Lunar Descent (43 page)

He then clapped his hands for attention. “Okay, listen up!” he shouted, and the uproar in MainOps gradually died away. “That
was
crude …”

“But effective,” Baker added. More laughter.

Lester grinned and held up his hand for silence. “But it doesn't get us off the hook. The ball's back in their court, and if you haven't heard already, we've got a 1st Space RDF squad breathing down on us. TRAFCO can work out the exact ETA, but my guess is that the
Valley Forge
will be here within twenty-four hours. You know the game-plan and you've received your assignments. We've still got a lot to do between now and then, so let's get to it.”

A few more yells and a smattering of applause, but now the show was over and everyone was heading back to work. Lester needed a cup of coffee badly. He walked away from his desk, stepped off the dais, and was turning to head for the stairs when he came face to face with Susan Peterson.

“Oh. Hi.” He hadn't spotted her before now; she must have entered MainOps in the middle of his talk with Crespin. In fact, it was the first time he had been near her since just before he had found the party in Storage Two on Sunday night; it felt like a week had passed since then.

“Hi yourself,” she said. There was a faint, coy smile on her face.

And the last time you saw me, he thought, I was about to get drunk. Embarrassed, he looked down at his feet. “What's up?” he asked, lacking anything else to say.

“Well, your bare tush, for one thing …”

“Oh, jeez,” he murmured, “you caught that.” The only thing hotter than his face was the lunar surface outside the windows. “I was just … I was trying to …”

“Make a point. Right.” Still smiling, she shrugged her shoulders. “Nice ass, I've got to admit,” she added softly, stepping a little closer.

“Uhhh, well …”

Before he could stop her, she reached around him, in a way so that no one else could see what was going on, and gave his butt a little squeeze. “I think,” she whispered into his ear, “I know something better to do with that ass than show it off to a company vice-president, don't you think?”

Lester took a deep breath. “The strike …”

Butch took her hand from his ass and laid a finger across his lips. “Can get along without you for a little while. Now c'mon. We've got a little unfinished business, you and I.”

She lowered her hand and gracefully stepped around him, brushing her fingers across the back of his left hand as she headed for the stairwell. Lester looked around the operations center once more. No one was paying attention to them. Then, without looking back, he followed Butch to the entrance to MainOps and down the spiral staircase.

Conjecture of a Time (Montage.3)

Alone at last in the infirmary, Monk Walker meditates. The lights are dimmed, his surgical instruments, bandages, and anesthesia are laid out on sterile white cloths in readiness for the uncertain hours ahead, the hallway door is shut just for once to preserve the peace. Monk sits cross-legged on a gurney, rolling his string of wooden beads between his fingers. Alone, but not in silence. On the tape deck, a book-tape slowly spins, the crimson LED light sparking on and off as Kenneth Branagh recites from
Henry V:

“
Now entertain conjecture of a time

When creeping murmur and the poring dark

Fills the wide vessel of the universe
.…”

Across the hall and down the corridor, behind the closed door of the general manager's office, Lester Riddell slides Susan Peterson's open shirt from her shoulders. Weak blue earthlight shines through the window, touching the raised nipples of her breasts. Her shirt rustles gently as it drops to the floor, joining the rest of their clothes at their feet. He gently cups his hands around her breasts and, as she draws him closer, starts to say something, but she shakes her head and wordlessly shushes him as she stands on tiptoe and places her mouth over his.…

“
From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night
,

The hum of either army stilly sounds
,

That the fixed sentinels almost receive

The secret whispers of each other's watch
.…”

In the EVA ready-room, suit techs move from empty hardsuit to empty hardsuit, prepressurizing air tanks, cleaning helmet faceplates, double-checking radios. Tomorrow there will be no time for the usual checkout routine; it must all be done in advance of the landing of the 1st Space Infantry. Kneeling in front of Airlock Two, an electrician consults the manual on the floor, uses a tiny screwdriver to make a final unauthorized adjustment to the pin-plate of the delicate electronic circuitry within, then shuts the service panel, picks up his toolbox and book, and heads for Airlock Three.…

“
Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames

Each battle sees the other's umbered face
.

Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs

Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tents

The armourers, accomplishing the knights
,

With busy hammers closing rivets up
,

Give dreadful note of preparation
.…”

Out on the lunar surface, beyond the barricades of gray-brown sand and rock surrounding the main airlocks, the last of Honest Yuri's statues is gently unloaded from the bed of the truck on which it was carried from the Night Gallery. Six moondogs carefully haul the heavy, scowling demon down from the huge-tired vehicle, gasping as they collectively struggle to set the scrap-metal creature upright on the soil. Farther away, within the walls of the newly risen battlements, two more moondogs find a place within the curled forms of the welded-aluminum lovers to place a slender round cartridge. It fits neatly between their touching bellies; the moondogs grin lasciviously at each other, and then one touches a switch on the bottom of the cartridge, causing a red LED to light. Nearby, Honest Yuri watches; the expression on his face is unreadable behind the silver mask of his helmet faceplate, on which are reflected the lights of other vehicles moving past him in the distance.…

“
The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll
,

And the third hour of drowsy morning name
…”

Standing before a window in MainOps, Mighty Joe Young silently watches as the 'dozers and rovers, now freed from their other jobs, move into their strategic positions on the outskirts of the base. Around him, a skeleton crew of command personnel sit through their graveyard shift at their consoles, listening to their headphones, studying the rubric of code-numbers and code-letters scrolling up their flatscreens, occasionally glancing up—again—at the main screen on which the trajectory of the
Valley Forge
is displayed. Mighty Joe fights back a yawn. Almost as if by magic, a fresh mug of coffee appears in front of him, followed by the smooth touch of slender fingers at the nape of his neck. He looks around at Annie Noonan, smiles back at her, and takes the coffee mug from her hand.…

“
Proud of their numbers and secure in soul
,

The confident and overlusty French

Do the low-rated English play at dice;

And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night
,

Who like a foul and ugly witch doth limp

So tediously away
.…”

The rec room is vacant, the corridors empty, the mess hall deserted. Those who are not working are in the dorms. In some niches, tense games of gin and poker are being played, to while away the long hours. In others, men and women turn restlessly in their sleep—tossing their blankets, pounding their pillows—or don't sleep at all. In her bunk in 2-B, Tina McGraw stares up at the ceiling, feeling cool tears slide down her face as she silently weeps for a job lost, a career squandered. Above her, on level 1-B, Seki Koyama gazes at a postcard on his wall of Mount Fuji, hoping to gain courage from its formidable snowcapped cone, finding none except what little he can muster from within himself. Over in 1-A, Tycho dozes, wakes up, dozes, wakes up again to the sound of fingers tapping on a keyboard from somewhere down the row of niches. At first he thinks to get up, put on his shorts, stalk down there, and bang on someone's door and tell him to cut-it-the-fuck-out. But then, just as impulsively, he decides that something important must be happening down the hall, so instead he rolls over and buries his shaved head beneath his pillow.…

“
The poor condemned English
,

Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires

Sit patiently and only ruminate

The morning's danger; and their gesture sad
,

Investing lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats
,

Presented them unto the gazing moon

So many horrid ghosts
.…”

Harry Drinkwater sits on the edge of Willard DeWitt's bunk and watches as DeWitt scans the cryptic figures ceaselessly winding up the screen of his laptop computer. The latest numbers from Wall Street, messages from brokerages in New York, Chicago, Rio, Houston, Tokyo, London, Paris, the Hague, Atlanta … Willard alternately chuckles, sighs, snarls, mutters, curses, and laughs again, all while his nimble fingers dance across his keyboard and his eyes dart to the reams of printout thrown across the desk, the floor, his lap, the bunk next to Harry. Drinkwater is dog-tired; his eyes feel grainy, threatening to squeeze shut for one last time. Yet, at the same time, he is mesmerized by the high-stakes game being played. Financial alchemy is being performed, and DeWitt, who has all but forgotten that someone is in his niche with him, is the sorcerer stirring a cauldron of price-indices and market-quotes and a dozen different currencies. Working within the nebulous network of banks and brokerages, hidden behind a galaxy of cutouts and false (and very real) accounts, Willard DeWitt is struggling to make a miracle happen. This is something you don't snooze out upon.…

“
O now, who will behold

The royal captain of this ruined band

Walking from watch to watch, tent to tent
,

Let him cry, ‘Praise and glory to his head …!'
”

Monk lies back on his gurney, the beads still clicking between his fingers.…

Butch gasps, arching backward, as the first wave of orgasm reaches her; on the floor between her thighs, Lester shouts as white-hot pleasure-pain rushes through his body.…

The electrician slaps shut the service panel of Airlock Five as the last hardsuit in the ready-room passes inspection.…

Another cartridge is loaded by a moondog into a Night Gallery sculpture as Honest Yuri turns his back and slowly trudges away.…

A rover is put in position, its driver climbing out of the saddle to give the thumbs-up to MainOps. Mighty Joe returns the gesture as he sips from his mug of now lukewarm coffee. Annie catches a few winks in an empty chair next to him.…

The last card game finally winds down. Quick-Draw, Seki, and Tycho finally find a way to go to sleep.…

“
For forth he goes, and visits all his host
,

Bids them good morrow with a modest smile
,

And calls them brothers, friends, and countrymen
.…”

And, through the long night-that-isn't, Willard DeWitt works the numbers, manipulating dollars and cents.

22. Shady Grove

Operation Shady Grove began at 1700 hours GMT on Tuesday, when the twin PBR nuclear engines of
Valley Forge
's AOMV made a five-minute braking burn which placed the military spaceship in low orbit fifty miles above the Moon. Before retrofire, the five-person U.S. Marine Corps RDF squad had already crawled from the crew module, through five small hatches located laterally on top of the lander, the
Delaware
, directly into their combat armor suits in the belly of the remora vehicle. The
Delaware
's pilot, wearing a normal hardsuit, climbed through his own hatch into the bubble-shaped cockpit in the bow of the lander. The five Marines sealed their CAS armor from within and the
Valley Forge
's bosun's mate battened down the external hatches before returning to the flight deck.

As soon as the
Valley Forge
's nuclear engines completed the burn, and its pilot, Lt. Commander Frank Jaffrey, told the
Delaware
that LLO had been successfully achieved, Captain Jacob “Lazy Jake” McAdams ran through the quick-start countdown, pressurizing the lander's liquid-fuel tanks, switching the electrical system to internal batteries, and detaching the umbilical. “All right, gentlemen,” he said into his helmet mike, “we're on standby for depressurization. Two minutes to drop and counting. Sound off. Bleek.…”

Ready
.

“Overby …”

Ready
. This from Lt. Karen “Sweetheart” Overby, the team's only female Marine.

“Snodgrass …”

Rock 'n' roll
!

“Just tell me if you're ready, Too-Tall.”

Ready. Sorry, cap'n
.

“DiPaula.”

Ready and able, sir
.

“I like your attitude. Colonel Rainman?”

Ready, Jake
, replied the RDF team leader.
Let's take her down
.

“Yes sir. Depressurization cycle initiating. Ninety seconds to drop and counting.” Lazy Jake ran his eyes across the board once more, making sure that all systems were enabled. Satisfied that the
Delaware
was ready for the drop, he moved his right hand to the dashboard and flipped the toggles which would depressurize both the crew compartment and the cockpit. This was done for two reasons; riding down in an unpressurized vehicle conserved fuel, and in the unlikely event that the
Delaware
was attacked during the descent, a hole in either the cockpit or the crew compartment would not cause an electrical fire or a fatal blowout. Since everyone aboard was already in their suits, it didn't matter if they made the drop in hard vacuum.