::: EIGHTEEN

The Moontown Scrapes told the news. The murdering crowhopper, tried and convicted, was sentenced to a dust walk. For the edification of newbies in town, the paper described what a dust walk for the crowhopper would be like. After a reading of the charges and the sentence, the felon would be shoved outside a dustlock wearing an old pressure suit and an hour’s worth of air in its pack. All hatches would be locked for the next hour. The creature’s choices would be few. It could strike out across the dust in an attempt to find shelter before its air ran out, or it could sit quietly until it died of asphyxiation. Of the two Moontown men and one woman, all three convicted murderers, who’d been sent on a dust walk, one of the men had gone wandering, his body later found in the dust less than a mile away. The other man, within minutes of being put outside, had pulled the latch loose on his helmet. The woman chose to sit outside the dustlock and keep breathing until she ran out of air. No one, in all the history of the moon, had ever survived a dust walk.

Crater read the article in the jumpcar hangar office. He tossed his reader down and went out on the mooncrete floor where the jumpcar sat, held in a vertical hardstand. The jumpcar had been hauled into the pressurized hangar for a series of required tests. Riley had the engine hatch open and was monitoring the spark in the igniters. For a long second, he admired the jumpcar that he had come to love. Then he shook his head and allowed a sigh. “If anybody needs me,” he said, “I’ll be at the Colonel’s office.”

“Yes, sir,” Riley said. “And when will ye be back now?”

“As soon as I can.”

“Is it your creature, sir?”

“Her name is Crescent.”

“Sorry, sir. Is it Crescent, then?”

“Yes.”

“’Tis a terrible unfair thing. Just me opinion, of course.”

“Well, you’re right, Riley, but thank you.”

“If I can do something to help, just tell me.”

“I will, thank you,” Crater said, then pushed through the hatch into the main tube and headed for the Colonel’s suite of offices. He had no choice but to confront the Colonel. If anybody could relax his own rules, it was the dictator of Moontown.

The Colonel had a new receptionist, a doe-eyed brunette from Hong Kong. “Do you have an appointment, sir?” she asked, her voice sweet as biovat honey. Crater ignored her and threw open the Colonel’s massive door. The Colonel looked up as Crater walked in. After a moment of confusion, he said, “I don’t recall asking my pilot to appear in front of me. What do you want?”

“Mercy for Crescent.”

“Your murdering creature?”

“She’s a young woman, Colonel, and she’s innocent.”

“A crowhopper is not human,” the Colonel said. “As for her innocence, she murdered one of my deputies.”

“If she killed him, she had just cause.”

“If she killed him, she must be punished no matter why she did it. That is my rule.”

Crater glanced at the placard on the Colonel’s desk that read “De inimico non loquaris sed cogites,” which meant “Do not wish ill for your enemy. Plan it.” “There are extenuating circumstances in this case, Colonel. For one, there was Phenolune in Crescent’s system. For another—”

The Colonel cut him off. “I stopped listening at ‘extenuating circumstances.’ Lawyerly talk is forbidden in Moontown, as you well know. Say what you mean, mean what you say. But let me say it for you. Deputy Jones was a vicious knave, worse than even you know, who deserved killing. Your creature accomplished a good thing in ridding Moontown of him. However, I can’t let it wander my tubeways after it has killed. Think how frightened our tubewives and tubehusbands would be for their children.”

“Sir, if you will spare her,” Crater said, “I will go to every manjack and womanjill in Moontown and promise them Crescent will be under my personal control at all times.”

The Colonel was unmoved. “I’m sure you’re sincere, Crater, but no. It was tried, convicted, and sentenced, all properly done.”

“I would be willing to make a trade for her life, sir.”

The Colonel raised his eyebrows. “And what could you possibly have that would be worthy of such a trade?”

“My invention for gathering water from moon dust.”

“Interesting. I thought it wasn’t ready.”

“It’s not. But it’s all I have.”

The Colonel shook his head. “You don’t have it. I do. Anything built in one of my labs belongs to me. Everyone who works in Moontown signs a contract. You did too, when you started working on the scrapes. What were you? Twelve? No matter. There’s nothing you’ve done in that lab I don’t know about. As for your safe, the sheriff picked its lock within a week of you building it. It pleases me to let you work on your invention, but if you stopped, I’d put my best engineers on it.”

“You would steal my invention?”

“I just told you it’s mine, not yours.”

Crater tried a different tack. “What if I proved Crescent didn’t kill the deputy? That somebody else did?”

“How do you propose to do that?”

“I will look for evidence.”

“Evidence is lawyerly talk.”

“Can’t you bend just once in your life?”

The Colonel made a long ponder of Crater, then grunted and shook his head. “I can see you’re not going to be happy until I give a little in this matter. Never it let be said that Colonel John H. E. Medaris lets his employees go around being unhappy. Go find your evidence, if it exists, and I will consider it. You have a week. Now, go away. I have work to do and so do you.”

It was as good a deal as Crater was likely to get. Before the Colonel could change his mind, he left. The Colonel soon followed him, strolling out into the anteroom. “Abigail, that boy is going to drive me crazy someday.”

“He seems like a nice boy, sir.”

“That’s his entire problem,” the Colonel said. “And yours too. Before Crater ever got close to my door, you should have tackled him. I hope you enjoy your new job as a company store clerk.”