The Lunar Search and Rescue exercise required for advancement from Third to Second class was technically called the Extravehicular Solo Lunar Excursion, but no one ever used that term. It got the name "walkabout" after something practiced by Australian aborigines; they'll sometimes leave their tribal communities and hike into the outback on their own, walking and walking, with no particular direction in mind. They do that to get away from people for a while, but it's also said that someone who goes walkabout eventually meets up with himself. The last part sounded a little too mystical for me; so far as I was concerned, it was just another way of saying that I was going to be do an awful lot of walking.
There's not much resemblance between the Australian desert and the surface of the Moon, appearances not withstanding: no brush, no water holes, and not a kangaroo in sight. And it wasn't as though I lacked either direction or destination. All I had to do was reach that beacon, then I could radio Apollo and wait for Gordie to retrieve me. Simple, really. Or so it seemed. But going solo was harder than I expected, and it wasn't long before I realized that this would be one of the toughest things I'd ever done.
For one thing, I made less time than I thought I would. The first couple of miles from the drop-off point took me down a slope that, while not treacherous, nonetheless prevented me from bunny-hopping. When I tried to do that, I lost my footing on the loose regolith and came close to falling head-first against a rock that would have shattered my helmet faceplate. That close-call sobered me up; from then on, I kept to a slower, more deliberate gait.
My pace was also restricted by the mule. Although it was solar-powered and could operate indefinitely, it travelled no more than a couple of miles an hour, and often had to roll around rocks that I easily stepped over. It wasn't long before I realized that I was in danger of leaving it behind. I couldn't afford to lose the stupid thing, so I frequently had to stop and wait for it to catch up with me. It gave me a chance to catch my breath and sip a little water from the tube inside my helmet, but it also nibbled away at my time-factor.
I thought I might be able to speed things up a bit once I reached the bottom of the slope and started making my way across the crater floor. Instead, I found that Alphonsus was a rougher place than Ptolemaeus. The ground was uneven, pocked with impact craters and strewn with boulders the size of cars. I could dodge most of this stuff, but the mule had to pick its way around them, and every so often it got stuck. When that happened, I'd have to go back, grab its tow-bar, and haul it out of a pit or over a rock. If the mule hadn't been carrying everything I needed to stay alive, I probably would have kicked it over on its side and left it there.
On Earth, when you're standing at ground level on flat terrain, your visible horizon is about three miles away. On the Moon, though, it's only about a mile and half. This meant that I couldn't see Mt. Tobor even though the map and direction finder told me that I was heading toward it. After awhile it felt as if, no matter how far I walked, I wasn't getting any closer to my destination. The mountain remained perpetually over the horizon; I knew it was there, but I couldn't see it.
So the going was much slower than I thought it would be. About eight miles after I left the drop-off point, a bell chimed and red light flashed on my heads-up display, signaling me that I needed to replenish my air supply. The way I'd originally estimated my consumption, I shouldn't have had to do that until I'd walked at least ten miles. I stopped, went back to the mule, and attached the feedline from one of the air tanks to the inlet port on the lower left side of my life support pack. It took only a few minutes to refill my pack; while I was at it, I also topped off the suit's drinking water tank.
I thought about discarding the empty air tank, but decided against it. We were supposed to be conscientious about littering the lunar terrain. Besides, now that the spare tank was empty, it wouldn't save that much weight for the mule to have to carry. Something occurred to me just then: I hadn't seen any other footprints. Tracks remain forever in the regolith; there's no wind or rain to erode them. That meant I was the first person to set foot on this part of the Moon. If other Third Class Rangers had made their walkabouts in Alphonsus, they hadn't traveled the same way I did.
Not only was I alone, but I was also in a place where no one had ever been. This realization was both awesome and terrifying. I looked up at Earth, and saw that it was nothing more than a thin silver crescent in the sky.
"Arthur," I asked, "what time is it in Maryland?"
"It is 11:47 PM, Jamey."
Almost midnight back home. Wherever Jan or Dad were, if they could see the Moon, they'd be looking up at me...but they'd have no idea where I was. If something went seriously wrong, if I had an accident so catastrophic that I didn't have time to either save myself or call for help, then I would die in this place and my sister and father would never know about it. Or at least not until someone at Apollo saw that I was overdue and a Ranger team came out to search for my body.
I tried to shrug it off as I kept walking, but the thought haunted me. What was I doing here? What was I trying to prove to myself?
--This is a hell of a time to ask that, said a little voice that sounded like mine.
"Okay, so maybe it is," I replied. "But I still want to know why."
"What do you want to know, Jamey?" Arthur asked.
"I didn't mean you, Arthur," I said. "I'm..."
--Talking to yourself? That's the first sign you're going crazy, isn't it?
"No, it isn't. People talk to themselves all the time." I concentrated on putting one foot in front of another.
--Sure they do. But let's not change the subject. Why are you doing this? Are you trying to impress someone? Nicole, maybe?
"No. Nicole is going with Logan now. And it's not Hannah, either."
--Really? Maybe you're right. You really haven't been paying much attention to her, have you? But she likes you a lot. I mean, she's kissed you a couple of times, and that St. Christopher's medal you're wearing under your suit...that means something, doesn't it?
"I know what it means. And, yeah, I really should spend more time with her. But that's not why I'm doing this."
--So what's the point? I mean, look at you. You're walking on the Moon. A couple of months ago, you couldn't even get to the bathroom without crutches. Jan and Dad would be impressed, sure...but they have no idea what you're doing, so why are you putting yourself through all this? If you'll just give up...
"I'm not giving up!"
--Suit yourself. Maybe they'll carve that on your tombstone.
My stomach was beginning to rumble; it had been quite a while since I'd had anything to eat. I'd learned during training that, if you're expecting to spend more than a few hours in a moonsuit, you shouldn't have any solid food. Not unless you want to take a dump in your suit and are willing to live with the consequences; peeing was easier, though, because the urine went into the suit's wastewater recycling loop and was used as coolant.
So my last meal had been the bowl of tomato soup Ms. Lagler had given me for breakfast. The voice in my head was hunger talking. But I couldn't feed myself until I made camp, and I had miles to go before I could afford to do that.
--Call out for a pizza. Or better yet, call Gordie and ask him to pick you up. In an hour, you can be having tacos with chettuce...
"Shut up and leave me alone."
"Jamey, who are you talking to?" Arthur asked.
"No one," I said, and kept walking.
The terrain got rougher the farther east I traveled, but at least it remained level. I kept the nagging voice out of my head by asking Arthur to tell me a story. In his memory were the collected short stories of his namesake; he recited "Rescue Party" and followed it with "The Sentinel." Both were obviously written long before people actually went into space, so there were a number of anachronisms, but they were still pretty good, and they kept me from talking to myself.
I'd almost exhausted my first tank of air by the time I called it quits for the day. By then, I was in sight of Mt. Tobor. The massive butte thrust up from Alphonsus like the snout of a buried dragon, casting its shadow across a pair of deep rills that lay between me and the mountain. I'd already walked fifteen and a half miles, and was too tired to take on the rills, so I decided to make camp and get some sleep.
The tent was a small, inflatable A-frame that could be pressurized from within. It was used by the Rangers for rescue operations in case someone needed to camp out until help arrived. I removed it from the mule, spread it out on the ground, then attached its nitrogen cylinder and turned on the pump to inflate it. While that was going on, I refilled my suit air from the second tank, then unpacked the meal kit and another water bottle. Once the tent was set up, I switched off the pump, then got down on my hands and knees and climbed inside.
The tent was airtight, its silver outer skin reflecting the harsh and constant sunlight. Once it was sealed, I switched on its internal air supply and thermal control system. It took a few minutes for the tent to pressurize and become warm enough to be habitable; I made sure that the carbon-dioxide filtration system worked, then switched off my suit air and opened the faceplate. The tent was lit by a small light-patch in the ceiling; there wasn't enough room for me to climb out of my suit, but at least I was able to brace my back against an inflatable pillow that had been generously provided. It didn't matter that I'd have to sleep in my suit; I was too tired to care.
Dinner came from a pair of self-heating pouches. One was supposed to be beef stew and the other banana cream pie, but those were rather misleading descriptions; they both tasted like kindergarten paste. Again, I didn't care; I sucked the pouches dry and promised myself a pizza when I got back to Apollo. The tent's air supply was good for six hours. That would give me enough time to sleep. I asked Arthur to wake me in five and a half hours, then I lay back against the pillow and closed my eyes.
I don't remember what I dreamed about, but the last image I retained had something to do with Hannah asking me if she could borrow my swim fins so that she could go moonwalking. Then Arthur was telling me to get up and playing Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" to ease me awake. I had enough time for a breakfast pouch--allegedly oatmeal with apples and cinnamon; whoever made these things was a bad liar--before the tent's air ran out. I closed my faceplate and reactivated my life support pack, depressurized the tent and unsealed it, then crawled out into the burning sunlight.
Once I broke camp and loaded the mule again, I had a decision to make. According to both my heads-up display and the plastic map I pulled from the mule, the rill that lay directly ahead of me was too long to go around, at least not without adding another four or five miles to my trek. However, if I took a slight detour to the south, I'd come upon a small, level ridge that separated the rill from its nearby companion. Once I crossed the ridge, all I'd have to do was head northeast until I resumed the eastbound course that would take me past Mt. Tobor. The detour would add another mile or two to the distance I needed to travel, and thus cut into my remaining air supply, but it would keep from having to go through the rill.
There was also a third option: go straight through the rill. It was a deep crevice, like a dry riverbed back on Earth. When I got closer, I saw that the other side was only about 300 yards away. So the shortest distance was definitely a straight line. But its walls were both steep and deep, and there was a possibility that, if I went down there, I might have a hard time getting out. And I also had to consider the mule; would it get trapped down there, therefore depriving me of my cargo carrier?
Studying the problem, I walked a few dozen feet south, and suddenly came upon something I'd given up hope of seeing: signs that someone had been there before me.
A pair of footprints approached the rill from the southwest, followed by wheel tracks identical to those left by my mule. No doubt they'd been left by another Third Class Ranger who had made his walkabout through Alphonsus.
I followed the tracks, and sure enough, they went down into the rill. So whoever had been here before me had decided not to make the detour. But did that person get out again? The rill's opposite side was too far away for me to discern any footprints, but the fact that I couldn't see any didn't give me any comfort.
I thought about it for a minute or so, and decided to play it safe. I took the detour instead.
The ridge was an easy traverse. I walked between the two rills with no problem at all. But by the time I reached the place where I would have emerged from the northern rill if I had descended into it, my suit was alerting me that it was time to replenish my air supply again. I recharged the suit from the third tank; only one more was left. The detour had cost me air, all right...but I didn't find any more tracks on the other side of the rill. Unless my predecessor had found a rocket down there, he must have gotten stuck.
Billy never told me why he'd failed his first attempt to make a walkabout. He refused to talk about it. I had a feeling I'd learned the reason why.
Now I had a different problem. Past the rills, the terrain sloped upwards, forming a steep grade that surrounded Mt. Tobor on all sides. There was no way around that; I'd have to climb. So I began the long, hard trudge up the mountain's lower slopes, relying on the direction finder to show me the way.
One small step. Then another. And then another. The slope rose before me as a steep wall made of loose regolith and gravel; every time I'd plant a booted foot in front of me, it seemed as if it would slide back to where it had been a moment before. Before long I was using my hands to pull myself upward. Sweat flowed down my forehead and dripped into my eyes.
--Having fun yet? the annoying little voice said to me.
"Loads," I replied behind gasps. "Shut up and...let me work."
"Who are you talking to?" Arthur asked.
"Same guy...I was...before."
--Sure you are. And you still haven't answered my question. Why are you putting yourself through all this?
"Because...I need to...I need to...help my family."
--Dad and Jan? They're almost a quarter of a million miles away. How is this going to help them?
"If I...if I become a Ranger..." My right foot skidded on loose regolith and I fell to my knees again. I cursed under my breath, then pulled myself to my feet. "I can...I can protect Apollo. That's what...Jan wants me to do."
--Yeah, okay. That's why you decided to join, sure. But isn't there something more? Like trying to live up to your mother's memory? She's remembered as a hero. What does that make you?
He was right. That was a big part of why I'd decided to join the Rangers; I just hadn't admitted it to myself until now. "All right," I mumbled, "you got me there. Now...shut the hell up and let me..."
--That's all I wanted to know. Oh, but just one more thing. What happened to your mule?
I stopped to look back. The mule had fallen behind...way behind. Sixty feet or more. As I watched, I saw that its wheels were spinning uselessly as it tried to make the ascent. It wasn't designed for mountain climbing, and it was clear that it wouldn't be able to keep up with me.
Again, I had no choice. I went back downhill and unlashed the remaining air tank and water bottles from its cargo bed, then used the cords to strap them against my back. Their combined weight was negligible, but they were cumbersome all the same. The mule carried nothing else I'd need; if I didn't make it to the beacon before my air ran out, the tent wouldn't do me any good. I'd have to call Apollo and tell them to send Gordie.
I was damned if I was going to let that happen. So I kept climbing.
It seemed as if it took hours for me to struggle the rest of the way up the slope, but it really wasn't that long. All of a sudden, I found myself at the top of the rise. Mt. Tobor was at my back; before me lay the eastern side of Alphonsus.
I celebrated by drinking a mouthful of water, then I checked the direction finder again. The beacon's yellow arrowhead was pointing at something on the crater floor; for the first time, I could see my destination with my own two eyes. About three miles away, something reflected the sunlight.
The mountain's eastern slope was shorter and less steep than the western side; I made it to the bottom in less than an hour. Once I was there, though, I had to stop to replenish my life support pack again. That was it for the air reserves, and I was down to one last water bottle. If there were any more nasty surprises in those last two miles, I was sunk.
There weren't. No longer having to worry about the mule, but still carrying the empty tank and bottle, I bounced the rest of the way to my destination. I didn't have to rely on the direction finder or the beacon; the reflection was sufficient to guide me there. And the closer I came, the more obvious it became that I was approaching something man-made.
At the end of my journey, I came upon a pile of wreckage. A long time ago, an object had crashed into the surface of the Moon, sending pieces of twisted metal in all directions. The heap at the center of the debris field was surrounded by footprints and tire tracks; I definitely wasn't the first person to visit this place. And, indeed, as I walked closer, I came upon something that had been left behind.
Beneath the tripod holding the radio beacon I'd been following for the last two days was a burnished aluminum plaque. It was engraved with the image of a space probe that looked a little like a witch's hat that had sprouted wings, and below it was written:
RANGER 9
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
MARCH 24, 1965
FOURTH SPACECRAFT TO REACH THE MOON
Aha. Now I knew the real reason why Lunar Search and Rescue were called the Rangers. No one had ever told me that. It was a secret that was reserved only for those who'd made the long, lonely walk to reach this place.
"Hello, Old Ranger," I said. "Nice to meet you."
Then I got on the radio, called Apollo, and asked Gordie to come pick me up at the beacon.
Gordie picked me up about forty-five minutes later. He had been on standby for the last couple of days, waiting for my call and hoping that it wouldn't come too soon. When his Pegasus touched down a hundred yards from Ranger 9, I saw that a personnel module was now attached to the strongback. I climbed in and discovered that it already had a passenger.
Mr. Garcia was sitting on one of benches, wearing a skinsuit. He stood up as I came aboard. "Hello, Jamey," he said. "Or perhaps I should say, Ranger Second Class Barlowe."
I don't know which was the bigger surprise: the fact that he was there, or what he had just said. "Pardon me?"
"Is there something wrong with your comlink?" A smile appeared behind his faceplate. "You heard me right. You've successfully completed your walkabout, which means that you've earned the rank." He stuck out his hand. "Congratulations, son. I'm proud of you."
"Thank you, sir." Not knowing what else to do, I shook his hand. "Umm...I don't know if it makes any difference, but I had to leave my mule behind."
"Don't worry about it. Half the time, that's what happens." He stepped past me to close the module hatch. "We're more concerned about getting you back than your equipment. We'll send someone out later to retrieve it. Isn't that right, Captain Rogers?"
"Whatever you say, Chief." I couldn't see Gordie; he spoke to us from the cockpit. "Whenever you're ready, I'll take off. There's some ration bars back there, Jamey, but I wouldn't eat 'em if I were you. You've got a party to go to."
"Party?" I managed to take a seat just before the Pegasus lifted off again. "Oh, no, no...man, I'm too tired."
"Sorry...Ranger tradition." Mr. Garcia laughed. "And failure to show up for your walkabout party is not an option."
He was right. I didn't have a choice. A bus carried Mr. Garcia and me from the south landing field to Apollo, dropping us off at Airlock 7. The Chief told me I'd have to go through the suit scrubber on my own, and for good reason; my moonsuit was so caked with dust, it took twice as long as usual for it to get clean. But when the scrubbers finally shut down and the airlock pressurized, the inner hatch opened...
And thirty-four Rangers gathered in the ready-room began to applaud.
I didn't know what to do. I simply stared at them, my mouth sagging open. The applause lasted for several seconds, then from the other side of the room, Billy spoke up.
"Now isn't that just the saddest excuse for a Ranger you've ever seen?" he said.
Everyone in the room cracked up--except for me; I was still speechless--and then a half dozen guys rushed forward to help me out of my suit. I hadn't shaved in two days and stank to high heaven, but that hardly mattered to the people who practically carried me from the ready room upstairs to the Ranger barracks. In the lounge was the first decent meal I had eaten in almost three days. I was shocked to find a T-bone steak among the potatoes and asparagus, and later learned that it had come from the small stock of frozen beef imported from Earth and saved for special occasions. Hunger quickly trumped incredulity, and I wolfed it down while the party went on around me.
Mr. Garcia showed up a few minutes after I sat down at the table. He said a few words of praise about my performance, then left to take care of business elsewhere. No sooner had he left when Mikel Borakov took a seat next to me. Reaching into a trouser pocket, he pulled out a battered aluminum flask, twisted open the cap, and placed it in front of me.
"Drink up," he said. "It's on the house."
My nose caught the scent of vodka. "Umm...thanks, but I'm not old enough." Which was true enough, but the fact of the matter was that I'd never liked the taste of hard liquor; I was just trying to get out of it without seeming rude.
"You sure?" I heard Nicole say. "You may need it for what's coming next."
I turned to look at her. She was standing behind me, Logan at her side. There was a broad grin across her face and even Logan was smiling a little. "What are you...?"
"Time for you to get one of these." Nicole reached up to tap the moon-and-angel wings Ranger tattoo on her cheek. "Right here," she added, then bent over to give me a kiss in the exact same place.
Logan didn't seem to appreciate that very much, but it wasn't long before I stopped caring whether or not he did. Vodka I could turn down, but I couldn't refuse the tattoo. Before I knew it, I was lying across the table, with Mikel holding my head steady while a skin artist used her stylus and dyes to etch the Ranger seal below my left eye.
Nicole was right; the vodka might have helped. On the other hand, I was so tired that it didn't make much difference. The party was still going when Gordie and someone else helped me upstairs to the Laglers' apartment. I managed to shake hands with Mr. Lagler and get hugs from Ms. Lagler and Melissa--my sister shocked me by even crying a little; perhaps all those times she'd told me to drop dead weren't meant to be taken seriously--before exhaustion finally did me in. I fell into bed still wearing my clothes and was asleep within seconds.
I slept solidly for the next ten hours. When I finally woke up, the apartment was empty; everyone had gone off to work. Ms. Lagler had left me a couple of fresh-baked muffins and a pot of coffee. After I had breakfast, I showered, shaved, and put on fresh clothes. Then, feeling a lot less grubby, I went to see Hannah.
The conversations I'd had with myself while walking across Alphonsus had convinced me that I needed to get serious about paying to attention to her. So I called her and asked if we could get together and...well, do something fun, just the two of us.
We agreed to meet at the same place where we'd last seen each other, the park bench in the atrium. I got there first, and before I sat down, I muted my wristband. I was supposed to report to duty later on that day, but until then I didn't want any interruptions. For once, I wanted to be alone with her. Or at least as alone as we could be in a public place. Here and there, other loonies were strolling through the atrium gardens; I hoped they'd mind their own business.
Hannah showed up a few minutes later. She wasn't on a bike this time, nor was she wearing scrubs. She'd put on a long hemp skirt and matching top, and when I saw her walking toward me, I wondered why I'd ignored her for so long. In that moment, she was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen.
I stood up, but before I could say anything, she threw her arms around me. Neither of us spoke for a few seconds. We simply held one another, sharing relief in the fact that I'd come back alive and unharmed. Then she lifted her face for me to give her a kiss, but when I started to do so, her eyes suddenly widened.
"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed. "What have you done to yourself?"
"What? I don't..."
"Your face! What is that?"
"Oh, yeah," I mumbled, touching the new tattoo. I'd almost forgotten it was there. "It wasn't my idea. Just something Rangers do after they've made their walkabout. Sort of a ritual, I guess."
Hannah scowled. "I don't care if it's a ritual...I think it's ugly! Can't you get it erased? Or at least have it in a different place?"
It hadn't occurred to me until then that I didn't necessarily need to have the tattoo on my cheek. I'd seen other Rangers display them on their biceps or chests. The location had been Nicole's idea, but I wasn't about to tell Hannah that. "If you want, I'll have it removed and redone on my arm. Would that be all right?"
"Well...okay." She smiled. "You've got a nice face, Jamey. I don't want to have to look at that when I do this."
She kissed me, and although this was the third time she'd done so, by far it was the best. Neither of us cared if anyone saw us. It was a while before either of us came up for air.
Eventually we did, though. We sat down on the bench and I told her all about the walkabout, starting when Gordie dropped me in Alphonsus and ending when he picked me up at the Ranger 9 crash site. The only thing I left out were the long chats I'd had with myself; this was something she didn't have to know. Hannah listened to my story, interrupting only a few times to ask questions, and when I was done, she slowly nodded.
"So you got through it," she said, "and now you're back, safe and sound." She hesitated. "I'm proud of you, you know I am. But..."
She stopped. "But what?" I asked.
Hannah looked away from me, her gaze traveling to the roses Eddie had planted nearby. "It means you're going to be putting yourself in harm's way again. Maybe sooner than you think."
Something in the way she said that sent a chill through me. Before I could ask, she leaned a little closer. "Maybe I shouldn't tell anyone about this," Hannah said quietly, "but I've heard Mr. Porter talking to town council members about what's happening back home. Looks like Lina Shapar is getting set for an invasion. They believe it could happen any day now."
"What makes them think that?"
"For one thing, the government has stepped up the propaganda. The newsnets back home have been carrying a lot of stories the last few days about how terrible things are here. How Americans on Apollo have become second-class citizens and are being forced to work without pay. How we're on the verge of starvation. How the ISC intends to use the embargo to topple the United States..."
"That's crap! None of it is true!"
"Of course it isn't. But look at history. When a country is seriously gearing up for war, one of the first things they do is concoct stories about the enemy so that the public will believe that theirs is a just cause. Mr. Porter persuaded the local net not to rebroadcast the stories. He's afraid of what might happen to morale if people here saw what was being said about them. But that's not all."
"What else?"
"They've received reports of increased activity on Matagorda Island. A number of shuttles are being prepped for lift-off, and it looks like troops are being mobilized." She paused. "It's hard to know what's going on. Our sources...the Resistance, I mean...can't get close enough to see exactly what's happening. But..."
"Jamey! Hey, Jamey!"
I looked around to see Logan jogging down a path toward us. I closed my eyes and mentally swore a curse against him, and Hannah sighed in an annoyed way. Bad timing, pal, I thought, and he must have realized the same thing himself, because when he saw Hannah and me sitting together, he'd stopped in his tracks.
"Oh," he muttered, his face going red. "Sorry, man. I didn't...y'know..."
"S'okay," I said, even though I could have strangled him. "What's going on?"
"You didn't answer your wristband, so the Chief sent me to find you." Logan quickly walked over to us. "We're being called up. The Rangers, I mean."
"Called up?"
"Uh-huh. Priority One. Everyone's supposed to report to the barracks for a emergency briefing, right now."
As he said this, Hannah's wristband chimed. She glanced at the readout, then looked at me. "The hospital's calling me in, too," she said quietly. "It's starting."
I didn't have to ask what she meant. We both knew that it was the very thing we'd just been discussing. I gave her a quick kiss, then she rushed off to Apollo General while I followed Logan toward the nearest elevator. We'd only walked a dozen yards when he glanced over his shoulder at where Hannah and I had been sitting.
"So...are you two a pair now?" he asked, his voice almost a whisper.
"Yeah...yeah, I guess we are."
"Good." Despite our hurry, he stopped and turned to me. "Look, man, I know things have been kinda...y'know, difficult...between us because of what's been going on with Nicole and me, but..."
His voice trailed off, but I knew what he meant. "Forget it," I said. "I guess both of us got who we deserve."
"Since you put it that way..." Logan stuck out his hand. "Friends again?"
"Sure." I was glad that he was willing to put all that behind us; I'd missed not being able to talk to him. So I shook his hand. "Friends again."
"Good. Now let's get going before the Chief fries us for being late."
When we arrived at the barracks, we found a note on the door, telling us that the meeting was going to be held in the civic auditorium. A couple of other Rangers were heading over there, so Logan and I fell in with them. The auditorium was located just off the solarium, a large hall that had been cut within the crater wall and normally used for plays or lectures. I wondered why Mr. Garcia was holding the meeting there instead of at the barracks, but it wasn't until we arrived that I saw why.
Lunar Search and Rescue wasn't the only organization to show up. The town council was there, too, as were representatives from the various major departments: Main Operations, Life Support, Maintenance, Agriculture, and so forth. Logan and I had just found seats in the second row along with the other Rangers when several members of the hospital staff arrived. A few steps behind Dr. Rice was Hannah; she and I spotted each other, and she gave me a little wave, but neither of us made a move to sit together. This wasn't the time to be boyfriend and girlfriend.
Mr. Garcia was seated at a table on the stage along with Mr. Porter. The city manager waited until everyone was seated, then he stood up and walked to the podium. "Thank you for coming," he began, his voice carried by the ceiling speakers. "I apologize for the short notice, but a situation has come up that can't wait for an official town meeting. I'm counting on the various department heads to report everything discussed here to their staffs, so that they can work together in making preparations."
Murmurs passed through the auditorium. About seventy people were in there, and from what I overheard it seemed as if everyone already knew something of what was going on. Mr. Porter raised a hand for silence, then went on.
"As you know, President Shapar has made public statements hinting that the United States may resort to using military force against Apollo in order to break the embargo. Over the past several weeks, we've responded by preparing for a possible invasion. We've retrained our Lunar Search and Rescue personnel to act as a defense force, asked the staff at Apollo General to initiate emergency procedures to be used in the event of an attack, and requested other departments to develop ways and means of coping with damage that might come from a military assault. I don't think I'm speaking only for myself when I tell you that I was hoping none of this would be necessary, and that the current crisis would resolve itself without violence."
He took a deep breath. "Unfortunately, it appears that we were right to take precautions. Reliable sources on Earth have informed us that, over the past couple of days, there's been a surge of activity at the US military spaceport on Matagorda Island. Our sources haven't been able to determine the extent of those preparations, other than to say that it appears that military personnel have been transported to the island and that magcat shuttles have been prepared for liftoff."
Mr. Porter pressed a button on the podium keypad, and the wall behind him became an enormous screen. Displayed upon it was a shot of Earth as seen from the Moon; it was in third-quarter phase, with the sunlight terminator falling across the Gulf of Mexico. To the right was a bright spot of light, a star more brilliant than those around it.
"Early this morning at 0800 Greenwich Meridian Time, 0300 Eastern Standard, two shuttles lifted off from Matagorda, about a half-hour apart. Shortly after that they rendezvoused at Station America, where the freighter Charles Duke has been docked since the embargo began." Mr. Porter pointed to the screen. "This picture was taken about two hours ago by our observatory telescope. It shows the Duke's nuclear main engine being fired. Consequent footage shows that the engine hasn't been shut down, and that the freighter itself is on course for lunar rendezvous and orbital insertion."
Again, murmurs passed through the room. Everyone there knew the Charles Duke. It was one of three heavy-lift lunar freighters built to transport cargo to the Moon and haul He3 and other lunar materials back to Earth. If its gas-core nuclear engine was under constant thrust, the Duke could make it to the Moon in a fraction of the time it took for an LTV to make the same journey.
Before anyone could ask the obvious question, Mr. Porter answered it. "We estimate that the Duke will arrive in approximately twenty hours, including time for braking and orbital insertion. Mr. Garcia will now take over the briefing. Luis...?"
The Chief stood up and approached the podium, with Mr. Porter stepping aside to make room for him. "What the Duke will do once it gets here is anyone's guess, but I think we can safely assume that it's not coming to bring us chocolates and roses." A few chuckles, but most of the people in the room weren't in the mood for a joke, and Mr. Garcia wasn't smiling either. "Chances are that it's carrying two or more landing craft which will descend to the lunar surface. So, we can count on a direct attack upon Apollo...and chances are also that they know we're ready for them."
He touched the keypad, and the light in the sky was replaced by topo maps of the Moon's two hemispheres. "Because of that, it's possible that they may try to pull an end-run around our defenses, and attack what they may consider to be our Achilles heel...Cabeus Station, our lunar ice mine at the South Pole."
Mr. Porter pointed to the map of the lunar nearside, and a small yellow circle appeared above a small crater an inch or so from the very bottom of the map. "They may believe that if they seize Cabeus, they can take control of most of our water supply, which would then cut short any prolonged siege of Apollo...and they would be right. Cabeus is our weakness. We can hole up in here almost indefinitely, but if we run out of water, surrender will be inevitable. So Cabeus Station must be protected as well as Apollo."
He looked at the Rangers. "I want to send a team of twelve Rangers to the South Pole while the rest of us stay here to defend Apollo. Gentlemen, ladies...do I have any volunteers?"
I didn't think twice. I held up my hand. Logan didn't hesitate, either; his hand went up at the same time as mine did. Nicole was seated in the row in front of us. She glanced over her shoulder, saw what Logan and I were doing, and then her hand rose as well. Nine more hands were raised--Mikel, Greg, Mahmoud, several others I didn't know quite so well--until the Chief had his dozen volunteers.
"Thank you." Mr. Garcia nodded in satisfaction. "Once this briefing is over, I want this group to report at once to the Airlock 7 ready-room for suit-up. You'll depart for Cabeus Station within two hours."
I was ready to go that minute, but had to wait while Mr. Porter returned to the podium to cover other items on the agenda. Mining operations were to be immediately suspended, with the regolith harvesters relocated to the nearby mountains and camouflaged with tarps to prevent them from being bombed. Airlocks would be sealed, and only Rangers and a few support personnel would be allowed to leave the crater. Colonists were to be evacuated to the storm shelter if and when Apollo came under attack. The shelter was already stocked with food and water, and the Apollo General staff were asked to set up emergency medical facilities down there. Once he'd covered everything on the list, the city manager asked if there were any questions.
From the back of the room, Donald Hawthorne raised his hand. Mr. Porter seemed reluctant to acknowledge him, but he did so anyway. Mr. Hawthorne was still using a cane to get around, and his face expressed irritation as he used it to push himself to his feet.
"Loren," he said as he stood up, "considering the danger we're in, shouldn't we at least think about the obvious solution...immediate surrender?"
Angry mutters and whispers rose from the audience. Although Mr. Garcia glared at the mining operations director, Mr. Porter remained stoical. "We've thought about that, Donald," he replied. "In fact, the council discussed that at some length. And the answer is no. We will not surrender. President Shapar is engaged in unilateral actions that are in clear violation of international treaty, and..."
"Then you can count me out!" Mr. Hawthorne snapped. "I refuse to be a traitor to my country!"
"No one here is a traitor!" someone yelled. "We're defending ourselves!"
Mr. Hawthorne ignored him. Without another word, he turned to stalk out of the room, leaning heavily upon his cane. Quite a few people hissed and booed, and when I glanced over at Billy Tate, I saw that, even though his expression remained stoical, his face had gone red. I couldn't help but feel sorry for him; his uncle had just made an ass of himself.
Mr. Porter waited until the auditorium door slammed shut behind Mr. Hawthorne before he spoke again. "Are there any other questions or comments?" he asked. No one raised a hand. "Very well, then. If everyone knows what they need to do, then the meeting is adjourned."
Everyone stood up to leave. I wanted to head over to Billy and talk to him, but he shoved everyone aside and hurried from the room. "Leave him alone," Logan murmured as we watched him go. "Not his fault that he's got a jerk for an uncle."
Not long ago, I'd decided Billy was a jerk himself. I'd since learned that Nicole was right: he could be a pretty good guy when he wanted to be. Maybe his bad side came from his uncle. Still, the fact that he hadn't volunteered for the mission made me wonder where his loyalties lay. Was he staying here to defend his home...or did he agree with his uncle?
I didn't know, but I had more important matters to deal with just then. Mr. Garcia had just come down from the stage, and the other Rangers who'd volunteered for the mission were gathering around him. I didn't think he was planning to lead the mission, but it looked as if he was about to give us some last-minute orders. I started to head over there when I felt a soft hand on my shoulder. Looking around, I saw that Hannah had come up behind me.
"Hey, you," she said. "You planning to run off without saying goodbye?"
Damn. I was about to do that, wasn't I? "Y'know what's a drag?" I asked, trying to change the subject. "Before Logan found us, I was about to ask if you...well, wanted to go out with me. Like, to get a pizza, or see a vid, or..."
"Jamey Barlowe...is that the date you promised me?" A sly smile appeared on her face.
I'd forgotten about that. Obviously she hadn't. "Well...um, yeah, but if you don't want to..."
The smile vanished, "What makes you think I don't?"
I guessed I'd confused her a little. Maybe I was bit confused myself. I was trying to figure out how to answer that when something else occurred to me. "Oh, yeah," I said, "and there's another thing." I reached into my pocket, pulled out the medallion she'd given me a few days earlier. "Here...you can have this back."
Hannah looked down at the medallion. "I think you should hold onto it a little while longer," she said. "You need it more than I do."
"Maybe, but..." I hesitated, not knowing how to say what was on my mind. "It belongs to you, and...well, y'know, it'll be safer with you, I think."
My mind was on the mission, not her. I was going to a dangerous place where there was a very real possibility than I might lose my life. If that happened, I didn't want my body brought back to Apollo with her St. Christopher's medallion still around my neck. I wanted to spare her that...but I didn't realize that she might not see things the same way I did.
Hannah stared at me for several seconds. Behind us, I heard Logan calling for me. I paid no attention to him. Hannah's mouth trembled, and behind the tears that crept into the corners of her eyes I saw a hint of anger.
"You really don't get it, do you?" she said, her voice almost a whisper. "I didn't give that to you because I think it's a good luck charm. I gave that to you because...because..."
I glanced past her. The briefing was already underway; Mr. Garcia's back was turned to me, but several other Rangers were looking my way. I was supposed to be with them, receiving final instructions from the Chief, not fooling around with my girlfriend.
"Because what?" I said, more impatiently than I should have.
Hannah's mouth fell open; now the anger was obvious. "If you haven't figured it out by now, then you probably never will," she snapped, her voice no longer subdued. "God, I'm so tired of chasing you..."
"Hannah..." From the corner of my eye, I could see several people staring at us. "C'mon. I didn't...I mean, I don't..."
"I think I figured out what you don't want." Before I could stop her, she snatched the medallion from my hand. "Good luck," she finished, and then she turned and dashed out of the auditorium.
In the early years of the 21st century, NASA sent its Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite to the Moon to confirm the presence of subsurface ice deposits at the South Pole. Upon reaching the Moon, LCROSS released its spent second-stage booster and sent it crashing down into Cabeus Crater. The probe's cameras and spectroscopes caught the plume of debris raised by the rocket's impact; when scientists back on Earth analyzed the images, they discovered that as much as 8.5 percent of the regolith was comprised of ice, possibly the remnants of an ancient comet collision. Since the crater floor lay in perpetual darkness, this ice had never melted.
That meant Cabeus was an oasis, a large source of water--nearly a billion gallons, it was eventually learned--in a place where H2O was hard to come by. The Chinese would later discover another ice deposit about a hundred miles to the east in Scott Crater, but by then the ISC was making plans to exploit the Cabeus ice field as a primary source of drinking water for future lunar colonists.
Cabeus Station had been manned for only as long as it took to build a semiautomatic mining facility at the bottom of the crater; it was much too remote for anyone to live there for long, and helium-3 deposits were sparse in the polar regions. Instead, robots teleoperated by controllers in Apollo prowled the crater floor, using diamond-head drills to sink narrow shafts into the ground wherever their spectroscopes detected ice crystals. The robots extracted the ice-laden regolith and carried it back to the station's main facility, where a fusion furnace melted the ice and processors distilled pure water from the heavy metals within the sediment. The water would then be stored in tanks to await pickup by a Pegasus.
Sure, the loonies could extract H2O from the regolith mined closer to the colony, but not nearly in the same amounts as from Cabeus. Moon Dragon had its own lunar ice mine at Scott, and they were welcome to it. So long as both the ISC and the PSU exercised water conservation at their separate colonies, there was enough ice to keep everyone happy for years to come. No one had ever seriously thought that Cabeus Station would need to be defended...until now.
From the passenger compartment windows of the Pegasus, I could see the terrain over which we flying. The lunar South Pole was a wilderness of dust and stone, its ragged mountains and deep craters shrouded by an endless twilight. The landscape was nothing like the basalt oceans of the equator. This was one of the Moon's most treacherous regions, harsh and unyielding, where Earth barely peeped above the horizon and the Sun was almost a stranger.
Once again, Gordie was flying the Pegasus I was in. No surprise; I didn't think he would have wanted to sit this one out. After lift-off from Apollo, he headed due south from Ptolemaeus on a high-altitude trajectory. He could have gone suborbital and cut the travel time in half, but this was the way long-range transports flew when they carried water tanks back and forth from Cabeus Station. With luck, anyone aboard the Duke who might be watching for unusual activity on the Moon might mistake our Pegasus for a routine resupply mission.
Because we didn't want our adversaries to determine our defense strategy, my team was observing strict radio silence: no contact with Apollo unless absolutely necessary. But the silence wasn't restricted to satellite communications. It was quiet in the Pegasus, too. Twelve men and women sat across from each other in the personnel module, and I don't think any of us spoke more than a few words during the three and a half hours it took to travel 1,300 miles. We'd pressurized the module and opened our helmets, yet no one was in the mood for conversation.
Let's be honest: we were scared.
I was learning that fear can be a good thing. It keeps you alert and wary, ready for whatever may come your way. But it can also immobilize you, make you afraid to do whatever needs to be done in order to stay alive. If Mr. Garcia had been with us, he might have given us a good pep talk, or at least told us to relax until we got to where we were going. He'd put Mikel in charge of our team, though, and he was handling the job with typical Russian stoicism. That pretty much left each of us alone with our thoughts.
Mine were about Hannah. She'd been scared, too...for me. And like an idiot, I'd said the wrong things, even given back a good-luck charm that she'd clearly wanted me to keep. I shouldn't have been so fatalistic. I should have kept the medallion and told her not to worry, I'd return soon. What I'd done instead was practically tell her that I didn't think I was coming back. That was even worse than giving her the impression that I no longer wanted to take her out on a date. To a girl who was still getting over losing her father and didn't know where her mother was, this was...well, I could have handled it better.
So I stared out the window beside me and watched the shadows grow longer upon the battered moonscape, and tried not to think too hard about what we were about to get ourselves into. And around the same time that it seemed as if I could no longer see anything except the highest mountain peaks, the transport's bow tilted forward and I felt the VTOL engines surge to life beneath the deck plates.
"Coming in for landing," Gordie said, his voice a muted murmur within my helmet. "We'll be on the ground in five minutes. Close your helmets, I'm beginning depressurization."
"Roger that," Mikel said from the other end of the module. "You heard him, guys. We're going on comlink now. Channel Three."
I reached up to shut my faceplate. "Pressurize suit, please, Arthur," I said once my helmet was airtight. "Switch comlink to the emergency freak."
"Yes, Jamey." A second later I heard the thin hiss of air entering my suit. "You'll pardon me for saying so, but I'm registering a seven percent increase in your cardiac rate. You need to calm down a little."
I started taking long, slow breaths. That usually helped settle my nerves, but this time it didn't. Across the aisle, I could see Logan doing the same thing. We looked at each other, and he managed a wry grin. By then, everyone had switched their comlinks to the seldom-used UHF channel reserved to Lunar Search and Rescue for emergency transmissions. With luck, enemy forces wouldn't figure out that we were on this particular frequency. I could hear scattered comments from the others, which meant that they'd be able to hear what Logan and I said, too.
"So," Logan asked, "who do you think is going to the state championship this year?"
I couldn't help myself; I laughed out loud. "Burtonsville, of course. You should know that. We..."
"What the hell are you two talking about?" Nicole was seated next to Logan. She'd just closed her helmet, and she stared at us from the other side of her faceplate.
"Just swim team stuff," Logan said, as if this was still something that mattered to us. I hadn't thought about it in months. "Jamey's got more school spirit than I do. Our team hasn't been the state champs in years."
"Yeah, maybe so," I replied, "but that doesn't mean we can't..."
"Okay, knock it off, you two," Greg said. "We've got more important things to worry about."
He was right, of course. All the same, it helped me remember, if only for a few seconds, where Logan and I had come from. We grinned at each other, sharing a private joke only the two of us understood. Of course our swim team never went to the state championships. It was a well-known fact that Burtonsville High had the worst team in Maryland. But it never stopped us from trying...and I was glad that Logan and I were able to talk about that kind of stuff again.
There was a mild jolt as the Pegasus touched down. The transport had barely settled upon its landing gear when Mikel stood up. "Let's go, Rangers!" he snapped as he cranked open the main hatch. "Grab your gear and move out!"