April 5: A Depth of Understanding (37 page)

"But this isn't Earth," Jeff reminded him. "She didn't offend me and I might actually talk to her some time. If she'd gotten pushy I'd never consider giving her an interview."

"To what end? Can you tell her what she wants to know?"

"Not on China." Jeff thought on it a bit. "I should have phrased it different. It allows too much speculation. It fairly begs for questions and I can't address them."

"Even with me?"

"Oh no. You're an ally. And you know how to keep your mouth shut. I was going to fill you in. I just got caught up in some chit-chat when you first sat down. We had a fellow sent, supposedly as a courier from some conspirators yesterday. He says there is an active coup plot unwinding in China, that may resolve our conflict, because the new regime would be friendlier."

"Again? They just had one. I know some people who change their underwear less frequently."

"What's underwear?" Jeff asked facetiously, before Eddie could turn it personal. He saw the gleam in his eye and knew there was a nasty punch line coming.

"It an Earthie religious thing," was the best he could do, defused before he could deliver it.

"Do you want to interview the fellow?" Jeff offered. He leaned to the side, unconscious of his new habit and stretched his bad shoulder, pulling that arm across his chest with the other hand. Then straightened up and tilted his neck to the opposite side.

"No, I want Chen to interview him for us." Chen was a former Chinese spy and on Eddie and Jeff's payroll at a Solar a quarter.

"Should you introduce him to the fellow who defected with his ship?" Jeff asked.

"Now that's an interesting question. He indicated he's qualified as a weapons officer for their ships. Maybe they could even use him. But I wonder how much they'd trust each other? And if they would even agree to meet if they aren't just brought together without asking."

"That might not be a good idea to surprise them. It could erode trust in us. You might ask Jon about introducing them. They have him put up in a safe room. I'll call and ask Jon to arrange a meeting with Chen, so it doesn't look hardball to the guy. Offer him something, not a big bribe, but some sort of favor for cooperating. He's talked to me on comm so he knows my face. You can pull me in conference if he needs to see a familiar face."

"If he doesn't want to get involved with the Chinese ship crew perhaps I send him to those North American lieutenants, Friedman and Brockman, who Satos rescued. They have the security guys off ISSII working with them, but they still aren't very skilled in zero G themselves, so Jason might be of use to them. I've had a good experience whenever they have had something for me to do. It would be a little favor to point him at some employment with either and while I'm at it I'll see what is to be known about Joan Morgan," he promised.

* * *

Johnson parked the rover right by the tunnel opening. There was a fresh pressure curtain just inside, about twenty meters from where the overhead ended and the tunnel opened to the sky. The tunnel wasn't anywhere near up to pressure, so everybody passed through in sealed suits. The bottom continued up at an angle for another thirty meters in a ramp, easily walked, until it reached a flat area. The loose debris was pushed back in an oval big enough for both rovers to park, but just one was waiting for Heather and three others to board.

The radiation level was going down rapidly as the short lived isotopes decayed. Plowing the surface debris down to the base layer around the opening helped that. The flat area was fused as well as and a roadway passing out through a notch in the ring of plowed soil. The fused parking area had also been blown clean so they wouldn't track hot regolith into the rover.

When she got inside Heather was surprised to find the deck covered with grey beads, Her feet sank in them a little and she had to walk cautiously.

"What
is
all this, Johnson? Did something bust open and spill?"

"We needed some shielding to cut down the Gamma from the hot soil. We'd have used gravel, but it breaks down and makes dust when you walk on it, even if you clean it to start. So we went down the road toward Armstrong, out of the hot area and magnetically separated a bunch of iron. You know they have been sintering it to make stuff. We had a separator, but we had no way to sinter sheets, so it's basically BBs. It was easy to rig a laser sintering tool to make them. It worked out better actually. Forming sheets to fit around everything would have been hard. It takes the count way down and it'll be easy enough to shovel out when we don't need it anymore. The last few can even be swept up with a magnet."

"It has to weigh a lot," Heather said worried. "Can the rover handle this much extra weight?"

"Katia said it's well within the allowable range and we spread it out a little thinner to the back where we won't be doing much. We made it thicker here in the front and sort of mounded it up right around the seats where we need it the most."

"We can't operate like this forever, how are we going to clear the surface and fill the hole back in?"

"Give it six months and it will have decayed enough I'd walk on it in a suit. But until then I'd concentrate on tunneling and if you have to do any surface work do it well away from the crater, out on the perimeter of our land. A year from now we can get serious about clearing the roads from the far end in. Most of the roads are still down there, just covered in loose regolith and gravel. We'll have to let the backfill settle before doing anything permanent on top of it too."

"I don't even want to calculate how long it would take two rovers to plow it all back in."

Johnson shook his head. "No, that's simply not going to happen. It'll never be practical to back-fill it with manned equipment. We're going to have to build robotic scoops and dump trucks that will work around the clock night and full lunar day. If we have a dedicated lane for robots not used by manned vehicles we can do it safely with fairly simple stupid systems."

"You seem to have given it a lot of thought. I'd like you to talk with Mo and get Jeff in on it too. See what you can all come up with together and get back to me."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Heather seemed deep in thought and there was little chit-chat although it was a half hour until they reached the pad where the jump bug sat. It was an open framework  vehicle built as a commuting shuttle to other bases. The ability to match orbits with a real shuttle in lunar orbit was at the extreme edge of its capability.

The tech who was being evacuated as a psych case was helped in and strapped down. He was so heavily sedated he needed to be watched closely while transferring to guard against a trip and fall accident. His suit controls were switched to outside management like a child's.

Dakota and Heather filled two more seats and another owner originally with the refugees from Armstrong was leaving the moon for good, having given up on Central and with no desire to return to Armstrong. She hoped to make a life on Home. She was offering her land for sale for what she had in it, which was less than what Heather was asking now. It was sold already to someone from Australia, not put off at all that they'd been bombarded. As he said: "You are still there talking to me. Seems like it didn't take too well."

It amused Heather the woman felt Home was safer than the moon. Home had after all been the primary target. If there was a next time, Home might be hit and Central spared.

The view was spectacular lifting off in a spacecraft with no body enclosing you. Just the faceplate between you and the surface falling away. They angled over quickly, the surface under them speeding by faster by the second, until they suddenly passed the terminator and entered darkness. The surface under them was now illuminated only by the much fainter Earth-glow.

When the engine cut off they drifted. There were strobes on the vehicle shielded from illuminating the seating area and a couple radar reflectors. It was up to the shuttle from Home to match to them as it had greater delta V capacity.

When they did match there was no line rigged across. The pilot of the bug rolled it a little so the seating area was opposite the shuttle lock and eased it in to within four meters. That was close enough for even the unskilled to jump across, except the sedated one, who they tossed across to a receiver like luggage. It was a slow shuttle and following a flight profile to conserve fuel, so they settled in for a long flight. Heather was determined to sleep, putting in ear plugs and taking a mild trank.

Jeff was waiting for Heather when they docked at Home. They exited but stood aside to give the medics room to remove the sedated worker. Heather had slept, but not well, despite the pill and she felt grumpy. She warned Jeff and turned down his suggestion they go eat until she could clean up and change. Dakota was staying with Heather at her mom's, so she trudged along, even less talkative than Heather. Jeff was smart enough not to offer small talk and certainly nothing serious until they had a chance to sleep again.

They dropped down to the half G level, took the corridor through the semi-industrial area where Heather's mom chose to live. It was the off shift so traffic was light. A few small automated carts were moving about, pulling over for safety and allowing them to pass when they sensed pedestrians.

A fellow approached them in black trousers, white shirt and a serving apron. He wasn't walking briskly at all like he was hurrying to work. Rather he was going slow, head down a little, like he'd put in a full shift and was tired.

Dakota stopped when they passed, whirled around and took three quick steps back to the man, grabbing his shoulder and spinning him around.

"What are
you
doing here?" she demanded.

"Going home from work. I'm tired and ready for bed," he said, looking put-out.

"That's no answer. What are you doing on Home?" she insisted.

"The same as a lot of others. There's nowhere else I'm welcome. I can't go home to North America and I'd get extradited from anywhere on Earth I'd care to live. I went to the French habitat but it was very inhospitable."

"Maybe they saw what an insufferable little creep you are," she suggested.

"Not that it's any of your business, but the liaison assigned to me stuck me in a crappy filter duty job. She had a snit that my French was better than hers."

"I'm not going to live with you again. You get on a shuttle out of here or I'll call you out and put a bullet through your head!"

"Are you a Home citizen now?" he asked. He was finally getting angry. "Because I
am
a citizen. I pay taxes and rent and have a job. Who are you to kick me out?"

Jeff and Heather were both asking what was going on and she was ignoring them.

Dakota took a deep breath and tried to compose herself. "You will meet me in the north hub at eight hundred hours and stand to my fire, or I shall post you refused and make you subject to expulsion," she vowed.

"I'm not sure you can," John told her. "
Are
you a citizen? I'm not sure a non-citizen can challenge a citizen, or set terms. I'll certainly ask the question of the Assembly, because I have no desire to kill you."

"Oh, you are reformed now?" Dakota asked with a sneer.

"I never threatened you," John answered. "I've done some things I regret, but I wasn't one of the bunch gung-ho to get in a rover and chase you. The worst I ever did to you was to order our com guy not to allow your e-mails on our network. While I regret doing even that much, it is hardly a capital offence. If you are going to call people out based on what they did to others, or worse what their previous bosses did, far into the past, you are going to have a long list of people to challenge. We all administered petty restrictive rules. Y
ou
never do
anything
to support any of those rules? Not even fill out a form?"

"You sure didn't stop him from trying to drag us back." Dakota accused.

"No, and that's just one of many injustices and wrongs I didn't try to right. Again, are you going to call out everybody in Armstrong that didn't try to intervene on your behalf?"

"They aren't here, you are. I'm not withdrawing my challenge."

John dipped his head to acknowledge that and walked away.

"Who is that?" Heather asked again.

"Jesse Silverson, the administrator at Armstrong who refused to let us talk with our old friends and workmates after we'd escaped to Central." She looked suspiciously at Heather. "You aren't going to deny your subjects the duel when you enjoy the right yourself are you?"

Just looking at her face, Heather could see the level of resentment that would create. "Certainly not, but I will go on record as saying I doubt the wisdom of demanding a fight to the death over refusing to forward com calls."

"Oh it wasn't just that. He was part of the beauracracy that kept us suppressed for so long. He supported a thousand little enslaving rules for years. I can't forgive and forget all that now that it's over. It isn't right he can walk away from that and never have to answer for it."

Heather thought being banished from his nation and reduced to waiting tables was something of a comeuppance, he'd probably lost all his savings and pension too. However she saw it wouldn't do any good to argue with Dakota, who was determined to punish the man much more severely. So she dropped it, but wondered if Dakota was going to be as pleasant a house guest as she hoped, or fume and fester about this. On the other hand, if she got herself shot dead in the morning that would no longer be a worry.

* * *

Jeff sat patiently, taking a few calls and doing what work he could on a small pad screen. He kept April aware of what was happening, because she wanted to see Heather, so she'd be meeting them for supper. Once the ladies had a chance to clean up and put on some clothing cleaner and nicer than a suit liner they'd been in two days, the girls would be ready to have a meal.

The dinner conversation was mostly recounting their time in the tunnels and digging out. It was unmarred by Dakota replaying her encounter with Jesse Silverson. She hadn't tried to find him in the com directory yet. It would agitate her all over again to find he wasn't listed.