Paul was thinking how different everything looked from the driver’s seat of the tractor. The barren landscape rolled by not without jounces and bumps, but it was sure easier than walking. The tractor was a small one, without an enclosec cab. He had to keep his suit buttoned up against the vacuum But it beat walking by about a thousand lightyears.
Up ahead he could see the tired old mountains of the Alphonsus ringwall rising to meet him. Too far away to make out the winding ruts that marked Wodjohowitcz Pass, but he’d be there soon enough. The thought of Wojo and Tink tore at his memory. He’ll pay for what he did, Paul promised himself. He’ll pay if I have to kill him myself. He could feel the muscles of his jaw and neck tense. Whose side is Joanna going to take? Paul knew the answer. She’ll protect the kidl all she can.
Some kid. He’s a homicidal maniac.
The sudden shrill alarm in his helmet earphones startled him. Looking down at his forearm display he saw a red light blinking. Oxygen supply critical.
How the hell can that be? I topped off the tank before I left Tempo 19.
More annoyed than afraid, Paul followed the standard practice and plugged his auxiliary oxygen line into the tractor’s standby tank. The shrilling in his earphones stopped.
What the hell happened to my backpack tank? he wondered. Or is it just a sensor crapped out?
He kept his real fear buried deep in the back of his mind. He knew it was there, knew what it was, but he didn’t want to face it, deal with it, admit that it even existed.
For nearly half an hour he continued riding along the bleak, pockmarked plain. The ringwall mountains were really looming before him now. He could see the notch where they had come across on their way out.
The tractor’s oxygen supply was okay, he saw with a glance at the control panel. He reached around with one hand to check the hose, from his backpack tank. Maybe it came loose, all the bangin’ around I did out there.
The plastic hose fell apart in his gloved hand. Paul felt it crumble, breaking into pieces at his touch.
He pulled his hand back as if it had been scalded. A ragged chunk of plastic was in the palm of his glove, part of the oxygen hose.
It can’t be the bugs, he told himself. I didn’t touch anything that was infected. Besides, we’re still in daylight; it’s too pissin’ hot for the bugs to work.
Yet his insides trembled and burned.
What else could make a hose fall apart like that? Gotta be the bugs. Desperately, Paul tried to remember if he touched Wojo or anything out there when Wojo was cussing over the infected tractor. What difference does it make? he raged at himself. You’re either infected with ’em or you’re not.
How to tell?
He reached back again and pulled off another chunk of the plastic hose, about the size of his palm. Keeping one hand on the steering lever, he placed this new chunk of hosing on his thigh, alongside the first piece. They were roughly the same size. Satisfied, Paul placed the new piece atop the dashboard, in full sunlight. The first piece he tossed to the floor of the cab, deep in shadow.
Now we’ll see.
Paul had to gear down the tractor as it began climbing the laborious winding trail that threaded through the ringwall mountains. The rounded, worn peaks averaged about ten thousand feet, but the trail notched through at least a thousand feet lower. Paul could see the tracks in the dust left by previous tractors. Like those old pidneer trails across the prairie, he thought. A hundred years later you could still see the ruts their wagons made in the ground.
Someday we’ll h|ve a monorail system to cross the ringwall, he told himself. Ormaybe we’ll tunnel right through the mountains. Connect the crater floor with Mare Nubium. Someday.
For now, he had to steer the tractor slowly, carefully, up the gentle mountain slope. His tracks of earlier trips faded at the higher elevation, where there was little dust to register them. The rock surface was bare and slick here, almost glassy. Paul geared down again to maintain traction.
It took more than an hour, but at last he reached the crest of the mountains. Peering over the front of his tractor, Paul could see the cluster of humps in the crater’s floor that marked the buried shelters of Moonbase.
Automatically he pressed down the accelerator. The tractor surged forward. But then Paul looked down on the floor at the piece of hosing lying in the cold shade.
He stomped on the brake. The tractor slewed slightly as it ground to a stop. With trembling hands Paul reached down and picked up the scrap of plastic. He placed it alongside the other piece, still in sunlight on the dashboard.
The piece from the floor was less than half its original size.
They’re here! In the tractor!
He leaned down and pawed at his dust-caked leggings. The outer fabric of his surface suit was already eaten through. His boots, too. Paul could see the metal mesh layer that underlay the fabric.
They can’t get through the metal if they’re designed to eat carbon molecules, he told himself. Yeah? They got through the metal in Wojo’s suit Must be different kinds. Different kinds.
He wanted to run. He felt unclean, infected, his skin crawling and his heart pounding so loud he could hear it in his helmet earphones.
And suddenly the enormity of it hit him. I’m going to die! Even if I get to Moonbase, I’ll just be carrying the damned bugs with me. They’ll infect the whole base, tear apart everything. Kill everybody.
That’s what Greg’s been after, all along! Not just me, but everything I stand for. He wants to wipe out Moonbase altogether!
Paul sat there inside his failing suit, blinking at the vision of Moonbase, everything he had worked for, everything he wanted, being utterly destroyed.
Strangely, the realization calmed him. He knew what he had to do now. There were no other options, no excuses, no escape clauses. It was finished.
At least I’m close enough to reach them with the suit radio, he thought.
Jinny Anson was at the communications desk when he called in.
“We’ll send a team up to get you!” she said when Paul told her where he was.
“No!” he snapped. “I’m infested with nanobugs and you can’t run the risk of bringing them into the base. They’ll kill all of you.”
“But what can we do? We can’t just leave you out there. “You’ll…’ Jinny’s normally chipper voice faltered, went silent.
“It’s too late to do anything for me. Call Kris Cardenas in the San Jose division and get her to come up here and personally lead a decontamination team to clean up this mess.”
“But what about you?”
Paul said, “Get my wife on the line for me. Private link. No eavesdropping.”
Paul could not see Joanna’s face, but he pictured it in his mind. She was beautiful. Whether she loved him or not didn’t matter now. Whether she placed Greg before her husband didn’t matter, either. Not any more.
“Where are you, Paul?” her voice asked. “Why can’t we establish a visual?”
“I’m out in a tractor, at the summit of the ringwall.”
He waited for her reply. “You’re on your way back to the base, then?”
“I was,” Paul answered. “BurI’m not going to make it”
The three seconds stretched, sketched. Then, “What do you mean? What are you talking about? How long can you stay outside?”
“For the rest of my life,” he said. “The nanobugs are in my suit. They stopped their activity while I was in sunshine, it was too hot for them. But they must’ve chomped away on my suit while I was in the tempo and I can’t bring them into the base; they’ll eat up everything.”
Joanna was already talking before he finished, “You can’t just stay out there until you run out of air! They’ve got to get you, save you!”
“There’s no way to do that,” Paul said. “If I go down to the base I’ll be killing everybody there.”
“No, Paul! No!”
“Listen to me. Be quiet and listen!” he shouted into his helmet microphone. “It’s all up to you, now. You’ve got to keep it all together. Don’t let them shut down Moonbase because of this. This isn’t an accident; we both know that. Don’t let Greg or anybody else use this as an excuse to shut down Moonbase.”
He waited for her response. “I understand,” Joanna said at last. From the sound of her voice, she was fighting for self-control. I’ll… take care of everything.”
“Good,” he said, feeling suddenly bone-weary, exhausted physically, emotionally.
“Paul, isn’t there anything…?”
“I wish there was. I didn’t want it to end like this.”
That long wait again. Then, “I love you, Paul. I love you.” Joanna broke into sobs.
“I love you too, Jo. I guess you’re the only woman I’ve ever really loved.”
Instead of waiting for more from her, Paul snapped off his radio. No sense dragging it out, he said to himself. We’ve said all we have to say. There’s nothing left for either of us now but pain.
He got up from the tractor seat and clambered down to the ground. Walking to the edge of the narrow trail he looked down once again at the pitiful heaps of rubble that marked Moonbase.
Like Moses on the pissin’ mountain, Paul thought. I can see the promised land but I’ll never get to live in it.
He thought again of what Moonbase could become, someday. He saw a future that beckoned, with humankind spreading across this new frontier and heading outward for new worlds. A future that would never happen if Moonbase was destroyed.
Paul sighed. “If it is to be,” he said softly, “it’s up to me.”
With a sudden, quick move he yanked open the visor of his helmet.