Helium3 - 1 Crater (33 page)

We turn dreams into reality
.

If his idea worked, it would cause the fulfillment of the Colonel's purpose in dispatching Crater across the moon and into cislunar space. It might even justify the terrible pain that Maria was enduring. If Crater's idea didn't work, then there was a high probability he would die. And so would Pegasus.

Crater felt his heart fill with resolve. “We'll do it,” he whispered to the great horse who, sensing something magnificent was about to happen, nickered conspiratorially, then stamped his great hooves on the deck of the maintenance shed.

:::
THIRTY-FOUR

T
he airlock door to the maintenance shed slowly rose, and the moon's vacuum sucked out the air within and dispersed it into the nothingness. Crater, dressed in improvised padded armor with an elk sticker prominently strapped to his waist, stepped from the airlock into the dust leading Pegasus in his magnificent war suit. The long shadow was still on Armstrong City. At Crater's request, no lights shone from the airlock. All was darkness except for the bluish glow of the great star field overhead.

Crater, with the gillie in its arm holster, climbed aboard Pegasus, made certain both their helmet starlight scopes were switched on, then turned the horse to face in a northerly direction. “Now we fly, boy,” Crater whispered, and the great horse responded, walking, then trotting, then galloping through the tortured field of small craters and hillocks that led away from the city.

Behind Pegasus's saddle was lashed the bag of bones and the neutron emitter and microwave transmitter Crater had constructed aboard the Cycler. Also slung off the saddle was a sack containing horse food pellets, food bars, and detpaks. There was also a holster for Crater's railgun rifle. They were as nothing to the big warhorse as Pegasus bounded across the rubble and craters. Crater leaned forward, his rump off the saddle, his hands clutching the bridle, letting Pegasus run on the rim of the moon beneath the vast, ebony, star-sparkled sky.

All day, boy and horse flew across the Ocean of Tranquility until they reached the Carrel way station. There they stopped to rest, replenish, and bed down in the maintenance shed. The small contingent of workers at the Carrel crater, which was used principally as a signal tower to serve Armstrong City, were delighted by Pegasus and were glad to provide shelter. The next morning, the trailing edge of the long shadow had advanced to the middle of the Tranquility basin, providing enough light for Crater and Pegasus to do without their starlight scopes. They pushed on in the strange, milky light of the lunar terminator, going farther into the vast emptiness.

Dawes crater, which provided an outpost for a contingent of Earthly scientists, was their next stop. There, Crater asked for shelter in their garage. “Where could you possibly be going with that poor animal?” the chief scientist demanded. He had a goatee as silver as the wig he also wore. It was clear to Crater that the man was given to putting on airs of scientific authority.

“North,” Crater answered, and then held his peace.

The chief scientist peered at the gillie. “That thing is illegal!” he declared.

“It knows that,” Crater replied.

“What are you doing with it?”

The gillie climbed out of its holster and eyed the chief scientist, or would have had it any eyes, then said,
Gillie is Crater's friend
.

“I guess that sums it up,” Crater said.

The chief scientist leaned forward until his nose was just inches from the gillie, then sniffed it. “It has no odor. Intelliactivated slime mold cells, I recall. Might I study it? If you'll agree, you may spend the night here and we will provide water and food for both you and your animal. Does the gillie eat?”

This was a question that had never occurred to Crater. “I honestly don't know, sir, but as for studying it, I will have to respectfully decline. The gillie doesn't like anyone touching it.”

Gillie is sensitive
, the gillie said.

To Crater's surprise, this made the chief scientist laugh. He drew back and waved his hands to his research subordinates.

“Give them whatever they need. I shall be in my laboratory if required.”

After a night in the garage tube of Dawes, Crater rode Pegasus northerly until they reached the black lava barrier that marked the boundary between the Ocean of Tranquility and the great nothingness that was the Sea of Serenity. “We're on our own now, boy,” Crater said. “One hundred miles of dust that no one has ever crossed from this approach. Out there lies Le Monnier crater and New St. Petersburg. We'll have to find water if we are to make it. Do you understand?”

If Pegasus understood, and Crater believed he did, he stamped his hooves and seemed to be girding himself for what lay ahead. Crater said, “Let's go.” Twelve hours later, Pegasus began to slow, and finally began to falter. “We need water,”

Crater said, his mouth feeling as dry as the dust they were crossing. He had been using the neutron emitter but the readouts had been consistently disappointing. Crater knew they were in trouble. No neutrons were being absorbed. Beneath them was just dry rubble and regolith.

Then, when he began to think dark thoughts about their chances, the digits on the readout began to move. Crater reined in Pegasus and climbed off to set up the microwave transmitter. If his theory was correct, exciting the dispersed water molecules below with microwaves would turn them into clusters. After that, the increased vapor pressure would cause them to rise. He ran the instrument for an hour, then unfolded a small shovel and dug.

Water—blessed, ancient, and pure—filled the resulting hole. Before the pool could evaporate, Crater used a hand pump to fill a collapsible container, then used it to fill Pegasus's water tank. The horse greedily drank as Crater used a straw in the port of his helmet to suck the refreshing liquid into his mouth, swallowing it with a great deal of satisfaction and relief. “You were right, Mom and Dad,” he said, suddenly feeling very close to them. “We turn dreams into reality!”

The onrushing terminator chased the long shadow away as Crater and Pegasus ran along north. The sun then blasted the sky apart over the vast Serenity lava flow. They were only about twenty miles away from New St. Petersburg when the crowhoppers found them.

The silvery jumpcar flew in on a parallel track and attacked.

When the first flechette flew past his nose, Pegasus swerved and began to gallop in a zigzag pattern, the way he had been taught to respond to aerial attack on Earth. Nudging the horse with the reins, Crater brought Pegasus beneath the jumpcar where its electric guns could not track them. Holding a detpak, he reached up and pushed it into the belly of the jumpcar, but it wouldn't stick. The jumpcar was made of a slick, composite material.

Gillie fix
, the gillie said.

The gillie jumped onto the detpak and spread itself across it, holding the explosive charge in place.

“No, gillie!” Crater cried, just as the crowhopper jumpcar swerved away. A few seconds later, the detpak detonated.

Out of control, the jumpcar nosed upward, flew briefly, then pitched over and slammed into the dust.

Before Crater could register what had happened, he saw that the impact of the jumpcar had caused a lava tube to collapse. The tube was at least a hundred yards wide and the collapse was coming straight at them. “Go, boy!” he yelled, and Pegasus responded, racing away. Behind them, the giant lava tube fell in on itself, a massive trap at least three hundred feet deep. Crater looked over his shoulder and saw that the collapsing tube was coming too fast and was going to catch them.

“Jump, Pegasus!” he cried.

Pegasus, with a strangled exhalation, made his leap. As they soared, Crater and Pegasus were wrapped in a cloud of frothy dust hurled up from the forming trench. When they burst into the clear, Crater saw they were not going to make it.

Pegasus, sensing the same thing, stretched out, his hooves just catching the edge of the trench. He dug desperately, got hold of the vertical wall with his rear hooves, gave a mighty shove, and fell forward, Crater flying out of the saddle. The warhorse took a wrenching tumble, turned beneath his neck, his legs flailing, and then fell onto his side where he lay still.

Crater crashed into the dust, bounced, and rolled until he stopped. When he was able to sit up, he said, “Gillie, check suit,” but then he remembered the gillie couldn't answer.

Crater climbed to his feet and loped over to Pegasus. The great horse lay in a heap, his eyes rolled back in his head. Crater knelt beside him. “Pegasus,” he moaned. “Please, please get up.”

But Pegasus didn't get up.

That was when Crater sensed something behind him.

When he turned, there stood a spiderwalker, and perched on it was the giant crowhopper he'd encountered so long ago at the Dustway Inn. “Would you like to know my name, child?” it asked.

Crater faced the doom riding on eight legs. “Why would I care to know the name of trash?” he demanded.

“It is always good to know the name of that which is going to kill you,” it replied. “My given name is Volsokoff. I was once a Russian, or I should say my parents were, before the procedures were performed that produced me.”

“You are a biological nightmare,” Crater said while his eyes roved, looking for the protection of at least a small crater.

There was nothing but a featureless plain.

“My creators made me far more powerful and intelligent than mere humans birthed the old way. I also lack fear.

It makes me and others like me the most fierce creatures on Earth and its moon.”

“But are you happy?” Crater asked, stalling for time. “Do you know joy? Do you know the sweetness of love?”

“I have no need of such emotions, but when I crush my enemies and see their blood flow, I feel something akin to happiness. Soon, I will know that feeling again.”

“But I am not your enemy,” Crater said.

Volsokoff pointed at Pegasus. “Strapped to your dead horse is what I seek. That you would deny it from me makes you my enemy.”

Crater's shoulders drooped. “Take those old bones, then.

They are nothing but death.”

“I will take them,” the crowhopper answered. “After I tear your arms off, then your legs, then crush your face into the rubble of this terrible little planet.”

Crater started to run. It was all he could do. Over his shoulder, he saw the spiderwalker coming, its terrible legs striding across the dust. Crater ran to the edge of the collapsed lava tube and looked over its edge. Its walls were vertical, and there was nothing but vacuum for hundreds of feet. Just for a moment, he noticed something sparkling far below, and he realized the tube had collapsed to a depth where it revealed a layer of water, apparently collecting naturally. This was interesting but, since the spiderwalker was almost upon him, he had to dodge away. He kept running along the edge, hoping Volsokoff would make a mistake. But the crowhopper was in perfect control of the machine and kept its feet just far enough away from the edge to keep it safe.

Just as one of its feet nearly stomped on him, Crater abruptly turned and ran beneath the spiderwalker, swung up on its thorax, and pounced on Volsokoff's back. The crowhopper reached back with a giant hand, contemptuously plucked Crater off, and threw him into the dust.

But Crater's surprise move had been enough to cause a distraction. One of the spiderwalker's feet came stomping down and found nothing but vacuum. The eight-legged machine tipped over, its legs waving ineffectively. Then, as it arched its back, the ugly thing fell off into the nothingness of the lava tube.

Volsokoff did not go with it. Crater crawled to his knees and saw the crowhopper advancing toward him, an elk sticker in its hand. “I do not need a machine to get at you,” it said. “I can run faster, jump farther, and endure much more than you.

Give in now and make it an easier death.”

Crater withdrew the elk sticker from the sheath on his waist. He recalled the advice of Doom and Headsplitter.
What your enemy least expects, that you must do
.

Crater threw the knife. He had practiced throwing it countless times at the Dust Palace with the two Indian assassins showing him how. His aim was true. It struck point-first into a gap in Volsokoff's armor at its right armpit, embedding to the hilt. The crowhopper stopped and roared out its pain and frustration. Crater waited and watched, hoping Volsokoff's suit would begin to unravel. Blood spurted and flowed, but the crowhopper reached over with its left hand and pulled out the elk sticker and threw it down. Wordlessly, it advanced.

Crater leapt, fell, and ran and leapt some more, but still the giant crowhopper relentlessly came after him. Crater staggered and fell, then rolled on his back.

The crowhopper screamed out its triumph and reached down for Crater, but then something huge suddenly appeared, and the monster was lifted off its feet and sent flying.

“Pegasus!” Crater cried with joy.

The warhorse flew after the giant crowhopper. It only managed three steps before Pegasus was upon it, the horse's great hooves pounding, striking, pummeling the black-suited warrior into the dust. Pegasus's last kick caught its helmet and tore it away. The mutant's face swelled and turned a bright red before blood flowed from its ears, nose, and mouth. It rolled facedown into the dust, the length of its body quivering as if rejecting its situation, then went still forever.