Bouncing Off the Moon Read online

  I hadn't paid any attention at all to Doug's lectures, but it sank in anyway, by osmosis. I didn't think it mattered because we were going all the way to the end, to Farpoint Station, because that would give us the most flyaway speed and get us to Luna faster than any other transit.

  At least that's what we thought at the time.

  RUDE AWAKENINGS

  Somebody was shaking me awake. It was Douglas. "Come on, Chig-ger. We've gotta go. Now."

  "Huh? What?"

  "Don't ask questions, we don't have time."

  I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. "What time is it?"

  Douglas pulled me to my feet and pushed me toward Mickey, who steered me toward—there was someone else in the cabin?—he was tall and skinny and gangly. I blinked awake. It was Alexei Krislov, the Lunar-Russian madman, the money-surfer who'd tried to help us elude the Black Hats on Geostationary. "Huh? How did you get here?" I blinked in confusion. He was wearing a dripping wetsuit. Was I still dreaming?

  "Shh," he said, finger to his lips. "Later."

  Douglas scooped up the still-sleeping Bobby and Mickey grabbed the rest of our meager luggage, hanging it off himself like saddlebags. When he reached for the monkey, it jabbered away from him and leapt into my arms. After that incident on One-Hour, where the monkey had led me on a wild breathless chase, I'd programmed it to home toward me whenever Bobby wasn't playing with it. I'd told it I was the Prime Authority.

  Alexei opened the cabin door, peeked both ways—there was no one there—then led us aft toward the cargo section of the car. Actually, it was the bottom of the car, but the car was a cylinder rotating to generate pseudogravity, so the bottom was the aft. I was too groggy to pay much attention to what we were doing, I was still annoyed at being dragged out of bed. I looked at my watch. It was two-thirty in the morning. What the hell? We were still four hours away from Farpoint.

  Alexei pushed us into the aft transfer pod, and we all grabbed handholds. Pseudogravity faded away as the transfer pod stopped spinning in sync with the passenger cabin. Now we were in free fall again. I know that lots of people think free fall is fun. I'm not one of them. It makes me queasy, and it's hard to control where you're moving.

  Alexei opened the door on the other side and pushed us quickly into the cargo bay. I felt like one of those big balloons they use in the Thanksgiving Day parade. We floated and bounced through tight spaces filled with crates and tubes and tanks. The walls were all lined with orange webbing. Alexei led us through two or three more hatches, I lost count, and finally brought us to the last car in the train. It was cramped and cold and smelled funny. He jammed us into whatever spaces he could, then went back to seal the hatch; he did some stuff at the wall panel, and came swimming back to us, pushing blankets ahead of him. "Bundle warm. Is a little like Russian winter here, da?"

  The blankets didn't look very warm; they were thin papery things, but Alexei showed us how to work them. They were big Mylar ponchos; you put your head through the hole, pulled the elastic hood up over your head, and then zipped up the sides, leaving just enough gap to stick your hands out if you needed to. We looked like we were all plastic-wrapped, but as soon as I turned the blanket on, it turned reflective and I started feeling a lot better. Pretty soon, I was all warm and toasty and ready to go back to sleep—only I wanted to go back to the bed we'd already paid for.

  Mickey and Douglas were still sorting themselves out, finding corners to anchor our bags, and stuff like that. Douglas was bundling up Stinky, who still hadn't awakened. That's one good thing about low-gee. You sleep better.

  I looked to Mickey. "What's going on?"

  Alexei bounced over. "Is Luna you want to go, yes? Krislov will get you there. I promise. The elevators are not safe. Not for you. So I come to get you, da. I swim the whole way." He slapped his belly, indicating the wetsuit. He started to peel off the harness, which held his scuba gear. "I take free ride in the ballast tank. Nobody knows I am here. My people book for cabins to Luna. We all get bumped for Mister Fatwallets. No problem. We still go home." Grinning proudly, he tucked his Self-Contained Universal Breathing Apparatus into the orange webbing on the wall.

  Mickey finished what he was doing and floated down—or was it up?—to drift next to Douglas. He angled himself into the same general orientation and looked across at Alexei. "All of you? You're all leaving? All the Loonies?"

  Alexei looked grim. "As fast as we can, gospodin. Is very bad, all over. Worse than you imagine. Worse than you can imagine. But no problem." He reached over and squeezed Mickey's shoulder. "Alexei will take care of you. What you told me was very useful, da. I looked, I saw. I made calls. I have clients who worry. I solve their problems. I move their money from here to there, I make money moving it. I move a lot of money now, I make a lot. What you told me, Mickey—I am very rich now. I was rich before, but now I am very very rich. Believe it. Before they shut down money wires, you have no idea how much dollars and euros this clever Lunatic has dry-cleaned. And with money wires shut down now, Alexei cannot send the money on, so Alexei takes care of it. A very great deal of it. I cannot count all the zeroes. And I keep the interest too. But shutting down the flow of money will not keep it on Earth, no. Money is like water. It goes where it wants to. And if there is not a way, it makes a way." He tapped his chest. "I am the way. I find the way. I deliver in person, if necessary. Do you know how much money I am worth because of you? Never mind, you cannot afford to ask."

  Krislov grinned. "I tell you this, you are worth almost as much. Remember? I make promise to you? I keep that promise. I flow the money through dummy companies. I cannot hold all companies in my name, so I put some of them in your names. All your names—even the monkey. You are all technically very very rich. At any moment, there could be billions of techno-dollars flowing through your accounts, around and around and around—we keep the money going, they can't find it. They shut the wires down, the money is supposed to stop. But it doesn't. It leaks. Every beam of light is a leak."

  I interrupted with a yawn. "Yeah, but—why did you have to wake us up?"

  "Because, while I am floating in ballast, I am still on phone. I am coordinating, yes? No. The wires are shut down, remember? But I listen to Line chatter. Why? Because I am nosy, da? Yes, I am—but also because in my business, it is a good idea to listen. So I listen to Line chatter. And I hear. What do I hear?" He opened his palms in a free-fall shrug. "I hear about paladins. Do you know what paladins are, Charles?"

  I shook my head.

  "Bounty hunters. Freelance marshals. They specialize in extradition. They track you down, they catch you, they bring you back where you don't want to go. This is why I ride in ballast. I always make my own travel plans. Is much safer, because suddenly—I can't imagine why, can you?—people at Geostationary want to talk to Alexei. About business? Probably, but maybe I don't want to talk about business. Certainly not my business. So after I deliver you to passenger cabin, I go to cargo bay. As soon as car is on its way, I think we are all safe, but I am wrong. I listen to Line chatter, what do I hear? I hear about paladins at Farpoint waiting for cars to arrive. Maybe they are looking for me? I am disappointed. Only a little. Mostly they are looking for dingalings. Four dingalings and a monkey. Award money is substantial. You are very valuable to somebody, Douglas and Charles and little stinking one. And Mickey too.

  "So, I float in tank, I think—I think I cannot let them catch Din-gillians. Why? Because some of my companies are in your names and until I can get where I can rearrange the money-flow, I do not want you in that pipeline. Also because I owe you. So, I think—and da, I can do it. I come and get you. I wake Mickey and Douglas. They grab you and Stinky. We all come back here. We bundle up warm."

  "But—so what?" I asked. "If we're not in our cabin, they'll search the rest of the cars. They'll still catch us."

  "I don't think so," Alexei laughed. Something went thump just outside the cargo bay. "Because we are getting off here."

  FALLING

  Then
something else went clank and thunk and finally bumpf. Alexei held up a hand for silence, as if he were counting off something in his head. "Wait—da!" He gestured excitedly. "Feel that?"

  "No—what?" It sort of felt like we were moving sideways. It was hard to tell in microgravity.

  "We are off of track. Swinging around into launch bay."

  "Launch bay—?"

  "Not to worry, little frightened one. Is not the first time a Lunatic has done this. Is first time that Alexei Krislov has done this, yes—but is because this is first time I have need to."

  "Do what—?" I demanded. Even Douglas looked worried.

  Something outside the car made a noise that sounded like un-clank—and then everything was abruptly silent. All the background noises of the Line and the elevator car were gone. The effect was terrifying. I'd never heard so much silence in my life before.

  "We are on our way to moon," Alexei said. "We cheat the bounty marshals. We ride with cargo. In four hours, elevator arrives at Whirl-away. Marshals show warrants, they go to cabin, they open door—but Dingillian family is nowhere, da? Da."

  A horrible cold feeling was creeping up my spine. "Where are we?" I demanded. "What did you do?"

  "We have jumped off Line. We go to moon. We ride with cargo."

  "We're off the Line—?"

  "Da."

  The cold feeling turned into a churning one. "Douglas—!" I wailed.

  The emptiness outside the walls pressed in on me like a nightmare. I couldn't escape. It was even worse because there were no windows! It was down in all directions—we were falling into the dark!

  I started flailing in panic—"I don't want to do this! We've gotta go back. Make him take us back! I can't do this, Douglas! We've gotta go back—"

  Douglas grabbed me, held me tight in the same kind of bear hug that I always used on Stinky. He pushed me up against something, a tank or a tube, and anchored himself on the webbing to hold us both steady. "Chigger—don't go crazy on me!"

  "I can't do this, Douglas. I can't!" I started blubbering. "I'm scared! There's nothing to hold on to out here!"

  "Hold on to me—just hold on. I'm right here." He held me tight in one arm, his face close to mine. He touched my face with his free hand. "Look at me, Charles. I'm just as scared as you. But we're not going to die. Nothing bad is going to happen to us. I've got you right here. And you've got me. We've got air, we've got water. We'll be three days getting there—"

  "No, Doug, please—" I started to come apart. "I can't do this, not for three days. There's gotta be a way to get back—"

  "Charles, you know better than that. &There isn't any way back. The pod has been flung off the line. We're going to the moon. There's no way to stop it. There's no way to turn around.

  "I can't, I can't—I can't do this!"

  "Yes you can. Listen to me. Look at me. We're very comfortable here. It's just a few days. We have air, we have water, we have food, we'll keep warm. You've got your music. It'll be just like armstrong and Borman and Collins. We'll pretend we're in an Apollo capsule. Like pioneers."

  "An Apollo capsule? Like Lovell and—and—? Whatever their names were?"

  "Swigert and Haise." That was Douglas. Even in the middle of a crisis, he had to be accurate. "We can do this, Charles. We have to. We're all we have. And Stinky needs you to be brave for him. I can't do it. He listens to you, not me."

  In my head I knew he was right, but that didn't stop me from being so scared I couldn't speak. My helplessness just came bubbling out. Douglas held on to me and let me sob like a baby into his shoulder. I was so afraid. It was everything. Mom and her slap. Dad and his lies. Douglas and Mickey. Stinky. Not knowing where we were going. Everything out of control. It had been bad enough being stuck on a high-tension line, caught between everyone and everything—now my worst fear of all had just come true. We were helplessly falling forever. We were a million klicks from nowhere and getting farther away every second.

  So I held on to Douglas and cried, because he was all there was to hang on to—even though he was falling just as fast and just as far as I was.

  But you can only cry for so long … and then after that, it's boring. Even worse, it's silly …

  I sniffed and wiped my nose unashamedly on Doug's shoulder.

  He backed off a bit so he could look me in the eye. "Are you all right?"

  "No," I admitted.

  "Can you hold it together?"

  "I don't know."

  "Because I don't want to have to sedate you."

  "Like Stinky?"

  "Yeah," he admitted. "And I hated doing it."

  I didn't answer. I could see the logic of it. Who needs an hysterical eight-year-old? Especially if you've already got a crazy thirteen-year-old?

  He asked again, even more serious this time. "Chigger—can you hold it together?"

  "I'll try." I was thinking about the tranquilizer. It might not be such a bad idea after all. But if I was going to die, I wanted to be awake for it. And wasn't that a stupid thought? Wouldn't it be better to be asleep, so you wouldn't know when it happened?

  "Listen—" His voice got very quiet, very serious. "All we have is each other."

  "Yeah, I know."

  For a moment, we just studied each other. He was wondering if I could be trusted—and I was wondering the same thing. I needed him to be strong for me, and he needed me to be strong for Bobby. I didn't know if I could do it. I'd spent so many years shutting them out I didn't know how to let them back in. I didn't know what to say. And even if I did, I didn't have any words—Finally, I blurted, "I don't have anything to hang on to."

  "Nobody does," he said. "Ever." Like that was supposed to reassure me. The funny thing was, it sort of did.

  I let go of him. "I think I'll be okay now."

  "You're sure?"

  I was starting to feel embarrassed. "Yeah," I said, and pushed past him back to the others. Mickey and Alexei looked at me with concerned eyes. "I'm fine," I said. "I just have this—fear of cramped spaces. And heights. And falling. And the dark … "

  "Wow," said Alexei. "Is triple whammy. Not a good combination for space travel, da?"

  Mickey gave him a shut-up-stupid look, then reached over and put his hand on my shoulder, ostensibly to steady me, but he was slow in taking his hand away, and I knew he meant it as moral support too. Douglas settled in next to him, and the two exchanged grown-up glances; Mickey's had a question mark, Douglas's had a reassuring period.

  Mickey's look to Alexei hadn't worked. Alexei kept talking. "I don't understand this fear," he said. "Where I grow up, you fall slow, you have time to turn yourself so you land on your feet. You bounce, you don't hurt yourself. So why be afraid?"

  Douglas said bluntly, "Try it in Earth gravity sometime."

  "Earth?" He made a face, shook his head. "I do not think anyone will go to Earth for a long time. I certainly will not. I have Luna muscles, Luna bones. I have no desire to be toothpick-man on planet of crazy dirtsiders. You haven't heard latest news, have you? Ecuador has nationalized the Line. Armed troops have seized Terminus."

  Mickey didn't look as surprised as I thought he would. "How'd they get access?"

  "According to Line chatter, hurricane relief teams came in to use Terminus as a base. Troops came in with teams, to help prevent looting—but then they started arresting Line personnel. The situation is still … how you say, very fluid? Traffic is running again, but most cars up are carrying troops. They have already seized One-Hour. Maybe there will be fighting at Geostationary. The U.N. is in uproar, of course—"

  Mickey looked worried and upset. His mom was still at Geostationary.

  Alexei was still talking. "We are lucky to get away. Who knows what will happen next?" He gestured dramatically. "But one thing I am sure, Luna will finally prove what I have been saying all along—Luna doesn't need Earth anymore. We are self-sufficient. We will be new center of human consciousness. Not Earth."

  Douglas and Mickey exchanged another glance.
This time, Douglas had the question mark. Mickey answered, "Yes, Alexei is militant in his Lunacy."

  Alexei didn't bristle; he wore his madness like a badge. "The laugh is on you, Mikhail. If not for my paranoid Lunacy"—he tapped his head with his fingertips—"you would be in custody very shortly. In another four hours. At the end of the line, how you say, literally. And whose custody would you be in? Up for the highest bidder, I think. And if we are all at war, who knows? Bad accidents happen in war. No, my Lunacy is saving your life. Again. No, no, you can thank me later. The money I have made today is all the gratitude I need."

  FLOATING

  Alexei settled us at the far end of the pod, in the little bit of space between the cargo containers and the hull. He tucked us and our gear into the orange webbing on the aft bulkhead, spacing us around so that our mutual center of gravity was congruent to the central axis of the pod.

  If we wanted to go anywhere in the pod, we'd have to squeeze around pipes and cables and supporting rods—and big green glops of hardened foam that looked like industrial-strength boogers. But there was no place to go anyway, so we just stayed where we were, wrapped in our plastic blankets and looking at the ominous round wall of cargo containers in front of us. It was like being a bug at the bottom of a piston.

  The crates were all big wedge-shaped things, four to a circle, each anchored firmly in place by plastic clamps and foam boogers. Mickey explained that the thick foam pads were how the cargo engineers kept the containers from breaking loose and rattling around in transit. I didn't see how the crates would have much chance to rattle or break loose; we would be in free fall the whole way, wouldn't we? But there was a lot I didn't understand.