldn’t you tell? God’s pendulous nuts!”

I heard a click in my headset. “Selene Station! Zender here. You in line of sight yet?”

“Copy, Rockefeller Base.”

“We just blew a load.”

«0 * JJ

Say again.

“Your ice delivery will shortly be scattered on the ground a few miles from here.”

Garver joined the conversation. “When can you send up the next one? Schedule’s getting tight.” He sounded as if he’d stay calm through the Second Coming.

Posey took her time responding. “Will get back to you soonest on revised schedule.”

“Copy. Selene Station out.”

Posey’s voice filled my headset. “Base meeting. In the mess hall. Now.”

DuPree turned toward the lock. “Hope you’re happy. Now you get to see Posey pissed.”

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“We forget about celebrating Christmas.”

7 DECEMBER 1979

“Kerrigan!”

I looked up from the book I’d been reading. Something by John MacDonald. Posey stood in the open door of my quarters.

“What?”

“Talk. My office. Now.” She turned and hurried down the corridor.

I hesitated, then followed. As far as Rockefeller Base went, Posey wasthe Corporation. Management, personnel, records, everything. She was loud, overbearing, remote and twitchy enough make anyone uneasy. Since we lost the icicle two days ago, she had gotten worse.

Posey was already seated behind her desk by the time I got to her office/ quarters. By moon standards, it was spacious.

“Close the door,” she said, as I entered.

I did as told and took the chair opposite her. I didn’t ask permission first.

“What’s between you and Garver?” Zender asked without any preamble. She was still wound-up from the icicle loss.

“What do you mean?”

“You stopped in on him before coming down.”

I saw no point in trying to deny it. “Garver and my father go back. I stopped by to pay respects.”

“And I’m Marie of Romania. Everybody knows you were a cop. I think you’re still a cop. What does Garver have you sniffing around for?”

I rubbed my forehead. The skin was getting dry and itchy from the canned air. “I was a cop. A federal marshal. Now I’m a LTC Operations Technician. A tinker in a space suit.”

“Once a cop . . .”

“Bullshit. Some people hang on to the past. I don’t.”

“I tried to ship you out of here, after that icicle blew up. Garver blocked it.”

“Like I said, he’s a friend of my old man. They go way back to the Navy during the War.”

Posey leaned forward. “Look. I know something and you know something, but you don’t know everything.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I know what they found in that icicle that we delivered just before you came down.”

“Scuttlebutt says it was a body.”

She stared at me for a time, then sighed and gestured over her shoulder at a hand-drawn Gantt chart on the wall. “All right, play it that way. The right side of that chart is One January, Kerrigan. Two January doesn’t exist. Got it?”

“Works for me.”

Posey’s eyes flicked from side to side. She looked over my shoulder. “Look, I’m sorry if I came down hard just now. I’m under the gun here.”

I kept my face neutral. “I know that.”

She nodded and leaned back in her chair.

“The Corporation promises me six drills. I get three. They promise four loaders, I get two. I have to melt that water before I can pour it. That takes power. A lot of power. And I have to crack some of that water for fuel and breathing air. That takes more power.”

Posey was on a rant. I held on for the ride.

“They promised me five SNAP reactors. I got three. They promised a megawatt of solar arrays. I got two hundred kilowatts and I didn’t want them. A reactor’s easier, more reliable, but some senator’s got a friend who makes photo-voltaics. That’s why half the lights are never turned on.”

She drew a ragged breath, close to the edge. “They promised a crew of sixty. I can barely hold on to thirty. They projected a launch failure rate of three percent. It turns out to be more like ten percent. I’m running low on engine assemblies and there’s no time to get more. I have to have Odyssey fueled to go by January first. I have a crew on the edge of mutiny. I’m accused of sabotage—” I interrupted. “You?”

“I’m in charge, I get the crap thrown in my face. Garver would just love to have a scapegoat to hang a failure on now, wouldn’t he?”

“Why would he do that?”

Posey paused to cough. “Listen good, Kerrigan. A place like this, you don’t keep secrets long. You snoop around anymore, I’ll find out. I don’t trust you, so don’t get in my way.”

“Or what?”

She stared at me, maybe realizing she’d said too much. She waved her hand in dismissal. “Get back to work.”

I walked out and closed the door. Posey had been on the Moon since the base was completed. Three years plus. She coughed a lot, almost as much as Jake Kadar. It’s was a wonder she hadn’t gone walkabout.

15 DECEMBER 1979

“Fireworks?”

I stood outside the habitat, out of sight of others. I had the small transmitter Garver had given me jacked into my suit comm plug. It worked on a frequency only Garver would receive. When I spotted the point of light that was Selene Station rise in the south I called him. The signal was weak but clear.

“They’re being loaded on the truck now,” he said. “Be down in four hours with a support technician.”

“Whose brilliant idea was this?”

“A certain fifteen-term Congressional bacterium,” Garver said. “The Representative thought it would be wonderful to celebrate the New Year and Odysseys departure with a fireworks festival on the Moon.”

If I could have slapped my forehead I would have. “Do the corporate big shots think it’ll be visible from Earth? Will it even work?

“They’ll work; oxidizer is self-contained. The plan’s to set them off just as Odyssey breaks orbit and to televise it from Selene Station. A royal sendoff.” Garver paused, continued. “Keep your eyes open, Laura.”

“And my suit closed.”

“Anything new?”

“Posey’s calmed down, but some of the others are getting nervous. DuPree asked me yesterday why I keep walking off behind the habitat.”

“And?”

“I told her I like to take a leak in private.”

A static growl. “Keep an eye on her. The other newbie, too. I haven’t been able to find out much about Mr. Anderson and when I don’t know something it bothers me.”

I saw an ellipse of light on the ground in front of the airlock and drew back a bit. “Tom, someone just came out, probably DuPree. We’re scheduled to do the final checkout on the icicle before they tank it up.”

“Anything on her?” Garver asked.

“Y’know, she seems all right. But they said that about Ted Bundy, didn’t they? He seemed like such a nice guy.”

The station was moving across the sky. “Laura, I know I told you to get to the bottom of the Leatherman thing, but first priority is Odyssey. Check that; it’s the only thing. The rest of that water has to get up here, period.”

“We’ll get it done, straw boss. There are some real beefs down here, but most of the crew know the score.”

“You sound almost happy. Getting moonstruck?”

“The place grows on you. You know, like athlete’s foot.”

18 DECEMBER 1979

There are advantages to being in a small place, having good hearing and going through police training.

I was in the small galley adjacent to the mess hall on my turn at KP, scraping dishes and loading them in the industrial dishwasher.

All the comforts of home.

The mess room was empty save for two men sipping coffee at a corner table. Anderson and Kadar. Sound didn’t carry well in the habitat’s low pressure and they spoke in near-whispers.

But as I said, there are advantages. I heard most of what they said.

“Timing’s everything. “

“.. . a statement. When you brace .. . before ship is overhead. . .”

“.. . a dummy. Only one shot. . . go off with a . . .”

“For maximum effect make sure .. .”

“.. . yeah, box is marked.. .”

I heard chairs slide, then footsteps.

“Later,” Anderson said.

And they were gone.

One shot. Maximum effect. Box is marked.

Time to take a walk in the dark.

I suited up for my next shift two hours early and turned through the north lock, out on the surface nearest the supply dump for those materials that could stand the cold and vacuum.

Where are the fireworks?

If you wanted to smuggle up some sort of explosives, where better than in a shipment of explosives?

I skip-walked the hundred yards to the dump, regretting the need for my helmet lamp. Once there, I faced five hundred square feet of identical shipping containers with no discernible order.

I flicked off the lamp before I turned around, looking for any signs of movement or light behind me. Nothing. So I turned back to the scattered crates, flicking on the lamp and stood in the limp-armed stance I’d learned to minimize effort, as I began to examine the nearest crates.

Paranoid me. Thirty seconds later, I cut the lamp, turned to see if anyone was there. Still nothing, so I returned to my study of the crates.

A minute later, some sixth sense made me turn again, just in time to be hit hard in the shoulder. If I hadn’t turned it would have been my helmet. I took two staggering steps back and fell, landing on my hip.

I raised my arms and hit the chin switch that turned my headlamp to full intensity. A suited figure loomed over me, some sort of bar grasped in a raised gauntlet.

What to do?

Lying on my back in the suit, I wasn’t even sure I could stand up unassisted. The figure swung the bar down in a full arc.

Block it.

I let it land, taking the blow on one arm.

Grab the bar.

I grabbed the bar with my free hand. I pulled as hard as I could, rising a few inches as my attacker lost footing and toppled onto me.

My breath was coming hard and fast. I could feel the rush of adrenaline pushing me to act. I kept my grip on the bar and shoved my attacker up and to the side.

Roll over.

I pulled the bar free and jabbed it down, levering myself onto my chest. One deep breath and I pushed down as hard as I could, rose to a precarious angle and almost fell back again before I got the bar in place, using it like a cane.

The figure on the ground struggled to stand up. Whoever it was, they’d donned an unmarked suit, so I had no idea who had attacked me.

See how the bastard deals with a cracked faceplate.

I heard a thin whistling and suddenly felt cold and light-headed. I raised my arm and saw the cracked gauntlet ring, vapor streaming out.

Damn it! Get inside.

I reached down, increased my oxygen flow to maximum and turned, skip-walking as fast as I could to the airlock. My attacker would have to wait. Staying alive came first.

19 DECEMBER 1979

I blamed the suit failure on embrittlement from the cold. No one questioned me; metal can react strangely at those low temperatures. Only my attacker and I knew the truth, unless someone had given orders to the attacker. I tried to ignore that thought. I was getting as paranoid as Posey.

The bright point rose above the horizon. “Tom?”

“Here, Laura. Talk to me.”

“Right. No questions until I’m finished.”

I stood behind a boulder slightly taller than I was with my back to a wall of rock. Nobody would sneak up on me again. I laid out the events of the previous day quickly.

“The fireworks were in the pressurized storeroom. I chatted up the tech. Turns out it wouldn’t be too good to keep them cold and in vacuum for very long.”

“So.”

“So this morning I snuck in to give the stuff a quick look-over.”

“And?”

“I know a bit about weapons but I don’t know zip about fireworks. Most of the stuff looks like stubby mortars. There’s racks of them, some singles, what I guess are leveling gadgets.”

“Maybe there’s nothing there,” Garver said.

“No. Nothing screams ‘wrong’ that I can tell, but there’s something here. Whatever it is, I figure there was time to hide it somewhere else.”

“Anything more?”

“Anderson and Kadar volunteered to assist the technician in the setup. Posey announced she’s having an emergency bubble put up so the crew can watch from the surface. That was news to most of us. A bubble?”

“I heard about it,” Garver said. “Another brilliant idea from the Corporate PR people. Show miners walking around in shirtsleeves on the surface. Arthur Clarke and all that. The Future.”

“Right. Maybe helmet off, but no one here is stupid enough to actually shuck their suit and trust a plastic bag.”

“Careful, Laura. You’re going native.”

I ignored him. “How high will fireworks go on the Moon?”

“Why do you—oh. I see where your headed. I’ll find out.”

“Okay. Anything new on Posey?” I asked.

“Just what I told you. She volunteered for the Moon. Before this, her career path was flat. She’s got a hefty bonus coming once we launch.”

“I suspect that you do, too.”

Garver didn’t answer right away. “You’re right, I do. But then you’ve got a lot riding on it, too.”

21 DECEMBER 1979

I walked into the mess hall just after midnight, hungry even though the main course smelled like microwaved cardboard. DuPree was already there, sitting at a table by herself. Kadar and Anderson were at a corner table, conversing quietly over coffee. They were now a work team, but they seemed to be everywhere together recently.

I could feel the tension and excitement within the space, shared it without reserve. Another icicle was scheduled to go into orbit today, our fifth since the accident. Just three more to go.

Four weeks on the Moon had changed more than my attitude. My gait was steadier, more sure-footed. And the dark beyond the walls didn’t bother me as much as when I first arrived. I ambled to the buffet and picked up a tray. Meatloaf, instant potatoes, what appeared to be green beans. They looked wilted.

SSDD.

I was even getting tired of DuPree’s garden goods.

I loaded my tray, turned and nodded at Kadar, then settled in across from DuPree, who had her nose buried in a book. As I sat down, Kadar said something to Anderson I couldn’t make out, then he got up and left, leaving his cup on the table.

Anderson stood, took both cups to the dirties tray and then drew a fresh cup of coffee. He walked to our table. “Hey, mind if I sit down?”

DuPree looked up long enough to grunt. I gestured at an empty chair. He sat and sipped his coffee.

I tipped my head to the door Kadar had just exited. “You two get off shift early?”

“Naw,” Anderson said. “Posey moved us to your shift. I got to suit up in a few minutes. Icicle launch at 0630, you know, I’m helping with the final plumbing checkout.”

It was the most he’d said to me in four weeks.

“You settled in okay?”

“Yeah. Amazing how quick being tired all the time takes away the wonder of walking on the Moon.” He sipped his coffee. “Imagine how Jake feels.”

DuPree set her book aside. “He counts the hours he’s been here.”

“Yeah,” I said.

Anderson sat back and took another sip. “Poor guy don’t talk about anything except getting off this rock. I’m amazed he hasn’t gone walkabout by now.”

“Kadar’s tough,” DuPree said.

I nodded. “I grew up around anthracite miners. They bitch and moan and talk the ear off their union rep, but there’s a pride in those guys. They ride on their backs into a hole a mile inside a mountain and know damned few could take it.”

I forced down another mouthful of string beans, waiting.

“Uh-huh,” Anderson said. “He jabbers our shift away, going on about how we need to form a union, show solidarity.”

I pushed at the potatoes with my fork, decided against it; there were limits.

“Yeah, we could just put down our tools and strike, but what good would that do?” DuPree said. “If we make the ship miss its tick we’d lose the goodwill of the whole damned country. You’d have to be really desperate to try something like that.”

Anderson glanced at her. “What’s the line in Bobby McGee? You know. Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

“Nuthin’, not nothing.”

He drained his cup and stood up. “Whatever. I got to take a leak and get out there or Posey will be down my throat so far she’ll see daylight out my butt.”

25 DECEMBER 1979

“Merry Christmas, Tom.”

The bright dot rose over the rim wall, farther to the east after the final adjustment to the orbital plane.

“Copy that, Laura. Have any presents for me?”

Garver was in a good mood. Six more days to launch and only one more icicle to be sent up. He would make his schedule.

“Work on the final piece of ice is underway,” I said. “And there’s time to do another if there’s a failure.”

“Music to my ears,” Garver said. “You’ve more than earned your prize. I’ll have you up here the day after launch and on your way to Earth shortly after that.”

“Uh huh.”

“You don’t sound excited,” he said.

“I am. It’s just—”

“You haven’t caught your man.”

“Yes. That’s it.”

“It doesn’t matter, Laura,” Garver said.

“Yes, it does!”

He changed the subject. “I’ve heard from Earth. Plans for the second Mars flight have been finalized. Construction will begin in ninety days. Launch in twenty-six months.”

He was getting excited. “It’s supposed to be faster, cut two months off the trip. The outbound leg will use hydrogen as a working fluid, bump engine efficiency to allow a bigger payload, including a lander this time. They’re going to hold a contest to name it.”

“As long as it isn’t Thumper. Will you build it?”

Garver cleared his throat. “They want a younger man next time.”

“What will you do?”

“I’m thinking about that.” He cleared his throat again. “You see the pickup from the telephoto camera we mounted for the launch?”

“I did.”

Selene Station was five miles from Odyssey in a following orbit. At a magnification of sixty the spacecraft appeared to be less than five hundred feet away. The orbital burn would be relayed live to Earth.

“It looks good,” I said. “But I’ll be with most of the crew in the bubble, watching naked-eye. Watching the crew as well.”

“No need.”

“The ship hasn’t launched yet, Tom. What did you find out about a rocket launch from down here?”

“There’s no danger.”

“Are you sure?”

“Damn it, there’s no danger! This conversation’s over.”

I stood, listening to static. He’d hung up on me.

31 DECEMBER 1979

Posey entered the west entrance locker room just as I lifted my helmet into place.

“Need some help?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said. “They claimed in training the suits are designed so a single person can dress herself, but I always struggle. It’s easier when you have a second pair of hands.”

Posey shrugged. “Everything’s easier if you don’t have to do it by yourself. That’s the manager’s motto.”

She stepped to a locker that held one of her four matching flowerpower-painted suits. She kept one at each airlock, along with a few plainwhite spares.

“Help me get into my suit first,” she said.

For a time we worked in silence, checking each other’s suit.

“Going out to watch the show?” I asked, as I slipped my head up into the helmet Zender held.

“Yes.”

The big fireworks display laid out at North Rim would be set off in less than two hours to mark the midnight launch of Odyssey. The first second of the first day of a new decade, to be forever celebrated as the moment Americans took their next step to the stars. Except for those nerds who insisted the decade would begin at 1981.

At least, that was the corporate line all the network news services pushed.

For the men and women at Rockefeller Base it marked a day more personal and important. Twenty-four hours away from work and a chance to party. Posey made a big deal out of it when she made the announcement at a mandatory meeting three days before.

“This is happening because of us,” she had said.

“Sure,” DuPree had hissed in my ear. “And next day we’ll all be back to work, good little drones pickin’ that cotton.”

“Did you hear me?” Posey asked. Her voice had taken on the hollow, mechanical sound of the suit radios.

“Sorry,” I said. “Interference. What did you say?”

“I said, I wouldn’t miss it. How about you? Why aren’t you already out there? Miss the trolley?”

“No. I figured to watch it on the television in the lounge, but the reception’s not very good.”

It was a lie.

I had planned all along to be close to the fireworks site but wanted to stop by the spot where I had hidden the case Garver gave to me. If I had to stop a last-minute assault, I’d would need a weapon and there was a gun in the case.

“There’s still plenty of time,” Posey said.

“How’s that?” I asked.

Posey tipped her helmet toward the glowing clock above the door. I looked, despite having a heads-up times display in her own helmet.

2240.

“We’ll take one of the loaders. One of the perks of being boss, travelling in comfort.”

“This can’t be right?” I said. “My heads-up says I’ve only got a quarter-tank of oxygen. I know I topped the tank when I came back in last work shift.”

Posey examined the gauges on the back of my life support pack. “I’ve got the same reading here. Everything looks okay. You must have forgotten.”

“No. That’s not possible. I’ve got to charge it.”

“No time,” Posey said. “Do it at the bubble. There’s spare tanks there and it’s only a fifteen-minute ride.”

“I don’t like doing that,” I said.

She set her own helmet into place. “Up to you, but if you want a ride—”

“Can I catch a ride, too?”

I turned toward the corridor entrance. The noises of the suits, the sounds of our voices and the worry over the low oxygen, had masked DuPree’s entrance.

“I don’t think—” Posey said.

DuPree already stood at her locker. She pulled her suit out and held it out to me.

“Help me with this, will you?” she asked.

“There may not be room,” Posey said.

I glanced at Posey. She looked like she had sucked on a lemon. “Come on, Posey,” DuPree said, as she scrambled into her pressure suit. “Don’t be a bitch. I won’t take up that much room. We’ll be fine.”

At last, Posey nodded. She scooped up her gear bag. “All right,” she said. “Hurry. I don’t want to be late.”

We rolled along the crater floor at six miles per hour, following the twin circles of light from the headlamps. Not exactly racing speeds, but twice as fast as they would have managed, walking in the bulky pressure suits and the rover’s electric motors could keep up that speed for hours.

DuPree drove, at Posey’s suggestion. I sat next to her and Posey stood behind us, gripping the seat backs. I couldn’t hear so much as a whine from the vehicle, but felt the steady vibrations from the big electric motors that drove each of the six drive wheels.

“I need to make a stop,” I said.

“For what?” Posey’s voice sounded more authoritative on the suit’s radio. Deeper and richer.

“Something for the party. It’s around to the left.”

“Hope it’s something good.” I heard the amusement and disdain in Posey’s voice.

She probably thinks we’re going to the still.

“Over at the far end,” I said, pointing. “Back by the west corner. I’ll tell you when we get close.”

DuPree turned the vehicle and accelerated.

On foot, the cache lay eight minutes from the west lock. We covered the distance in just under four.

“Stop here,” I said.

I clambered from the rover when it stopped. I’d done a good job on the cache, set it near a concrete piling, so it looked as if it were a piece of the superstructure.

The tricky part was kneeling in the pressure suit. I eased into place, went to one knee and tapped in the four-digit locking code. When I pulled the box open, the compressed-air pistol and the four flechette rounds it carried were gone.

I glanced toward the loader. Posey and DuPree were deep in conversation, not paying any attention to me or my empty junction box. I locked the lid and loped back to the rover.

I thought of growing up in Pikesville, running with my brother toward the family’s Ford Country Squire station wagon, racing for the privilege of sitting up front with Dad.

“Shotgun,” I muttered, sourly, as I climbed back in next to DuPree.

DuPree engaged the rover’s six electric motors, the vehicle rolled away from the array.

Posey leaned close. “The pantry empty?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“If you hid a bottle there it would have frozen and exploded. I thought you knew better by now.”

“Yeah, you nailed it,” I lied.

I couldn’t figure it. No one knew about the cache. Had I said something I shouldn’t have? Had Jake Kadar or Mitchell Anderson twigged to my investigation in some other way?

Somehow, I’d miscalculated, revealed my intentions and led someone to my hiding place.

I thought I’d been so careful, though.

Time to change my plans. Whoever took the flechette gun had to be the one who planned to strike at Odyssey before the Mars ship moved out of range. And he would be waiting for me somewhere, with four plastic flechette shells filled with dozens of tiny steel darts.

The rover bounced across a rough stretch of floor, a set of rills. I glanced up, uncertain where we were, and saw none of the landmarks I’d learned over the last five weeks.

“I thought we were headed for the bubble,” I said.

“I am,” Posey said. “You’re not.”

I turned as much as the pressure suit would allow, trying to look behind me.

“Sit still,” Posey snapped. “DuPree’s doing what I told her to do. You need to do that, too. I’ve got the fancy gun of yours pressed against your friend’s left shoulder.”

“What’s going on, Posey?” I asked.

There was a teasing tone to the other woman’s voice I’d never heard before.

“Maybe I’ll tell you,” she said. “Maybe I won’t. Sit still for now and shut up.”

When we stopped, my heads-up display read 2300. An hour left until the fireworks display began. Odyssey was passing over the south pole, warming up the reactors for the engines. I worried more about the oxygen gauges. I had less than ten minutes worth of air left. Something had to be done soon.

“Get out, Kerrigan,” Posey ordered.

“You can’t—”

“I said, ‘Get out!’”

I clambered from the Rover. I felt brief resistance and heard a short, brittle snap. Before I could turn back to the vehicle I heard a scrambling sound through the headphones that could only be two people struggling in pressure suits.

“Jesus!” DuPree sounded panicked. “Jesus! You can’t do that!”

I turned in time to see Posey clawing at DuPree’s life support pack. A cloud of white vapor steamed around DuPree’s helmet, as if it were a cold day on Earth and she was breathing hard. She twisted and turned beneath Posey, at a disadvantage because of her position. I stepped toward the rover.

“God damn you,” Posey screamed, waving the compressed-air gun toward me. “Stay where you are.”

DuPree scrambled across the passenger seat on her belly, wallowing in the heavy suit. She kicked at Posey’s hands, fell from the vehicle, catching herself with her gloved hands before her faceplate hit the regolith. She pushed, staggered onto her feet and stumbled toward me, went to her knees an arm’s length away.

“She opened my tanks!” DuPree’s voice sounded distant and hollow. “The bitch opened my tanks! Shut it down, Laura, shut it down!”

I reached to the controls, fumbled my first attempt, but them managed to return the valves to the proper position. I glanced at the gauges. DuPree had just a bit more than fifty minutes-worth of air.

“DuPree to Rockefeller control. We’re low on oxygen, about an hour out to the northwest. Send help stat. We need help now.”

No response. I glanced at DuPree’s suit. The radio antenna had been snapped in half. Posey’s handiwork.

“They’re not going to hear you.”

Posey stood on the passenger seat, the pistol pointed at DuPree and me. “There’s enough antenna left for up-close communication, but no one beyond a couple hundred yards can hear you.”

“Did you kill Leatherman?” I asked.

“Back away,” Posey said. “Back away or you die right now.”

I helped lever DuPree to her feet.

“Did you kill him?”

“I said, ‘back up.’”

The two of us shuffled backward until we were almost a hundred feet from the loader.

“Come on, Posey,” I said. “Tell me. I want to know before I die.”

Posey maneuvered into the driver’s seat. “I didn’t mean to. It was an accident, but no one will believe that now. Not after I stuffed him into the ice.”

“Why did you do it?”

“The bastard was coming on to me. Christ, it had been over two years since I’d been with a man. And then he used me. I caught him snooping in my employee records. I thought he was a union rep. We argued and I lost it. I pushed him back and he hit his head on the wall. Freaking newbie couldn’t handle the gravity. I got him into a suit and cut the leg to make it look like an accident.”

“And now you’re going to kill us.”

She began to roll away. “No. The two of you just went walkabout. It happens a lot up here.”

We watched her head off toward the observation bubble. DuPree turned to me before the vehicle disappeared.

“How much air to you have left?” she asked.

“Five, maybe six minutes. You?”

“Almost half an hour.”

“Swell. You might be able to make it back to base.”

“Not without you. You know how to do a two-person emergency air transfer?”

“Yeah. But even if we split what we’ve got, we don’t have enough air to make it to the base in fifteen minutes. And if Posey’s as smart as I know she is, we can’t make it to the bubble in that time, either.”

“Let’s get started on the transfer,” DuPree said. “We’re pushing the time needed, as it is.”

I turned to allow DuPree access to my life support pack. “But what good—”

DuPree interrupted. “You know that illegal still you’re always asking me about?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s no more than ten minutes’ hike away and I’ve got oxygen tanks there.”

DuPree had underestimated the distance to the still, either that or I was hyperventilating. My suit’s oxygen level indicator had dropped into the red by the time DuPree pointed to a small rounded mound. A buried sulfur concrete dome.

“There it is,” DuPree panted. “Told you we could make it.

There was no glass door, just the rotating lock. DuPree pointed that I should go first and it was no time to play Alfonse and Gaston. It still seemed to take forever before we were both inside.

We stood face to face, working each other’s helmet rings. At last, my seal popped and I could breathe. I finished removing DuPree’s helmet and leaned against a rough wall, sucking in breath after breath of oxygen.

The dome felt over-warm and the heady sour-mash scent of moonshine filled my nose. The dome wasn’t much larger than my quarters at the base habitat. Eight feet in diameter and filled with DuPree’s distillation equipment, it offered barely enough room for the two of us to stand, much less move. The dim light added to the sense of claustrophobia.

“Tight quarters,” I said.

“Yeah,” DuPree said. “But we’re alive. Come on. There’s more room below.”

“Below?”

DuPree tipped her head. I spotted a hole in the floor near the far sloping wall. I jockeyed around, twisting so that DuPree could move past me toward it. When DuPree started down the ladder, I followed. “Where did you get this place, Edie?”

“Lunar scrimshaw. I got off-hours work in return for a share of the ‘shine.” A small storage room lay below, down an obviously homemade ladder. Despite the metal shelves stacked full of supplies, the scavenged plastic barrels and the life-support equipment, there was enough space here to turn around without touching each other.

I pointed to the oxygen-charging port marked in vivid green. “Help me charge my suit, will you? I’m going after her.”

DuPree didn’t move. She studied me for a moment, her mouth set in a hard, straight line. “You’re still law, aren’t you?”

No more lies.

I shrugged. “I wasn’t when I came down here five weeks ago. I lost my badge, back on Earth. This job was the best I could line up.”

“And now?” DuPree asked.

“They offered me my badge back, just before I dropped from Selene Station, if I could find out who killed Leatherman.”

“That’s all?”

“I was supposed to stop the sabotage, too.”

“And now?”

“Got the word this morning I had my badge back, if I wanted it. I’m going to use it to arrest Zender. Jake Kadar, too, if he’s still alive. And I’m going to make sure there’s a trial, so everybody back on Earth sees what’s going on here.”

“Okay.”

DuPree fiddled with the oxygen fittings. I watched the dial as the marker began to move away from the big letter E.

The seconds ticked past. I watched the oxygen gauge climb toward full. The dome didn’t feel so over-warm, anymore. I listened to the ticks and hisses of my suit, the creaking of the dome’s equipment, and imagined what I might say to my father when this was over, if I still was alive, if I told him I wasn’t going to take back the badge.

“I thought you killed him,” I said, after a time.

“I figured as much,” DuPree said. “My old man always said I had that sort of face.”

“Your father?”

“Naw. My husband.

“You’re still married?”

“Uh huh, but you couldn’t prove it by that asshole. He went out for milk one night and didn’t even send back the change.”

I grunted once, almost a laugh. “It’s better that everybody knows what’s what here.”

“If you say so. I don’t figure it’ll make any difference.”

DuPree fiddled with the fittings again. I glanced at my heads-up display. My tanks were full.

“Help me with mine,” DuPree said. She turned her back to me.

I began to set the lines. “When you get back to the base—”

DuPree interrupted. “Hell with that,” she said. “I’m coming with you. Wouldn’t miss this for a ride to Mars.”

Down on Earth a billion people were looking up at the full moon. Gliding up its face from south to north Odyssey was visible only in the mind’s eye, approaching the moment its nuclear engines would ignite over the moon’s north pole.

The exhaust of the first fireworks rocket limned a fiery trail across the black void above North Rim. It exploded into an incandescent boll of rich green light that faded into nothingness.

“A waste of time and money,” DuPree muttered. “No one on Earth will be able to see anything with the naked eye.”

“There’ll be a lot of people out with telescopes,” I said. “And the cameras on Selene Station will pick it up. It’s all part of the celebration.”

“Part of the propaganda, don’t you mean. Lot of good a trip to Mars is going to do us. That senator from Massachusetts, the guy who ran against Nixon, has it right.”

“Kennedy?”

“Yeah, that’s the guy. He says we ought to be spending the money to do some good at home.”

“I suppose.”

I hadn’t ever really thought much about it while I wore a badge. I had left the politics to others and focused on my work. For all the good that did me.

It had taken us the better part of twenty minutes to hike from DuPree’s hidden still to North Rim. The fireworks began on the dot at 2350, just as we crested a small ridge. The vantage offered a spectacular view of the display area, as well as the plain below where the techs bustled about, overseeing the detonations.

Jake Kadar was down there somewhere.

My inclination was to head down into the bustle, figure out which one was Kadar when I got there. Whether or not Garver thought much of the notion of a rocket launch aimed at Odyssey, I was convinced that was what Kadar planned.

Even so, Posey most likely waited in the portable bubble set up beyond the fireworks. She was an admitted murderer, premeditated or not. By all the rules, I had to go after her first.

DuPree had already started for the bubble. She stopped and turned, when she realized I wasn’t with her.

“You okay?” she asked.

Even through the headset, I heard concern. DuPree didn’t know about the planned rocket launch, though. Or maybe she did. Just because she wasn’t responsible for Leatherman’s death, didn’t mean she wasn’t involved in a conspiracy against the Mars ship.

“Yeah,” I said. “Just fine.”

DuPree waved a gloved hand. “Come on then. Let’s get that bitch.”

The fireworks show continued as we hiked across the plain, each shot more intense and colorful, more crowded with launches than the one before.

The finale launched just as we reached the bubble. The dome looked like half a giant soap bubble anchored to a flat expanse of regolith at the edge of the crater rim, fifty feet across and twenty feet high at center.

Two doubled sheets of sixty-gauge clear polyvinyl chloride formed the structure, one giant bubble within another and separated by a six-inch air space. The airlock was sealed within a plastic sleeve.

Its walls offered a clear view, as wave after wave of rockets climbed into the void, leaving dissolving lines of colored fire behind. Then they blossomed, a fast-fading bouquet of multi-colored globes of fiery light.

And as the sky turned charcoal black again, a brilliant star rose over the southeastern horizon as Odyssey reached for the zenith as it had so many times before.

About ten degrees above the rim the point of light appeared to grow much brighter. Five minutes from the pole Odysseys engines fired, beginning the burn that would break it free from orbit and send it on its way to Mars.

Inside the clear bubble, the crowd of suited figures went wild. They might all be cynics, like DuPree, might think the Odyssey a work of hokum, but the sight of that star, that massive vehicle underway, a thing they helped make possible, stirred their souls.

The sounds of celebration filled my suit’s headset; we were close enough now for reception. I felt a shiver tiptoe up my spine. Only five weeks on the job, but I felt the need to cheer.

“Go. Go. Go.”

I helped make that happen.

“There!” DuPree breathed, pointing. “There she is.”

Sure enough. I spotted Posey’s distinctive pressure suit near the center of the clear plastic dome. Like the others, she had her back to us, to the pre-fab airlock, looking overhead.

DuPree grabbed at my arm, but before she took a single step toward the lock I glanced down into the maze of metal frames that had supported the launching tubes. The other workers were headed up the rim slope to the bubble, but a single suited figure remained below.

A skull-and-crossbones pattern. Jake Kadar.

As I watched, he raised a massive tube to his shoulder and pressed his helmet to a mechanism set at an angle atop the tube. It had to be the aiming sights. The tip of the tube traced ahead of the path of Odyssey across the heavens, then a gout of fire belched from the rear of the tube, and another rocket streaked into the sky.

“Jesus, what was that?” DuPree said.

There had been no cloud of dust, of course. The crew had cleared the floor of North Rim down to bare rock, but there still was reaction. Kadar rocked in place, buffeted by the blast, pulled off his feet but he didn’t fall.

“He anchored himself in place,” I said.

The man came prepared.

“Is that Kadar?” DuPree asked.

The rocket trail stretched toward where Odyssey would be in a few minutes.

“Looks that way,” I said. “He’s shooting at the ship. Let’s hope his aim was wrong.”

I wondered if Garver saw it, from his vantage point on Selene station, a dimmer star slowly separating from Odyssey. And I wondered if he still was unconcerned.

Finally, after what seemed eternity, though it couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds, the exhaust trail snuffed out. I began to count. As I reached forty-two a massive ball of white light appeared, more intense, more threatening than anything that had come before.

“Did he get his hands on an atom bomb?” I asked.

DuPree sounded excited. “That wasn’t an a-bomb.”

“You knew about it?”

“No. It wasn’t nearly bright enough. You’d have been blind now if it was.”

“Jake wanted to destroy Odyssey. “

“I don’t believe it. He helped build the damned thing, why would he want to blow it up? Besides, that bit of pyrotechnics went off at least thirty miles below the ship. Either someone miscalculated—”

“—or it was a scare tactic.” I looked up again. Odyssey was almost directly overhead. Normally it would begin to move toward the northern horizon, blinking out as it moved into the moon’s shadow. But it was falling slower, and yet slower, as it moved out of orbit, picking up steam.

There was a voice on the radio, the ship commander. “All systems nominal.”

“Damn,” I said. Too much was going on at once.

DuPree pointed. “Jake’s on his way up here now. Bet he wants to turn himself in. Bet he wants to be arrested, get some attention. Somebody’s got to talk about conditions here.”

“I’m not worried about him,” I said. “Watching Kadar, I forgot about Posey.” DuPree turned toward the dome. Most of the folks inside still watched Odyssey. Some were high-fiving and slapping each other on the back. A happy babble filled my headphones. But Posey Zender, her suit painting unmistakable, stood with her back to the others, her attention riveted on me and DuPree.

“Stay out here,” I said. “She’s got my gun.”

“To hell with that. I want a piece of her.”

And DuPree hurried after me toward the lock.

The crowd turned as I swept through the air lock. Thick interlocking rubber mats covered the floor. Electric heaters sat at the cardinal compass points. A head-high screen hid the sanitation units. Someone had stenciled a crescent half-moon upon the screen.

A portable air generator, identical to the unit in DuPree’s distillery, sat near the airlock. Power for the lights and all the equipment fed from a cable leading back to a junction box below the solar arrays near the habitat. Nothing fancy. Still it was cozy and the four heaters, along with all the people in the bubble, kept it comfortable.

At first glance, the image of a herd of pregnant aliens popped into my head. The gathered technicians and miners still wore pressure suits, but had removed their helmets and clipped them to their suit fronts on quick-release rings.

Behind me, the air lock whooshed and the dome’s plastic surface rippled, as DuPree came in. Posey took a step back and pulled the air pistol from a suit pouch at her hip.

“She’s got a gun,” someone shouted. “Posey’s got a gun.”

The crowd pushed back even more, those in the outer edges pressed against the flexible walls.

“Fancy seeing you two here,” Posey said. “I didn’t think you would be by.”

“Put down the gun, Posey,” someone suggested.

“Where did she get a gun?” someone else asked.

I eased toward Posey. “If you fire that in here and miss, you’ll open up the bubble. A lot of people could die.”

“Everyone put on your helmets,” Posey said.

“She tried to kill us,” DuPree said.

The crowd rumbled even louder. DuPree ignored them, moved forward, too, but eased away from me. I waved her on. If we made it difficult for Posey to see both of us at once, we might stand a chance of disarming her.

“Don’t listen to her,” Posey shouted. “They both want me dead.”

Technicians and miners alike glanced back and forth between us. Some people had already slipped on and sealed their helmets, but most stood waiting, helmets in hand.

“Who are you going to believe?” DuPree demanded. “Me or Posey Zender?”

I shuffled to the left, adding distance between her and DuPree. Posey made a choice and turned with me. The crowd rotated with us, looking like a bunch of extras in some old Keystone comedy.

“What’s going on?” someone asked.

“Posey killed Leatherman,” I said.

“I thought that was an accident.”

So everybody knew after all.

“It was Posey,” DuPree said. “And an hour ago she tried to kill me and Kerrigan, drained our tanks and left us to die afoot.”

“I have it all on tape,” I said.

I didn’t, but Posey didn’t know that. Maybe it would stir the pot.

It worked. She pointed the pistol straight up.

“Get your helmets on,” she shouted. “I’m going to fire on the dome in ten seconds.”

“You’ll die without a helmet, Posey.”

“What’s the difference? Dying here or rotting in some jail on Earth. I think I’ll do it right now.”

The airlock whooshed. The bubble quivered as it gulped the bit of vacuum brought in by the lock.

“All right, I did it,” Kadar radioed. “I tried to shoot down the Mars ship. Chain me up and ship me back to Earth.”

Everybody looked, even Posey, and DuPree jumped. She soared across the bubble, grabbed Posey’s upstretched arm and pushed it toward the floor. I barely heard the chuff of the pistol discharging. The flechette dart bit into the rubber inches from my right boot. It remained intact.

Posey and DuPree were buried in a mound of squirming, pressure-suited people, wrestling for a chance to get at Posey and none of them very happy at the moment. I had never had so many impromptu enthusiastic deputies.

The point of light had passed to the north, but now instead of falling back down the sky it dropped more slowly. Soon it was almost stationary, receding on a line directly away from the viewers on the lunar surface.

The dot went dim as the first engine burn finished. Odyssey had embarked on its long ellipse to the fourth planet from the Sun.

Posey lay pinned to the floor. I ducked to pick up the gun, then turned and gave DuPree a thumbs-up.

“Hey!” Jake Kadar pulled off his helmet. “What about me? Who’s going to arrest me?”

1 JANUARY 1980

I sat at the base radio when Selene Station rose over the horizon. It had been six hours since Odyssey pulled out of orbit. By now the crew would be busy mothballing the NERVA reactors, getting the craft into cruise mode. The Rockefeller staff was scattered about the base, in groups of one or two or more, celebrating the launch in the manner they preferred, including DuPree’s excellent distillate.

Except for two burly miners.

They’d volunteered and I’d deputized them to ride with the shackled Anderson, Zender and Kadar on a truck ride up to Selene Station. Kadar had babbled before they left about how Anderson had convinced him that trying to shoot the ship down would get him charged and sent back to Earth for trial.

Jake would get his wish.

For the moment I was alone. I fidgeted, wishing I didn’t have to wait to talk to Garver. I decided we’d need some sort of relay satellites. This waiting for line of sight stuff grew old.

There was a burp of static. “Rockefeller, Selene Station.”

“Congratulations, Tom,” I said into the mike.

“Good job to you, too, Laura,” he replied.

“Yeah.” I looked at the wall, thinking about the dark and the cold beyond. It didn’t bother me so much, anymore.

“Thought you’d like to know,” Garver said. “Anderson’s spilling his guts. He’s a fink for TLC. They sent him up here to stage an incident to make the base staff look bad, turn public opinion again the workers. Kadar’s a patsy, a desperate man, no more than that.”

I nodded. I hoped Jake got off lightly.

“That little scheme backfired,” Garver said. “There are already calls for a Congressional investigation.”

“You think it’ll do any good?”

“I think so. Senator Goldwater from Arizona said something about not binding the mouths of the kine who tread the grain.”

“That’s good to hear,” I said.

“Get things cleaned up down there soon as you can. I need some kind of report ASAP. I don’t want to have today mucked up by a few pencil-pushers crying for their paperwork.”

“Everything’s under control. I’ll scribble something and have it up to you by 1400.”

I heard him sigh. He had to be as tired as I was, ready for an uninterrupted nap.

“Another truck will be down next time around,” he said. “I can have you on a tug for LEO in twelve hours. You’re priority, Laura, a small celebrity. The woman who saved the Mars mission and all that.”

I closed my eyes. In my mind I saw the shining star pass overhead, rising up from the stark rim of this new world toward another one and not falling down again. I smelled the ever-present dust and hint of ozone, considered the place around me that would kill me in a moment if I made a mistake. I thought of radiation and vacuum and the cold, the cold the most.

And I recalled the way we all cheered Odysseys departure.

“Thanks,” I said. “I won’t need it.”

“What’s that?”

“I think I want to stay, be here when the ship gets back. There’s a lot of work to be done in the meantime, lots of opportunity, getting ready for the second launch.”

“Someone else can do it.”

«T »

“I suppose.”

“But—”

Earth was far away and long ago. “But the base staff voted to form a union. United Workers of Luna, Local 1. They invited me to be president.”

I heard a grunt, then a soft chuckle. “What are your plans, Madam President?”

“Hey.” DuPree stood at the open door, smiling and holding two glasses of red liquid.

I sat up straight. “Tom, I plan to have a taste of genuine moonshine. After that I’ll play it out by ear.”

“Save some for me, will you?” he said.

“Say again?”

“Save a glass for me. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

“Say again?”

This time the chuckle was full-out loud.

“If you’re not coming up, I’m coming down. I can just catch that next truck If I hurry.”

“Why?” I asked.

“You might need a backup, someone older with some sense.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m sixty-six years old, Laura. They’ve already told me I’ll never ramrod another job, let alone one like this. I can go home to sit and rot. I’m not even sure I could get a consulting gig at some aerospace company. Like you said, there’s opportunity down there. Besides, if I don’t give it a shot my old man’s ghost will never stop bugging me.”

“Well, hell, come on down.

Garver spoke again. “How does the old song go? You’ll get pie in the sky when you die. Bullshit. I’m in the sky and I’m not dead yet. This could be a lot of fun.”

“You’re crazier than I am,” I said.

“Downright moonstruck. Need a shop steward?”

“No.” I said. “We need a union president. If this is going to work we need someone with more clout than me. Someone just like you.”

“What makes you think the crew would accept me?”

“Come on down and we’ll make your case,” I said.

“Okay, I’ll give it a go. But then what about you?”

I smiled to myself. “Every town needs a sheriff.”

In my mind’s eye I saw Garver nodding.

“I like that notion,” he said. “For now, Selene Station out.”

I slipped off the headset, thinking of how another old tune my mother used to sing got the message wrong. The best things in life aren’t always free, but if I had my way, the Moon would belong to everyone.