You know what's the worst thing about wearing a moonsuit?
It's not the weight. Although Ranger gear was a little less bulky than the standard-issue pressure suit I'd worn while earning EVA certification in Basic Lunar Skills, nevertheless it weighed 250 pounds. That was on Earth, though, where it had been made; on the Moon, it was only about 42 pounds...still more than I was used to wearing, but not so much that it felt as if I was going to collapse at any minute.
Nor is it the fact that you're breathing reprocessed air that tastes like it's being fed through an engine filter, or the subtle background hum of the internal electrical system. You get used to these things after a while. It's not even the hassle of putting the thing on. Since the suit is one piece except for the helmet, this involves shimmying feet-first through a small opening behind the hinged life-support pack, then wiggling around until your arms and legs are in the right place. Imagine doing a limbo dance while climbing into a hanging bag and you get the general idea.
Some people say that the biggest nuisance is not being able to scratch your nose through your helmet faceplate, but it wasn't long before I found a solution to that little problem; I'd ignore the itch and think about something else, and pretty soon it would go away. Mind over matter, that's all.
No. The worst thing about wearing a moonsuit is discovering that it can talk to you.
"Hello," my suit said to me the first time I put it on. "My name is Arthur. Pleased to meet you."
The voice that came through the padded earphones of my communications carrier--sometimes called a bonnet, although no one actually used that term--had a clipped British accent that sounded like it belonged to a London college professor.
I didn't realize at first that the suit was talking to me. Peering through the helmet's wraparound faceplate, I looked around Airlock 7's ready-room. Four Rangers--Nicole, Greg Thomas, Mr. Garcia, and my fellow "provo," Logan--were also getting into their moonsuits, aided by a number of suit technicians. None of them were paying much attention to what I was doing, though, and the person who'd spoken to me clearly wasn't the young woman who'd just latched my helmet in place.
"Excuse me?" I said, searching for the voice's phantom source.
"Not me," my suit tech replied, her voice muffled even though she stood directly in front of me. When I shook my head, she tapped a finger against her ear prong. "Turn on your comlink."
I reached for the row of recessed buttons in the suit's left wrist. It took me a second to remember which one activated the communications system. "I heard someone," I said once the suit tech and I could hear each other. "Some guy who says his name is Arthur."
"That's me," Arthur said.
I looked around again, still trying to figure who was speaking. The suit tech grinned; to my left, Nicole and Mr. Garcia shared her amusement. "No, no Arthur here," the technician replied, making an exaggerated effort to search the ready-room as well. "You sure you're not hallucinating?"
"No, I heard him." I was beginning to get annoyed. "Is this some kind of trick?"
"It's not a trick, I assure you." Arthur's voice was patient, endlessly forgiving. "You put me on, and I decided it was time to introduce myself. May I ask your name, please?"
"Jamey...Jamey Barlowe."
"Pleased to meet you, Jamey."
I was about to reply when Mr. Garcia's voice cut in. "That's your suit's associate speaking to you, Jamey. Its personality subroutine is programmed to emulate Sir Arthur C. Clarke, a science fiction author of the 20th century. I requested that this particular suit be assigned to you because Arthur is good with beginners."
Now I understood. My suit was much like my mobil back home; it contained a voice-activated comp that could respond to me much as a living person would, taking instructions given to it in plain English. Not a true artificial intelligence, but rather a clever facsimile. The EVA gear I'd worn during basic training and certification didn't have this feature, but that was because it was the simplified type used by tourists and other people who weren't professional moonwalkers. The moonsuits worn by Lunar Search and Rescue were much more sophisticated, though, so naturally they would have advanced comps.
"Glad to meet you, too, Arthur," I said, feeling rather self-conscious about the whole thing. In all the years I'd ridden my mobil, never once had I felt compelled to give it a name. "Umm...wait a minute. Mr. Garcia, what should I do now?"
A dry chuckle. "Well, you could always ask him to tell you a story. 'The Nine Billion Names of God' is good. But if you'd like to get on with training, then I'd suggest that you ask him how to prepare to exit the airlock."
"Oh...okay." The suit tech had already stepped around behind me. I felt the rear hatch slam shut, followed by a double-beep signaling that the life-support pack had automatically powered up. If I didn't do something about the air very soon, though, I'd start to suffocate. "Arthur, please begin pressurization."
"Certainly, Jamey." A faint hiss, then cool air entered the helmet. "Incidentally, any time you'd like to have me tell you a story, please let me know. I have many I'm sure you'd enjoy."
"Another time, thanks." The suit tech was watching to see what I'd do next, so I followed protocol. "Show me the checklist," I said, and a second later a translucent display appeared on the inside of the faceplate, showing all the suit's major functions.
As I began to run down the checklist, I couldn't help but look over at Logan and Nicole. One of the first rules of moonwalking is that the buddy system was always observed; no one goes outside without a partner. For this training exercise, Logan and I were partnered with two Rangers Second Class, with the Chief Ranger coming along as our instructor. Logan had asked Nicole if she'd buddy-up with him...and, of course, she'd immediately accepted. I didn't mind partnering with Greg. He was a good guy. But he wasn't Nicole.
Again, I wondered why Logan had decided to join Rangers at the same time I did. A few hours after I was shown Jan's message, it appeared on Apollo's newsnet. As Mr. Porter promised, it had been edited to leave out the personal stuff at the beginning. Nonetheless, it was strange to see my sister appear within the Laglers' holo tank, life-size and looking as if she'd been teleported to their living room. Logan was one of the many people who heard what Jan had to say...and the very next day, when I went down to Lunar Search and Rescue to formally volunteer, I was stunned to find him sitting in Mr. Garcia's office.
Logan told me later that he'd decided to join the Rangers after he'd heard Jan's message, and I didn't doubt that this was true. His reasons were the same as my own: if the fight was coming our way, neither of us wanted to be left out.
This was something Melissa didn't understand. That's not why Dad sent us here! she'd yelled at me when I told her of my intent to join the Rangers. We're supposed to stay out of trouble, not get into it! At least Logan didn't have to deal with a bratty big sister; I told mine that I was doing what I thought was right, and if she didn't like it she could jump out an airlock. Still, it was nice to know that she actually cared about what might happen to her little brother. Melissa wasn't MeeMee all the time, even if she sometimes came off that way.
Mr. and Ms. Lagler were a little reluctant--Ms. Lagler didn't like having me put myself in harm's way, and Mr. Lagler reminded me that I would still be responsible for my schoolwork--but they knew why I wanted to do this and gave their consent.
So did Dr. Ernsting when Logan came to him...but why hadn't he talked to me, too? That stung a bit. In the old days, we used to discuss important stuff like this. Logan was my best friend, but lately I'd begun to wonder if he still felt the same way about me. He'd been spending more time with Nicole than with me, and I eventually found out that, when the notion to join the Rangers first occurred to him, he'd called Nicole instead.
I tried to push all that from my mind. This was the fourth time I was going for a moonwalk, but only my first as Ranger trainee. Once Logan and I signed up for Lunar Search and Rescue, Mr. Garcia made sure that he and I were fast-tracked through Basic so that we could get our EVA certification as soon as possible. I'd never again touch a broom; from now on, my sole Colony Service obligation would be to be making it through Ranger training.
So now I was a Ranger Third Class, Provisional. The "provisional" meant that I could be washed out of Lunar Search and Rescue at any time. That was why Logan and I were called "provos." So far, I hadn't been thrown anything that I couldn't handle, but my first two weeks of training had mainly consisted of classroom work and demonstrations. Intense, yes, but nothing that could break me. Today was different. If I couldn't demonstrate that I knew how to handle a moonsuit, I might as well start hunting dust-bunnies again.
The checklist was easy. There were only a couple of minor glitches, and Arthur fixed both of them almost as soon as it--or rather, he--highlighted them on the heads-up display. I was ready to go at the same time as everyone else was. The suit techs gave each other the thumbs-up, and then Mr. Garcia came back on the comlink again.
"Okay, com check," he said. "Barlowe."
"Here," I said.
"Doyle."
"Here," Nicole said.
"Marguiles."
"Here," Logan said.
"Thomas."
"Here," Greg said.
"Very good. We're ready to go."
Mr. Garcia stepped forward from the rack, which had held his suit upright while he put it on, and gestured to the technician standing near the airlock's inner hatch. The tech pulled open the heavy door and the five of us trooped into a windowless compartment with a low ceiling and a tiger-striped hatch on the other side. The suit was easier to walk around in than I expected, but it still felt like I was wearing five layers of winter clothes.
The inner hatch slammed shut behind us, and then we stood in a circle and watched as an LED lamp in the ceiling went from green to orange to red, signaling that the air was being pumped out of the compartment. Our helmets hadn't polarized, so I could see everyone's faces. Logan was taking this very seriously--I'd seen that determined look before, when we were getting set for a 50-meter relay race with another swim team--but Nicole was all grins. When she glanced in my direction, I forced myself to smile back at her. Apparently I didn't convince her that I was confident enough to do this, because she shook her head within her helmet.
"Don't worry, Jamey," she said. "This will be easy. Just like paragliding."
I restrained a groan. My paragliding experience was something I would have preferred to forget. "Sure, okay..."
"Just don't run into me this time," Logan added, glaring at me in a meaningful way. Nicole laughed, but he wasn't kidding and I knew it. He still hadn't forgiven me for our near-collision a couple of weeks earlier. I'd tried apologizing, but he had accepted it with only a cold and distant nod.
What was wrong with him? I didn't know. And he wasn't letting me find out.
"I'm detecting a slight increase in heartbeat and respiration," Arthur said. "You need to calm down, Jamey."
I hoped the others hadn't heard this. When no one reacted, I realized that my suit's voice was for my ears alone. "Thanks, Arthur," I said, and took a few slow, deep breaths. "Better now?"
"You're doing fine. No reason to be nervous. I'll always be here to help you."
I knew Arthur was only a comp masquerading as a human being. Nevertheless, I found that reassuring.
The outer doors opened silently, revealing a long ramp leading up toward the surface. With Mr. Garcia in the lead, we slowly trudged up it, obeying the sign on the wall that read DO NOT JUMP. We came out of the crater's subsurface levels to find ourselves on Apollo's east side. On the right were vehicle ramps leading to the underground garage. Directly ahead, just past the reflector ring, was Collins Avenue, the landing fields visible a couple of miles away. I turned around to look behind me and saw the crater wall looming above us, its windows gleaming like rows of Christmas lights.
It was midnight in Ptolemaeus, which meant that the Moon presently lay between Earth and the Sun. However, although the Moon couldn't be seen from Earth, the same wasn't true for Earth as seen from the Moon. It was almost directly above us in the black sky, a white-flecked blue and green sphere that cast a wan glow across the dark grey basin and turned the distant mountains into lumps of melted lead. There wasn't enough earthlight to illuminate Apollo, so floodlights scattered around the crater's periphery had been switched on. Nonetheless, there were more shadows than light, and those shadows were dark enough to swallow us whole if we stepped into them.
Mr. Garcia led us past the reflector ring and across Collins Avenue until we came to a vacant patch of land between the north landing field and the solar farm. He stopped and turned to us.
"Okay, Rangers...go play."
For a moment, no one said anything. Then Logan spoke up. "Pardon me, sir?"
"I mean it. For the next twenty minutes or so, have fun. Hop around, play tag, build a sand castle, whatever you want to do. Especially you provos."
I was confused, too. We'd been told that this was going to be a training exercise. Instead, the Chief Ranger was treating us as if we were children being let out for recess. "Do we get grape juice and a nap when we're done?" I asked.
Mr. Garcia laughed. "Sure, if you want. But right now, I want you and Logan to get used to wearing your suits, particularly in low-light conditions. If you're going to hurt yourselves doing something stupid, it might as well be here and now, when we can quickly pull you inside. So go have fun, and when we're done here, we'll separate into teams for the next exercise."
That made sense, so Greg and I went off in one direction while Logan and Nicole went in another. We switched on our helmet lamps once we were far enough away from the crater that the nearest floodlight couldn't reach us, then Greg showed me a different way of walking when you're wearing a moonsuit and you're in a hurry. Bouncing from one foot to another is the most familiar gait, of course, but I soon learned that the bunny hop, as childish as it looks, let me cover a lot of ground pretty quickly; one good broad-jump could carry me as far as ten feet. But bunny hops could also throw me off-balance if I wasn't careful. I went sprawling face-first into the regolith when I got a little carried away with myself, and the bruises I earned were enough to teach me to watch my step.
Greg was a good moonwalk-buddy. Eighteen years old, he'd been living on the Moon for the past four years. He belonged to a clan, the Starhawks, an extended family of three intermarried couples and their kids; in effect, Greg had three fathers, three mothers, and five brothers and sisters, only one of whom was related to him by blood. Clans had come into existence shortly after Apollo was completed; while he showed me how to get back on my feet after taking a spill, Greg explained that group marriages made it easier for three families to raise children together, not to mention reduce the high divorce rate that had come from the feelings of loneliness and isolation that the early colonists had faced. There weren't many clans, though, and those like the Starhawks frequently had to deal with accusations of immorality, usually from earthside fundamentalist churches and politicians like Lina Shapar, who'd claimed that they were nothing more than an excuse for polygamy.
This was all very interesting, but as I listened to him and perfected my bunny hops, I kept looking around to see what Logan and Nicole were doing. I couldn't hear their voices, which indicated that they'd switched to a private channel, and at first I couldn't see them at all. Then, from the deep shadows about twenty yards away, I glimpsed intermittent flashes of their headlights, briefly revealing each other for a moment before they vanished again.
It took me a minute to figure out what they were doing. They were playing hide-and-seek, going dark while trying to find one another in the shadows. Logan and Nicole were having a great time together...and I wasn't invited.
I couldn't help but feel jealous, and was trying to cope with this when Mr. Garcia's voice suddenly cut in. "Sorry to interrupt, but something has just come up."
"What's happening, Chief?" Greg asked.
"We've got a medical emergency. Regolith Field Beta, out in Mare Nubium on the other side of Ptolemaeus. Harvester accident, man down."
Nicole's voice came online; she'd switched back to the main channel. "Do you want us to return to the airlock?"
"Negative. I'd like all four of you to come along. You and Greg are on duty, and Jamey and Logan might as well get a taste of what we do. So drop everything and head for the north landing field. We have a Pegasus waiting for us."
Logan and Nicole switched on their helmet lamps again, then they joined Mr. Garcia, Greg, and me as we bounded toward the nearby field. It was a good thing I'd practiced bunny hops, because everyone else was doing it; we reached the landing field in just a few minutes, where a Pegasus was already warming up its engines. Technically known as a Long Range Lunar Transport, the Pegasus was aptly named; it was a flying workhorse with a crew compartment up front, an engine cluster in the rear, and a strongback in between that could carry specialized service modules.
When we got to the field, the ground crew had just finished attaching an ambulance, a pressurized module with a red cross painted on its sides, to the strongback. Greg, Nicole, and Logan climbed into the ambulance, but there wasn't enough room for all of us, so Mr. Garcia led me up the ladder into the transport's cramped flight compartment. There were only seats for the pilot and copilot, though, so the chief and I had to stand in the rear and hold onto safety straps slung from the low ceiling.
The pilot watched us come aboard. I didn't recognize him at first, but as I grabbed hold a strap, I heard a familiar voice: "Well, I'll be damned if it isn't Jamey Barlowe."
"Gordie! What are you doing here?" I hadn't seen him in weeks. In fact, I'd been so busy that I had almost forgotten about him entirely.
"My new job, kid...flying this bucket." He grinned at me through his helmet faceplate. "Better question is, what are you doing here? Don't tell me you've joined the Rangers!"
"Yeah, I have. So has Logan...he's in the back."
"Really? Well, isn't that a kick in the..."
"I know the two of you are friends," Mr. Garcia interrupted, "but we have an emergency call and really need to get going."
"Right...sorry." Gordie turned back around to his console. "If you'll shut the hatch, Jamey, we'll be off." As I reached over to close the hatch, he looked at his copilot. "Is the ambulance secure, Sam? Okay, let's light 'em up."
A quick systems check, then Gordie grasped the throttle bars next to his seat and pushed them forward. The cockpit was unpressurized, so we couldn't hear the vertical thrusters when they fired; the deck shuddered against the soles of my boots, and I peered over Gordie's shoulder to see the landing field fall away. The Pegasus ascended to about 1,500 feet before he kicked in the main engines. I caught a glimpse of Apollo, its saucer-like roof illuminated by floodlights, then the transport peeled away on a west-by-southwest bearing.
The flight lasted only a half-hour, and I saw little of the terrain over which we passed, save for the Ptolemaeus crater wall when the Pegasus's searchlights briefly illuminated its mountainous western rim. Mr. Garcia was busy downloading information about the guy we were to rescue, and that gave Gordie and me a chance to catch up. As he'd expected, the FBI had issued a warrant for his arrest for his role in helping Hannah Wilford escape, so he didn't return to Earth. Instead, he'd settled in with "an old friend"--he didn't say so outright, but I suspected that his friend was female--and found work as a Pegasus pilot. It wasn't as much fun as flying LTVs, but it was a steady job that enabled him to remain on the Moon until things got better back home.
"Not that that's going to happen any time soon," he added. "I saw today that President Shapar's pals in Congress just killed an independent investigation of Wilford's death. Her party has majority control of the House and Senate, she can pretty much do whatever she wants."
"There's still protests going on..." began Sam, his copilot. Sam turned out to be short for Samantha, and I suspected that she might also be the roommate Gordie had told me about.
"And they're busting protesters as fast as they can cart 'em off to jail. This new president of ours doesn't have much respect for the Constitution, babe, and it's only to get worse before..." He stopped himself as a light strobed on his navigation screen. "Okay, here we are. Hang on back there, Jamey. It's gonna be a rough landing."
He wasn't kidding. The Pegasus came down fast, with a touchdown hard enough to rattle my teeth and cause me to nearly lose my grip on the strap. But we were in a hurry, and Mr. Garcia ordered me to get the hatch open at once. The dust was still settling as he and I clambered down the ladder. Nicole, Greg, and Logan had already climbed down from the ambulance; Nicole was carrying a large case with a red cross on its side.
Gordie had landed only a few dozen yards from the regolith harvester. It was a massive machine, nearly twelve feet high and sixty feet long, with a big scoop up front and a pair of funnels elevated above the rear. When in operation, the harvester would slowly roll across the terrain upon six wire-mesh wheels nearly as tall as I was, gathering regolith into its maw and feeding it through separators that would comb out the ore containing He3 and other vital materials; the stuff that couldn't be used was thrown out the back. Long, shallow furrows across the grey dust showed where the machine had already traveled; a bulldozer would move in front of it, pushing aside rocks and boulders big enough to jam the separators.
The harvester had come to a halt, and its searchlights revealed a couple of miners in moonsuits standing next to a third figure who lay face-down upon the ground. One of the workmen bounded over to us. "He was standing on the upper platform when we ran through a small impact crater," the miner explained. "The harvester lurched, and he fell off and hit the ground. He says he can't move his right leg and that he's having trouble breathing."
"Okay, we'll take care of it." Mr. Garcia turned toward the four of us. "Greg, Nicole, you'll assist me. Logan, Jamey, you can help, too. Fetch the stretcher from the ambulance."
Logan and I bunny-hopped back to the ambulance, but when we climbed inside, we ran into a problem. Dozens of white plastic containers were strapped against the bulkheads. All field equipment was boxed this way to protect them from moondust, and it wasn't obvious which one held the stretcher. Logan was about to go back and ask for help when a notion occurred to me.
"Arthur, what does a stretcher case look like?" I asked.
"It looks like this, Jamey," my suit replied, and an image immediately appeared on the inside of my helmet: a long, flat container with a red cross on its front. "Serial number EM-676," Arthur added.
I looked around and there it was, identical to the picture Arthur had shown me, right down to the serial number. "Thanks, Arthur," I said, then Logan and I unstrapped the case from its tie-downs.
"Nice trick," Logan murmured as we carried the case from ambulance. "Maybe you'll impress her yet."
"What are you talking about?" When I didn't get a response, I checked my heads-up display. Without my realizing it, Logan had switched to another channel. "Arthur, switch comlink to Three." I said. A sharp beep, and then I went on: "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not trying to impress anyone."
"Sure you are. And she's already taken."
I suddenly realized that he was talking about Nicole. "I'm not trying to impress her," I said, which wasn't entirely true. "If that's what you think, then you're..."
"Later. We've got work to do."
Logan was right; just then, our top priority was assisting in a medical emergency. But later, yes, we'd have a little discussion about who was trying to impress who.
We couldn't open the suit of the man who'd fallen from the harvester, of course; that would have to wait until he'd been brought into the ambulance and it had been pressurized. But when Mr. Garcia accessed the miner's suit comp, its associate told the Chief that it appeared as if the worker had suffered a cracked rib along with a fractured femur in his right upper leg. That diagnosis wasn't necessarily accurate, since it was based on the suit's internal biofeedback systems, yet it gave us something to work with until we got the miner to the ambulance.
Nicole found a cartridge inside the case she'd carried from the ambulance and handed it to Mr. Garcia. As I watched, the Chief tapped a combination into the cartridge's keypad, then attached it to a valve in the miner's life support pack. A push of a button, and the cartridge released a sedative into an epidermal skin patch located within the miner's suit. The poor guy's groans and muttered obscenities soon became a relieved sigh. The pain was gone, at least until he reached Apollo General.
By then, Logan and I had opened the container we'd brought from the ambulance, pulled out the stretcher, and spread it out upon the ground. Once the miner's condition was stabilized, Mr. Garcia told the two of us to pick him up and place him on the stretcher. This wasn't as hard as I thought it would be; with his suit included, the miner weighed only about 75 pounds, easy enough for both of us to carry. And I knew a bit about putting people on stretchers. After all, I'd spent my life being carried around by other people. So I knew how to be gentle and told Logan what to do, and the Chief seemed to be impressed by the fact that I had this sort of knowledge and experience.
Mr. Garcia, Nicole, and Greg walked alongside Logan and me as we hauled the injured man back to the ambulance. This time, it was Greg, the Chief, and I who got to ride in the back while Logan and Nicole shared the cockpit with Gordie and Sam. Mr. Garcia waited until the Pegasus had lifted off again before he pressurized the ambulance, then he opened the miner's faceplate so that we could talk to him.
Until then, I didn't know who we'd rescued. His helmet had been covered with regolith that hid his face. So it came as a surprise when I saw that the injured man was Donald Hawthorne, Billy Tate's uncle.
He recognized me, too. "Hey...you're Crip," he said, peering up at me. "You're the kid my nephew was telling me about."
"My name is Jamey Barlowe," I said evenly.
"Ranger Third Class Jamey Barlowe," Mr. Garcia added.
"Yeah, well...good luck with that." He said this as if he believed that my new job was only temporary. "So when are you going home?"
"Not any time soon."
"Uh-huh. Sorry to hear that. You...ow! Dammit, Luis, what are you doing!"
"Just checking you out, Donald." The Chief had twisted Mr. Hawthorne's broken leg ever so slightly...and perhaps a little more roughly than necessary. "I figured that if you're going to pull my Ranger's leg, I'd return the favor."
Mr. Hawthorne glared at him, but wisely shut up. All the same, when he look at me, the hostility in his eyes was obvious. He clearly blamed me for all of Apollo's current problems.
And I had little doubt that I'd be hearing the same from Billy as well.
My premonition was correct. I saw Billy shortly after my search and rescue team brought his uncle to Apollo General.
A bus was waiting for the Pegasus at the landing field. Its boarding ramp connected directly to the long-range transport, and since we'd removed Mr. Hawthorne's suit on the way back to Apollo, that allowed us to carry him aboard the bus without having to depressurize the Pegasus again. Dr. Rice met us in the garage along with a couple of ER medics, and they took Donald Hawthorne straight to the hospital.
In the meantime, Mr. Garcia escorted Logan, Nicole, Greg, and me back to Airlock 7 so we could get out of our suits. He congratulated Logan and me for a job well done. I didn't think our performance had been anything special, but I wasn't about to argue with him.
Nicole was proud of us, too, but it was Logan who got a hug as soon as we were out of our suits; I had to settle for a smile. Better than nothing, I suppose, but all the same it became obvious Nicole had picked him as a boyfriend. Maybe he should have been happy about this, but the look on his face told me that he hadn't forgotten our unfinished conversation. Instead of picking up where we'd left off, though, I went to Apollo General.
I told myself that I wanted to see how Mr. Hawthorne was doing, but the fact of the matter was that I was looking for an excuse to avoid Logan. A wall had come up between us, and there was no easy way to tear it down.
I was able to dodge my friend, but I wasn't so lucky with my nemesis. Someone had notified Billy that his uncle had been in an accident, because he was already at the hospital by the time I arrived. He was sitting in the ER waiting room when I walked in; he silently watched as I went to the front desk and asked how Mr. Hawthorne was doing. The receptionist told me that he was in surgery, but that his condition was satisfactory and he was expected to make a full recovery, and that a doctor would soon come out to speak with us. Meaning Billy and me, since we seemed to be the only people who cared enough about Donald Hawthorne to come to the hospital.
Billy hadn't said very much to me after I joined the Rangers. Someone had apparently told Mr. Garcia that there was bad blood between us--probably Mr. Speci, who'd coached both of us during my attempt at moonball--because I'd noticed the Chief was doing his best to keep Billy and me separated. But even though I'd tried to keep clear of him during school, it was only inevitable that we'd eventually meet up.
I had a choice. Either I could make a long and detailed study of the potted ferns, or I could talk to him. So I walked over to where he was sitting.
"Hi. Mind if I join you?"
He shrugged. "Suit yourself."
There was a vacant seat beside him; he didn't seem to care if I took it. "Sorry about what happened to your uncle," I said as I sat down. "Glad to hear that he's going to be okay."
"Yeah, I guess." He was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor's patterned tiles. He didn't look at me, and seemed to be indifferent to my presence.
I looked around the room, saw no one else there. "Umm...don't you have an aunt, or someone else who...?"
"My aunt moved back to Earth a couple of years ago after she got a divorce from my uncle. Haven't seen her since. I'll try to call her when I hear something from the doctor, but--" another shrug "--y'know, I think she'd care only if he died."
Wow, I thought, that's cold. I knew a little about Billy; he was born on the Moon, but his parents were divorced when he was a little kid and both had decided to return to Earth. Neither of them could take him with them, though, or otherwise he would've ended up in a mobil just like I had, so he'd remained in Apollo with his uncle and aunt. I wasn't aware that his aunt had left, too.
That made his uncle the only family he had on the Moon. Given the way Donald Hawthorne had carried on during the town meeting, it was no wonder that they didn't have many friends. However, when a half-dozen or so Americans loyal to President Shapar had left Apollo when the ISC embargo began, Mr. Hawthorne wasn't among them. I figured it was because he didn't want to give up a high-paying job as mining supervisor, but maybe it was because he would have had to leave his nephew alone.
I had taken a dislike to Billy the first moment we met, when he'd made fun of Eddie for being slow. But just then, I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for him...and wonder if he'd become a bully in response to his own insecurities.
I was trying to think of something to say when he beat me to it. "I suppose I ought to thank you now for saving Uncle Don," he said, still not looking at me.
"You don't have to. I didn't do much. Just put him on a stretcher, that's all."
"Yeah, sure, but..." He reluctantly stuck out his hand. "Thanks anyway."
That surprised me. I hesitated, then shook his hand. "No sweat. Just doing my job, that's all."
For the first time, he raised his eyes to meet mine. "You're serious, aren't you? About wanting to be a Ranger?"
"Sure, I'm serious. Why wouldn't I be?"
Billy didn't say anything for a second or two. He simply looked at me as if he was trying to make up his mind whether I was putting him on. "When I heard you were joining up, I thought you were just doing this to...I dunno. Try to be a big shot or something. I didn't think you could do it. Not after the way you screwed up at moonball."