Lunar Descent (22 page)

Riddell frowned. He rocked his head back and forth on his neck as he quickly moved the soap and sponge around his chest and armpits. “You got this thing started before I even signed onto this job, so I consider this is as one more burden I inherited from Bo Fisk, regardless of whether he condoned it or not. And maybe I can even see the reason why you did it, if it's for the reasons I suspect.” He paused to step under the water again. “What have you been getting out of those cans, anyway?”

Mighty Joe couldn't help smiling. “Some stuff. Not a whole bunch.” He hesitated before deciding to offer the supreme sacrifice. “Got a fifth of Jack Daniel's in my locker if you want it,” he added quietly. “It's all yours.”

“I don't want to hear about it,” Riddell snapped. For a few moments he rinsed the soap from his body. Mighty Joe wondered how he could take the cold water without complaining. Most new guys raised hell the first time they took an ice-cold shower in here. Then again, he reminded himself, Riddell isn't entirely new to the Moon, is he? He probably remembers when moondogs got to take cold-water sponge baths only once a week.

“Here's the bottom line,” Lester went on. “It stops here, right now. I won't let anything I know slip to Quick-Draw if I can be sure that's the last Spam-can that gets diverted. I don't know all the details, I don't know who else was involved, and I honestly don't care. But I do know enough to get you and the others canned. Maybe sent home with federal marshals waiting for you when your shuttle lands at the Cape. Am I making myself clear so far?”

“Real clear,” Mighty Joe mumbled.

“Good. So you can bet your furry ass I'm going to be watching it.” Riddell
whoofed
as the chill water hit his chest. “Damn, that's cold … and before you ask why I'm doing this, it's only because we're short-handed and I need anyone I can get to keep this place running. Even a fuck-up like you.”

“Yeah,” Joe growled. “Thanks a heap.”

Lester darted a look at him the moment his own timer pinged. He pulled the keycard out, then reached over, and slipped it into Mighty Joe's shower. “Here, have ten more minutes on me,” he said as he reentered the hot water program. “Might as well make sure McGraw doesn't spot any ink when she sees you next time.”

Steaming water gushed out of the shower again. Amazed, Mighty Joe stared at Lester as the new GM walked, dripping wet and hugging his shoulders, out of the shower stall. “Mind if I borrow your towel?” he asked. Joe nodded his head. “Thanks. See you around, flyboy.”

He then walked out into the deserted locker room, picking up his clothes as he headed for his own locker in the back of the room. Joe sagged face-first against the wall and slowly let out his breath. Christ almighty, that had been a close one!

He was still leaning against the wall when he heard the door to the women's locker room open. He didn't pay much attention, though, until he heard the sound of bare feet smacking onto the tiled floor behind him. He started to turn around when a pair of unmistakably feminine hands were laid on the back of his shoulders.

“Hey, big guy,” Annie Noonan said quietly. “Care to scrub a lady's back for her?”

Joe looked around just in time to see the bath towel she had wrapped around her body drop to the wet floor. “Uhh … yeah, I might be able to,” he murmured, letting his eyes travel down the length of her nude body. God, she looked better in the raw than he had ever fantasized.

She had managed to get the dye off herself, but he barely noticed. “I was just thinking about you,” he said, unable to take his eyes away from her body. “This is kind of a new attitude, isn't it?”

Noonan smiled as she draped her arms around his neck and pulled herself under the hot water. “Kinda,” she said, grinning up at him. “I still think you're adolescent and sexist, but I made you a promise, didn't I?”

She curled her fingers through the hair on the back of his head as her face went serious. “We could have been killed up there, you know,” she murmured, her mouth growing into a pout. “It was that bad, wasn't it?”

“Yeah,” he admitted as he let his hands circle her slender waist. Her small, elegant breasts pressed against his chest as he drew her to him. “It was a close one all right. I'm sorry about that, kiddo. Didn't mean to scare you like …”

“Aw, shaddup, you big galoot,” Annie whispered as her lips found his. Her kiss was long and exquisitely passionate. “Just think of it as sort of a hero's reward,” she added when she broke the kiss. “You know what they say about heroes, don't you?”

“Uh-uh.” He moved his hands down to her ass, grabbed hold of her buttocks and picked her up. Her long legs straddled his hips, allowing him to hold her above the floor as she guided him toward the warmest place of all. “No, I don't know. What about 'em?”

“Heroes are hard to find,” she said in his ear.

PART THREE

After Midnight

Postmarked the Moon (Montage.2)

Dear Becky:

Glad to hear that the paycheck got there in time to cover the electric bill. Don't let it slide so long next time, O.K? Did they cut off the juice, or did you manage to work something out first
?

Anyway, the good news is that we've just about met the six-week production quota I told you about, so that means the next check should be a little larger, since we're getting our bonuses. At least that's what the new general manager told us last month. We still haven't heard for sure, though, if Skycorp will still keep their end of the deal
—
no, I still don't trust them
—
so don't go on any shopping sprees till I tell you
.…

It's morning at midnight: 0800 GMT on Tuesday, July 13, 2024, at Descartes Station. The first shift of the day is about to begin, in the middle of the two-week lunar night.

The first bars of the national anthem, recorded on an aging cassette which has been wrung through the heads too many times already, rasps through the ceiling speakers in the dorms, a tired
dah-duh-duh-duh-duuuh
and
dum-de-dum-dum-dum-duuuh
, which stirs Lester Riddell from his sleep. He lies in his bunk for a long time—legs curled up against his chest, hands clutching the baggy pillow against his neck, feeling the coarse warmth of the brown wool-polyester blanket wrapped around his stiff body, his bare feet sticking out from under the sheet, cold and numbed. As his eyes focus at random on the luminescent, ever-changing readout of the niche's computer terminal—rows of cryptic symbols, graphs, and code numbers flashing on and off, apparently telling him that everything is static, unchanging, A-OK on the base—the tape goes
dee-dee-dah-dee-dah-SQUONNNK
! and there's a half-instant of high-pitched feedback until Moondog McCloud's smoky voice mutters,
Naaawright, that's enough of that stuff, let's try a little music instead
.…

Oh, please … Lester scrunches his eyes tightly shut, dreading whatever is to come from McCloud's eclectic tastes this morning. God help them, he might have decided to subject everyone to an old Residents or Plasmatics cut—last Thursday morning it was Sid Vicious' version of “My Way”—but instead the mellow tremor of Miles Davis' trumpet cuts through the fog. Lester takes a deep breath, slowly lets it out, and watches as the ceiling lights gradually sharpen in intensity like a false dawn. He hears around him from other cubicles the sullen squeak of bedsprings releasing their weight, the hollow thump of feet landing on floorboards. Time to get going. He rolls over and places his feet on the cold floor.…

…
Did I tell you that we've got a former fashion model working here? No kidding! The girl who was on the
Sports Illustrated
cover you had taped over your desk at UMC, the one in the purple bikini under the waterfall—“Maui Zowie.” Yeah
, that
Susan Peterson!!! I'm not lying: she's a scientist up here! Didn't you read that interview with her in
Playboy?
I don't know how old she is now, but I swear she's got a great ass! Hey, and don't believe me if you don't want to, but I think she likes me. Watch it, pal. You'll get hair in your palms if you start thinking like that, nyuk nyuk nyuk
.…

Butch Peterson snaps her ankle-weights into place, then stands up from the bunk and steps up to the chinning bar mounted just above the door of her niche. Wearing only the panties and tanktop she slept in, she reaches up, grabs the bar, and begins to do twenty quick ones, her morning regimen. One … two … three … four …

Perspiration soon beads her forehead and chest, running in rivulets down the front and back of her top. Eight … nine … ten … eleven … Her mind is already at work, going over the results of the polar geological survey she has just completed. She's going to have to talk to Les about letting her go up to Byrd Crater for an inspection of the permaice extraction facility. It's not a prospect that particularly excites her, except maybe for the fact that it gives her an excuse to get away from the base for a day or two.

Fourteen … fifteen … sixteen … She grits her teeth with the exertion. Face it, kiddo, you're going stir-crazy here. Even if it's just going up to the north pole again, it might be worth the trip just to give yourself a change of scenery. Eighteen, nineteen …

…
Skycorp must have been desperate to send up the replacement workers we've received last month. Specially trained personnel? Who do they think they're kidding? These are guys out of die-tool factories, pool halls and chop-shops; I can't imagine how they were recruited for a job like this. Every shift there is a mishap of one sort or another, whether it be loss-of-oxygen accidents, sprained ankles and wrists, machinery broken because of lack of proper instruction—it's really pathetic, like a bad TV sitcom sometimes. I know we needed the money to send the kids to college, but I'm sincerely beginning to wonder if this was a serious mistake
.

Don't worry
—
I'm looking out for myself. That's my Number One priority. I refuse to let myself be harmed because some tobacco-chewing yahoo from East Podunk was screwing around on the clock. Just keep the money in the bank where it belongs, darling, and don't quit your job at the shoe store. The kids are old enough to take care of themselves while you're at work. I'll be home in only five months, and we'll put this ordeal behind us
.

I really miss you, too, Doug
.…

In the infirmary, Monk Walker is already laying out bandages, antiseptic, sutures, and low-level painkillers in preparation for the long day ahead. Through the door leading to the locker room, he can hear moondogs from the third shift returning from work—lockers opening, men talking and cussing. He hums along in time with the Miles Davis cut on the radio, thankful for a little bit of good music before the daily barrage of rock and roll begins.

The prayer beads around his left wrist click softly as he begins to change the sheets on the cot, and he briefly remembers the silence of the Tibetan Himalayas in the morning: the way the low morning clouds curled around the columns of the great monastery at Lhasa, the melodic sound of drums and chimes being beaten by the Gyuto monks—all very long ago and far away. He thinks of the smiling face of his teacher and former patient, the Dalai Lama, the mornings they spent together, sipping tea and discussing the ways of the world, and finds himself longing for those simpler times … and reaches for the dosimeter logbook, in which he keeps a written record of each moondog's radiation exposure.

Keep your mind on the present, he reminds himself. This isn't Lhasa.…

…
I swear to God, Chuckie, this job is beginning to suck something big-time. Remember how you told me this would be easy, workin on the moon? “Anythings got to be better than stayin on the assembly line?” (you sez that—I remember!) Ha-ha-ha and fuck you too, and I mean it. If its so fuckin easy, why ain't you up here, you low piece of shit? (Just kiddin
—
honest!) Anyway, we're workin a hundred times harder now that this new GM is here, and even tho the sun went down last week (the nights are two weeks long here, remember?) we're still pullin three eight-hour shifts a day, and I'm workin like a cocksucker now, but you think fuckin Skycorp is goin to give us back our bonus pay? Not a fuckin chance
!

Dont try sendin me any more doobies in the mail again, cuz fuckin NASA and the company clamped down on all the illicit contraband thats been sent up here. And stay away from my sister, you asshole, cuz if I find out you've been banging her while I'm up here, I rip your head off and shit down your neck
.…

Mighty Joe gently unlocks Annie Noonan's arms from around his neck and pushes her aside in the narrow bunk. The sleeping woman whispers something unintelligible as she rolls over, pulling the covers around her nude body. Joe looks down at her and fondly pats her rump, then stands up and stretches his back. Good God, he thinks as he hears it crack, many more nights like this and the woman's going to throw my spine out of place.

He grins saucily.
And you're not going to hear me complaining, either. Sure is weird, having a steady girlfriend again
. He knuckles sleep out of his eyes. So long as she doesn't get serious on him or anything, he doesn't mind.

“Aw, well,” he says softly. “Time for that glorious first piss of the day.” Scratching his ass, he reaches for the door and pulls it open—just in time to catch one of the other women who share the females-only dorm on her way back from the head. She shrieks at the sight of his naked body and dashes down the corridor as Mighty Joe slams the door shut.

Christ! He had forgotten he had been sleeping in Annie's niche again.…

…
You know how much Dad meant to me. I loved him as much as you or anyone else in the family, and if I could have been there for the funeral, you know I would have made it. That's the truth. But Skycorp's contract prohibits me from coming back for any other reason than serious injury, mental unfitness, or being fired or laid off. Dad knew that when I signed on, and he told me to go ahead, even though he knew he didn't have that long to live. I'm sorry, sis. That's the way it is. I've said kaddish for him. Please lay flowers on his grave for me until I get back
.…