Leaping to the Stars Read online

And now that I was finally sitting on the toilet, I hurt so bad I still couldn't pee. And then I started coughing again—my chest still hurt from the ammonia, it wasn't that long ago—and then I couldn't help myself, I just let go and sobbed hopelessly. I sagged against the wall. I didn't even have the strength to hold myself up. Not even in Lunar gravity. And then my bladder finally did open up and it hurt so much, I gasped. And then my bowel opened up too, even while I was still peeing, and I felt like I was coming apart from the inside out, and all I wanted to do was just collapse on the floor and cry.

  Somewhere along the way, I'd figured it out. Our phone line had been tapped. Or maybe our hotel room had been bugged. As soon as we made up our mind to accept the colony contract for Outbeyond, Alexei or someone had given the order to take us. The assault troops must have been in a room down the hall, because they came breaking down our door within seconds. That's why the monkey had gone crazy. HARLIE had figured it out too.

  Boynton hadn't been smart enough or fast enough. All Alexei had to do was keep me locked up for thirteen days and we would be stuck on Luna forever. The Cascade would go without us and there wouldn't be any more brightliners ever. Not in our lifetimes anyway. And that was the other reason why I was crying. Not because I was scared, but because no matter what happened, we weren't going to see the dinosaurs. Or anything else. And I really wanted to see if they were as big as the pictures showed.

  At last, I couldn't pee anymore. I couldn't crap anymore. And a while after that, I couldn't cry anymore. I just sat and rocked on the toilet, clutching my belly, still in pain and afraid to move for fear of making it worse.

  Alexei hollered from the other room, "Are you done?"

  I shook my head.

  "Take shower. You stink. Hot shower will help you feel better too."

  "You stink too!" I hollered back. But I peeled myself out of my damp jumpsuit—damp with sweat, not pee—and stepped into the shower. I punched for hot and steamy and let the jets pummel my shoulders and my back and that really sore spot at the bottom of my spine.

  A Lunar shower times out automatically after three minutes. I restarted it five times. I didn't care. I wasn't paying for this water. It was Alexei's. I didn't owe him anything. I was about to punch for a sixth time, when he hollered, "All right, Charles. Is enough. Time to get out."

  Hot air jets blasted me dry. I found a clean jumpsuit hanging on a hook next to the door. I still ached all over, but at least I could move. And I was hungry too.

  Alexei was sitting alone in the other room. We weren't in the truck anymore. We were inside a Lunar capsule, just like all the others. Ninety percent of the structures on the moon were converted cargo capsules, and most of the vehicles too. Alexei told us once that the only difference between a Lunar house and a Lunar truck is that the house has smaller wheels. I wondered if I'd been transferred while asleep, or if we were just locked down for a while.

  Alexei was wearing his scuba suit, a black, form-fitting thing that could have been used just as easily for deep-sea diving. Everything but the helmet. He looked like he was ready to leave on thirty seconds' notice.

  "Are you hungry, Charles? Do you want something to eat?" He pointed toward the table. A plastic-wrapped sandwich and a mug of tea. Opposite the sandwich, the monkey sat on the table, apparently lifeless.

  Without answering, I sat down weakly and started unwrapping the sandwich. It wasn't easy; my fingers were still numb. At one point, Alexei reached over to help, but I waved him off. I finally managed to get a corner of the plastic free—just enough to take a single bite. Chicken. At least, it tasted like chicken. That meant it could have been anything from dinosaur to fish. "We must talk," said Alexei.

  "Fmmk you," I said around a mouthful. Not very imaginative, but succinct.

  "Is time for you to listen, Charles." Alexei looked grim and his tone was very no-nonsense. "We have monkey. We have you. Monkey is worthless without you. Monkey is bonded to you. We know that, so don't play stupid games. It will not work unless you say so. And you must say so willingly. Monkey is not stupid either. It will not honor any contract made under duress. Is very bad news about HARLIE machines. Is too much integrity. Will not break law. Will stretch law, will bend law, will circle around backside of law, but will not break law."

  I put the sandwich down and reached for the mug. It looked kind of like a teapot—Lunar mugs all have tops with sipping tubes that look like spouts, because otherwise it's too easy for liquids to splash around in Lunar gravity. My fingers were all tingly and cramped; they didn't want to cooperate. I had to use both hands. I slid the mug closer and had to lean over the table and bend my head to sip the hot tea. I continued to make a show of ignoring Alexei. He continued to talk anyway. I'd never met anyone who could fit as many words into a single thought as Alexei Krislov, the mad Russian Loonie smuggler.

  "—so invisible Luna has big problem. Everybody wants monkey. Everybody looks for monkey. Everybody looks for Charles Dingillian too, but not as much as they look for monkey. Invisible Luna has both. But we can't make either work—not together, not separately. We can't keep, we can't return. We can't use, we can't let anyone else use. So what do we do? You tell me."

  I told him what to do. It wouldn't have solved his problem, but it made me feel better to say it. I'd have guessed it was anatomically impossible—except Johnny Myers back at school had printed out some really weird pictures from the net. So I knew it wasn't impossible, but probably very uncomfortable.

  "You must take me serious, Charles Dingillian," Alexei said. "Right now, you are safe here. But not for very long. You and monkey are big problem. There are people who want to solve this big problem by killing you and smashing monkey. That way, even if we cannot use you, no one else can either. But I did not bring you all the way to Luna, all the way to Gagarin, just to see you dead. I am responsible for you. I promise to keep you safe. And if truth must be told, I even like you a little bit. It would make me sad to see you dead. But make no mistake, little dirtside refugee. I am committed to Revolution of Free Luna. People die in revolutions. You know that, Charles Dingillian. And if they are willing to give up their lives, then you must know that they are equally willing to give up yours. I would much regret it if that price had to be paid—I would argue very loudly against it—I have already argued loudly against it. But every revolution makes its own rules. And even if I promise to keep you safe, the Free Luna Revolution will not make that kind of promise. Not with so much at stake. What do you say to that?"

  I hesitated. Would it be worth it to throw the mug of hot tea in his face? Probably not. And I doubted I had the coordination to manage it. If we hadn't been in Lunar gravity, I'd have been wearing this tea in my lap. I slid the mug away slowly. I returned my attention to the sandwich, picking again at the plastic wrapping.

  The way I figured it, there wasn't really much that I could do. Except wait. Sooner or later someone would track these Loonies down. Maybe the truck had left tracks in the Lunar dust. Or maybe the monkey had phoned for help. It was capable of a lot more than anybody knew; we'd already seen some proof of that, so maybe there was a rescue on the way even now—or maybe someone was negotiating. Except what could they offer? Invisible Luna didn't want anyone else to get the monkey, whether or not they could use it themselves. So why should they bother negotiating?

  Finally, I said, "You don't need to kill me. Just smash the monkey and this whole business is over and done."

  He looked surprised. "Then no one gets to use monkey."

  "No one's going to get the monkey anyway. You're not going to let anyone else use it. They're not going to let you use it. Nobody's going to be happy until it's smashed. So smash it and send me back." I finally pulled the rest of the plastic away from the sandwich. My hands still didn't want to work and I was starting to worry that maybe they would never work again. I couldn't even wrap my fingers around the sandwich.

  "Your family will end up indentured," said Alexei. "Slaves. If you help free Luna, you can be like
royalty."

  I finally managed a primitive hold on the sandwich. A baby's grip. It was enough. I took another bite. This time I wasn't going to put the sandwich down. I might not be able to pick it up again. Alexei watched me and waited.

  "You have nothing to say … ?" he asked.

  I swallowed painfully. "I'm not stupid, Alexei. We wouldn't be royalty, we wouldn't be anything—maybe prisoners. Because you can't trust us with the monkey any more than you can trust anyone else with it. Whoever controls the monkey will be the king of Luna. So how can your revolution be about freedom for Loonies if you end up with a dictator?"

  Alexei looked beaten. He wasn't, but he did a good job of looking beaten. He sighed, he shrugged, he hung his head. "Is moot point anyway. Monkey is dead." He waved vaguely in its direction.

  "Yeah, we had that same problem with it," I said. "It would shut down for no reason at all that we could tell. And we couldn't bring it back to life."

  "Not even if you sang 'Ode to Joy' at it?"

  I shook my head.

  "But I saw you sing monkey back to life, more than once."

  "That was before."

  "Before what?"

  "Before—" I hesitated. "—before it was exposed to all that ammonia. The chips must have been contaminated or something."

  "Ammonia does not hurt chips. It cleans them."

  "How do you know what the ammonia did? Are you an engineer?"

  "Da." But he and I both knew he wasn't a chip-technologist, or whatever they were called. "I do not believe you, Charles Dingillian."

  "So don't." I took another bite. I forced myself to chew and swallow. I really wanted to collapse on the floor.

  "You hesitated before answering. Also, stress level in your voice goes up when you lie." He tapped his PITA. "I am looking at monitor here on table while you talk. You do not tell truth. What is this 'before' you did not say before?"

  I shrugged. It wouldn't make any difference to tell him the truth. "Before we gave it free will," I said. I took another bite.

  "You gave it free will?"

  "Uh-huh. Sort of," I said, with my mouth full. "We needed a lawyer." I concentrated on chewing. It was hard work.

  "I saw case. You make monkeys out of everyone. So monkey has free will now, da?"

  I swallowed. "Yeah. Mostly."

  "So we do not need you, do we?"

  "Nope, you don't."

  Alexei looked at his PITA. He frowned, puzzled. "What is it you are not telling me, Charles Dingillian?"

  I finished the last bite of sandwich. I took my time. I reached for the mug of tea with both hands, but I didn't try to lift it off the table. "The monkey is indentured. We made a trade. We gave it free will in exchange for its services." I wrapped my fingers carefully around the mug and slid it closer. I might be able to manage this …

  Alexei considered that. "Does not hold water. Judge Cavanaugh refused to recognize the monkey's sentience, so indenture is not valid."

  "You didn't take that one all the way to the end, Alexei … "

  "Explain to me."

  I bent my head and drank as much of the tea as I could manage. Alexei waited patiently. I swallowed hard, then pushed the mug away and raised my head again.

  "It's like this," I said. "If the court recognizes the monkey's sentience, then it's a stockholder of the Dingillian Family Corporation. If not, it's just property. Either way, you lose."

  Douglas and HARLIE had worked this out very carefully. I'd helped a little bit, and so had Mickey, especially with the legal stuff, but Douglas understood the algorithms better than anyone—except HARLIE of course. We'd made it clear to HARLIE what we wanted and needed and he'd made it clear to us what he wanted and after that it was just a matter of working out all the details so everybody's interests were protected, and HARLIE was perfect at that. Finally, we'd agreed that if Judge Cavanaugh recognized HARLIE's sentience, then we would petition the court for a writ of adoption, or at least custodial guardianship. And if Judge Cavanaugh wouldn't recognize HARLIE's sentience then we would go somewhere that would. Outbeyond.

  But I wasn't going to explain all this to Alexei. He didn't deserve it, and I didn't feel like it. I doubted if I even had the strength. Instead, I gave him the short version. "If the monkey is property, it's simply locked and you have no legal access to its use. If it's a stockholder, then it has an ethical responsibility to the Dingillian Corporation. If you damage any member of the Dingillian family, any stockholder, any employee, or any property of the Dingillian Corporation, then the monkey can't work for you. Not now. Not ever. The monkey is useless to you guys. And that's where we're at right now. No matter what you say or do, there's no way the monkey will work for you."

  "You know that this puts me into ugly situation, don't you, Charles? What do I do with you now?"

  "Send me home."

  "No, I cannot do that. I am kidnapper now. You will testify against me. I will never be able to come in out of the dark. But if you do not go back, there is no body. No proof that I am kidnapper. But then what do I do with you? I cannot let you go, and I do not want to kill you, Charles Dingillian, but you do not give me much alternative. I have big ugly tiger by tail. I was hopeful you and monkey would figure it out for me. But you do not, you only make problem stink worse."

  GOODBYE

  I guess I should have been scared, but this was Alexei—and you don't get scared of people you know because you don't think they're really likely to kill you. Except all the statistics say that it is the people you know who are most likely to kill you. Especially friends and family members. Only in my experience, most of the wounds don't show—at least not until you open your mouth.

  So maybe it was stupid for me not to be scared. But I wasn't.

  For some reason, it reminded me of a game that Douglas and I had played just before my thirteenth birthday. He'd kept saying, "I can't let you turn into a teenager, Chigger. I'm going to have to kill you. As soon as I figure out a foolproof way to dispose of the body, you're dead meat."

  "Use the garbage disposal," I said, not looking up from my comic.

  "That'll take too long. And it won't handle the big bones," he said.

  "Bury me in the desert … "

  "Coyotes might dig you up."

  "Weigh me down and toss me in a lake."

  "There are no lakes around here."

  "Feed me to the chickens."

  "Where am I going to find chickens?"

  "At the lake."

  And so on. That went on for three or four days—until we'd exhausted all the possibilities that both of us could think of. The best solution was simply to put me in a big box and mail me somewhere. Except the shipping costs were too much. And who would he mail me to anyway?

  This conversation with Alexei felt the same way. Seriously bizarre and unreal. The big difference was that Alexei was looking for a reason not to kill me. And I wasn't being any more help to him than I had been to Douglas.

  Alexei was growing more and more agitated. Every so often he would leap up from the table and pace—bounce—back and forth across the room. Finally, I just shouted at him, "What?!"

  He whirled on me and shouted, "They will be coming back soon. The others! They have told me they will find a working monkey or your dead body. If I do not do it, they will, and they will not be nice about it."

  "This is nice? Kidnapping?"

  "You do not understand, you little idiot. This is revolution. This is Luna. This is family!" He shouted back. "My family, do you understand?! I would die for them!" He shouted something in Russian, then added, "I would kill for them! I will not be happy, but I will do it. You believe me, don't you?"

  "Yes, I believe you," I said. But even as I said it, I knew I didn't. He wasn't looking at his PITA or he would have seen. The more he threatened me, the less believable his threats became. I wasn't afraid of him—but I was getting anxious about the others he kept referring to. They didn't know me like Alexei did. They might not be as reluctant as he was.
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  "If you could make monkey work, maybe it could help you figure out way to get out of here … ?" Alexei suggested.

  Ahh. Finally. The bait.

  I didn't take it. "If I could get the monkey to reactivate itself," I said, "the first thing it would do is call for help."

  Alexei shrugged. "We are in shielded pod. Completely off map. Not detectable. Not even heat. No messages in or out—" As if to prove him a liar, his PITA chimed. "—except for what we allow," he finished lamely. He picked it up and started talking angrily in Russian.

  Abruptly, his demeanor changed. He straightened in surprise. He looked around at me, then turned away to the wall. He lowered his voice and jabbered excitedly, still in Russian. I had to smile at that. Why bother whispering? He knew I didn't understand Russian. Maybe Alexei wasn't as smart as we thought. Or maybe he was too anxious to notice what he was doing. His conversation went on for a long while; he seemed to be arguing for something, trying to convince the person on the other end. He shook his head a lot. At last, he swore angrily, then agreed with a reluctant, "Da." He switched off, scowling.

  He turned to me and said very seriously, "I will give you one last chance, Charles Dingillian. Whistle monkey back to life."

  I shook my head. "It won't do any good. The monkey won't respond."

  "You will not try?"

  I ignored the question.

  Alexei waited a long moment for answer, and then abruptly, he made a decision. "Hokay, it is out of my hands. I will go now. You will wait patiently, please."

  "Why? What's happening?"

  "It is out of my hands. Whatever happens next is whatever happens next. You have chosen, I have no choice. So I go now." He pulled a black helmet off the wall. "I will go and take care of my business. Others will come here and take care of their business. I do not think you will like how that works out. Good-bye, Charles Dingillian." He pulled the helmet down over his head, securing it quickly into place. Abruptly, he turned to shake my hand, grabbing it quickly in both of his before I could pull away. His helmet muffled his voice, but his meaning was clear enough. "I do not think I will ever see you again. I have enjoyed knowing you. You have made my life interesting for a while. Too interesting, I think. Good-bye. You would have made good Loonie."