Moon Zero Two (4 page)

And this once, there was Liz Murphy.

She told me she was a geologist’s secretary, taking a rest while her boss went back to Earth with reports on seismic surveys they had been making. I didn’t believe it at first—not a woman with greedy eyes like that, and a slow husky voice like that, and haunches like that There was nothing rocky about her at all: she was soft and pliable and responsive. But then I got to know a certain hard note in her voice, below that smoky purr; and several times I saw her lips tighten involuntarily when I said something snide about the big boys who had taken over the Earth and the Moon and set their seal on the heavens and reduced everything to their own size—a mean, unadventurous size. So I began to believe she could, after all, be quite a tough operator in her own field.

And I was right, and I was wrong. Right to believe she was tough and good in her own field; wrong to believe that she was, really and truly, a geologist’s assistant.

Liz Murphy was Agent Elizabeth Murphy. And she wasn’t taking a vacation at Helicon House. She might not be wearing uniform, but she was on duty all right. She had been assigned William Kemp as a job. It was up to her to find out if I’d been making big money by smuggling, by shoving semiprecious stones into my underwear, by shipping undeclared loads of ore out of Farside, by working some new fast one that they hadn’t got around to yet. Kemp was an oddball, and they didn’t like oddballs clicking around the intestines of their tidy machinery.

So Liz wasn’t there for pleasure. Hard lines on her... because pleasure was what she got. It was part of the job to go to bed with me if necessary; and very early on she found it necessary—and after that it became positively obligatory.

She didn’t stop me. Oh, she was shrewd all right. Even while she was making intimate discoveries about me that couldn’t possibly go into any official dossier, she still kept up her mental appraisal. And it told her that, whatever other faults I might have, I was honest. No smuggling, no smart dealing, no little tricks to add to the lunar repertoire. Liz fell for me, and reported back that I was
dependable and loyal and wasn’t costing the authorities a penny more than her own expenses at the Helicon.

They moved her out. And I went back to work.

“But I’ll see you,” she said desperately. “I’ll see you in the city.”

“You sure will.”

And that was when she got all pale and girlish—a thing she never ceased to be ashamed of afterward—and broke down and told me what her job was. And after I’d got good and mad, and told her what I thought of her, I told her what I thought of her in other ways, and she cried again, and hated herself for it, and afterward she had one main ambition. Kemp was wonderful, but not quite wonderful enough. Kemp had to be reformed. He had to be made respectable. No more racketing about in a ship that could have won first prize in a vintage vehicle exhibition back on Earth. Kemp had to be coaxed, pressured... and, in the last resort, forced... to be someone worthy of her. If I wanted her, I had to play it her way.

And did I want her? Did I want her that much?

Well...

It was something I hadn’t even decided for my own satisfaction, so I was nowhere near committing myself out loud. Neither one way nor the other. And I wasn’t just playing it cautious so that she wouldn’t bring the whole force of the Bureau down on me. The caution was all concerned with me and her, and what it could all lead to or not lead to if I blasted off my jets in the wrong direction.

“Well?”

There was that rasp in her voice now. It jolted me into wakefulness. There we were on the firing range, and there she was pointing her rocket pistol at me. It was against regulations to wave a gun about like that. But then, a lot of things between us had been against regulations.

I gulped and said: “It’s empty.”

“Sure, but my files aren’t. I’ll... I’ll...” And then she faltered. Poor Liz. She faltered, and backed away. “I’ll give you one week,” she said tightly. “One week before I start really working at my job. Get yourself a major overhaul or a new ship. Or you’re on the ground.”

I could sense that, although she had made a bit of a concession, her own anger with herself would drive her on
now: she’d go through with it. I tried to make it deep and sincere and suggestive. After all we’ve been to each other... that kind of thing. I said:

“Now look, Liz my love—”

“The name is Agent Murphy.”

I got the message. Tight lips, defiance, accusation, the lot. Get rich or get out: that was what she was telling me.

I tossed down the pistol and turned to go.

She wavered again. Maybe she thought I’d really made up my mind on the spot, and my decision was to get out.

“Bill, are you eating somewhere?”

“Just drinking,” I said, “with a dead friend.”

I left her to her pistol practice, with just the faintest tremor as I turned my back on her.

Dmitri Karminski was already established on a stool at the bar and looked as though he had been there a long time. Come to think of it, he must have been waiting while I made polite noises at one girl and dubious ones at the other.

He was flushed. But that meant nothing special. If you’ve been cooped up in a devitalized ship for any length of time, you turn sallow and pasty, and the first substantial drink you have heads straight for your face and colors it up. Dmitri’s high cheekbones might have been touched up with red lipstick: you could see every line of the fine bone structure.

The barman leaned toward me and said: “Hi, Bill. Did you hear about Otto?”

Dmitri said: “Yes he heard about Otto. Now go on, Bill. Tell us. Tell us it happens all the time.”

“Mix me a Moonflower,” I said. “Double.”

“First one’s on the house,” said the barman as though he was sorry for me. I don’t like people who are sorry for me.

I drained that first one all at one go. It gave me the shudders right around the edge of my stomach, taking in a bit of my spine as well. It tasted like condemned rocket fuel. In fact, it almost certainly
was
condemned rocket fuel. Amazing what you could get from a top distillation. Carried out by experts, under the most hygienic conditions, of course. Untouched by human hand. A pity it had to be touched by the human tongue, really. But we were a long way from Scotland, and the real stuff came at thirty-five
dollars a shot. I’d like to have said good-bye to Otto in Scotch, but at that price... No, Otto would have understood. On whatever far star he now rested or drifted about as a dust cloud, he’d understand.

Dmitri lifted his glass owlishly toward me, as though catching an echo of my thoughts. He swayed on the stool.

I said: “Isn’t it about time you got hungry?”

“A good point, Captain, O my Captain.” He looked even more owlish when he tried to assume a knowing leer. “I hear the Bureau was looking for you. Are we in trouble?”

“The usual. Only more so.”

He considered this with the earnestness of the halfdrunk. “You know, I’d say ‘more so’ was becoming pretty usual by now. And so”—he slid from the stool and pointed himself at the door, raising his voice histrionically— “the gallant space-engineer passes into the great unknown of Joe’s Olde-Tyme Moon Hash-House, perhaps never to return...”

He slightly spoiled his exit by reeling into two tourists and then bouncing off the swing doors into the lobby. He could have done with a reaction pistol to steady himself.

The barman was pouring me another Moonflower. I paid for this one and carried it to a table in the corner. It was one of the dark corners—very romantic, if you were in the mood. I wasn’t in the mood. I let the harsh spirit course around my mouth, clean the back of my teeth, and then swill itself down to see what further damage it could do.

I hoped Dmitri wouldn’t get too seriously plastered tonight. He had been Otto’s engineer a couple of years before he came with me. Maybe he felt now that if he’d stayed with Otto, Otto would still be alive. Or maybe he was just glad to be alive himself, and no questions asked. Either way, he was likely to hit the cheapest bottle he could find.

Something was flashing and flickering below my eyes. I got it into focus. It was the squat little telephone in the center of the table, playing Christmas fairy-lights with itself.

You just couldn’t find a place nowadays where you’d be left alone. Unless you went where Otto had just gone—and even there, they’d probably have some system for persecuting you.

28

I picked up the phone. “This is Mr. Kemp’s butler speaking. The master is getting drunk. Call again later.” I put it down again.

It went on flashing, and added a little bleeping noise which was very bad for my nerves. I needed the drink left in my glass, but I needed peace and quiet even more. I poured the dregs over the telephone. It shorted with a flash and a fizz.

I sat back for a minute. I was just about to get up and go for another drink when a shadow fell across the table, making the discreet twilight even darker.

“You should have answered that.”

He was a large hunk of humanity with massive fists that even at one-sixth gravity could do a lot of damage if you didn’t adjust your own escape velocity to them. He laid one of his fists on the table, and glared.

“I bought it a drink,” I said. “What else can a man do?”

“A gentleman wants to see you.”

I considered this, thought it wasn’t really worthy of any consideration at all. I said: “He could always go to hell instead.”

“Mr.
Hubbard
wants to see you.” Very hushed, very reverent.

“Old Hundred Percent Hubbard? Why didn’t you say? He can go a hundred percent to hell.”

His face was in shadow, but there was nothing romantic about it. The shadows only emphasized the nasty lines and the hefty chin.

He said: “Let’s just go see Mr. Hubbard.”

“Go on,” I said. “Persuade me.”

There was a faint clink against the table. He could have been reaching for the injured telephone. But he wasn’t. He was tapping the edge of the table to draw my attention to the fact that he was holding a rocket pistol. One of the nice, new, silenced jobs. Like Liz, he shouldn’t have been pointing it. And certainly not here, not on surface. One misguided blast, and there could be a leak through the window which was the pride and joy of the Blue Moon Bar.

I wondered whether to mention this to him. Then I took another look at his face, and at the pistol, and I said:

“I’m persuaded.”

EVERY NEW FRONTIER attracts its quota of racketeers. The law enforcement officers settle in as fast as they can, flanked by the Customs and Excise chiselers. But for every legitimate tax-collector—if there
is
such a thing as a legitimate tax-collector—you’ll find two shysters, trouble organizers, and protection bullies setting up shop. Open up a new world, and watch them seethe in.

I wondered what this slob’s line was. Or, rather, what Hubbard’s line was going to be. It was less than half a century since the Moon had really been opened up, and already we had not only bureaucrats by the score but hired thugs muscling a way in for the Hubbards of the world—the Hubbards who had gutted the world and now wanted... what?

The lift plunged down into the bowels of the hotel, safe and cozy far below the surface. The lift was lighted, the rooms and suites and corridors were lighted; but every now and then you got a visitor who suddenly started thinking about the grim rocky darkness pressing in from all sides, and then the hotel medico would have to reach for his tranquilizers.

I didn’t think about rocks and darkness, though I’d sooner be out in a ship any day or night than down here. I said: “Nice weather we’re having.”

He stared. He was good at staring, but not at much else. He was the sort of thug who believed that a gun was the best substitute for conversation. It said all he ever needed to say.

We stopped outside the Cellar Suite, and the doors
whistled gently open. My friend jerked the gun toward me. I did as I was told, and got out first. On the way I elbowed the DOOR CLOSE button. Very fast and responsive, that lift. As he came after me, the doors began to close on him, and before the automatic stop came into play his gun hand was clouted to one side.

I swung on him. I snatched the gun and pushed him backward. The automatic stop clicked, clicked again, and the doors closed. There was a whine and then another click as he stabbed at the button inside. The doors slid back again, and he came blundering out.

I was waiting for him. He stared into his own gun from a different angle.

“Let’s go see Mr. Hubbard,” I said affably.

He thought there was a catch in it. I waggled the gun at him. He indicated the door behind me, facing the lift. I wasn’t going to turn my back on him. I did a bit more waggling with the gun, and he edged around me. But he wasn’t happy about opening that door and letting us in.

I tilted the gun. “This is a new model. I’m not sure which is the safety and which...”

He pressed the buzzer, a voice muttered something in the door speaker, and we were admitted.

It was a sumptuous room, carved out of the rock in a soothing curve. No harsh edges, nothing to blunt your eyesight on. The colors were pastel, unlike those noisy splotches way upstairs. The chairs were slender, as delicate as a spider’s web. On the Moon, even a 240-pound man puts only forty pounds pressure on a chair.

There was a window, too. It brought me up short. It made no sense, having a window this far down. The view was somewhat remarkable, too: cows grazing around at the foot of the Swiss Alps. It was all so real that I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear cowbells tinkling and to get a whiff of the fresh mountain breezes. They certainly did you proud in this hotel—if you could afford it.

There were three of them there, waiting for us. None of them was getting nostalgic about Switzerland: they were all looking at me.

Between us was a low table. It was graceful, and beautifully set with polished Moon-quartz. What was especially pretty about it was the bottle of Scotch in the middle,
surrounded by a little huddle of glasses. Good, big, man-sized glasses.

“Well, why didn’t you say?” I tossed the gun to its owner and poured myself a drink.