Lunar Descent (49 page)

Peterson rested her hands on her hips and stared back at him in silence “Okay?” Lester pleaded. “Yes? No? Say what's on your mind.”

Butch smiled, closed her eyes, and shook her head. “Les, don't drive me into a corner like this. I gave you my final answer last night and …”

“That was last night, Susie. This is—”

“Now. Right.” She slowly let out her breath and looked around the lab. “Try to understand this, all right? I spent the better part of my life getting here. Right
here
, to
this
room. That meant years of posing in fishnet bikinis to pay my way through school, dumping a second career which could have made me rich, and breaking an engagement with a world-famous tennis jock. I'm talking about
sacrifices
, Les.…”

She shook her head disbelievingly. “And now you're asking me to ditch all that, just to come live with you in a trailer behind some backwoods New Hampshire campground? Get
real
, man.”

Lester looked down at the floor. Damn, but she was right. He had been on the Moon for too long; it was beginning to fry his brain, even without a steady diet of pills. “I take it,” he said, slowly, “that it's still a definite no.”

Peterson stepped forward, slid her arms around his neck, and planted one of her memorable kisses on his mouth. “I mean that it's a definite maybe,” she replied as she stepped back, taking his hands in hers. “I could get tired of this place in a year or two. Maybe I'll chicken out on the expedition to 2024 Garbo, or maybe the company will decide that it doesn't want to support a basic research program anyway. Maybe I'll just decide that I miss you after all. In that case …”

She shrugged. “You might expect to find me showing up at your campground after all.”

Lester nodded, squeezing her hands. “You just want to leave it at that? Definite maybe?”

“Definite maybe,” Butch repeated. She released his hands and perched herself up on a stool. “You better get out of here now. They might not hold the boat if you keep hanging around like this.”

He bent down, picked up his bags, and stepped back toward the door. “You're … uh, not going to see me off?”

Butch shook her head. “No. Might not be a good idea.” She ducked a little so that her com rows and beads fell down over her face; when she looked up at him again there was a sly smile on her face. “See ya around, boss.”

“Be seeing you, tough guy.” He forced a smile, turned and walked out the door, closing it behind him. She hadn't said whether or not she loved him. But, come to think of it, neither had he.

“Now look,” Lester said to Mighty Joe as he slid his hands into his hardsuit gloves and let the suit tech buckle the wrist-rings, “you're gong to have to promise me that still doesn't get used except on Saturday nights, you understand? You let these people get drunk on that evil shit every night, and before you know it you're going to have a bunch of deadbeats on your hands. So …”

“Okay, okay, you made your point. It's a promise, I swear it.” Mighty Joe took the helmet off the rack and waited while the tech clamped shut the back of the suit and checked the air mixture. “Hey, y'know, I might start experimenting with making sour-mash whiskey with that thing. Might turn out to be a good batch, if I can …”

“One more thing,” Riddell continued. “I know they're making you general administrator.…”

“
Senior
administrator.”

“Senior administrator, or whatever they want to call it, but you're going to have to pay stricter attention to the maintenance of the tugs. Even if you're buying your spare parts from Skycorp now, they might not be sending you quite so many in the future.”

“They never did in the first place.”

“So you're probably going to be holding those things together with rubber bands and epoxy.” Lester held up two bulky fingers. “Just in the time that I've been here, you've had two crashes because of mechanical breakdowns, and you dinged your ribs on one of 'em. That should teach you a lesson. Don't trust your mechanics. Get the job done right the first time and you won't have any regrets. And look over the things yourself before you fly 'em, or get someone else to.…”

“All right! Okay! Jesus, get out of here already. You're beginning to sound like you're the—”

Mighty Joe stopped short of completing his sentence. A smile slowly grew on Lester's face. “Like I'm the general manager?”

“Senior administrator,” Joe replied. He handed the helmet to Lester. “They retired the old title after the last GM decided to quit and go home.”

“Uh-huh.” Lester juggled the helmet in his hands. “Must have been a real shit, that guy,” he said, peering down into the headpiece.

“He sure was,” Joe replied. “But he got the job done right. Know what I mean?”

Lester nodded, feeling a lump in his throat. Mighty Joe stuck out his hand and Lester caught it in his fist. They shook hands silently, then Riddell raised the helmet and pulled it down over his head. When he looked through the faceplate, he saw that the new general manager—that is, the new senior administrator—of Descartes Station had turned his back on him and was walking away.

For a second, he thought about pulling off the helmet, calling Young back and telling him—what? Anything that really mattered? Maybe there was nothing left to be said between them. Even in the stifling warmth of the hardsuit, though, the ready-room now seemed like a much colder place. Maybe I could have used a big send-off after all, Lester mused, glancing down at his suit to switch on the electrical system while the suit tech turned the oxygen-nitrogen feed valves on his back. But what the hell were you expecting? A brass band? A cake? Tearful moondogs throwing themselves at your feet, begging you not to …?

Muffled by the helmet, he suddenly heard loud laughter and applause. Lester looked up again and laughed out loud. Across the room, Mighty Joe Young had stopped, dropped his trousers and boxer shorts, and was bending over to exhibit one of the biggest, hairiest asses Riddell had ever seen.

A new tradition had been born.

“Crude but effective,” Lester murmured. Who needed a damn cake anyway?

Out on Pad Two, the rats were reeling away the fuel lines and shutting the last few service hatches on the underside of the
Collins
. Alli James had been chiding Lester about his tardiness ever since he had emerged from the airlock; hauling his duffel bag and attaché case, Riddell bunny-hopped out to the waiting lander, relishing for one last time the freedom of one-sixth gravity, sand skipping up and away from his booted feet. Good old Moon, he thought. Nice place to visit, but what a bitch to live here. Gimme a morning in the White Mountains any old day.…

He reached the shadow of the lander and found the ladder leading up the hull to the crew compartment. Standing in the long, black shadow, a single moondog was waiting for him. “Better get out of here,” Lester said as he reached for the lowermost rung. “Thanks, but I don't need a …”

The solitary moondog walked back a couple of steps, out of the shadow and into the sunlight, and in the instant just before he evaporated, Lester Riddell glimpsed the face of Sam Sloane for one last time.

He couldn't be sure, but he was almost positive that Sam had been smiling.

Who're you talking to down there
? James demanded.
C'mon, Les, enough with the farewells. I got a ship to launch here
.

Lester stared at the place where Sam had been standing. “Just an old friend of mine,” he said at last. “He's gone now. Let's go.” He clipped the briefcase to his utility belt, tugged the duffel bag's strap securely over his left shoulder, and began to make the climb up to the open airlock of the
Michael Collins
.

“Fourteen … thirteen …”

“Engines armed and ready … hydraulics on, pumps one two three up and functional …”

“Twelve … eleven …”

“Final telemetry check, go … guidance IU set and functional …”

“Ten … nine …”

“Auto-abort on … autopilot sequence loaded and go …”

“Eight … seven …”

Head against the backrest of his couch, listening to the patter of the final countdown sequence between Alli James and Ray Carroll, Lester looked around at the other passengers in the rear seats of the flight deck. Tina McGraw sat stiffly in her seat, dreading yet another sickening flight into lunar orbit, although Riddell doubted that she would get as ill as she had when they were coming to the Moon … what was it, eight, nine weeks ago? Seemed like so much longer now. Next to her, Honest Yuri looked as if he was asleep; his eyes were shut, his head lolling languidly on his neck. Awaiting him back home were endless chemotherapy and radiation treatments for his cancer, compared to what faced the artist on Earth, a launch into space from the Moon was the least of his concerns.

“Six … five …” Alli said, then snapped, “You got a headset back there, Les?”

“Uhhh … no. I gave mine up when I left …”

“Four … three … guess we'll all have to listen to this on the way up, then.”

She snapped a switch on the communications board, and Harry Drinkwater's voice boomed out of the audio speakers: …
request from a li'l lady from Kansas City going out to the gent from New Hampshire who's goin' on home
…

“Two … one …”

“Ignition and liftoff …”

…
with love. And no razzberries this time, Les
.

As the
Michael Collins
lofted into orbit, the first riffs of an old Chuck Berry tune ripped through the cabin.

Lester closed his eyes, feeling the vessel gently rock back and forth on its engine-thrust as it climbed the gravity well. He smiled, and didn't bother to look out the windows to see the Moon receding below him. He could see the Moon any time he wanted to look at it now.

The job was done. No regrets.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to acknowledge the published research of the Space Studies Institute and the Lunar and Planetary Institute as the technological backbone of this novel, as well as the ongoing work of NASA and the National Space Society.

Among the many individuals who aided and abetted in the creation of this novel are: Michael Warshaw, Ken Moore, Bob Liddil, Michael Potter, Terry Kepner, Linda Tiernan, Larry Barnes, Paul “Tiny” Stacy, Walter Kahn, Frank and Joyce Jacobs, my sister Elizabeth Steele, cousin Alec Steele, and my ever-tolerant wife, Linda.

Special thanks to Ginjer Buchanan, Susan Allison, Deborah Beale, and Martha Millard for making it possible for me to continue writing, to Carol Lowe and Bob Eggleton for making me look good, and to Gregory Benford, Ron Miller, Sheila Williams, and Gardner Dozois for their moral support.

And, finally, my belated appreciation to a nameless civil servant at the John F. Kennedy Space Center visitors pavilion at Cape Canaveral, who patiently let me sit in the shotgun seat of an Apollo lunar rover to take notes about the vehicle and ask questions about the spacesuit-mockup he was wearing, while a tourist in a hideous Hawaiian shirt pestered me to “get outta the space car, mister, and let my kid look at it.”

—
Rindge, New Hampshire;

Sanibel Island, Florida

March, 1989
–
June, 1990

About the Author

Before becoming a science fiction writer, Allen Steele was a journalist for newspapers and magazines in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Missouri, and his home state of Tennessee. But science fiction was his first love, so he eventually ditched journalism and began producing that which had made him decide to become a writer in the first place.

Since then, Steele has published eighteen novels and nearly one hundred short stories. His work has received numerous accolades, including three Hugo Awards, and has been translated worldwide, mainly into languages he can't read. He serves on the board of advisors for the Space Frontier Foundation and is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He also belongs to Sigma, a group of science fiction writers who frequently serve as unpaid consultants on matters regarding technology and security.

Allen Steele is a lifelong space buff, and this interest has not only influenced his writing, it has taken him to some interesting places. He has witnessed numerous space shuttle launches from Kennedy Space Center and has flown NASA's shuttle cockpit simulator at the Johnson Space Center. In 2001, he testified before the US House of Representatives in hearings regarding the future of space exploration. He would like very much to go into orbit, and hopes that one day he'll be able to afford to do so.

Steele lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Linda, and a continual procession of adopted dogs. He collects vintage science fiction books and magazines, spacecraft model kits, and dreams.