LUNAR APPRENTICE JONES
by RJW Seddon

(Part 1)
The Orphan

Lunar Apprentice Jones
by RJW Seddon

Lunar Apprentice Jones (The Series)

by RJW Seddon

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Lunar Apprentice Jones

The Series

Copyright © 2017 by RJW Seddon

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America
First Printing, 2017
ISBN 0-9000000-0-0

Chapter 1
LAST DAY OF WORK ON EARTH

Spc 4 Stigliano hid waiting to ambush Bill Jones outside Phoenix High's library. The Guardsman Recruiter leaned up against the wall, smoking, ready to pounce in a lazy sort of way, but not being exactly vigilant either. He figured he had Bill either way — just a matter of time.

But the over-confident Guardsman was not steadfast and Bill spotted Stigliano first. Rather, although Stigliano was more-or-less hidden, his vehicle was not. Bill spied the two-wheel Patrol cruiser first, then Stigliano. He quickly ducked back into the doorway before being seen.

Stigliano had made Bill his personal recruitment goal after Bill politely turned him down. Not too many people would dare turn down such a 'request' and Stigliano had taken Bill's disinterest and refusal as a rebuff and now made Bill's recruitment into a top priority, a lazy hobby, his main goal. There was little enough to do as a recruiter and bullies like Stigliano always did well obtaining a set quota.

Bill kept up the run for a couple of blocks, then slowed to a walk, circled back to the safer, main route, and continued towards his regular goal, his after school part time job at Fred's Diner, the one he had held since junior high.

Bill felt so sad that his feet dragged when he rounded the corner as soon as he caught sight of Fred's place. Since it was his last day of work, his last day on Earth, he had so wanted to enjoy the experience. He wanted to leave, had to leave, but was still sad, because Fred's had good memories for him.

It was an old eatery, plain fair for working folks, in a run down part of town. The location was good, not too far from the bus terminal to the Spaceport. In this part of town the rent was low, and Fred set out a pretty good meal at a reasonable price.

"Not all schooling is education, and not all education is schooling."
— Milton Friedman

School and work had been his only avenues out of the orphanage and Bill had taken well to both work and schooling, but the job here — when evaluated from the standpoint of being a 'school course' — was one of his most important learning experiences. It would be difficult to say which 'course' — Fred's Diner or, say, calculus — he took more seriously.

Every day when he came to work after high school ended, when he neared the corner entrance, he always noticed how the 'Fred's Diner' sign framed the distant spires of the Spaceport barely visible in the far desert.

The emotion of it hit him with finality. Tomorrow by this time he would be processing for the trip to low Earth orbit. Escaping Earth's gravity felt like nothing compared to escaping the crumbling ruin of The North American Union, the bad economy, the Guard, and he had liked studying (which he could continue) but hated the thought of leaving Fred's.

He sidestepped a trio of beggars, but they knew him and, so, did but briefly acknowledge his presence, already having written off Bill long ago as a possible benefactor. They wore official city name badge licenses, complete with photo ID, signature, and receipt stamp for the annual homeless tax.

"We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork."
— Milton Friedman

Most of them made more than he did and the city derived its generous cut from their begging business. They all had a cultivated deplorable wardrobe, smelled worse, but all knew the street psychology of 'telling the tale' to good effect.

You had to be very careful around them, what you said, how you acted towards them. They had 'street creds' in another sense of the terms, too, for they functioned as informants for the government and were as effective in rousing fear in the citizens as was The Guard.

It was illegal to roust them and the city required they be allowed to come into the restaurant during inclement weather and to use the restroom. They each carried magnetic food cards and sold the excess meals for drugs. There was such a number of them after The Food Riots that city councilmen depended on their votes so no one dared make criticism.

Bill was in the habit of entering daily through the front customer door instead of the more natural rear alley employee entrance. He did this to get a head count of the customers, to evaluate the level of work before him before beginning his shift.

Just as he entered, Julio waved to him through the kitchen window. Bill waved back while counting and mentally positioning tables in use.

There were 99 tables and Bill functioned alone as busboy programmer for all of them. Ironically, he was least busy during mealtimes. He set up and reprogrammed the busboys and floor cleaners during slack times and was busiest then.

The camera at the back of the dining area at the door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY recognized him and unlocked and opened itself for him so he could enter the back room.

"Afternoon, Mr. Andrews. Sure got the good weather today, don't we?"

Fred Andrews nodded while smiling and added, "How you doing, kid?" They liked each other and Bill knew the owner was sad to lose his best kid. At about fifty years of age, Andrews had known the prior world before this new reorganization into totalitarianism. Like Dr. Yuri Zhivago in Boris Pasternak's book, Andrews always smiled compliantly and stated, "Oh, yes, this is a better system." But you knew he did not really agree, did not fit in, did what he had to do to survive. It was guys like him, working productively in the old time-honored ways, that kept this new impossible madness from inevitable economic collapse, but by so working made it possible for this madness to continue.

Andrews was a patient, calm guy. Somewhere in his psyche he figured this nonsensical form of government could not last and eventually people would come to their senses. He thought they would topple the structure and revert to normalcy. He was hanging in there, prepared to wait — if necessary — for years. Unfortunately, although there were many other people like him, they all remained silent and because of their silence, most people thought everyone was happy, not oppressed.

"The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed."
— George Orwell, 1984

Mr. Andrews was seated at his cramped desk making the weekly grocery order. Bill squeezed by and made for his own work station, the Hitachi console which operated the eight semi-autonomous busboy peripheral units.

"Number three's out again," offered Fred.

Bill knew this already and that his boss Fred was just trying to make conversation to ease the tension.

"Hey, Bill, you remember your first day here? Number three was out that day, too." Bill grinned and nodded. He remembered.

Chapter 2
FIRST DAY OF EMPLOYMENT FOR AN ORPHAN

Father Flanagan at the orphanage had sent Bill over when he was twelve for the part-time employment interview.

"Most of you fellows only last a month or two", began Fred. "I need someone willing to learn, who will stay and work. Pay's low — I'll admit that — but it's an opportunity for a kid to learn. Plus, a little pocket money is nothing to sneeze at."

Bill had stuck with it and migrated over to almost full-time. He kept up his grades and Fred had given him several performance raises culminating in a bona fide offer of full partnership.

They had gotten along very well for the last four years, their relationship more like father-son, but each of Bill's raises were for performance, not seniority, culminating in the best 'advance' of all — the offer of partnership. It was a generous offer, to put in so much a pay period over a period of years.

He had turned it down graciously and stuck to his goal of saving money for his Lunar voyage, to apprentice with one of the large off world corporations, preferably TLC, The Lunar Corporation.

Andrews knew Bill was a keeper and was disappointed about losing his best worker, but had gotten good use out of Bill for several years. The boy not only worked well, but never caused a bit of trouble, and was never late or AWOL either.

However, Andrews knew that he would eventually lose Bill, if not to emigration, then to the draft which had recently been reinstated for universal conscription.

Over the course of years Bill had trained a succession of other part time employees, none of whom stayed on, even though Bill bent over backwards to be nice to each and every newbie.

Andrews noticed and approved that Bill had saved almost all his wages. It was not the money itself that Fred wondered at; it was Bill's steadfastness to the goal.

Occasionally the boy made very adult-level suggestions about improvements. Normally, Andrews would ignore any suggestion given to him by a part time 16 year old employee, but in Bill's case he listened attentively and — more often than not — took the advice and made corresponding changes.

Chapter 3 SHERMAN AND THE NEW KID

Bill's memory of the past was cut short by the sound of Sherman getting up out of his chair.

Sherman was just finishing up his shift on the Hitachi. It was twenty until four. Bill always arrived early and Sherman always relinquished the controls as soon as Bill arrived.

"New kid's supposed to start in a couple of days, but he's been delayed," put in Fred. Sherman grunted and got up off his chair.

"You interested in overtime?" asked Fred. Sherman grinned a No and took off for the day.

"Take her easy, Bill." Not much of a friend, shift partner, or... or anything. Just another body, doing the least he could get by with. Sherman was a perfect choice for the draft, willing to fabricate any observation of Fred's Diner. Stigliano and Sherman spoke often, so neither Bill nor Fred had mentioned anything about work in front of Sherman. Nothing.

Because Sherman was on payroll, Andrews had to be very careful what he said and did, but because of the loss of Bill things would probably get worse. Andrews had not told Sherman that this was Bill's last day. He felt sure Sherman would have informed The Guard, that Stigliano would come into the restaurant, would harass Bill about 'voluntary' recruitment. Worst case would be detainment so that Bill would miss his flight.

Andrews had been told by Guardsman Stigliano that the restaurant would probably be 'needing' to hire three additional young people, that is, three additional part-timers including Bill, even though no one in the Guard knew Bill was leaving. However, Stigliano hinted that if Bill willingly joined, the replacement number would only be one, not two, not three. It was a threat to cajole Bill into enlisting.

"The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm. Capitalism is that kind of a system."
— Milton Friedman

It was just the opposite situation of the famous scene in The Godfather when the mafia boss asked the store keeper to hire his relative, so the store keeper had to let go his best employee Vito Corleone.

In the old world, forces of Capitalism limited the number of workers by money available for wages, but under Socialism most places ran at a loss with a deficit, being pressured to hire and pay too many employees. Unfortunately, Fred's business was an island of Capitalism in a sea of Socialism and legal forces loaded him with overhead.

When Bill did vacate the position Andrews worried the required number of new hires might even increase to four. Andrews knew better than to contradict and was loyal to Bill. He could always lie, say he did not know Bill was leaving.

In one sense the Guard representative was correct, because to replace Bill's output of work Andrews would, in fact, need three more dullards like Sherman.

EQUALITY OF OUTCOMES

"A society that puts equality — in the sense of equality of outcome — ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests."
— Milton Friedman

Sherman, as always, had left a mess. Several tables were left uncleaned up. The computer screen showed a floor map of the restaurant. Fixed rectangles represented tables. Moving circles were the bus robots. Bill frowned. Sherman had left three of the units blocking aisles.

He began by retrieving the bulky aisle blockers. One at a time, the wheeled robots made back for the kitchen. Each was about five feet tall and ran on small wheels.

They were too large for a customer to pass by one comfortably and it was a rule never to send a robot down an aisle if a human was standing or even appeared to be getting ready to stand. In case a person or some obstacle did move in front of the bus unit its rudimentary intelligence caused it to stop and wait.

Bill used several cameras positioned around the restaurant to anticipate customer movements and warily repositioned the idle units and put several to work clearing tables. Bill had set the IP cameras in strategic locations and he also added more of them as theft deterrents, out back in the alley, the front, and, yes, even a hidden one watching the none-too-honest Sherman. Bill quickly replayed the Zoneminder motion capture program to see (and hear) what Stigliano and Sherman had discussed. He scanned the past day for a parked two-wheel Guardsman cruiser out front. Nothing awkward appeared in the last day's video and he redirected his attention to work at hand.

Although a few customers bussed their own tables most just walked off and left their dishes on the table. The robots simply approached the table, rolled directly up to the side of it, and then unceremoniously scooped everything on the table into its front hopper. A squeegee then cleaned up spills, sprayed a disinfectant, and mopped up with a cloth.

The hopper of each could hold about six tables worth of dishes. Bill brought batck each unit after a single table, not knowing how many Sherman had done with each.

The units were old and several had quirks, which you had to work around. Number 8 could make right turns only, so there were some aisle approaches, which were impossible. Number 5 could neither make right turns nor back up. Numbers 2 and 4 occasionally acted up as well.

While 6 made for table 38 to clean it off, Bill turned his attention to 4's power level. The battery power level read half charge, but it was moving sluggishly, as though on its last legs. Bill redirected it back to the barn.

It responded slowly. Half way down the aisle it went into a power conserving snail's pace.

If it stalled out completely he would have to lug out a large replacement battery, put the heavy battery on a cart, push the cart to the busboy, and swap batteries. This intrusion of mechanical work in the middle of the dining room disrupted the diners and Fred did not like him to do this. Sherman had not been keeping up with the true state of battery charges.

Bill had months ago hit upon a substitute maneuver: instead of carrying a heavy battery to the dead busboy he moved 6 right up next to 4. Bill left the control room and entered the dining room.

The dining room was divided up into areas. One alcove was for smokers, another without overhead music and a bit darker for couples on dates.

The main room was lined with windows to the sidewalk. 4 and 6 were next to each other in the TV dining wing.

Bill pulled a three-foot lead from his pocket and plugged it into a power receptacle on 6, the other end into 4. He took out a remote control and instructed both 4 and 6 to return to the barn and recharge. The two robots, tethered together, 6 supplying power to 4, rolled unobtrusively back to the barn.

Work was caught up. He pocketed the remote and made for his favorite table for his meal break — his LAST meal break. The guys had told him sternly NOT to get lunch before sitting down today.

Julio, grinning as usual, approached the table just as Bill seated himself. The Puerto Rican immigrant minced towards the table with the mannerisms mocking a waiter in an upper class restaurant of yesteryear, from days before this new world order when there had been style and fashion. He draped a towel elegantly over one forearm and bowed obsequiously.

"Wot wood joo like, Meester? We are having Soup du Zhoor today." Julio knew Bill often liked the chicken soup.

Although Fred's Diner was self-serve, Julio had prepared Bill's last meal ahead of time and gone all out on style. Frankie, Julio's kitchen helper, appeared pushing a cart. An extra fancy meal, complete with a rose in a vase, real metal cutlery, and cloth napkins were on the cart.

"This is great, guys! Thanks a lot."

"We're going to mees joo, man." Frankie hung his head and shook it in agreement.

"I'll send you guys a postcard as soon as I get there. Promise."

He began chewing his food and they stayed with him a while as he ate.

"Man, eet mus' cost a lot of stamps to mail a letter from the Moon!"

Bill nodded his promise with his mouth full remembering what the postmaster had said, "At least a full day's wages". But the guys were worth it and Bill promised them (and himself) to send one.

"I will send it, guys. A post card from the Moon!"

As Bill ate he remembered another promise, his own promise to himself to make his life worthwhile, rags to riches, orphan to accomplished adult.

Chapter 4
ORPHANAGE

Father Flanagan's Orphanage had been converted from an old hotel which had gone out of business. Flanagan himself had approached the failing business years ago and implored the owner to turn over the building to the church. The donation to charity would reduce the debt burden somehow via goofy tax laws and the building could still be put to good use.

That was fifteen years earlier during those horrible food riots which had engulfed the world. The North American Union government had taken this opportunity to begin indoctrinating the millions of displaced people the riots had produced.

It was difficult for a church group to remain autonomous from the great governmental influence, but there was so much misery that the church and the government together still could not fill the needs of millions of displaced persons. The doors had not closed a week before reopening as a boy's orphanage.

"You're unusual, Bill, because you actually are what we represent to be," Flanagan had told him, "a REAL orphan — with no living relatives." After Bill was old enough to take in the explanation, Flanagan had related that Bill's parents had been killed in a car crash during the worst of the rioting. Flanagan had referred to the incident as a "car crash" but Bill often wondered if there had been more to it than a mere traffic accident because he had over the years heard many, many horror stories of those bad times.

Most of the other kids came from broken homes or had been removed from their families by the state. There were a tremendous number of Hansel and Gretel orphans, kids turned loose by their families at instigation of the state. The state fed, reared, and took over as parents. Congress encouraged this and declared it as 'socially responsible parenting'.

"That you are a REAL orphan puts you in a special category: the other kids will resent you. To them, you are a goody-two-shoes, someone to tease."

Bill did notice the difference between other people and himself, though not necessarily due to his origin as a verifiable orphan. He saw himself as an achiever, a person capable of doing something with his life. The others seemed resigned to the bad pattern of behavior set by their parents.

He remained apart in limbo and could very well have become just another sheep in the herd until something happened in school one day.

Chapter 5
CAREER DAY

His schoolwork was average — that is to say, poor — until a certain day in Junior High. At an assembly for Career Day there were a series of speakers, most from preferred 'acceptable' fields: Community Organizer, Guardsman, Union rep. There were also a sprinkling of hum-drum dead end jobs for would-be drop-outs, some professional jobs for the academically inclined. Harsh introductions preceded unlucky representatives of actual businesses to set up a negative aura surrounding actual businesses.

"The world runs on individuals pursuing their self interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under orders from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way."
— Milton Friedman

The speaker who caught his interest was a guy who had somehow gotten in under the radar, a Lunar Corp personnel recruiter.

"We're looking for young people in good health to take on as apprentices. We offer long-term lunar assignments for people interested in an off-world technical career. Living conditions are very good with Lunar Corp."

He spoke while a slide show depicted stills of young people dressed in spacesuits without helmets at a long dining table. They were laughing and eating. Another shot outside: red suits at a mining station — Earth hanging in the sky, occluded by a mountain range.

Bill missed some of the speech, so captivated was he with the presentation. But he did the thing the speech intended — he reacted to the advice by taking it, doing what the speaker said to do, not for an hour or a day, but for the remainder of his schooling.

"To get there you'll have to meet the educational requirements. Stay in school. Make good grades. Study math and science. Learn to read well.

"You'll also need to develop other skills, of course. We require physically fit people and test for good physical conditioning, though not necessarily athletic skill. We select as carefully as the military does; I suspect our standards may actually be higher."

From that day on Bill developed the habit of studying for A level achievement. He did push-ups, chin-ups, and sit-ups. He began a daily run, working up to ten miles. He ate only quality food, mostly vegetables and some fruit.

The one thing that challenged him the most, the thing that seemed the most insurmountable obstacle was the passage requirement.

"By custom we do not do our hiring on Earth. We ask you to meet us half way, in low Earth orbit."

Chapter 6
SAVING UP FOR LOW EARTH ORBIT TO ES1

Now, several years later, Bill had saved his money for passage to low Earth orbit. His savings from the part time job at Fred's was his main inroad, but that frugality would have been not nearly enough, no matter how many years he saved.

His main cash had come from having entered as many scholarship programs as possible, but he was selective and did not enter into any contracts of service and most of them were so constructed, especially the Guard. His math scores netted him a sum equal to most of an orbital round trip flight and he saved the rest from wages at Fred's.

By tomorrow this time he would be a hundred miles aloft going 25,000 miles an hour aboard the aging ES1.

Earth Station 1 had been put up one hundred twenty years earlier by an international coalition. Each country supplied this or that module, booster, or system.

It had been a fiasco from the beginning. Nothing worked. The modules were incompatible. There were power outages. Electronics designed to fit in any module only worked in the host country's own module. There were supply problems.

But more than a century later it somehow held together well enough to be used still to this day. Now, of course, there were newer — and more expensive — space stations. But ES1 somehow was a symbol of going to the Moon and many companies still used the old girl exclusively.

Chapter 7
GOODBYE, ORPHANAGE

"Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past."
— George Orwell

Bill woke before dawn and made his way quietly out of the orphanage for the last time. His gear was already packed into a single nylon duffel. It held everything he owned, for he had sold or given away everything else. The items he sold provided much needed money to purchase his outback kit, or at least what he had been led to believe was necessary for a career in space.

"You can have peace or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once."
— Robert Heinlein

He had not taken any paper books, just their weightless EPUB versions. Bill could not even take the recently presented prayer book Father Flanigan had given him. There were a couple of contraband, censored books he owned, but these he had given away a week ago. He had read 1984, The Holy Bible, Libertarian Handbook, and A Concise History of the World, among others. Those books had been behind a loose brick in the orphanage laundry. Ownership of those and other similar such volumes merited a year or more at hard labor in prison.

As Bill sneaked away from this Earth-wide prison, as he escaped to freedom, the hidden books in the laundry he had read comforted him. He could only take with him any of the phrases in his memory. Possession in print of any of those words would be his downfall.

"Those who are willing to surrender their freedom for security have always demanded that if they give up their full freedom it should also be taken from those not prepared to do so."
—Friedrich Hayek

In the still-dark hallway, as Bill tip-toed out so as not to wake the still-sleeping orphans, he remembered how he and his roommate had poured over the catalogs in their dorm room. For Jeff the planning was a pastime, not a serious undertaking.

"See, you'll be locked up in a teeny place for a long time," he began, "so you sure don't want to accumulate a lot of heavy junk. It costs beau coup bucks to freight anything up there. I'd go for miniaturized everything: no books, just a reader, for instance. Likewise, no pencils even; use a mechanical pencil and buy leads."

"You boys got it all figured out, have you?" A grinning Father Flanagan stopped in their doorway, immediately deducing from the few words he had heard what Bill and Jeff were talking about.

"Look here boys. Another catalog." He gave them the mail and stuck around for a few minutes sharing their enthusiasm for the adventure trip they were planning in their heads. He knew the boys would have to leave the orphanage when they reached 18, if not before, and he approved of the healthy way they were working it out psychologically. He did not really think Jeff was serious about an actual Moon trip, but Bill was another story.

"Jeff, they're way ahead of us on weight planning."

The catalog went to extreme lengths to cut weight even from commonplace, light items.

"Whoa! Check out the toothbrush set!" admitted Jeff, when Bill held open the page for him. It advertised a toothbrush handle with fifty insertable, disposable nylon bristle tips. The ad claimed the single handle and fifty insertable brushes weighed less than 10 regular plastic toothbrushes, but lasted longer than 100 of them. They came with or without a one-gallon tub of toothpaste. The entire catalog was devoted to similar feats of economy, real or imagined, for off-world emigrants.

"Most of this stuff is for rubes," declared Jeff. "Only tenderfoot or spacemen wannabes are going to buy this stuff."

Bill had an exit interview with Father Flanagan. The priest had his hands full, his resources stretched way too thin, so Bill was surprised at the personal touch.

"I haven't spent enough time with you, Bill, and for that, I am sorry. You know the climate now, that the state wants to shut us down, take over the orphanage. It's kept me altogether in court arguing for our independence."

"No amount of force can control a free man whose mind is free. No, not the rack nor the atomic bomb, not anything. You can't conquer a free man. The most you can do is kill him."
— Robert Heinlein

Bill had seen Flanagan hounded by everyone. Even the New Catholic Church had caved in and thrown Flanagan to the wolves. His was among the last autonomous orphanages in The North American Union and its days were numbered. The government saw the orphanage as easy pickings and a natural source of recruits for the draft.

"Bill, if you stay on Earth, you will be drafted into multi-year service. I know you. I know your independent spirit. There is only one place for you to go, but the pathway there is difficult."

Flanagan did not offer Bill any cash, but did give him a slim leather-bound copy of The New Catholic Prayerbook. Bill's independent spirit had caused him, over the years, to resist even well-meaning invitations to join the very church that had raised him, so Flanagan knew Bill would also stubbornly resist similar approaches from the government. But he took the book and thanked Flanagan for it and they shook hands, said their goodbyes the night before departure the next morning.

It was pre-sunup as Bill rolled his duffel down the sidewalk to the bus station. He felt relatively safe at this hour, for brigands, homeless people, and government workers were not early risers. He arrived ticket in hand and prepared to wait several hours in the waiting room. Still, he scanned the curb for the off-chance arrival of Stigliano. There were no two-wheeled Guard cruisers on the streets.

Chapter 8
BUS RIDE

The sun beat down hard on the waiting bus. It's idling diesel added to the heat and its air conditioner discharge made it even worse. Bill shuffled forward in the line as each passenger turned over his ticket to the driver who doubled as ticket taker.

He kept watching his duffel. It was locked at its zipper with a tiny padlock, but it was all he owned in the world. Bill breathed easier when the porter slammed shut the under-bus suitcase bin and latched the access door.

Bill also kept his eye open for Stigliano. It was legal to conscript people unwillingly even as they were embarking for Lunar transit. The history course Bill took made mention of British officers pressing sailors into the Crown's service. There was no legal recourse if so shanghaied because this kind of kidnapping by the government was perfectly legal.

"All you Moon boys fill the back, will you?" shouted the driver. "We gotta stop for some getter-onners and getter-offers before we make spaceport." He smiled good-naturedly and the passengers complied by packing tight into the back.

Bill made his way down the aisle. Now he was unladen, only carrying a book reader for the trip. He waited in line in the aisle as people settled in. He watched some load their gear into the overhead bins.

He saw an open aisle seat a couple of more rows in. A kid his age already occupied the window seat next to it, a four-eyed kid, reading away, oblivious to everyone else.

When Bill arrived next to that seat and just before he could ask permission to sit in it, one of the nearly-already-seated passengers one row ahead of Bill decided to return to the front against the flow of traffic. He jostled Bill out of the way, and addressed the reading kid.

"Hey, Shorty. You'll have to move. I want that seat."

He jerked his thumb to the back of the bus, an order for 'Shorty' to move back there. Bill quickly scanned the situation to figure out what was going on. The seat the aggressive guy had just about taken was covered with a huge smear of ketchup. Whoever took that seat would get ruined trousers.

Bill took in the big guy. He was persistently pointing and frowning at the short kid with glasses.

Good-looking and demanding, you could tell he got his way a lot. Most people would do as the tall guy said without question. He was so self-confident.

The kid was still not up to speed, just staring, with his magazine open. The bully was athletic and took up lots of space.

He had a beefcake physique and you could see he was one of those people who, because of good looks, command presence, and insensitivity, very often were tagged as 'leaders'. Bill instantly saw through the fellow's shallowness, though.

"Come on, come on! I haven't got all day! Let's go!"

He reached out and grabbed the magazine out of the kid's hands and began tossing it towards the vacant seat. That would have been a very excellent move, because not only would Four-eyes HAVE to get up to retrieve his magazine, but the magazine itself would have acted to cover up the ketchup goo. Afterwards, who could say, did the ketchup come from the seat or the magazine?

Bill reached out quickly and deftly snatched the still-sailing magazine out of mid air. The kid had been surprised at the abruptness of the magazine snatch by the bully, but both kid and the bully were even more surprised at the speed and certainty with which Bill had intercepted it. At this point the kid began to realize he was being bullied and did not know how to react.

Bill evenly handed the kid back his magazine, smiling, and with certain finality calmly stated, "Sorry, he can't leave this seat. We're traveling together. Promised his family." So saying, still smiling with full confidence, he shouldered past the bully and slid into the aisle seat next to the kid.

The bully frowned and made forward against the tide of boarding passengers. People now saw what he was up to and he could not use the same trick again, but rudely he managed to take the seat away from someone several rows forward who was in the process of stowing his baggage into the overhead bin.

The poor guy almost sat in the bully's lap. The bully frowned and loudly complained, "Hey! Watch where you're sitting, pal!"

The seated kid with glasses watched all this, now comprehending what had almost happened, slowly coming up to speed. He held his magazine, but did not read it. Bill's pulse raced like crazy from the adrenaline rush of the near fight.

"Hey, thanks for what you did. That was great." The kid lifted himself up in his seat to look behind him across the aisle. The ketchup seat was still vacant. The dark red streak loomed ominously across the seat.

The bus driver closed the door and the bus accelerated away. It was not even at 100% capacity. The bully had acted precipitously. In fact, he could have sat almost anywhere.

"You're welcome. It scared the heck out of me to do that, but I couldn't let him move you like that, into that ketchup."

"Man, he didn't even have to do it. Look. All the seats aren't even filled. Several empties up front." The kid was acting like a guy who had just been shot at and missed.

"Not to mention he could have stood up for the ride if necessary or told the bus driver." Bill was thinking what he would have done, what any decent-acting person would have done.

"Right. Worse comes to worse, he could have taken the next bus." The kid paused, then added, "My name's Jeremy. Jeremy Snyder."

"Bill Jones." They shook hands, then were silent for a while.

"You going to the port?" Jeremy was hoping for a bodyguard.

"Yeah. I'm going to emigrate." Bill said this proudly.

"Me too. Got any prospects?"

Bill was surprised. Jeremy was of small stature. He did not look like he was sixteen. Sixteen was the minimum age requirement for most of the companies.

"Well, I'm hoping for TLC."

"Me, too! I'm joining TLC." Bill felt a little amusement. TLC seemed to project an image of athletic build that Jeremy did not possess. Somehow he could not imagine TLC hiring Jeremy under any circumstances. He admitted to himself that the poster boys and film stars of their commercials were exceedingly...

Well, how could he put it? They all looked like California surfers, like models or movie stars.

Come to think of it, Bill felt he did not look very much like their recruitment ideals either. He knew something was bothering him about all this, then hit upon what it was. The bully looked just like the guy on their poster.

He tried to look closer. Could it be? All he saw at the moment was the back of the guy's head, but he searched his memory. It was a stretch for a coincidence, but the guy was a dead ringer. Maybe that was it, that TLC projected a shallow image, one based on external cookie-cutter surface appearances.

Bill shook his head. Perhaps his imagination was in overdrive. In horror, Bill had the thought that, perhaps, Poster Boy types were the only people TLC accepted.

"So, where you from?" asked Jeremy. "I just flew in from Omaha, Nebraska. I've saved up all my money for passage for two years. Worked at my uncle's lumber business before the government took it over, but I had to leave when they Nationalized it. The timing worked out good for me."

Bill nodded, understanding. Nowhere to go except the Guard.

"I'm from here. All I had to do is get on the bus. Worked at a diner after school since grade school."

Jeremy had not noticed Bill getting on and tried to remember if his folks or anyone had sent him off. There were hugs and kisses plenty when Jeremy had got on the plane.

"I wanted to space ever since I was very little. Read all the books. There was no stopping me. My folks tried, but not too hard, because of The Draft."

Bill grinned. "We're alike a lot in that regard. Did you read Jefferson's Colonies and Prospecting the Lunar Apennines by Gustav Flemming?

"Oh, yeah! Several times each. How about Lunar Monthly ?"

"Had my subscription to it from the time I could read, about ten years."

The magazine came out every 28 days to correspond with a lunar month, so a subscription got you thirteen issues a year, the only magazine so delivered.

"Did you get your ticket through them? They had a special," asked Jeremy.

"Well, I saw that offer, but passed it up, and bought another cut-rate fare. Just got a confirmation a few days ago. It cost even less. Also, it's guaranteed in case of a cancellation or interruption."

"Well, I hope we don't get canceled. This is the only hiring they're doing this year. Have to wait until next May if we don't get on this time. And you know what happens before next May."

Bill did know. The draft. Congress had passed an "Emergency Act", still yet another one, this time to round up ALL youths for National Duty. It was a one year paid stint in a quasi-military inner city labor corps.

Bill did not follow politics too much, but he had heard adults speak of it as a massive political indoctrination camp for every young person, but spruced up as a social effort.

Truth
It's the new hate speech

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
— George Orwell

People he trusted, like Father Flanagan and his boss Fred Andrews did not think the country was headed in the right direction. They spoke of Totalitarianism versus freedom. Flanagan had mentioned the Hitler Youth and life in Soviet Russia and 1984. Bill had read 1984, had obtained a copy of the book just because it was banned from public schools. Many books were censored now.

The National Civilian Youth Job Corp purportedly developed remedial job training and his school counselor had unsuccessfully tried to induce Bill to quit the job he already had with Fred Andrews so that Bill could take training to learn 'how to get a job'.

He had told his school counselor that he already had a job, had been employed for years, but she had shook her head and countered, "It hasn't taught you REAL social values and has only exploited you. It's just a Capitalistic low-level job and not only exploits the consumer, but it also oppresses the labor market."

Her eyes lit up with a vengeful fervor and Bill seemed to see a death ray emanate from them. Bill had an inkling her wages as counselor exceeded that of mere teachers, but he also knew her real-world skill set as a productive citizen in the labor force was almost zilch — for instance, she was unable to do anything practical to support herself without being propped up by socialism.

Bill was able to read her mind. She thought that 'trade', and 'business' were low, tainted and tinged with greed. She thought there was an underlying evil at work and that this evil could only be restrained or eliminated with socialistic, communal, state-controlled mechanisms.

"Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest? And just tell me where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us."
— Milton Friedman

Even at his young age, Bill could hear she was parroting an oft-repeated exact phrase, one of the many successfully-employed talking points of the Left. She was a True Believer and he was in her confines, soon to become a captive if he did not escape.

"Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government."
— Milton Friedman

Bill stared blankly at her angry, furrowed brow and he silently reviewed what he had learned over the years, the intricacies of programming code, the complex reality of making his busboy robots function. He could read in her face that it did not matter how much he had learned, how much he had accomplished. His attainments at Fred's Diner did not jive with her vision of how regimented life ought to be. He could see her rejoicing at him standing in a group, chanting in unison with the others, fists clenched in the air, denouncing Fred's Diner.

2+2=5

The poor, deluded woman was paying homage to the these Gods of the State, but she would have been outraged had you made the comparison to the Swastika, hammer and sickle, Hitler youth, or 1984. Her thoughts had been channeled a long time ago, but she could no longer add simple numbers together and get a correct answer.

And this was not at all new. Professional career politicians had been spouting nonsense effectively for generations.

Moonbat

"For every dollar spent on unemployment benefits, the economy grows by $1.52
Unemployment benefits are creating jobs faster than practically any other program."
— Nancy Pelosi, minority Leader of the House of Representatives of the United States of America

Moonbeam

"The conventional viewpoint says we need a jobs program and we need to cut welfare. Just the opposite! We need more welfare and fewer jobs."
— Jerry Brown, governor of California

It was after this session with the school counselor that his troubles with the Guard began. Immediately — the next day, in fact — he had been so contacted. The first Guard was a youngster, someone nearly his own age. When that contact did not result in Bill's conversion and recruitment, the younger Guardsman was replaced by an older, more experienced, results-oriented, ruthless veteran — Bill's nemesis, Spc 4 Stigliano.

"Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned."
— Milton Friedman

Bill backed away and knew he had to get out of this madness before his life was taken over. He had latched onto the idea of emigrating. His reverie brought him back to the here and now and he added encouragement to Jeremy's worry about the calendar.

"Oh, we'll get on," soothed Bill. "We're going to get hired."

He had some doubts, though. Jeremy had put a fear in him. What would happen if he did not get hired?

He had a return ticket, a round-trip ticket, back from ES1, but back to what? Sure, Fred would take him on again, and gladly, too. Father Flanagan would put him up again for a few days or weeks.

That was not the problem. The problem was that Bill had single-mindedly put himself towards this one task emotionally for so many years. If this did not work out... Well, he did not know what he would do — and all those things he could take care of — but what would he 'feel' like doing if this one plan did not work out? He did not know.

There was that other problem with staying. The newly instituted draft board would snag Bill for a two years stint in The National Civilian Youth Job Corp. It was a pseudo-military job program for recently minted high school grads. It had been set up as a 'temporary' measure, but now, by all appearances seemed to a permanent institution.

He did not even worry too much about being drafted. That was just a couple of years in duration, not a lifetime. He felt strong enough to withstand even two years.

Supposedly, a two years term would get you a tuition assist to a four year college. But the work itself, the two year stint of service, sounded like political indoctrination for young people. Very often the job assignment was a supernumerary (under duress) to a large corporation. Furthermore, the NCYJC acted as eyes and ears for political correctness, eco-awareness, business social compliance, and The Tolerance Act.

Citizens were required by law to befriend and take in homeless persons, bond with them, not — as you would normally think — to help them, but the stated purpose put forth by the government was that the enabler could "learn from them." Actually, the government paid the homeless people a daily stipend to be teachers and they held power to grade the progress of their charges. Bill noticed that liquor stores were always located next to the disbursement offices of the daily stipend.

Bill looked out the window at the passing scenery. It looked sad and bleak to him now that he had doubts. The desert countryside whizzed by, the roar of the bus whooshing by the red dirt with only envious green cactus as spectators. The bus was air-conditioned and it would be air conditioned in the spaceport, but outside the sun beat down 100 degrees.

Chapter 9
SPACEPORT

The bus's lack of motion and its idling diesel woke Bill. He had dozed off on the long trip. He felt a moment of panic and did not know where he was for a minute. He looked out the window and saw they had arrived at the port and the bus was awaiting a red light.

The jovial driver pulled over to the spaceport's DEPARTURE lane and halted. He threw the bus into park, then opened the door. The bus filled with warm diesel fumes and desert heat.

"All you moon boys wake up. We're there already."

He did not have to prompt them. The aisle was suddenly full of boys taking their gear down from the overhead.

Jeremy was already standing in the aisle. Bill rubbed his eyes, completely refreshed. The near incident with the bully had exhausted him and the nap was his body's way of regenerating his energy.

"I didn't want to wake you til we got there," explained Jeremy. "Thought you were doing okay asleep."

He nodded in the direction of the bully ahead of them. Bill agreed. Asleep was like being elsewhere.

"Right. No sense in being available for an argument and on a bus there's no place else to go except asleep."

Jeremy grinned at him and handed him his jacket from the overhead stowage. To Jeremy, Bill's nap did not look like a retreat. He saw it as bravado: sleeping in full confidence within arm's reach of the enemy.

They filed out of the bus into the blistering heat of mid-day summer. Bill scanned for the jaunty two-wheel cruisers used by the Guard.

He felt altogether paranoid, almost to the finish line as it were, just knowing Stigliano would take it upon himself to delay and capture Bill using some legal pretext. There were, in fact, a pair of Guard vehicles in plain view, but they were local, not from town.

The automatic doors opened and the would-be apprentices all streamed in.

"Looks just like an airport," exclaimed Jeremy. His remark was overheard by the boy on their right, just ahead of them, a freckled kid with red hair.

"It used to be one, up until Shuttle Services bought it. Name's Red Ryder," he offered.

"Glad to meetcha. I'm Jeremy."

"I'm Bill." They all shook hands like adults, hardly pausing as they filed through for processing.

It was a noisy, busy concourse and they followed the stream of would-be apprentices to the counter. There were a half dozen uniformed customer service agents. The boys jostled for position and formed six lines. Each boy in the string pulled his extra large wheeled duffel bag up to the counter.

The agents took tickets, tagged the duffels and wheeled each one to a conveyor behind them. The process took a couple of minutes per person, not much different from a regular plane trip.

"Sure is noisy," observed Jeremy. He said it in a positive way, not a complaint. They were increasingly getting excited about the trip.

The loudspeaker broke through the loud concourse music from time to time to page individual passengers for minor glitches.

"Would passenger Alvarez please see the emigration health clinic please? Passenger Alvarez."

"His shot record, I betcha," wagered Jeremy. "Got mine right here. Checked and double checked."

Each boy, in turn felt his own pocket for the important papers. They shuffled forward.

Bill noticed the Guardsmen recruiters stationed at the edges of the crowd scanning the line of boys for possible prospects. Bill, in turn, scanned their faces, seeking an enraged Stigliano. Here were sheep escaping the pen, angering the sheep dogs. No more shearing, no more mutton, no more slaughter. You could read anger on their faces, the resentment, the envy.

Congress had enacted a law recently, that high school graduates were liable for a two year stint for national civilian service unless they were members of a few exempt unions, the main one being AUFUSU (American Union Federal University Student Union). Off-world jobs were also exempt. That freedom was a very real beacon for Bill.

Bill had a horror of attending the two year brain washing course. Ostensibly, it was national service — some kind of social work. In practice, it was indoctrination and the recruits functioned as eyes and ears for the administration.

Many of the uniformed teenagers were foisted off on businesses as supernumerary employees — a sort of hidden tax burden. The businesses so burdened would normally be all the worse for being required to take on dead wood, but since being Nationalized they all ran at a loss anyway, being subsidized by taxes. The businesses so run blindly ran at a loss as showcases of ideally-run models of Socialism.

Bill watched Jeremy go through the paces when his turn came.

"'Morning, young man!" The customer service clerk smiled an earnest greeting at Jeremy, who passed over his ticket, meal vouchers, shot records, and notarized letter of intent. He had an AU Passport. The Lunar Autonomy recognized the American Union passport as a valid record of responsible citizenship, granting provisional entry to their legal Lunar domain.

"See you got the coupon. Saved a few dollars there and the seat is guaranteed," he offered. Jeremy nodded. Bill wondered what was meant by guaranteed seat.

"Your bag is checked through, Sir. Do you have any carry on luggage?"

"Yessir. This backpack." Jeremy got a tag for it, too. He would have to remove its contents for inspection. "Lots of rules against microbial contamination."

They were one line over from the bully. Jeremy kept a weather eye open for any kind of aggressive move, but none was forthcoming. But the bully snorted a laugh of derision when he had heard 'microbial contamination'.

The customer service clerk did not react. Jeremy did not understand and looked blank. Bill leaned in and explained.

"It's not 'biological' they are worried about, even though that's important, too. They're worried about smuggling. You know. Not paying the AU export duty."

Bill had only a smattering of political awareness, but knew that most duties were IMport duties, not EXport. The Lunar Autonomy was not desperate for cash like Earth's governments, so did not enact oppressive taxes. The North American Union was so broke that they actually taxed not only imports but also exports.

"The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit."
— Milton Friedman

The PA system suddenly called out for a group of passengers. "Would passengers holding WorldWide coupons who still need tickets please see the boarding agent."

"That's me," acknowledged Bill. "I've got one of those."

He nodded a temporary goodbye as he raised his hand. The ticket agent saw his hand up and motioned him over. He and several other people in line made for the counter where the lady agent with the microphone was. Bill heard several people in line comment.

"Yeah, it was an overfull flight by the looks of the crowd," said one. Another comment he heard was, "Probably some wannabe apprentices with cut-rate tickets getting bumped."

Bill felt real panic when he heard that. He made eye contact with one of the guys accompanying him to the counter. That fellow, too, had heard the off-hand remark.

"You got a WorldWide ticket?" he asked. Bill nodded.

"But they're guaranteed, right? I mean, they're solid tickets, aren't they?"

"Gentlemen, I'm sorry, but your tickets for this overbooked flight are being suspended because all the seats are taken and no more space is available. You will all be able to use them, of course, on the next shuttle."

"But the next flight is Thursday, isn't it?" asked one of the fellows.

The attendant nodded. "Yes. Flight 902 at 0730."

"But... but, we'll miss the interviews!" blurted one of the guys.

"I'm sorry," explained the counter lady, "but those are the rules of purchase for the cut-rate tickets you bought. There are no more seats available on this flight. The next shuttle is Thursday."

Bill noticed then that the Guardsmen had been anticipating this very scenario and slowly rambled over, ready to get names and take in hand a few of the boys. They were going to get drafted anyway and the Guardsman recruiter could offer immediate enrollment before the inevitable, perhaps offering a job specialty or location of the boy's choosing.

Some of the boys stood there grousing, asking for the same explanation over and over again. Bill saw the futility of that kind of behavior. He thought of himself as a realist and acted upon information, good or bad, as soon as he processed it.

He wanted to make himself scarce before a recruiter addressed him.

Chapter 10
RUPERT

"Tough break, kid. Real tough break"

Bill looked over to see who had commented. A Spaceport maintenance guy with a RUPERT name tag on his pocket shook his head dolorously in sympathy while holding a broom. Obviously, he had been standing there, perhaps working, perhaps just goofing off, close enough to have overheard the drama.

The fellow was in a stained and very dirty worker's jumpsuit and next to some sort of wheeled cleaning module. Bill looked closer —- it was not even semi-robotic, just a mop bucket with a few supplies. This guy was way down the totem pole.

"They bump people wonst a week just like this. I wonder how come they let that ticket company even sell tickets to youse guys because I know most of youse don't get to go on the next flight."

Bill just stood there in wonder and shock, in shock because this fellow, this Rupert, was probably right, in wonder because a mere maintenance guy — and not just the Guardsmen — was more on top of the situation than anyone else.

"There ain't no way, hardly, to cash in that ticket unlest you was to sell it right at Thursday, ifn you was here."

Bill nodded, soaking up this bad spill of defeat like a sponge, like the mop in Rupert's cart.

"'Course, there's always the occasional packet flight. You could catch one of 'm ifn you di'n't mind no travelin' companions."

Rupert was hugging his broom with both hands at head level and sort of leaned against it as he spoke. The concourse was still noisy but Bill was transfixed by Rupert's metronome of a voice, the only person here even paying the slightest attention to his plight. The other dissappointees had wandered off.

"What about the packet flights?"

"You know, them mail ships like UPS and FedEx, DHL. They fly all the time. Some of um take passengers. Nobody thinks about those guys. They don't advertise for seats, but they got 'em. Usually have a few go empty. I seen 'em. Every flight has an empty seat or two, pretty near. Take you there if you want. You could trade out that ticket for a seat. I'm done here. Shift's over."

Bill noticed the Guardsmen recruiter was talking earnestly to one of the bumped ticket holders. He caught a brief eye contact that said 'You're next, kid'. Bill desperately needed to get away from this scenario before he got shanghaied into pseudo-military service.

Bill nodded dumbly and followed Rupert. Rupert deftly diverted Bill from the Guardsmen by placing his mop bucket and himself between Bill and the recruiters, then led Bill away.

The concourse was deafeningly noisy like a gymnasium during a big game and they threaded their way through the crowd. They made a caravan of two as Bill lugged his huge wheeled bag behind him and he, in turn, followed Rupert's own mop cart.

They passed through the automatic glass entrance doors into the sunshine and it suddenly became hot and quiet. This doorway was not the one Bill's group had used while discharging from the bus. Nor did it lead to the flight he had been going to take.

They found themselves walking across the blisteringly-hot black tarmac to one of the numerous, smaller side buildings. Rupert made for a golf cart and motioned for Bill to throw his bag in back.

Rupert abandoned the wheeled mop bucket. It stood forlornly ignored as Rupert pulled away from the curb.

He headed directly out to the field to the solitary ships in the distance. The little electric cart hummed as they accelerated towards the tiny, distant ships on the horizon.

The field was bare, flat desert. It was such a large expanse of area — several hundred square miles — that it would have been impossible to pave and now they traveled 'off road', but the golf cart rode well.

The ships were separated by an extra wide margin of at least half a mile or so, each from the other.

This reminded Bill of the inherent danger of space flight, of bad landings, of worse take offs. Every few hundred flights ended in disaster, usually a complete and total destruction of the entire ship and everyone aboard. The least they could do for safety was ship separation.

"Don' know why they're so far apart. Seems like they coulda put 'em in closer. Too lazy to park 'em right, I guess."

Bill nodded, but did not add his explanation. Bill knew Rupert's depth of knowledge was way low, but he hoped against hope Rupert was right about the tickets and the available seats on the packet ships.

They were heading toward one particular ship. Rupert seemed to know where he was going. Bill found it hard to interpret what they were approaching.

It looked like a crouching crab, immense, with turned down arms whose tips had wheels which supported it. It was white and streamlined, but not in the conventional sense. It looked very much like some sort of monstrous insect.

Beneath it, hanging from it, asymmetrically to one side, was the actual UPS ship. The white crab-like tug looked like a giant white spider crouched over the brown UPS ship, ready to attack it. In reality, Bill saw it for what it was: the larger white ship had air breather engines. It carried the UPS shuttle aloft to maximum height then released her.

The smaller UPS shuttle, once released, then ignited its own scram jet air-breathing engines built for the thinner air and an explosive burst from 20 miles (the maximum height of the tug) up to 75 miles (the maximum height of the scram jet).

At this altitude the scram jet ran out of surrounding atmosphere and switched to rocket power for the final leg of the journey.

"They call the white one a bug. It looks like a bug, alright."

Bill did not explain that in Europe people called tugboats by the name 'bug'. It was pure coincidence that it also looked a bit like an insect.

The little brown UPS ship grew larger. They pulled right up to a package hatch.

"These models ain't got no proper passenger doors. Everyone and everything goes in here."

Rupert clambered up, stepping up from the golf cart's hood, then surrey-style roof, for height. He had, no doubt, boarded this model many times before.

"Toss up your duffel."

Bill trundled the big bag up into through the hatch and Rupert tugged it aboard.

Bill followed the bag and found himself in the dimly lit cargo hold. It had been as hot as blazes in the desert sun, but worse in the hold.

He could see tier after tier of shelves, each with boxes. Some were pressure containers, designed for the vacuum of open space. Others were regular brown kraft paper, tied with twine just like any other box you would send through the post office.

Rupert unceremoniously shoved Bill's bag onto a vacant shelf. That act alone, though simple, calmed Bill no end and mollified him against worry about the flight and Rupert.

Rupert climbed up a ladder mounted against a wall to the top of the ship.

"Control room's usually up near the top. Not always, though. Some ships got the seats near the bottom. Depends on the model."

When Rupert got to the top of the ladder Bill began having second thoughts. It must have been over a hundred fifty degrees.

Rupert pushed up at a hatch cover which swung up and over like the entrance to an attic. Suddenly a blast of ice-cold air shot down at him and Bill could see a brightly lit control room.

"Little cooler up here, don'tcha think?"

Rupert grinned down at Bill as he stood in the control room waiting for Bill to enter. After Bill got through the hatch Rupert let the cover down.

"We oughta save the cool air and not let her escape," he explained.

It was a tidy control room. The pilot and copilot seats were pointed forward. There were tiny windows here and there, but the pilots had computer screens in front of them, probably linked to a multitude of cameras and navigational aids.

It fascinated Bill to see everything. He had never before been in a real spaceship, much less a cockpit.

There were all sorts of devices and equipment with gauges, dials, switches, labels, levers, buttons, and lights. He saw many items labeled WARNING, CAUTION, FIRE, and NO STEP.

"Bathroom's over there," he pointed. "That's the little fridge and microwave they got. Only one airlock on these little shuttles. It's below us. They gotta dock by camera, 'cause it's hard to see."

Bill was enthralled. He looked around, taking in every exciting feature.

"Here's them extra seats I was telling you about."

Sure enough, there were six couches side by side almost identical to the two pilot's seats. All of them were of the same gray material. While the pilot seats were worn, the passenger seats looked almost new as though to corroborate Rupert's testimony.

"Ifn you want, you could catch a ride with these guys." Rupert donned some eyeglasses he retrieved from his shirt pocket; one side was taped together, but the spectacles gave him an authoritative, serious presence.

He then pulled a tattered schedule booklet from the other shirt pocket and looked for the tail number.

"Cessna 4484 Uniform. Says here she takes off at 18 hunnert today — that's six o'clock. Ifn you trade in y'r ticket you could go to ES1 in about 2 hours. Heck, you'd arrive earlier than the regular shuttle. It don't s'pose to leave til 11:35 tomorrow morning."

Bill suddenly felt hope. "I'd get there early?"

"Sure would. These flights is even cheaper, too."

"Cheaper?"

"Sure. Wha'd jur ticket cost? Does it say 'TO BEARER'?"

"Yeah. Anyone can use it. Whoever's holding the ticket."

"Well, they do that t' save themselves the trouble o' writin' down someone's name. They don't care who goes. But the thing is, they don't publicize these here kind o' ships, but each ticket is about $500 less."

Bill let that sink in.

"Tell you what. You look like a nice kid. I'll sell your ticket for you if you want. I'll pay you a hunnert bucks difference right now. I'm gonna sell this here ticket and I'll make $400 bucks for my trouble. He pealed off five twenties and handed them to Bill.

"What about the ticket for this flight?"

"No sweat. I'll square that at the concourse. They know me there."

Bill relaxed in the acceleration couch, rubbing the arms. He let the couch and the room's peace and quiet and cool air conditioning convince him.

"Sure. Okay," he agreed.

Rupert handed him the twenties and Bill let him take the ticket.

"Well, alrighty then. You have yourself a good flight."

He let himself down the hatch and closed the cover after himself. Bill let out a huge sigh of relief and settled into the couch. It was firm, yet still very comfortable. He had at least an hour to wait. Within a few minutes he fell asleep.

Chapter 11
STOWAWAY

"Well, well, well! What have we here?"

Bill woke up to the sound of this voice and saw a grinning, uniformed young man clambering up the hatch. The man finished his ladder climb, stood up on the floor, then caught a small travel bag someone had thrown straight up through the hatch. He put it down then caught a second similarly thrown bag.

The second bag was followed by a white-haired older man. The first man up looked about thirty; the second was perhaps sixty. Both had on blue pilot uniforms. Bill now recognized the bags as being standard issue pilot cases, stuffed with charts and manuals, emergency computers.

"Stowaway, Captain. Shall I have him keelhauled, Sir?" The younger man had an infectious grin.

"Hmmph! Don't jump to conclusions, Elliot. From the looks of him he just might be your replacement, the one I've been asking for.

Elliot did not miss a beat. "If so, I'll gladly relinquish my berth on this old bucket, if just to get away from your singing."

The older man now addressed Bill. "Can you please tell me what you are doing aboard my ship, young man?"

"Yessir. I'm William Jones, a paying passenger, Sir. I'm going to ES1 for the Lunar Job Fair tomorrow."

The younger man nodded, knowingly. Still grinning, he asked, "That your blue kit below?"

Bill nodded. "Yessir. It's my grubstake."

The older man asked, "Could we please validate your ticket?"

Bill hastily explained about being bumped, about his standby ticket. He told them how Rupert had ferried him to the shuttle and making a trade for a ticket aboard this vessel and about agreeing to pay Rupert $400 for his kindness. Bill showed them the five twenties.

The captain sighed and shook his head. The younger man grinned even more broadly at the wonder of it.

"Hate to burst your bubble, Bill, but 'Rupert' is long gone with your ticket. He has already, no doubt, cashed it in and has zero intentions of getting you any kind of legal ticket aboard these jump seats."

Bill's heart sank. First, the shock to his system of finding out his expensive, long sought after ticket was standby only, then the elation of being 'saved' by the maintenance worker. Now, the slim possibility of cashing in his ticket to try again next year was even gone. He had lost it all, every cent, every chance.

The pilots took in Bill's face and read his thoughts like a book.

"I... I was so stupid. I trusted him. I..."

"Don't take it so hard, Bill. You are not the first such passenger we have found aboard ship just before takeoff. We know all about 'Rupert' and his money making scheme. He has done this same thing five times before. Trouble is, the police cannot find him. There are so many people working at the 'port we can't keep track of them all. For all we know, he might even be a pilot. Or perhaps he does not even work here on a regular job."

"Well, I'd best report him to security just the same. I'd better get going. It's a long way back to the terminal building." Bill did not look forward to the two-mile walk back in the desert heat pulling his heavy wheeled bag.

The two pilots looked at each other knowingly. The younger man held up a sheet of paper and suggested, "We're almost 200 kilos short weight, sir."

The older pilot frowned and looked at the slip. "That much under and we're supposed to take on more mail or such."

"Tell you what, Bill. We can ferry you up, but what about your ticket back? If you go with us there is no chance for a return ride if things don't work out with you. We stop off at ES1, then it's back to Earth for us. In fact, we don't even land here. We land in Uzbekistan, reload for the Russian satellite, then back here. But that's not for a week."

"So, are you saying you'll take me?"

Captain Jeffries looked at his wristwatch and announced, "The bug is taking off in about a half hour. I'm going to report you — I must do that — but for safety's sake declare it too late to call for security to pick you up. We have to lift at six to make rendezvous."

The younger man, lieutenant Johnson, strapped in and became very serious, very busy. He toggled switches, turned dials, pulled levers, and stabbed buttons, all the while speaking into a microphone headset.

A face appeared on a screen, spoke briefly, then vanished. Several other screens with colored navigational displays came alive.

Johnson began working a mouse and keyboard. Bill was surprised to see that. He had somehow thought the controls would be more aircraft-like from a bygone era.

Johnson spoke commands incessantly, both to the bug crew above them in the larger craft and also to the computer software. Captain Jefferies strapped himself in and motioned for Bill to do likewise. He began his own rituals of liftoff and became equally busy. The lights cut for a second, some sort of changeover to power provided by the bug. Bill felt his ears pop as the cabin pressure changed when oxygen kicked in.

When the cabin pressure made his ears pop, Bill entered the Fabulous Kingdom of Oz. He began to experience this his first ever takeoff with the pleasure it deserved, onward, upward towards outer space.

Chapter 12
TRIAL

"Bill, security guy wants to talk to you." Bill looked up as the captain swung over a couple of large computer screens in front of Bill's couch.

"You're going to need some visual real estate soon," he explained. This enigmatic statement baffled Bill, but no explanation was forthcoming. The lieutenant got on with his own duties and ignored Bill.

Captain Grady began his own separate set of tasks in the couch next to his young subordinate, but he was content to leave the routine matters to his protégé, so much so that the captain was able to deal with the matter of Bill and Rupert.

Bill could see the captain's screen at an angle, saw him speak for some time to a man in a policeman's uniform. Bill could not hear, but he imagined the captain telling the airport security police about Rupert. The policeman looked kindly and Bill did not see any sort of cynical laugh.

Lieutenant Johnson handed Bill a headset and motioned for him to address the video screen. Bill noticed a camera lens above the screen swivel over to him. Its lens rotated as it found Bill and focused.

"Howdy, youngster. Sergeant Matthews here. Grady's told me the gist of it already. So, old 'Rupert' scammed you, did he?"

Bill nodded then retold the story, adding description and detail.

"By any chance could you recognize him in a lineup?"

"Lineup? Sure I could." Bill found himself raising his right hand when the screen shifted to a black-robed Port Authority judge. He was briefly introduced to a stenographer, court's clerk, prosecutor, and defending attorney, bailiff.

"You're under jurisdiction of Lunar law, just now, Bill.

"We have not left Earth yet, but jurisdiction passed to The Lunar Autonomy the minute you stepped foot in the shuttle. Do you understand that?"

Bill nodded.

"For the record would you please answer the question out loud? There is a visual and auditory recording being made of this trial, but we would like to hear as well as see your answer."

'Trial?' thought Bill, but he answered, "Yessir, I do understand that we are under The Lunar Autonomy."

The prosecutor's face continued. "Your Honor, I would like to ask the witness a few questions, if I may?"

"You may proceed, Mr. Berger."

Bill found himself repeating the story. "Did the man who identified himself to you as 'Rupert' take your ticket in exchange for a legal ride aboard the shuttle you are now in?"

"Yessir."

"Did you give him anything in exchange for his service?"

"Yessir. My ticket and $400 difference for his trouble."

"Objection, your Honor!" Rupert's defense attorney chimed in. "The $400 does not exist. It is hearsay."

"Your Honor," countered Berger. "The $400 promissory figure is alluded to by the $100 cash transfer. If your Honor pleases, we will concede the $400 if the prosecution agrees to a total trade of the bearer ticket for the $100 consideration."

The defense attorney's face took on a frown, not knowing if he had worsened his position.

"I will reserve judgment on the $400. Where are you going with this, Mr. Berger? Either way, the defendant made money on the deal: he has the $12,000 ticket or he has the $12,000 ticket plus the $400."

"Your Honor, we agree he has the ticket which, presumably, could be sold for some sum or cashed in for some cash value, either lower than the face value, at face value, or even above face value, but testimony refers to a $400 figure profit for face value if subtracting the $100 exchange. Therefore, since the defendant offered $100 to sweeten the deal — to validate the transaction — he must have known the value of the ticket. Since he was caught scalping the ticket in the concourse for roughly twice its value he must have never intended it as a mere good deed."

The large screens in front of Bill simultaneously carried judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney. The learned men cleared up some points of law before turning to the business at hand.

Bill was totally transfixed. He had watched cop shows and crime shows on TV before but none had so captivated him as this legal discussion.

The judge now asked the bailiff to assemble the lineup. The camera backed off and the screen showed six men standing before a white background. The men were all similarly featured, nearly all the same height, all dressed exactly the same. All faced the camera with blank expressions. Horizontal lines across the back wall marked their heights in centimeters.

Bill had no trouble picking out the real Rupert, second from the left. He would never forget that face.

For a while no one asked Bill anything. Another witness, off camera, was being sworn in. Bill opened another window on a separate monitor — his additional visual real estate — and saw this witness. He identified himself, gave testimony that he was a traveling salesman. He told a story of needing to travel to ES1, but had no ticket. He spoke of standing in line for two days straight, trying to buy a standby ticket. He told about trying to buy a ticket from passengers for twice the normal value when he was approached by Rupert who offered him a bearer ticket. As soon as the deal had been made, right after cash had exchanged hands, three policemen had appeared out of nowhere and arrested Rupert.

"Heck, I'm glad the cops showed up. I thought the ticket was a good one and didn't know all the seats were filled."

Apparently the salesman had also identified Rupert separately earlier. The judge made all the men speak the same sentence. Bill then heard the salesman also pick Rupert out of the lineup.

"Your Honor, Defense will concede the larger monetary sum concourse transaction if the prosecutor will dismiss the smaller transgression aboard the shuttle."

"Nice try, counselor, but we would lose Lunar jurisdiction without the earlier shuttle crime."

Bill watched a tiny video of himself and Rupert now. Rupert's offer was caught on a recording. He watched himself take the five twenties and watched Rupert pocket the ticket. He heard the exchange go down.

"By the power vested in me by The Lunar Autonomy I sentence you to one year in confinement at hard labor. After one year you will be placed on parole for a period of ten years. By mutual agreement between The Lunar Autonomy and Earth, your UA citizenship is revoked for the duration and your tax penalty will be prorated to cover the cost of your upkeep unless your income during confinement will offset it."

Bill found that the ticket would be sold and the proceeds would be wire transferred to him tomorrow at ES1. He had the money for the ticket back!

He was surprised to find some unusual differences in legal practices. He was being billed an hourly rate for the services of the judge, stenographer, bailiff, three policemen, and Prosecutor. The $12,000 he started with was whittled away by almost $5000. He was amazed at the idea. The lieutenant shrugged.

"Someone's got to pay for justice. It's like our fuel here: not free. Someone pays the ticket. The Lunar Autonomy does not tax much, quite a bit less than Earth governments. We can't get old Rupert to pay it all; he hasn't got any money. If you apply for the FULL refund The Authority will actually give you ALL of it back, without ANY fees taken out."

"Where's that money come from?" asked Bill.

The Lieutenant grinned wickedly. "They would tack a couple more months or years onto Rupert's time. He works it off. It's your money and it's your call. The Lunar Autonomy is harsh, but nobody can claim it's not fair. Especially to victims. And they don't take it from tax payers, either, just Rupert."

Chapter 13
ASCENT

The entire trial had taken place before the bug had even left the runway. 'Justice delayed is justice denied' ran through Bill's head as they gathered speed. Lunar justice was speedy. The wonder of it commingled: that an entire trial could occur during preparations of a spacecraft takeoff and not interfere with those preparations; that a take off could actually make time for a trial.

By contrast, Bill knew from hearsay and common knowledge, that the American Union jurisprudence industry would have scheduled the trial for two years down the road, during which time Rupert could be free on bail, bail paid for with other thefts. His attorney could delay trial onset for a decade. If convicted, appeals could last another decade. Basically, under such a system Rupert and all such people could pay to delay justice, in effect buying time — 'purchasing' time — from the so-called impartial justice industry.

He felt the bug turn into the wind. There was a bumping, rolling taxi, a stop, and a full throttle test of engines while being held back by the brakes. Bill could see all views from the multiple monitors. The huge Rolls Royce engines, each larger than the Wright brother's entire original plane revved up. The bug was longer than the Wright brother's entire first flight!

The takeoff roll thundered them along desert sand. Bill wondered what kept sand particles from entering the turbine inlets. Then he quit wondering anything. He had thought the bug would fly them at some low angle for a languorous ascent.

But no. The plane shot up. It seemed to him that it flew up almost vertically. This was no gentle plane ride. Viewed at a distance, this flight might look gentle and nearly horizontal, but for those aboard ship this was a high-speed elevator straight up.

The powerful engines pressed him back in his seat. He read the altitude gauge. It read in feet. They were already passing twenty thousand. Twenty-five. Thirty.

Now the bug seemed to slacken its pace. The plane now did seem to level off, just a slight ascent now. He watched the altimeter. Its needle crept up now 32,000...33,000...34,000.

The engines throttled back from a roar to the sound of a normal airliner. It became whisper quiet. Bill's respect for the immense power led him to think of the plane as now being in its true element. The wispy clouds were all below. Now the plane began to perform the task it was designed to do, to fly effortlessly at high altitude, to continue upward, beyond all hope, through a constantly thinning medium.

Each additional foot higher lessened the purchase of the wings, yet — defiantly — they grabbed even more and more of the air that became less and less. The engines, too, had less and less air to use to burn the fuel, but giant compressors worked their magic and squeezed the ever-thinning air until it became thick enough to combine with the kerosene for combustion.

Even more, the engines were turning so many RPMs that the thin, rarefied air through which they traveled was forced out the back, thrown with enough force, enough reaction mass, to propel the mighty ship upwards.

It was a noble but futile game, inevitably lost at every flight. Before the engines coughed or flamed out the pilots conceded a grudging defeat and released the ascent module, the shuttle in which Bill and the crew traveled.

When the bug made release, Bill felt the shuttle lurch. They fell like an elevator whose cable had been cut. In horror, he saw them fall on one of the monitors. Once clear of the bug the scram jet engines kicked in and he was pressed back into the seat. The rear view monitor showed the bug diminish in size below them until it became a dot, then vanish. Bill heard traffic formalities from bug to their shuttle.

They were at nearly 150,000 feet now, then 200, then 300. The sky was no longer blue. Earth's curvature was a very distinct reality. The amateur in Bill would have claimed they were at the edge of space, but he knew ES1 — still much higher — was only itself merely at the edge of space.

There was enough rarefied air here at 300,000 feet to make orbit impossible. There was still way too much air at this height to cause friction, preventing a sustained orbit. The friction would cause a satellite to glow cherry red and burn up. The air would also slow down the orbit and any satellite at this altitude would not even make many more turns than a single, solitary loop.

The minimum height for orbit was about a hundred miles straight up. Even at that height there was a tiny amount of atmosphere, enough so that it was necessary to readjust the orbit of satellites to prevent orbital decay.

The 100 mile height to get above that atmosphere caused another problem. At increased height it was necessary to increase the orbital speed — the sideways speed. The higher you go the faster you have to go sideways to achieve orbit.

It's ironic: our canopy of air prevents an orbit close to the Earth, but when you get high enough to be out of the friction-laden air you must go so very, very fast. A minimum satellite speed was about 24,000 miles per hour. It was impossible to achieve such a high rate of speed while still going through thick air because the air caused resistance.

It was best to get high as possible on air breather engines, then switch over to rocket engines when above all the air. Economics led mankind to use kerosene engines on the lowest leg of the journey, burning the kerosene with the surrounding atmosphere. The surrounding atmosphere also functioned as the reaction mass that the jet engine shot out the back. The air also sustained lift with the airplane's wings.

Rockets, of course, carried ALL their own reaction mass, consisting of both fuel AND something to burn it in: the heavy liquid oxygen they were forced to carry. Nor did rocket-powered ships make use of wings, for vacuum provided neither air for combustion nor air for wings.

Each ascent into orbit was achieved in the same manner: get up as high as possible to be above as much of the air as possible using air-breather engines, then switch over to scram jet power to obtain the 24,000 mile per hour sideways speed, then a final rocket-only short burst for the small additional height and more sideways speed.

"A minute left, Sir," advised the Lieutenant. "Better settle in, Bill. We're cutting the scram jets and switching on the rockets."

Bill waited for the switch over. The scram jets sounded to him like typical airliner engines. He had been feeling and hearing their comforting power. He felt them gradually throttle down and the absence of noise and vibration left a sudden, startling void in the cabin.

The ship did not lurch, but Bill again felt an elevator-like sensation in his stomach: they had not exactly begun to fall, but were no longer hurtling upwards at an increasing rate.

When the rocket motor kicked in it was like a catapult, knocking Bill back into the seat and especially the headrest. If he had left his tongue stuck out he could have accidentally bitten himself from the lurch.

"We got, ah, 37 seconds of two gee, Sir."

Bill tried lifting his lead arm. He could do it easily. If his arm weighed, say, ten pounds, this meant he was only lifting twenty. When he tried lifting his head, though, that was a completely more difficult experience; he could barely do it.

"Careful there, Bill," commented the Captain. "You could pull a neck muscle. I've seen it lots of times. Lifting your arm is okay, but spare your neck."

7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Suddenly the rocket motor cut off and Bill felt himself seem to surge forward against his seatbelt and shoulder harness.

"We're in free fall, Bill. You can unstrap. Be careful, though." The lieutenant offered him a baggie.

"If you get airsick..." he explained. Bill was too excited for airsickness. Instead of feeling queasy, he felt elation. Just a mere hand gesture against his couch raised him floating above it.

Chapter 14
APPROACH

Lieutenant Johnson had left the computer screens in place after the trial and now Bill entertained himself keying various outside views: back to Earth, the Moon, the sides of the ship.

The starfield of Heaven crawled across his screens from left to right. He panned that camera and broadened its view. There, ahead of them, was an unusually bright star. It was not round and Bill refocused the aperture for a tighter view. Crystal clarity and no heat shimmer let him get a very good close up.

"ES1," intoned the lieutenant who had been watching Bill. "I never get over seeing the old gal."

"It's a home, all right," agreed the captain. He had lit a pipe, an unusual contraption with some kind of top covering the pipe bowl. Bill guessed it was for free fall.

"I spent a year aboard her once," admitted the captain. "Was her second in command during a bout of plague. We were quarantined and lost most of the complement of our crew." Bill remembered the plague from his history course. The curriculum had blamed Capitalists for the bout of disease, but he had heard Flanagan, his boss Fred Andrews, and others give another entirely different explanation.

Flanagan had once intoned, "There haven't been hardly ANY plagues, draughts, famines in the history of the world that have not been in the presence of bad government, during oppressive regimes. Most of them have occurred during periods of some sort of Totalitarianism."

ES1 grew in size over the next hour. The satellite was traveling at 24,000 miles an hour in its endless elliptical, almost circular orbit around the Earth. Their ascender shuttle nearly matched its speed, actually traveling a bit faster. After closing upon their goal the captain would fire retrorockets to slow them down to match orbit.

"There's our LZ, the docking module over to the left."

Bill heard the radio traffic:

"ES1 Approach, 4484 Uniform, three thousand, closing in ten."

"We're 3 kilometers away still but will arrive at the docking port in ten minutes," explained the lieutenant. "Orbital mechanics are not easy. Sometimes you go faster to slow down and catch another orbit; sometimes you slow down to go faster."

Bill zoomed the view screen to take in the multiple docking stations. "Each one's an airlock. Those to the left are the original ones before they standardized everything. We're headed to 22 the one way left, up high." He pointed to the corner of the screen and Bill zoomed in until the numbers 22 showed up. Incredibly he saw little ants dwarfed by the big white numbers: people in space suits working outside.

A disembodied voice from ES1 greeted them with instructions for docking. "That you, Johnson? Your old boss still living?"

Captain Grady wryly winced and responded, "Just barely still here, Ollie. Keep me a seat at the card table. I feel lucky tonight."

"We'll do that, Captain, seeing as how your game is off. I could use a few dollars. Speaking of dollars, I heard you guys helped nab 'Rupert the Rat.'"

"That we did, so The Lunar Autonomy owes me one. We have a passenger with us from that experience." The disembodied Ollie aboard ES1 must have had remote access to the camera for it panned across the room and stopped at Bill. He nodded towards it, not sure of camera etiquette under such social circumstances. "This young man is heading for the lunar job fair. Name's Bill."

"Glad to meet you, Bill. I'm Ollie. Good luck on your job hunt." Bill thanked him and the conversation turned toward back to docking preparations.

Chapter 15
DOCKING

Dock 22 grew larger and larger. The immense numbers filled his screen. Little side mounted vernier rockets puffed last minute adjustments until Lieutenant Johnson had the dock sockets within inches of each other.

"It's a very simple laser beam guided program, so I could do it myself if this thing went on the fritz." When he made final contact it was only the very slightest jolt, just enough to engage the vacuum collars.

"Twenty seconds, lowest thrust, on my mark," ordered Ollie. Lieutenant Johnson fired the engine now, surprising Bill, because they had already docked and secured to ES1.

"We're using our main thruster to adjust ES1 to offset orbital decay. They have no rocket engines of their own, so every time we dock we add a little nudge to put ES1 into a higher, more secure orbit."

"We don't have a single vacuum suit aboard, Bill. Would you mind opening the screen door, poking your head out and see if we're securely connected?" Lieutenant Johnson grinned and broadly invited Bill with theatrical arm gesture to be first through the lock. They were weightless and Bill thrilled to the floating sensation.

22 was located on the center of the barely rotating portion of ES1's main ring. The rotating ring of ES1 turned slowly, providing low artificial gravity, but here at the center spin was at its lowest rate.

They were docked but not yet locked. The huge station rotated slowly, ponderously like a lumbering elephant, seemingly nearly a minute per turn. This created an artificial semblance of gravity for the inhabitants. The outside of the ring was their floor and the slow spin flung everything out from the center by centrifugal force. Six giant hollow spokes housed elevators to the center hub.

"We're going to spin the ship to match up now," explained Captain Grady. Their ship was attached loosely to the dock, but spun on the collar once a minute.

The lieutenant explained, "That's why we calculated our center of gravity so precisely. We're going to spin on our central axis. As much as possible we are evenly balanced. Otherwise, the lurch would be like a washing machine out of kilter."

"How does it...?" began Bill. The captain interrupted. "It's exactly like a washing machine. It compensates for any off center balance — as much as possible. Don't worry. It works good."

Bill felt the ship start to turn. His inner ear interpreted the sensation as a turning fall.

"Relax," counseled the lieutenant. "It takes a minute." He was right. Within a minute their ship had matched rotational speed to the hub of the giant torus. "It'll hold pressure now. No leaks. We can go through."

The lieutenant fully pressurized the lock. When the gauges equalized he opened a test hole, a tiny pinhole between their ship and the closet-sized lock. The test hole second-guessed the veracity of the gauges by not hissing. Thus assured, the captain undogged the circular hatch, then unceremoniously swung himself through, both hands grasping the rim of the hatch, with a sort of a well-practiced feet-first entry.

"Bill, you next. It'll hold all three of us." Bill pulled himself in also with a series of unpracticed, timid pulls. He bumped his knee badly going in. The lieutenant was last. He entered feet first, but simultaneously pulled the heavy hinge of the circular hatch shut and began screwing its central latch wheel shut. After — and ONLY after it was tightly shut — did a green light come on. At its advent the captain began unscrewing a similar wheel on the other side.

"Our ship doesn't even have a lock of its own, just a collar that mates to locks. We always use 22 on ES1. The Chinese like 23; they're always our neighbors. I see their craft. Captain Chen doesn't talk much, but they're good neighbors. I'll introduce you if he's handy. He might could use a paid hand on the way back if you don't hook up with your company."

The neighborliness of that offer encouraged Bill. So far he had seen most spacers were very people-oriented.

Chapter 16
ES1

The lieutenant pulled himself through, the Captain next. When Bill followed he found himself inside an immense empty cylinder. It was well lit and cold inside. It smelled of mustiness and age. The sides were studded with a profusion of pieces of equipment, a wild array of devices Bill could not interpret.

"We're at the center, so we can reach the ring by taking one of the six elevators to any part of it. The Ring is segmented into colors: blue, red, yellow, green, white, turquoise. Each colored segment is served by its own corresponding elevator shaft. We're going to green."

They entered the green elevator when it opened and rode it DOWN to the ring. "The lower you go, the more you weigh."

When the elevator car began to descend it gathered speed and he did, in fact, seem to weigh more and more. The elevator ride began to become terrifying because it felt like the car was decelerating to a stop but it went on and on.

Bill felt his knees buckle and stomach lurch, even though final gravity was Lunar normal — about 1/6th Earth. Finally, the car actually did come to a stop. After a pause the double doors opened into a large lobby.

It was noisy and packed with busy people going back and forth. It was so large there was an echo like the concourse of a skyscraper. It was as busy as a Medieval European city's market square — there were even jugglers and acrobats. A profusion of smells and sounds and colors and emotions all interplayed with Bill's senses. He stood there in the doorway of the elevator for a moment, mouth agape at the impact of it all.

A vendor with a wheeled cart sold magazines and small items. Off to the side he saw a coffee shop. Men and women clad in space suits carried their helmets and walked by. Businessmen with regular street attire and briefcases stood in clusters comparing paperwork.

Presumably because of the low gravity, many people rode unicycles — it must be easier to balance those contraptions here, thought Bill. Some of the unicycles were the old-fashioned pedaled kind, the others were powered.

Many had a single large ball at the bottom rather than a wheel and riders nonchalantly sat idly on the saddle without traveling forward. A microprocessor nudged the conveyance not just fore and aft but sideways with microadjustments.

There were lots of two-wheel and single-wheel Segways all zipping and zigzagging across the general traffic flow. A man on stilts wore a signboard and screamed, "Tony's Donuts! Best donuts in Green Sector!" while passing out coupons.

Bill watched a dog happily chase a cat half-heartedly through the legs of the pedestrians. The dog had no chance, for the cat suddenly made a leap straight up, almost twenty feet to a ledge, where it turned and hissed insolence at the dog.

The novelty of this new environment was marked by the absence of things Bill was used to seeing. There were no beggars, fires, Guardsmen cruisers, trash piles.

The torus was originally built decades earlier to smaller specifications, but had been added onto by making "lower" floors, each beneath the previous. Each additional lower floor made the space station bigger. Each prior story became "higher" than the last. It was just in reverse to gradual building on Earth; on the Earth's surface a single story building could have an addition built up over it.

Ground floor on Earth was just that — the ground. Each additional story became Second Story, Third Story, and so on. With ES1 each new "Story" became added on as a lower level to the "basement".

After a couple of new additions the inhabitants had given up referring to the "ground level", "2nd story", and so on. They referred to most of the levels as "Basements" and called the newest, outermost ring B5, the next one up B4, and so on.

The innermost, original ring was L1. Every time they had added a new outermost level, the designers reduced spin so that the "latest and lowest" floor had Lunar gravity. The earlier higher floors successively got less spin and less gravity.

It looked to Bill like the concourse was at least a quarter mile across. When he looked either left or right he could see the constantly-upward-sloping floor. It was immense.

"There's Chen now," pointed Lieutenant Johnson, interrupting Bill's reverie and compelling him to advance from the elevator doorway. An oriental wearing a pilot's uniform stood near a younger pilot by a noodle vendor. All three were laughing uproariously at some Cantonese joke. Captain Grady approached them and said something in Chinese, a short sentence, seemingly an additional tag line to the joke and all the men shouted laughter anew.

"Hey, is that the kid who helped nab old Rupert?" asked Captain Chen.

"The same," answered Lieutenant Johnson. "Decided to hop a ride with us just the same. May I introduce William Jones?

Chen shook hands. "Glad to meet you, young man. May I also introduce my associate?" They shook hands all around.

"Say, have you heard of the earthquake?" asked Chen. He became serious.

"No. Did it just happen?

"Maybe an hour ago in Korea. We are all probably going to get diverted for rescue and emergency work."

"What about our loads?"

"They will all have to wait for the humanitarian work."

"We'd better check in."

As the captains conferred Bill had more opportunity to look around. There was plenty of foot traffic, but the concourse was so large the traffic snarls of motor vehicles made things worse. Taxi drivers — actually, pedicabs — angrily gestured pedestrians away as they threaded circuitously through the constantly varying crowds. Rupert would have fit right in, thought Bill, and he warily checked his wallet against pickpockets.

"Look, Bill, we've got to leave immediately. We had planned to take you in tow — little tour and some introductions — but the earthquake..."

"Oh, I understand. Don't worry about me; I'll be fine."

The pilots rushed off and Bill stood there in the concourse, his grubstake bundle in tow. At least here it weighed a small reasonable amount, although it was still overly large for a single bag.

He watched the pilots recede. It was just the opposite of watching a person on Earth walk away from you over a hill. On Earth, the person disappeared from the bottom to the top. The last thing you saw was a head. Here, people disappeared top to bottom. The last thing you saw was the feet because the view of the head got cut off by the roof and the upwardly sloping floor.

Captain Grady and Lieutenant Johnson walked 'up' the curvature of the torus, growing smaller and smaller, higher and higher until the roofline cut them off from sight. First, their heads disappeared, then their torsos, finally their legs and feet were the last Bill saw of them.

Bill consulted his watch. He had hours and hours to kill before his originally scheduled shuttle flight would arrive. He hoped Jeremy had gotten off okay.

The bag was the problem; it was way too large to take with him for sightseeing. Already he was blocking traffic with its bulk. He decided to look for a storage facility, perhaps a locker or a hotel front desk.

The Grand Hotel had faux pillars in front of its doorway and he approached the uniformed doorman. "Yessir, can I help you check in?"

"Uh, yes — that is, my bag — I was wondering if I might temporarily check my bag with your desk?"

The doorman frowned and shook his head. "Unless you are a paying guest we cannot watch your bag. Sorry. Hotel rules. That is... OFFICIALLY, those are the rules." He paused.

"Occasionally," he continued, "there can be exceptions." He waited expectantly for Bill to offer a tip. It was a sleazy approach and after the encounter with Rupert Bill did not want to chance leaving the bag with such a person, certainly not without a receipt.

Bill nodded and continued down the concourse. He thought he should have gone on in and dealt with the desk clerk who might have been more sympathetic and reasonable than the doorman.

He stayed to the right, hugging the wall so that he would not bother the traffic any more than necessary, but people still complained and even jostled him.

Foot traffic became lighter and lighter and the time change caused the lights to dim from daytime levels to a simulated night. They kept Greenwich time up here he remembered and it was midnight not just dinnertime. But his stomach did not know that and grumbled away.

A policeman in a security uniform approached him. "Hey, kid! It's almost curfew. Where you heading with that duffel?"

He was not a real policeman. He was not wearing a Lunar Autonomy uniform, but rather he had on an AU Guardsman uniform. He was just a rentacop, a mall security guy.

"Uh, I just came in on the mail shuttle. I'm going to the Lunar Corp hiring fair."

"Well, that's not til tomorrow. You can't just walk all night. You got a room?"

Bill shook his head.

The uniform guy jerked his thumb down a side tunnel. "Try Sapporo. They might gotta room. It's expensive, though, but a whole lot cheaper than The Grand."

Bill nodded his thanks then took the dim corridor.

Sure enough, a neon sign proclaimed 'SAPPORO!' and he approached it. A massive Japanese guy dressed like a Sumo wrestler stood guard at the desk. The Sumo stood at attention, arms folded, staring into infinity. He wore only his diaper-like wrestling garb and traditional topknot hairdo.

The desk clerk next to the sumo, by contrast, was a petite bespectacled Japanese man in Western business attire, a blue blazer and red necktie.

"Welcome, Sir! Welcome to the Sapporo Inn! Do you have a reservation, I hope?" The desk clerk looked hopeful and accommodating.

"No, I don't have a reservation. I just got off a mail shuttle and need a room for the night."

The clerk looked crestfallen at the news and genuinely pained. "I regret all our accommodations are booked." He gestured to the vertical chart of rooms, an electronic booking board. It showed the grid of numbered beds, all lit with red. No greens were showing.

Bill looked behind the clerk and saw how the hotel was arranged. It was a single wall of bunk beds, twelve high, twenty-four across. Each stateroom consisted of a bed area about four foot tall, maybe 10 feet deep. Each tiny compartment had its own a/c, lights, TV.

The communal bathroom area was downstairs and used by all guests. Bill noticed almost all the rooms had roll-down bamboo shutters drawn. The occupants were asleep. He looked back at the electronic booking chart and the nightly rate was staggering. One night cost more than he made in a month.

"Sir, if I may suggest, there is a curfew in effect, punishable by a significant fine. Since we are unable to accommodate you with a proper room may I offer the no-charge hospitality of our common room?" Bill saw comfortable couches in a living room-like setting.

"That's very nice of you. You say there is a curfew?"

"Yes, Sir, in effect from midnight until six in the morning. It concerns only those carrying baggage. I wish to emphasize that the Sapporo Hotel management staff and our Lunar stockholders vehemently opposed passage of the curfew law. Our occupancy rate has always exceeded 100 percent and we do not require legal help to fill our rooms."

"I appreciate that, Mr. Suzuki. Are you Lunar owned, then?"

"Yes, we are. Are you seeking employment tomorrow at the Job Fair?"

Bill nodded.

"Good. Then I welcome you as a new immigrant and, I hope, new Lunar Citizen. I would like to suggest a few employment connections, if I may?"

"Oh, that's nice of you, Mr. Suzuki, but I'm aiming for The Lunar Corporation."

Suzuki's face showed no overt reaction, but Bill detected a subtle Oriental disapproval. He rapidly shifted gears.

"Our dining facility has been closed since local midnight, but there are several all-night establishments open along the clockwise corridor. You will pass from our Green, through Red, into Turquoise."

He indicated the route with his finger on their Lucite map while handing Bill a paper version.

"We will check your bag — at no charge to you, of course — and you may roam ES1 freely without the bag without fear of arrest or fine.

"May I please ask you to fill out a two-part receipt for your bag, Sir? Of course, we shall surely recognize each other, but this is the proper procedure."

Bill nodded a thanks and filled out the form. When Bill finished, Mr. Suzuki tore the receipt form into its two halves and affixed one to Bill's bag.

The samurai, in turn, took the bag and bowed deeply to Bill, then trundled the bag behind the desk for safety. Mr. Suzuki perused the form in order to properly address Bill as Mr. Jones, bowed low and two-handedly offered Bill his receipt. Bill — for the first time in his life — also bowed at the waist gravely and took temporary leave of the excellent Sapporo.

Lights had been reduced to a gloaming. Only green footlights along both sides of the corridor provided any illumination. It felt incredible to walk so easily in the low gravity. Bill had only to use his toes to launch himself several yards per step.

He approached a T into a better lit, more heavily traveled corridor. Despite the layout of ES1 you could still get lost; it was surprisingly large and convoluted. Bill sauntered down the corridor looking into shop windows of closed shops.

There was every kind of business, not just the kinds of stores seen in shopping malls. He was surprised to see weapon shops selling all types of rifles and pistols. There were space suit shops selling designer colors and frivolous decorations for helmets. Radio and phone shops vied for customers. He saw Lunar Schwinn competing with Raleigh. The unmistakable smell of a beer joint, not yet closed for the evening. There was a small chapel, software store on one side, and bookstore on the other. There were closed military recruitment offices, shared by UN Marine Corps and AU Guardsmen. In the daytime Bill felt he could spend a week just looking around.

The green footlights along both sides of the corridor suddenly became red as he entered the Red Sector. This part of ES1 was for housing, both employees and retirement apartments for rich people. He consulted the map and oriented himself.

The corridor went two, three stories tall in places for the necessary psychological variety. But it was practical, too, for the vertical wall made excellent patios for the housing development.

Bill heard soft music and a saw a few night owls were still awake when he looked up at the vertical wall of apartments. There were more of them than you would think: each apartment contained only a pittance of space; and 'space' is how they were sold — not by square footage, but by volume — so much per cubic meter per month.

A few of the tiny apartments were owned by corporations for the occasional use of traveling people; some were provided for employees. The remainder were owned outright, not by millionaires — such were too poor — but by billionaires, people who could afford a million a year to live in orbit.

The map told him he would get to the turquoise section — more-or-less a food court — after passing through Red. He quickly scanned the map for the layout of the other colors.

Yellow was hospital. Bill could hardly imagine how much geriatric care added to the almost impossibly high housing cost. Some diseases could be cured more easily in lunar gravity, some painful conditions eased.

There was a huge medical industry at work here and also on Luna, more progress being made here than anywhere on Earth, probably due to lack of regulation, lack of subsidies.

Chapter 17
MOLLY

The sudden, unmistakable smell of short order food made his mouth water. His stomach rumbled immediately because it smelled so good and he followed his nose. It called to him like a long-lost friend.

Most shops of the Food Court had closed for the night. Just a few of them were open. Bill wondered how a 'closed-on-Sundays' outfit like Chick-fil-A could calculate which day of the week it was in orbit or on the Moon; he figured they must keep Greenwich time.

Some shops still open were completely automated. You just swiped your card and pressed which number you wanted. A disembodied voice asked if you wanted to supersize the order. Then a precooked burger and fries — or whatever — got heated for you in a microwave. All of those kinds of places were still open but he did not want to eat that kind of food.

The Lunar Autonomy did not regulate anything as mundane as hours of operation for bars, so most of them were still open due to human nature; Bill could smell cigarette smoke and beer, plus, he heard a juke box. Very often, bars also served food.

Bill was not the only pedestrian still abroad at night. A pair of no-kidding cowboys perused the mall across the way. They had on Western attire, complete with leather boots, immense Stetson cowboy hats, blue jeans and — Bill looked closer — huge, impossibly-long-barreled pistols.

One of them spoke to the other as they window-shopped, "Those manikins almost look real, don't they?"

The other nodded and responded, "They do. They do, but let's not spend our time here. I want to dance. Let's find us some 'wimikins'", and he chinned direction towards the honkey-tonk. They passed Bill and good-naturedly nodded to him as they entered.

Bill decided to pass those kinds of places and vowed to return only if no other food places were open. He did not know his chances of getting in just to eat, being underage as he was even if he did not plan to drink alcohol.

The corridor curved around a projecting storefront and there it was, all lit up brightly, the best looking hash house he had EVER seen. In bright letters large red LEDs proclaimed EATS 'N' DRINKS. The sign was looped by a pretty neon red oval.

In orbit yet. It looked like Fred's own place, but smaller, a lot more modern, and it was in orbit. Bill could not get over that and he grinned when he thought about it. Somehow, seeing it and just coming from Earth from just such a place as this made him homesick a little bit.

Bill appraised the layout with a professional eye as he entered the doorway. There were only about a dozen booths along the walls, only three free-standing tables, with a friendlier counter up by the stoves for faster service.

It sat, perhaps 60 people at maximum. Right now only ten customers were seated, mostly solitary shift workers, a few salesmen, whose days and nights were reversed by Greenwich time zone. There were two solitary geeks, oblivious to all, nursing cokes, lost in book readers.

Bill saw but a single waitress, a brunette woman of about thirty. She moved so fast he could hardly take it in. She never skimped on customer relations but he could detect extreme urgency and speed.

When he looked closer he saw why she moved so fast: she was not only the only waitress, she was also the only cook; she was, in fact, the only employee in the place and, for that reason, he felt guilty sitting down, putting her to more work with his presence.

To his surprise, he found she did not shirk her duty even under the adverse circumstances of extreme workload and she invited him in as he entered the doorway.

"Come on in, chum," she called out with a friendly, pleasant voice and a smile. "Have a seat." He noticed how she indicated the counter with her hand gesture. She could serve him faster there.

"Menus are by the napkin holder; I'll be right with you." Her name tag said MOLLY and she smiled just right and spoke just right so that he sat down center counter.

Bill picked up his menu whose pictures made him so hungry he almost ate the printed pictures of food on it.

Then, suddenly, Bill's hunger vanished! The prices on the menu were astronomical. Each meal cost a week's wages. Just coffee or a soft drink cost more than a whole day's wages at Fred's.

Fred sold a meal ticket, good for a week that cost less than a single burger here. He could not believe it for a couple seconds, and sat staring at the menu, letting the reality of prevailing prices sink in.

He found himself focusing at an irrelevancy: each item was marked with its price in American Union AU dollars with a dollar sign, in Euros with the Euro sign, and also Lunars whose sign looked somewhat like the old-style British Pound, except that it had two horizontal slashes through the L. It was not usually ever spelled out "Lunar", most of the time just the double-striped 'L' or sometimes 'Lr.'

Molly showed up again smiling, holding her order pad and pencil. "Start off with a drink?" she offered.

"Uh... I need a minute, please," countered Bill. He felt for his money. He had so many dollars available to him, all budgeted, so much a day, allocated to last him for the duration. It was a mental budget, but well thought out.

Molly watched him feel for the presence of his cash and correctly guessed his distress. He was saved by one of the booths finishing up; one from the group approached the register and Molly had to cash him out. Bill overheard the exchange.

"Was it okay, Mr. O'reilly?" she asked.

"Pretty good coffee, Molly. Great pie, too."

"Well, I keep it freshly brewed. That'll be three thousand four hundred seventy five Lunars and fifty cents, Mr. O'reilly."

"We'll see you next trip, Molly." He counted out four thousand in Lunar gold coins and waved off the change. Molly thanked him and wished him a good trip.

Bill was floored by what he heard. He quickly converted Lunars to dollars. Molly's tip for just this one meal alone exceeded a month's wages!

She cleared their booth, then returned with a water for Bill. Bill did not know what else to do. He had decided to get just a coffee and let it go at that, the most expensive coffee he had ever gotten, had ever heard of. He had read of high prices and had planned all this for years, but the reality of it hit him like a ton of bricks.

"Are you working this place all by yourself?"

"Yes, I am. My shift partner quit in frustration from work overload and returned to Earth yesterday because our third coworker took a Lunar job last week. Our fourth coworker quit to get married three weeks ago and moved to Copernicus. It was bad enough to turn four jobs into three, three jobs into two, but now it's just me until they bring up a replacement."

"So, you're doing the work of four people? Cook. Waitress. Cashier."

"Well, you could also say the job description includes manager, busboy, dishwasher. Everything."

She paused. The conversation with Bill was her first breather in several hours.

"I was a busboy at a diner for four years so that I could get up here to the job fair."

"That's tomorrow."

He nodded.

"By any chance, is the Sapporo full again and The Grand too expensive for you?" She was tired, but certainly knew the way of things.

He nodded at her perspicacity.

"So, by any chance, had you been thinking of nursing coffee here all night long until the Fair opens?"

He nodded again. The woman had ESP.

"By the time the Job Fair starts I will have been working 36 hours straight." Bill did not know what to say.

"You were busboy?"

"Yes. 99 tables."

"But did you cook and work the register?"

"No, but I can."

"What's your name?"

"Bill."

"Tell you what, Bill. You take over this place between now and the Fair and you keep all wages and tips and eat all you want. What do you say?"

Bill nodded dumbly. "Where will you go?"

"Quick shower and a change of clothes. I'll be back in fifteen minutes. You can wake me for any questions you have, but otherwise I'm going to sleep until you leave for the Fair."

"Deal". They shook on it.

"Before I shower I'm going to cook you a meal. It'll be a running demo, too, so keep your ears open."

She began an efficient running commentary while scrambling eggs, making toast, building a sandwich. It was a trencherman's dream that meal she cooked, all the while showing him where everything was and how to do it all. He began eating before she finished cooking.

"You sit down to eat," she scolded. "You can listen and eat, but it would be a health code violation and so on if you ate while helping — a customer might see you."

Bill polished off his enormous meal and bussed his own table.

"I've got it," he said.

Molly left to shower and change into a fresh uniform.

As soon as she left Bill greeted two new customers and had them eating so fast it was as though he had been working there for years. He fell into a rapid pace, cooking, taking orders, busing, cashing out, greeting, saying goodbye.

Molly returned seemingly in a few minutes. She looked better but Bill could see extreme exhaustion. She was on her last legs.

Bill watched her walk unsteadily behind the counter. There, out of view of customers, behind the shelving and stoves and sinks were the living quarters of the restaurant's employees. Through the open door Bill saw briefly a four-high bunk bed and closets for personal possessions.

Everything here seemed extremely lightweight, like camping gear. The quadruple high bunk bed, for instance, was made of aluminum tubing; there were no mattresses, just blue nylon fabric like camp cots. The closet units were freestanding, also mostly of alloy skeleton and fabric.

Like everything aboard ES1 it was microscopic, but it was her private dwelling and she went inside.

"I'm leaving the door open, okay? You need anything, just ask." With a practiced jump, seemingly in slow motion, as graceful as a cat, she vaulted up to the top bunk and her head hit the pillow.

Bill nodded. But he did not wake her. His idea that the sales would be slow between midnight and 6 am was plain wrong. He was very busy. He kept up and thrived. He bantered with the customers, many of whom asked after Molly or one of the departed coworkers.

He found the work itself easy and very, very enjoyable. Most of the heated foods were prepackaged and all he had to do was microwave them. Same with scrambled eggs and bacon. Toast was easy and making sandwiches, too. Many of the items were in dehydrated pouches; just add hot water, reseal, and wait a few minutes. Many of the drinks were fountain. Nothing baffled him.

The register had pictures of food and drinks on it. All he had to do was press appropriate buttons and take payment. Most Earth people paid with credit cards, most Lunar citizens with cash.

Bill looked up and, suddenly, it was a quarter to eight. He had promised to wake Molly at six. But he was doing effective, productive work and felt he could handle it without her. At about eight he knew he would have to depart to make the opening of the Fair. He felt bad leaving Molly alone again, especially at the beginning of morning rush hour, but also felt bad just plain waking her up. Before he did so she woke up by herself and appeared at his side.

He poured her a coffee, extra strong, and she nodded a thanks, still yet too tired to even say a thanks. She first went to the register and scanned the totals from since Bill took over, then tallied the results with the actual cash. It was way over.

"I threw the tips in the drawer, with the rest. I didn't have any change."

"Whoa! You did really good. I've seen smaller shifts with all three of us working." She checked the figures in her head again, then looked up at him in admiration. "Bill, you did REALLY well!"

She took all the tip money then added the hourly to it and presented Bill with his wages. It exceeded 6 months salary for him at Fred's, a princely sum.

"Listen, you've got to get going to get to The Job Fair on time, but come back when it's over. Tell me how it went. Lunch and dinner are on me for your excellent work. If you get hired by one of the firms you'll leave later this evening; if you don't get hired this go around I'll take you on here — you've got a job here if you need it. Remember that. The Lunar Corp only takes maybe one in twenty — maybe fewer."

"I feel lucky, but thanks just the same. I feel bad leaving you without a partner."

"They're sending someone up next shuttle. I'll manage until then."

Bill shook hands somberly. He felt a gulp in his throat the way he did when he left Fred's. He felt strange about it that he felt so strongly for someone he had just met, someone he had only spoken to for fewer than a hundred sentences, fewer than fifteen minutes of conversation.

He thought maybe the exertion and emotional roller coaster he had been on had something to do with it. He knew there was a female vacuum in his life with no mother, no grandma, no sister, and no girl friend. And also, cooking and restaurant work was sort of like feminine work in the eyes of most people. He was now entering the masculine work of, he hoped, The Lunar Corp.

Endnotes

The NAU

The Food Riots

The vigilante Wars

The Vational Civilian Youth Job Corp

The Guard

The North American Union

The NAU is a political and economic unit consisting of the former autonomous countries Canada, USA, Mexico, and all the former Central American countries and islands. In other words, the NAU is every part of the land mass of the entirety of the North American continent.

It is a totalitarian state ruled by intimidation, fear, force, and repression. All aspects of politics, economics, education, and all other social forces are completely controlled and micromanaged.

"We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it."
— George Orwell, 1984

It was set up as a dictatorship as a TEMPORARY measure to bring stability. The good men who set it up stated that once things settled down that they would relinquish power and, once again, revert society to democracy and capitalism. Before long, many of those men were assasinated and new, permanent leaders ensconsed themselves into roles as absolute rulers.

"Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program."
— Milton Friedman

The NAU merger occurred during the simultaneous economic and political collapse of the USA. The opportunity arose for this 'reset' due to a series of Food Riots.

Endnotes

The NAU

The Food Riots

The Vigilante Wars

The National Civilian Youth Job Corp

The Guard

The Food Riots

The Food Riots happened after a lengthy power outage. Refrigerated food in grocery stores and grocery warehouses quickly spoiled after a few days and the lack of electricity made it difficult for grocery resupply trucks to deliver nonperishable food. Many of the trucks were high-jacked before delivery by angry mobs. The exact number of deaths is unknown, but estimates vary from a low of 90,000 to as many as 12,000,000. The huge disparity of the estimated number of dead can be attributed to political orientation of those making the estimate. The exact number may never be known.

"One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results."
— Milton Friedman

The Food Riots are considered to be the focal point for governmental and economic collapse of the USA. The power outage itself and the ensuing riots are not the source of the political and economic collapse, but rather just the trigger. In one sense, the collapse already was in effect. It is just that the riots were the excuse to induce the reset. After fourteen weeks of turmoil a semblance of stability resumed.

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."
— Milton Friedman

Although food itself eventually became available for distribution, there were, there on after, constant shortages of other items, including various types of food. Centralized planning, production, and distribution were never blamed as the source of these shortages or the ensuing inflation of price of the items.

Endnotes

The NAU

The Food Riots

The Vigilante Wars

The National Civilian Youth Job Corp

The Guard

The Vigilante Wars

Several competing, regional vigilante groups reached a detente and began a system of bartering. The Vigilante Wars broke out after the USA broke up into eighteen regionally autonomous areas. The separate regions functioned as individual countries and were characterized by autocratic rule, militarism, two of them as religiously-centered, one communal. All were repressive and violent. The standard of living was low. The standard of living in the NAU has not yet attained (and may never attain) that of the USA and Canada in the heyday years.

"One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship."
— George Orwell, 1984

Eventually, through conquests, one supreme political unit took over the entirety of the continent. The hold-outs regions were, one-by-one, plundered.

Endnotes

The NAU

The Food Riots

The Vigilante Wars

The National Civilian Youth Job Corp

The Guard

The National Civilian Youth Job Corp

The National Civilian Youth Corps is sort of a 'junior membership' of The Guard. It is very much like The Hitler Youth and also the kids in 1984, Mao's kids in the Great Leap Forward, or even Stalin's kids in the USSR.

The young people are paid an honorarium, have snappy uniforms, go to monthly meetings. They are taught allegiance to the group, the state and also to not think of themselves as individuals or as members of a family.

They are assigned 'work' at businesses who are forced to pay higher than the prevalent wage for less than normal duties. The NCYJC members are referred to as 'students' but actually function as 'informants'.

"The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem."
— Milton Friedman

The students are given a margin of power exceeding their abilities or ages. They function as eyes and ears of the state and the businesses have much to fear. Most businesses so saddled with a contingency of these youth are up against an untenable situation. The businesses find it expedient to flatter the egos of their youthful critics by supplying perks such as desirable offices with secretaries, catered meals, outings, sitting in on board meetings and being asked for input, asked to suggest improvements in work flow, etc. The businesses are very fearful of being reported as racist, sexist, nonecological, Capitalistic, or being deficient in social justice, nonprogressive. Being reported usually leads to prison time, fines, even more scrutiny, or (in some cases) the death penalty.

The NAU is still in a state of flux and the advent of The Guard and The NCYJC has not yet reached a point in which one might determine if The NAU can even exist with this presence in place. History has examples of similar repressive institutions which have lasted nearly a century before being toppled.

Endnotes

The NAU

The Food Riots

The Vigilante Wars

The National Civilian Youth Job Corp

The Guard

The Guard

After the formation of the NAU, The Guard was formed to keep order and to keep the public from revolting and taking over the repressive NAU government. It employs an extraordinarily large percentage of citizens and functions variously:

Functions of THE GUARD

State police force

welfare

employment

political repression of subversive movements and opposition parties

It attracts bullies, racists, sadists, rapists and channels their faults into roles the government can make use of. The members of The Guard who do well and stand out are selected for Party membership and can ascend the political and power ladders of the NAU. The Guardsmen also make additional income 'shaking down' businesses.

The Guard is divided up into five branches.

BRANCHES OF THE GUARD

Enforcement (national police)

Investigative (CIA & FBI)

Judicial (judge, jury, punishment)

Administrative (the law makers)

Regulars (the armed forces)

There are Enforcement, Investigative, Judicial, Administrative, and Regulars. The Enforcement Branch is what most people see, because of the presence of uniforms. These are the every day police force and exist ostensibly to fight nonpolitical crime, but their main duty is actually to keep the populous from revolting.

The Investigative Branch (the detectives) consist of more-intelligent civilian-attired (under cover operatives) who ferret out subversives. They work hand-in-hand with the Enforcement Branch and take over all complex cases. After investigation any still-living cases taken in by the Investigative Branch are turned over to the Judicial Branch for further questioning and punishment.

The Judicial Branch is the courts system/​punishment/‍​execution/​fines all rolled into one. They function as prosecutor and judge and defense, but defense is weak, because almost everyone accused is convicted. Those not executed are considered recidivistic (not retrainable) and are turned over for life-long incarceration within a "work prison".

"A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both."
— Milton Friedman

The administrative Branch consists of only less than one percent of the population, people who run the nation and are at the pinnacle of success and power. They exist in a privileged world, but are beset by intrigues and power plays, complete with assassinations, plots, coup d'etats. Such people in high places really do need "Friends in high places".

Regulars are the armed forces, used both internationally and also (when necessary) internally inside of the NAU. The Regulars wear military-style camo uniforms and use large scale weapons rather than the one-on-one weapons of the Enforcement Branch. There is no interaction between Regular troopers and Enforcement officers, because the Regulars are also used to maintain order among the Enforcement officers should they get out of line themselves.

—> END OF PART ONE
(to be continued)

LUNAR APPRENTICE JONES
(Part 2) The Libertarian
by RJW Seddon

Chapter 18
SHUTTLE ARRIVAL

Bill threaded his way out of Molly's shop. People were starting to enter and he went crosscurrent to get out. He took a right to make his way out of Turquoise to where the Hiring Hall was at the Job Fair in the Blue Sector.

He consulted his map and started out at a brisk pace. Even with the low gravity he felt muscle pain from having worked all night and from the unaccustomed muscles used for low gravity walking and standing.

It was 'morning' now and the corridors were as brightly lit as day. Foot traffic packed the broad concourse. All the nocturnal floor-cleaning robots were recharging themselves, asleep for the day.

Bill saw a guy hawking for a bar. He was dressed up in a pirate suit and had a live parrot on his shoulder.

There were immensely laden pushcarts, impossibly top heavy in the low gravity, whose operators shouted for gangway, frowning and negotiating crowds.

There were children — some probably the kids of rich tourists — playing with the children of employees. For all he knew, some of the kids were patients from the low gravity hospital.

He saw a bird — it was bizarre, flying easily in the low gravity as though in slow, slow motion. It was a green/​red/​yellow parakeet of some sort — perhaps escaped, perhaps just tame — and it was able to experience flight from the hummingbird's perspective, able to hold a hover, even fly in reverse a bit. Bill almost detected a smile on the bird's face.

As Bill made his way to the job fair he passed the turquoise elevator. It made its DING noise when the car arrived having come 'downward' (outward, really) through the turquoise spoke from the central docking hub.

The double doors opened and a throng of would be immigrants poured out, the same fellows he had met at the spaceport on Earth. He recognized some of them. They, too, were without their huge duffel bags, all of them eager to hit the fair at opening time.

Suddenly, he had a bad feeling as he sighted Poster Boy — that is what he mentally called the obnoxious bus rider. Luckily, the fellow did not recognize Bill, probably too self-absorbed to notice anyone but himself, thought Bill.

Further in the back of the car, exiting last, were Jeremy and Red Ryder. They recognized him and in a snap their faces lit up even more brightly.

"Bill! You made it!" Jeremy was first to speak.

"How's it going? Hey, How'd you beat us here?" asked Red.

"Took the UPS shuttle. Got in last night. Man, oh man, it's good to see a familiar face."

They three had only recently met, but under the circumstances it felt as though they had been lifelong friends. They straggled behind the bulk of the group, which had discharged from the elevator and now rapidly closed the gap so they could keep up.

A broad sign above a pair of closed doors proclaimed: "LUNAR JOB FAIR (applicants only)". The boys from the elevator milled around waiting. There was a little tension because The Poster Boy and his red uniformed group of five similarly attired Lunar Corp employees grouped off by themselves ignoring the applicants.

Red put it in words for all of them: "These TLC boys are stuck on themselves. Very rude. I don't care for the way they carry themselves."

Jeremy nodded. Bill got the impression something must have happened in transit that he missed but Jeremy and Red had seen.

"Bill, you remember that ketchup you saved me from?" Jeremy used his eyes and a head movement to indicate The Poster Boy.

"Sure I do."

"Well, that was low key. That was SOP, Standard Operating Procedure for these guys. They are overbearing and rude and like to bully people."

Bill did not ask what had happened, what events in transit occurred. He watched the rowdies, as did all the other applicants.

Perhaps they were just nervous, he thought. Sometimes nervousness leads to bad behavior.

Father Flanagan had told Bill that once and Flanagan was an adept practical psychologist, one skilled at smoothing the waters and improving everyone's life. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, thought Bill.

The next elevator load of boys arrived behind them. This group had the few girls among their number. Girls always like to stick together, thought Bill. They socialize well and quickly become working acquaintances if not friends, much faster than most fellows.

Bill looked over to see one forlorn solitary individual, another Jeremy, thought Bill. He took a second look, assessing the lonely guy further, identifying with him. Another Bill, he corrected.

"Hey, come join us," he invited. The guy nodded and smiled; he came over with a handshake.

"John Johnson from Oshkosh."

They shook all around and introduced themselves and Jeremy made the mental connection Bill had missed.

"You're kidding, right? 'John Johnson from WISCONSIN'?"

"That's me," he smiled.

The rowdies had heard it, too, but did not appreciate it as a pleasant old-time phrase. They turned it into an evil thing: "Soon going BACK to Wisconsin," they heard.

Bill did not move a muscle when one of the rowdies made a weight comment about one of the girl applicants.

A single female was among the red uniformed TLC people. She was a striking beauty, tall, Nordic, a blond model with ideal proportions.

But she, too, smiled at the pointless, negative attempts at humor. Her smile was a brief, wincing one, out of one corner of her mouth, as though to say she acknowledged it, but did not laugh because it was lame, but nor did she reprimand the joke sayer, nor did she defend the recipient of the weight joke or even acknowledge her as a fellow human being.

It was an evil omen and Bill did not like the way things were going.

The third and last elevator load from the shuttle arrived and an attendant with the last group opened the double door. Bill heard one of the TLC people talk about "getting it over with".

Chapter 19
HIRING HALL

The crowd of 75 applicants jostled into the hiring hall as soon as the attendant opened the doors. Red suited TLC people went in first and made directly for their recruitment kiosk.

It was the most prominent display, consisting of portable tables in front of a vertical backdrop of floor-to-ceiling screens full of posters, pictures, and a large video, accompanied by music with a driving frenetic beat. It was a very slick piece of advertisement, boasting money, attention to detail, and excellence of purpose.

Bill saw there were some other companies represented, too, with smaller, less striking recruitment efforts. Some were downright somber, represented by only two or three personnel officers. He had heard of Canadian Minerals and also of Lunar LOX, but Pearson's Lunar Construction was new to him.

Most of the group made for TLC. Three or four people had lined up some ducks ahead of time. Bill watched two of the girls walk directly to Pearsons where they shook hands, identifying themselves as people who had made contact by mail — it was a sort of well-planned interview after contact by mail.

Bill felt outclassed and stood forlornly at the back of the TLC crowd. He was not alone. Most of the people had not planned very well, especially in relation to the extreme amount of money and effort put into the travel expense.

Bill hung back and took in the surrounding recruiters. There was one that caught his eye.

In the corner was a card table with a single man sitting behind it. The man was reading and penciling in some papers, working oblivious to the crowd in the room. He had before him a hastily scotch taped triangle of paper with his name LYLE CHANDLER printed on it with a marker.

Bill listened to the interchange of the people ahead of him at the TLC table and the sound of it continued along the same vein as he and his friends had earlier observed.

"Sorry, we don't take red heads."

"What?" The applicant was incredulous.

The TLC guy was flippant, rude beyond belief. "Next," he called.

"This is a bad joke," Bill heard someone say.

Despite the horrible way TLC people acted, they filled their roster with those they accepted which actually turned out to be everyone in line, just the opposite of what Bill had heard about their acceptance rate. Their acceptance rate was usually a small figure and everyone knew about it ahead of time, praying they would be let in.

It reminded Bill of an exclusive nightclub whose doorman admitted nattily dressed people, but prohibited entry to most. Those left out of such nightclub culling maneuvers were always disappointed not to get in, but never seemed to get mad at the snobbery exhibited by such behavior. In fact the people shunned not only accepted their rejection but also by doing so participated in the very snobbery, which excluded them.

Now something else was going on, something completely out of character: they were accepting everyone. It was as if the red suits were being deprived of their delight in turning down applicants and, so, had to be extra rude to those they were forced into accepting.

Bill had been emotionally ready for rejection, but he was not ready for this — a sort of left-handed acceptance with the flavor of rejection.

Bill almost panicked.

He looked over at Pearsons, Canadian, and Lunar LOX. The back wall alone held half a dozen more: LUNAR GE, Mitsubishi, Ticona Polymerwerke, Hoechst GMBH, Tesla Motors, and EXXON. He scanned the room, but his eye returned to the LYLE CHANDLER sign. He approached that card table.

Chapter 20
CHANDLER

Bill stood in front of the card table, waiting to be noticed, but the guy was engrossed in his paperwork and truly did not yet notice Bill. It was not a snub. Bill cleared his throat and that worked. The man looked up and saw him.

"Oh! Hi." He quickly put down his papers and stood to shake hands. "Lyle Chandler. How do you do?"

Bill introduced himself and shook hands across the table. There was a single folding chair and Chandler opened his palm towards it.

"Have a seat, Bill. Did you bring a resume?"

Bill nodded and handed over a single page he had prepared, his whole life thus far, condensed for consideration and evaluation.

Bill watched Chandler as the older man scanned the sheet. He saw a man in his forties, sandy colored hair, slightly balding. Looked of average height, slender, perhaps in excellent physical condition. Bill noticed his work-enlarged hands had trimmed, clean nails, but Chandler also wore reading glasses, which gave him a slightly cerebral, educated appearance. The man still had on his vacuum suit's undersuit — sort of an athletic getup, looked like a running suit, but with pockets and wiring for radios and telemetry, which would plug into the outer suit when donned.

"Bill, it cost you a lot for the ticket. It says you lived at this Catholic school — who paid tuition?"

Bill explained he was an orphan and the church paid his room and board, but that he had gone to public school.

"Well, you sure got good grades. Graduated from high school in two and a half years."

"Yes, Sir. I went to summer school."

"This Father Flanagan, would he give you a good reference? And your former Employer, Fred Andrews?"

Bill quickly produced two letters.

"So, you worked for Fred at his restaurant for — what — four years? What did you do there?"

Bill explained the mechanics of the Hitachi bus boy units and gave a description of his duties and that his savings from the job helped finance his ticket, but the bulk of the ticket money came from a mathematics scholarship. He explained about the junior high job fair and how The Lunar Corporation presentation had made an impression on him and how he had begun to work single-mindedly towards that goal.

"Well, well, well. They did give a great demo. So why aren't you over there at their table now?" He jerked a thumb in the direction of the TLC kiosk.

"Well, Mr. Chandler, I did come here specifically to interview with them — and them alone, I guess. I did not make any advance plans to interview any other companies. I was locked in on the idea of TLC from the very first and got tunnel vision."

Chandler nodded. "On the Moon you ALWAYS have to have two, three contingency plans in case something goes wrong — for safety's sake." He paused. "So, what went wrong? Why aren't you over at the TLC table."?

"I started to. As you can see, their table is packed. They have the best advertisements and best representation, but there is something wrong. I can't quite put my finger on it, some sort of arrogance, rudeness. It does not seem right to me — too impersonal. Something."

He shook his head. "I don't want to even interview with them from what I have seen so far, much less work for them."

"Did you see something happen with their people on the shuttle on the way up?"

Bill shook his head, explained that he had not even taken the shuttle, that he came up with UPS. He explained about Rupert, the trial, Captain Grady, and finally he spoke of taking a one-nighter job working for Molly.

Mr. Chandler did not interrupt Bill's explanation. He listened, entranced, mouth agape, positively smiling in admiration.

"Molly let you work her restaurant by yourself, without her supervision? You hitched a ride on UPS, with crotchety old Grady?"

Apparently, Chandler knew both pilot and cook. It was a small world.

Bill nodded assent to both, tapping for emphasis the envelope of tip and wage money he had earned.

"Also, Captain Grady said because of the trial — because they caught this swindler, Rupert, that I might get back some of my original ticket money from the Lunar Autonomy."

Now Chandler almost roared with laughter. "So that guy was 'Rupert', THE Rupert. I can't believe it! It's so wonderful! You have had quite a round of fortune, turned lemons into lemonade each time."

lemons into lemonade

He paused, considering.

"Bill, I want you to go around the room to the other recruiters, even TLC. But try Pearson's and the others. Pearsons are good people.

"But right now, I want to make you an offer: I want to offer you a position with me. You will be the one and only employee. We will set a trial period of one month.

"I will pay your Lunar passage to and from ES1 and provide room and board. Your income will be one thousand Lunars per month, prorated starting today — that amount is guaranteed — it's a spending money figure, not much.

"The lion's share of your income is speculative: ten percent net profits per year. In addition, I will teach you everything I know about living independently and cooperatively and working and making money on the Moon."

"Thanks for the provision to look at the other guys as well — that's very nice of you — but I'll accept your offer right now. What is the main work at hand that I will be doing for you?"

"A HUMAN BEING SHOULD BE ABLE TO:

change a diaper,

plan an invasion,

butcher a hog,

con a ship,

design a building,

write a sonnet,

balance accounts,

build a wall,

set a bone,

comfort the dying,

take orders,

give orders,

cooperate,

act alone,

solve equations,

analyze a new problem,

pitch manure,

program a computer,

cook a tasty meal,

fight efficiently,

die gallantly.

Specialization is for insects."
— Robert Heinlein

"Don't you know? The contest. THE contest. 'The Enclosure Acts', the one trillion Lunar prize."

Bill's head swum. The Holy Grail of all engineering projects, the plan to make whole swathes of the Moon habitable.

Chapter 21 CONTRACT

Chandler took down and flattened his triangular sign, his only evidence of preparation for the business meeting they had just had.

"Well, we're done here. The table and chairs belong to the room. I've got preparations to attend to and we are scheduled to leave on the Lunar Shuttle tomorrow at 6pm.

"I'll get us a couple of rooms at the Sapporo for this evening — don't worry about it being full — I reserved space last week already.

"Tell you what: you probably want to site-see ES1 and now would be a good time to do so. How about I meet you at Molly's tonight at 6 for dinner?"

"Okay," agreed Bill. They shook hands again and exchanged phone numbers. While Bill's phone was out Chandler asked him, "Hey, by any chance do you still have the video brochure from that Junior High TLC visit, the dog and pony show they put on?"

Bill consulted his reader, searched his old data and did, in fact, still have the years-old video clip of the infomercial. He nodded and started it up. There on the little screen in a tinny voice stood the man delivering the lecture, the one who had convinced Bill to embark on his long journey of preparation.

He tilted up the screen to show Chandler who nodded and commented, "I had more hair then, don't you think?"

Bill did a quick double take. He blinked his eyes rapidly as he strained at the tiny screen, reconciling old memory with new reality. This time it was his turn to stare, mouth open in wonder.

"I used to work for them. In fact, I was fifty percent of TLC. Started it myself." He nodded, smiling, and left Bill staring at the little screen.

"See you at 6," he called. "I know you will be there, because the hand of fate is working with us." He walked out of the room briskly, whistling.

Bill turned around to look at the other recruiters. Everyone was still in line. Most had not even begun an introduction. Just the first few were up at the tables, still talking.

He saw Jeremy and Red and the new guy John Johnson he had just met clumped together in line, still waiting, all of them looking forlorn and nervous.

"Hey, guys," he greeted.

"Saw you head off to that little table in the corner," commented Jeremy. "You do any good?"

Bill nodded. "I took a contract."

"Good for you!" added Red. "We're still waiting."

"Some good news, though. TLC announced that they would take every single person who came up this trip. Each one of us has some sort of guaranteed job. It's some sort of contract, but we don't know what the work is, or even how much, or how long, but at least it's a job of some sort."

They were interrupted by one of the TLC employees at the folding table. It was the Poster Boy. He looked angry.

"Hey, twerp! No line cutting."

Bill assumed he was being addressed. Bill looked behind them: there were no other people he had cut in front of; they were at the end of the line. It had been an unnecessary comment.

He shook hands with all three of his new friends and, without acknowledging the Poster Boy, took his leave.

Bill left the Hiring hall and retraced his steps through the turquoise section, past the elevator. He wanted to site-see, but was also fearsomely tired, totally dead for sleep. The emotional turmoil of the last twenty fours hours had completely discharged his batteries and he was also thirsty.

He found himself wandering back to Molly's restaurant. He wanted to see if she had heard about a replacement yet. When he got there it was almost lunchtime and there she was, all by herself, smiling and working very, very fast.

"Bill!" she called, recognizing him as he entered. "How'd it go?"

"Great! I'm hooked up. Took a job."

"TLC?" she asked, with some concern.

"No." He shook his head. "I did not even interview with them. I took a job with a small company, a single person, actually. The guy's name is Lyle Chandler. He says he knows this place and calls it 'Molly's', so he must know you."

"Dr. Chandler! Yes, I know him pretty well. He comes in here every trip. He has a good reputation, too, I can tell you that. You could not have done better, actually. In fact, I was secretly hoping you would turn down any offer made by TLC. But, this is great. Hey, let me fix you a plate."

He agreed, sitting at the counter, close to the microwave so they could talk.

"Hey, have you heard? Are your helpers on their way on the next shuttle?"

She shook her head and looked serious. "Not this trip. The next one. I don't know if I can hold out that long."

"You won't have to. I'm supposed to meet Mr. Chandler — uh, Dr. Chandler — here at six, before we go to the Sapporo. If you will trust me to work again I will take over until then."

She considered. "Same deal as before, all the wages, all the tips. I'll go get an honest six hours sleep. Deal?"

"Deal." They shook on it. He wolfed down his meal, and then bussed his table. Molly took off her apron and handed him the order pad and her pencil. She counted down the drawer and started him out fresh.

"Another quick break, if you don't mind, then I'll come back to check on you before leaving you alone again. I'm going to take a walk along the concourse for exercise."

Bill nodded his understanding and began again as though he had never left.

He worked now with a vigor that astonished him. The worrisomeness of obtaining a job was over, so he felt elated and relaxed, even though he was tired.

Customers poured in all at once. He recognized them from their red uniforms, the TLC people. Bill's eye went directly to a head count for service; he was completely in professional mode, but their antics as they entered spoiled his mood somewhat.

One of the boys jostled another as they entered. Normally, such behavior was for football fields — and appropriate enough there on many occasions — Bill had acted that way himself with friends. But at a restaurant those kinds of moves were way out of line. He felt he could say nothing, so he ignored it.

They sat down at one of the big tables, all four of them. He noticed the single girl and The Poster Boy were missing.

"Good morning," began Bill. "Start with drinks?"

He passed out menus and took orders for three teas and a coke. None of the fellows recognized Bill even though they had all been in the same room together less than an hour ago.

Bill did not find that unusual because there had been so many people. Also, he was in a completely different context and no one would normally remember a face from one area to the next.

For another thing, Bill was not wearing any sort of unusual clothes to make him stand out. He wondered briefly if he would have even recognized these fellows had they not been wearing red.

But when he brought back their drinks to take the food order one of them did notice — or thought he did — and asked, "Hey, by any chance were you just in the Hiring Hall a little while ago?"

He did not seem mean, so Bill answered politely.

"That was my brother. I'm his evil twin." He grinned enigmatically. "You've got good eyes. I was in there."

"I saw you talking to some newbies in line."

Bill nodded, but did not explain further. The four ordered from the menu and Bill went off to prepare their food. Other customers came in while the microwave heated up the TLC order and Bill greeted and began serving the newcomers.

The microwave dinged and he retrieved the TLC order and began taking it to their table when The Poster Boy and female TLC employee entered. Those two made for the table of four and added a couple of chairs.

Bill combined delivery of the food with an order pad for the two latecomers.

"Good morning. Can I get you a couple of drinks to start?" he asked.

"Couple of teas," answered Poster Boy. He rudely did not make eye contact with Bill, just looked away dismissively as though speaking to a lowly servant in order to hurry him along. Bill set down the food for the others and acknowledged the tea order with a, "Yes, sir. Right away."

He noticed name tags for the first time, a white strip with black letters over the shirt pocket area. The girl's name said EDWARDS, V and they called her Ginny, probably for Virginia. Poster Boy was WALSTON, W and the guys called him Will.

Just then Molly returned from her walk. She made right for the TLC table, folded her arms, and crossly addressed the group, speaking directly to — exclusively, in fact — to WALSTON, W

"I told you before, you are not welcome in here. I told you I would call the police if you showed up again."

WALSTON, W rocked back in his chair, smiling like the smart mouth that he was. He had a little kid's 'You Can't Make Me' attitude and said as much.

"Hey, you don't own this place and I checked it out with the AU Guard, Officer Jackson." He shook his head knowingly while adding, "You can't keep me out of here, not if you want to keep this real great job, at this oh-so-first-class-four-star restaurant."

Bill always knew when not to enter into a fight, always knew the consequences would be bad if he did, but sometimes honor forced him in ahead of reason. He did so now.

Before performing any action he gave verbal notice with an official sounding announcement.

"Sir, management has politely asked you to leave the premises and I must require now that you do so immediately."

Having so forewarned his victim, when there was no response, he stepped in front of Molly and grabbed the back of the tipped back chair sat on by WALSTON, W and tilted it sideways, causing Will's smirk to turn suddenly into a look of panic as he felt himself tumble out of the diner's chair.

Only low Lunar gravity saved him from a face down tumble to the floor. Will quickly caught himself with his left palm on the floor and did a one handed pushup, one that pushed him all the way upright into the standing position.

But he had looked ridiculous for a moment and the others laughed at his brief tumble. Bill noticed that as unusual: the whole group of them were so caught up in their negative streak, looking at everything in life with a derisive attitude that they would actually even deride one of their own members in the same negative way instead of taking a unanimous defensive posture.

Only this laughter of the group defused the confrontation. Otherwise, had they all defended their leader with a unified position Bill's tactic would have led to a fistfight. Bill had been saved from that just from their lack of unity.

Bill kept up his aggression and bodily escorted — i.e., shoved — Will out of the shop. He gently maneuvered Will up with a light touch that arced him into the air and tossed him through the doors out into the concourse. The light Lunar gravity made it possible.

This time, despite flailing legs, Will's backwards orientation did not let him save himself from a fall and he spilled onto his knees.

EDWARDS, V stood up and proclaimed, "WELL, I'm certainly NOT staying in a rowdy dump like THIS."

She grabbed her purse and flounced out with a tag line, "and I don't think 'ANY' TLC personnel will 'EVER' be coming back to 'THIS' place." As she left, so did the others, none of them paying.

"I can't remember a single time when I was so happy to get stiffed on a check," remarked Molly. "I don't need any TLC money. Not their money."

Bill was shaking from the aftermath and got himself a drink. There were only a few customers seated, a couple in a far booth and two solitaries at the counter. They had all been looking at the fight but now attended to their own business again.

Molly quickly put the place back into decorum, began clearing the table and picked up the overturned chair. None of the dishes had been broken; nothing here was made of glass anyway.

Bill took over alone again when Molly took another nap. He worked like an automaton for a couple of hours serving customers. When there was a lull he set loose the floor cleaner robots who rolled around sweeping and mopping. He stuck a snail-shaped window cleaner robot to the glass wall and it zig-zagged vertically.

Bill checked out the wall clock from time to time and he worried again that Molly would oversleep his appointment at the Sapporo, but she got up ahead of him again, greatly refreshed by the reprieve.

"Oh, man! I had a dream about that twerp. That's another reason he can't ever come back in here: he gives me nightmares!"

Bill was helping the robots with a wet mop and he leaned on it, grinning at the joke. "What did he do, anyway? I mean, how come you threw him out?"

"Oh, nothing much. More of the same. You pretty much saw it all. By itself nothing he did was all that bad — I'll be first to admit that. It's just that he grates on your nerves with loathsome smugness, a repulsive sneering attitude, and vainglorious self worship."

Bill laughed. "Wow! Your vocabulary's great. That by itself, your ability to call up such words in connection to him is enough to tell how he must have treated you."

"Well, that's it, I guess, but there's more: I guess I'm jealous of him, too. He seems to have all the advantages, but then acts so badly when he doesn't have to."

"He's the kind of guy who could have it all," agreed Bill.

"The thing is, he is now in an environment where he can get away with acting that way. TLC is in a sorry state. People like him thrive in an environment like that. Sometimes it gets like that in sororities or fraternities or the military; it's not just businesses or sports teams."

Molly continued. "Years ago they would have thrown him out on his ear. Then TLC changed. The corporate culture changed and guys like him became the norm."

"So, did you know TLC when it was different? What happened to them?"

"Your new employer, Dr. Chandler, when he was there it was fine. It was the best. When he left, TLC went all to seed. I've only been up here a coupla years and came in only on the tail end of TLC's good years. It's been mostly on the decline since parting ways with The Lunar Autonomy. They are entirely subsidized by the AU and some labor unions."

"Well, I'm sure glad I found out. I would have gone on and signed a contract with them based on their recruitment efforts.

"Hey! Listen to this: The recruiter — the guy who came to visit my junior high — on Earth — years ago — that was Dr. Chandler! I didn't recognize him. Just met him by chance in the hiring Hall." Bill stifled a yawn.

"How long have YOU been awake now, Bill?"

He calculated backwards, waking up to get on the bus. Let's see: he DID have a small nap of sorts on the bus to the spaceport, then later another short nap on the UPS shuttle; he could count that as a sort of a night's sleep.

"Well, I'm good til six when I have to meet Dr. Chandler at the Sapporo."

"It's five now. Why don't I cash you out and get you paid off. How about a last meal?"

Bill was putting away a malt, fried potatoes and a ham sandwich at the counter when someone sat down right next to him.

"Food any good in this place?"

Bill looked over while chewing and, mouth full, said, "Dr. Chandler!"

"Hello, Molly. Looks like we both hired the same guy. Are you going to be able to turn him loose?"

"Oh, I'll keep him if you don't want him. He's got a full time job here if he wants it!"

She ostentatiously put several large bills into an envelope and handed Bill his wages and continued, "I can almost guarantee not a single other Hiring Hall applicant made money while coming up here to interview. And a lot of money, too. High tips in this line of work means that the customers like you because you did good service for them."

"Are you hinting, Molly?"

"No. Not with you. You have always been a good customer. Are you eating? What'll you have?"

Chandler asked for a burger and coke. "We're all set, two rooms at the Sapporo. Mr. Suzuki sends his regards and told me to tell you your bag is safe. I got us tickets and berths on the Lunar shuttle, so we're all set. I need to get you set up with equipment. We're going to be busy tomorrow with suit fitting and training and so forth."

Bill nodded.

Chapter 22
SHORTCUT

It was approaching 'sundown' when they took their leave of Molly and began walking to the Sapporo. Bill kept patting his envelope of money because of the dense crowds. They threaded their way through the turquoise corridors back to Red Section.

Although they were traversing along the outermost rim along the clockwise direction they were going around quite a bit of the arc.

"I know a shortcut," offered Chandler. "We go up a few floors, across, then back down. It cuts away some of the time and distance. Also, I've got business there; take you to meet Randy — he lives here full time, but is 50/50 on the contest."

Bill visualized a tunnel cutting through the Earth, a straight line from point A to point B cutting through the outer surface, the straight line underground being shorter than the curved arc on the surface. He could not imagine how going up just a few floors could possibly be any shorter or even take less time.

But as he thought about it, it made sense, because the diameter of ES1 was so much smaller than that of the Earth. Going up a few floors was equivalent to tunneling through the Earth 500 miles deep.

Then the crowds started to thicken, especially near the elevators. Lines began to form in front of them, obstructing traffic. Eateries and bars began to fill as people got off work.

Bill did not realize it could get so crowded. He decided that the idea of a shortcut might, indeed, speed them on their way.

Chandler took a narrow side street down an alley way — just a cut between two walls, really. "It's a maintenance access tunnel," he explained.

He almost had to shout to make himself heard over the pedestrian crowd noise. The tunnel was empty and it suddenly became quiet and they only heard themselves. Bill noticed this difference in sound as being unusual, something to do with the way sound travels on Earth as opposed to the slightly different mixture of gases used here and the lower pressure.

The walls were covered with plumbing, electrical lines, air conditioning and heating lines. There were also the all-important fiber optic communications bundles, fire control gas lines, water, sewer.

They came to a junction with an ascension shaft. "There is hardly such a thing as a ladder under conditions of Lunar gravity," explained Chandler. "We call them Fireman Poles and there are usually two.

"By convention, right is up, left is down. Sometimes they color code them blue-up, red-down. Because of our low body weight it's easy to go up hand over hand."

He demonstrated by climbing the pole. Bill waited a bit, and then followed. His weight of 120 Earth pounds was only 20 pounds here, so he did not even need to augment hand over hand climbing with wrapping his legs around the pole at all. He just zipped up the pole pretty much as fast as his hands would comfortably go.

They passed floor after floor. Each landing was marked on its door with big letters, B5, B4, B3, B2, and B1. When they reached the top of the pole the side door was marked LEVEL ONE — TOP LEVEL.

Chandler cycled the door and they entered.

"This is the original section, built over 125 years ago. You can tell how old it is."

Bill could see, smell, and imagine its age as they walked down the deserted corridor. It was built like an old battle ship — for functionality, added to, modified, patched.

Whenever a new set of wiring or plumbing needed installation the workmen had always left the old work in place, so it was a maze of indecipherable, nonfunctional wiring next to the newer live wiring. There were old electrical panels everywhere, whose breaker toggles were labeled, overlabeled, unlabeled, taped over, or missing.

Some of the writing had faded, some was in Chinese, some Cyrillic. Walls had been painted gray, then painted over in antique white, then some other color, over and over again. Some of the old painted surfaces were flaking and you could see prior colors underneath.

You had to duck occasionally as some utilitarian obstruction blocked the ceiling.

"They way overbuilt in those days. This section is very solid, although it's not as pretty."

Bill looked at inspection stickers dated before he was born, some before his grandfather's time.

Bill watched a mother cat leading her litter across their path.

"It wasn't black, so we're okay," joked Chandler. "They take care of the cockroaches and rats. Lots of mice and squirrels up here. They chew on insulation, so it's necessary to get rid of them."

The gravity was less here near the top, closer to the center, not zero gee, but darn near. Bill felt like he only weighed a couple of pounds.

They sometimes had to thread themselves through very tight quarters. Some of the passageways were obstructed with modifications and you not only had to duck or turn sideways or step over, but sometimes there was only a narrow opening a couple of feet wide, eighteen inches deep.

"Careful you don't tear your clothes. That's deadly on a vacuum suit. Lost a friend that way."

The word 'lost' held a double meaning for Bill. Chandler's story referred to 'lost' as meaning a death, but Bill was still tired and took the word 'lost' at face value for a second, meaning 'not knowing where you are'. The labyrinthine, circuitous route they were taking actually had many branches, with choices you had to make — not just left, right, or straight, but also up and down. You could become extremely, permanently lost.

It seemed to Bill they sometimes deviated from a straight shot by quite a bit. Once it seemed they were backtracking in the direction they had already come. But Chandler seemed to know the way.

One section had several lights in a row whose bulbs were burned out, so it was gloomy for a hundred yards. Bill saw red eyes staring at him in the dark and thought it might have been mice, but suddenly there was a rush of wings.

He didn't dare believe it: bats, fluttering around his head. He almost panicked because they were so unexpected.

"What a zoo! I forgot to tell you about the vermin. We're almost there. Somebody I want you to meet."

Chandler stopped a bit and looked at Bill. "Uh, I have to warn you. Randy is not a people person. He lives up here alone like a hermit and has been working by himself for decades. He is a little bit afraid of crowds and people, but one or two is okay for a while. He and I are also partners on this new business venture of the Enclosure contest."

It became a little wider and they were able to stand upright again. The passageway broadened into a thoroughfare and Bill began to hear music.

"Hey, Randy! It's Lyle. Anybody home?"

A head popped out of a doorway. An old redheaded man came out, his face covered with a thousand freckles. He was helmetless but wore an old spacesuit and carried some tools.

"Lyle! Wondered when you might drop by again. Who's your friend?"

Chandler shook hands and introduced Bill. "Randolph Stewart, meet our new partner, William Jones."

"Glad to meet you, William. 'Partner' did you say? Well, well, well."

"Call me 'Bill'. He said 'partner', but really means 'new hire', I think."

"Don't be putting words in Lyle's mouth; he usually means what he says — at least he's considering it!"

"Randy's upper level maintenance man. He can fix anything on this old tub and has been doing so for decades."

"That's right. This is my home." He patted the walls lovingly. "Don't even miss Earth. Don't even get back much. Too expensive, but I get to the Moon quite often to see Lyle."

Bill understood that part. The lion's share of the expense of a ticket was merely getting into low Earth orbit. From Earth orbit it cost a tenth as much per pound to go to the Moon. Once someone paid for a ticket and got up to orbit he was reluctant to go back.

Ironically, you could go back and forth from low Earth orbit to Lunar orbit very cheaply. It was not too much more to descend to the Moon, reascend to Lunar orbit, and then transfer to Earth orbit.

The two big expenses in space travel were (A) getting off Earth itself and (B) setting up living space once you got to wherever you were going.

"I got coffee! Let's take a break," suggested Randy.

They followed him into his apartment and Bill was surprised how large it was. Everything else, especially personal dwelling space, was cramped quarters on ES1, but Randy's volume was hangar size.

He occupied only a corner of it and equipment, machinery, and tools covered every wall, ceiling, and floor space. Power tools — normally heavy on Earth — hung from their electrical cords from the ceiling.

There were electric drills, saws, welding and cutting torches, pumps, and MIG wire welders and plasma cutters. There were electrical testing units. He had several 3D printers, one a tiny table top sized high precision unit, another — the largest Bill had ever seen — was a girder frame wall to wall to ceiling; it WAS the hangar-sized room they were in.

Bill did not even recognize most of the items. He did see and recognize vacuum cleaner hoses everywhere and noticed the entire area was extremely clean and dust free.

Bill noticed Randy's accommodations included everything a fussy old bachelor would need to live: washer and dryer, microwave and fridge, furniture. His furniture included wall size computer screens (there were several) and some sort of self-contained bathroom.

It was nicer than anything Bill had seen so far, especially in terms of sheer space. It was also nicer than 99 percent of humanity on Earth had.

Randy gleefully withdrew, then ostentatiously held up, a remote control from his pocket and keyed it with a few pecks. In response, a robotic contraption with several arms rolled across the counter top on wheels.

It shot into a blur of action: it simultaneously used Arm One to lift a glass coffee pot while Arm Two opened a hopper.

A Third pulled a round paper filter from a stack of them.

A Fourth slammed the filter into the drip basket by the time the Second furiously began ladling spoonfuls of coffee beans into a hand crank grinder.

Arm Number Five began turning the crank on the grinder before Two had even finished ladling in beans.

One bean fell off the spoon and hit the counter, bouncing high in the low, low gravity.

Before it could bounce off the edge of the counter Arm Number Six saw it and hit it as though it was a tennis racquet, bean still in the air in mid bounce and lobbed it toward the grinder.

The bean was about to miss, but the arm on the grinder's crank compensated and moved the grinder a few inches so that the bean plunked into the hopper — all without missing any rhythm from the grinding motion.

The arms finished up by making one of the hands into a pointing finger, which toggled the on/off switch of the coffee maker.

The arms then reached up overhead and withdrew cups, one in each hand, and placed them on saucers. Soon there was cream in a dainty little creamer and sugar cubes. Napkins followed, finally spoons.

Bill was in awe. Chandler just grinned. "How long THAT take you?"

"Less time than you would think. It learns by itself and gets faster at each occasion. Broke a few cups and dishes on the first few iterations, but that's about all," he admitted. "It's sort of a prototype for the Enclosure work. We can use all the help we can get and Jeeves here works pretty cheap, just a few electrons now and them.

Chandler tipped low at the waist investigating Jeeves. "He's got lots of eyes, I see."

"Two at each hand for very fine stereoscopic close-up work, plus one at each elbow joint. Plus some central eyes." He pointed up at the ceiling at the room cameras "There, there, and there."

"All the eyes are integrated into the central processing unit?"

Randy nodded and continued, "The nice thing about Jeeves is he does not care what he makes; he just makes anything he is instructed. In other words, he can make another Jeeves who, in turn, can make a third. And so on.

"I have enough parts here for a coupla dozen. This one has strength of a man, but I can make the arms stronger for heavy work." Randy opened a drawer while talking. It was full of little cameras — eyes. Another drawer had hand parts.

"Our part costs are covered if you can get transportation. It's about 2 tons mass."

Bill watched Chandler calculating shipping rates, hand on chin, frowning.

"Would it be cheaper to send them disassembled by mail?" There was a mail provision, offered at a lower rate, the maximum size and weight of each box limited to the postage requirements.

Randy nodded and procured such a box. He opened it and it was a mixture of parts, all disassembled, and packed tight: cameras, wire, pulleys, motors, connectors, bags of nuts, bolt, screws, and cotter pins.

"Bulk UPS is Lr94.50 a kilo and we need eighty 12 kilo containers. Comes out to about half price this way, but it's still more cash than our budget can handle."

The coffee was almost finished brewing and Randy withdrew the pot and began filling the mugs.

"Want to see Waldo? I told you I had a more robust version for heavy lifting, but this little guy does fine work."

Randy lifted a cake cover by its handle on the top. Underneath was a miniature complex of robotic arms. It looked like a little Lego set, sort of spidery because of its many arms.

"Watch this." He took some rice from a canister and spilled a handful across the counter. A few key presses on his remote control animated the miniature robot, which jumped into action.

Its dainty little hands began picking up rice grains one at a time and depositing each grain, individually on one of the saucers. It aligned the grains side by side around the edge of the rim into a perfect flower shape until all had been picked up.

"I'll admit the programming of that stunt was preplanned also. It took me a coupla days."

"But you can modify it?"

"Certainly. If you want the rice grains two deep, or along a straight edge, or stacked, it is just a small modification of the program. Merely dumping them into a jar — that's nothing — easy as pie." He caused the little robot to go back into its house.

Bill ventured a comment. "Excuse me for asking, but are you short on transportation costs?"

Chandler nodded. "It's a very high cost for shipping even though 80 percent of our cost entails Earth to Earth orbit. We're short of the additional 20 percent needed from Earth Orbit — here — to Luna."

Bill continued. "You mentioned Jeeves could self replicate from provided parts. Can he actually make some of the parts? The heavy one? If so, can this little guy here do the same?"

Chandler looked inquiringly at Randy who laughed and slapped his thigh. "That's it!" he exclaimed. "Mail the little guy complete, plus essentials for Jeeves. Build the heavy pieces on Luna. The big pieces are already there. You can buy girders and stuff now, can't you? Big aluminum angles?"

"Well, Bill, you've already earned your keep today. We were so focused on shipping costs and assembly and disassembly we missed the forest for the trees."

Chandler sat down at one of the work counters and started drawing on a large computer pad. "Here's what we're doing, Bill. There's a contest to enclose as much habitable area — volume, really — as possible. There are rules, but, basically, whoever can seal up a large tract of land, fill it with air and make it habitable will win the contest. The contest is not just vanity; it's preliminary to a contract for continuing with additional work."

"Do you have land picked out?" asked Bill.

"Yeah. Sure do," put in Randy. "That's part of the incentive. You get to homestead anything you enclose. It's yours for the keeping. You can sell it, rent it, live on it. Anything."

"Here, let me show you on a map." Chandler pulled up a Lunar map. He stabbed at a tiny crater. "Craters are natural starting points. They've already got external walls. All we need to do is put on a top, seal it, and pressurize it. Bingo! Instant real estate."

"And you plan on using the robots for labor?"

"That's right. They do anything you tell them." He paused. "But there's a problem. We don't know what to tell them."

"See, we have maybe six plans on how to roof over a crater. What works on the small scale may not necessarily be practical on the large scale."

He led Bill to another work table. On it was a pile of dirt, smoothed out to resemble a miniature moonscape. There were a couple of circular rings of dirt.

"This looks a lot like our test crater. We started small. This one is a hundred meters across, almost perfectly circular. The walls are beautifully vertical, a consistent 12 meters high. Now, if we were to put a circular, flat roof on it we would have a huge building. The formula for the area of a circle is pi r square, half of 100 meters is fifty; fifty squared is the same as fifty times fifty; that is 2500; multiply 2500 time pi to get the number of square meters on the floor of the crater. That would be, uh," — he consulted his figures — "7850 square meters. Now, multiply that area times 12 meters high and you've got an absolutely huge volume: 94200 cubic meters. There are smaller office buildings than that!

"The problem is in the roofing. We thought of a good solution for small craters: just blow up a bunch of bags all around the crater until it's full. That gets you up to roof level. Then lay a final tentlike circular top on those, seal it, then inflate it."

"But large scale is not the same. Why not just sew a huge fabric ball together an put it deflated in the center of the crater and fill it with air? You'd need so many bags it wouldn't make sense. Or, if you tried it with just one bag, it would have to be the largest, most expensive, impractical bag ever made.

"But think about it: After the ball is inflated it fills the crater. You can then put an airlock door on the side and fill it with lights and all the things you want inside. To protect the vulnerable fabric from the sun and punctures you can insulate the top by gradually covering it with dirt or concrete or foam."

"'Concrete?'"

"Sure. Lunar concrete is great stuff. If it's thick enough it will hold a vacuum and it's a great insulator."

Randy laid a small bag in his model crater for Bill. He connected it to an air pump and Bill watched the bag gradually inflate. When it was full Randy shut off the pump.

He poured some powder into a plastic bowl then added some water and stirred. The plaster-like concoction became thick and he troweled it onto the balloon. It hardened pretty quickly.

"This is demo material. The real stuff is not this fast. We would need a month merely to pump nitrogen into the balloon to fill it up. We would need another month to cover it with a single thin layer of cement. After it is hard we can keep adding cement until it's very thick, thick enough to hold pressure against vacuum."

He showed Bill another, already hardened miniature demonstration crater on the next table. "This is what we are calculating. How strong does it need to be? How long will it take us to make. How much will it cost and how safe will it be for long-term use. And what about quakes? Meteors? Solar radiation?"

"The idea of inflating a single bag has great appeal, but the weight and expense limits us to a certain size. Another idea is to use only a circular fabric roof and attach it all the way around the rim. That idea, too, requires a huge single, expensive heavy sheet and the size is limited.

"Also, we don't just want a flat disc; we want the disc to bulge upwards — it's full of air and resembles a dome, not just a flat circle.

"Another method would be to build a solid dome. Although it is easier by far to do with the Moon's lighter gravity there are still many problems.

"No one in history has ever built a dome this large before, except the Dome of Copernicus itself, and that was a century ago when labor was cheaper. Also, there is a lot of scaffolding work, which is expensive and parasitic.

"Also, as you may know from history, a very large number of workers died while building Copernicus.

"We're not at a loss for ideas. Still yet another idea is to build one floor at a time, using conventional floor and ceiling until we get to the top. Once at the top we finish the covering, seal it, and inflate. This method does not create large open spaces, though.

"We're trying out many ideas. We thought about digging a huge cave, deep enough to hold pressure without reinforcing the roof.

"We got an idea from spiders, too. Just build a web across the crater, then fill in the spaces between the ropes, then air it up once completed.

"Each idea has merit and each one, in theory and practice, can be done. However, one idea is going to be safer, cheaper, faster, and larger.

"We can enclose our hundred meter crater easily and we have a chance at winning the prize. The prize is a contract to do more work but on a larger scale. Even if we do not win the prize we can still sell the enclosed work. That right there, that alone, is a valuable goal. It may well be that we might do better to ignore the prize and, instead, concentrate on the goal of perfecting a technique for enclosing smaller, more practical craters. I thought about that long and hard, but I think we can go for the prize. With the prize as a goal we will not lose sight of our destination."

"Are there any potential customers," asked Bill.

Chandler nodded, knowingly, seriously.

"Millions. Millions," added Randy. "Living and working space is in short supply. More people would come if there were quarters. There's plenty of work and plenty of room."

"How about air?" asked bill. "How will you fill it?"

"That's a popular misconception, that there is no air on the moon, that it has to be imported in cylinders from the Earth. Actually, the moon has an overabundance of oxygen. It's tied up in oxides in all the surface rocks.

"All you have to do it heat the rocks to above almost any sunlight level to liberate the trapped oxygen. Air is not our problem."

Bill wondered if Randy would invite them to stay, perhaps for the night. There was so much room in his workshop and they could save on the expense of the Sapporo. But he remembered Dr. Chandler had mentioned Mr. Stewart's social impairment.

Chandler handed over some papers to his friend and they finished their coffee. Bill was curious if the robot could also clean up after them, wash the dishes and return them to the cupboard and so forth, but he did not get a chance to ask.

"We're going to head back down to the Sapporo, Randy. Anything we can bring you up?"

He shook his head. "No, thanks. I'm going to work on these." He indicated the sheaf of papers Chandler had brought him. They said their goodbyes and took their leave.

Chandler led Bill in the same direction they had been traveling along the access tunnel until they came upon another vertical shaft. This one was completely open, no airlock at all, just a hole in the floor with two poles sticking out of it, both poles attaching to the ceiling.

Chandler took the red pole by one hand and stepped off into space. Gentle gravity pulled him down and Bill followed after waiting for a polite distance. Their rate of fall sped up imperceptibly, as they passed B1. Bill could feel a very slight speed increase when they passed B2. Still, he had only to hold the pole gently with his left hand.

Chandler called up to him, "I'm going to brake a bit and bleed off some speed."

Bill reacted by grabbing the pole in his grip harder between thumb and fingers and his rate of descent slowed. He was surprised at the feeling: his weight was very little and the speed relatively low, but it was still difficult to slow down because his mass — the tendency to keep moving — was the same despite his now low weight. He looked down and saw Chandler had also slowed down.

"A fall from this height would build up speed enough to cause injury if we didn't slow ourselves down," he explained.

Bill wondered what would happen if someone dropped a pointed heavy tool from L1. Would it pick up enough speed to punch through into the vacuum of space? He looked up and L1 was already a hundred feet above him.

They were about half way down. They passed B3, B4, and then the end of the line B5 the outermost level. Chandler must have read his thoughts about the hull breach.

"There are self sealers everywhere," he explained. Alarms go off like crazy and a computer screen map lights up the location of the hole."

After their descent Chandler lead them down an access tunnel a couple dozen winding yards and Bill found himself amazed to recognize the Sapporo. Their ascent, small crossover, followed by descent had, indeed, been a shortcut.

It seemed to him they had shaved an hour off what would have been walking time from Molly's to Sapporo. Bill did not know if such detours were permissible or even known about to the garden variety ES1 inhabitant.

Chapter 23
THE SAPPORO

The bright green SAPPORO sign looked like The Emerald City in "The Wizard of Oz" when Bill saw it. He was so elated he expected to see Munchkins and Tin men.

"Good Evening, Dr. Chandler. The Sapporo is honored to have you stay with us again." Mr. Suzuki bowed at the waist and Chandler responded in kind.

"Ah, Mr. Jones. It is good to see you again also.

Bill also bowed. Chandler explained how it was that Bill accompanied him, that he had just hired Bill.

"Then I was correct in thinking you are now Dr. Chandler's new associate?"

Bill nodded and Mr. Suzuki continued, "Then let me congratulate you twice: first on having located honorable employment and second for having found the best mentor possible."

Bill thanked him and so did Chandler.

"Shall we continue to watch your duffel?"

Bill nodded again as Chandler checked them into their rooms. He put his thumbprint on the electronic room register and authorized the monetary transfer.

Bill did not get a chance to see the amount. It was less than The Grand, but nightly rates even at the more reasonable Sapporo were astronomical.

"Mr. Suzuki, Bill here has gone without sleep a coupla days now. Since his arrival he has been working nonstop at Molly's. Any chance we could check him in to his room early?"

Mr. Suzuki was, again, doubly impressed at Bill's enterprise.

"Of course! Immediately!" he agreed enthusiastically, with awe and approval in his voice. He spoke a few words in staccato Japanese to his Sumo-clad associate who bowed and answered, "hai!" — 'yes!' — then bent low at the waist and gestured the direction for Bill.

The rooms of the Sapporo consisted of a wall-to-wall stack of bunk beds. You entered your bunk at the 'head' end rather than the side.

Bill accompanied him to the wall of bunk rooms. There were ladders leading up the vertical wall. The first 'floor' of rooms was, of course, ground level, but each 'room' was only about four feet high. They were right next to each other across the whole length of the floor with large numbers on each one.

There were 12 rooms on the ground floor, numbered 1A through 1Z. The second 'floor' rooms were just above and extended up to about eight feet and they were numbered 2A through 2Z. Most of the rooms were identical, each numbered in the same manner until reaching the top tier, 12A through 12Z.

The hotel catered to male guests for the most part. Most of the rooms were single occupancy. The left side of the wall, the A rooms, were larger, enabling a comfortable, spacious double occupancy or — with a tighter fit — accommodate families of four.

The Sumo bowed again when they reached the blue ladder between M and N at the far wall and gestured for Bill to climb. Bill looked at the cardkey given to him, which read 12Z. He had been assigned to the most remote and — presumably — quietest bunk available.

Ascent of the ladder was no effort at all. There was a little ledge at each landing to help entry into the rooms. Bill figured out that when he left the room he was supposed to go down the red ladder on the other side.

A couple of patrons were on their separate ways up or down a ladder here and there across the wall of rooms. They were all polite, careful not to make any noise and no one spoke out of respect for the guests who might be trying to sleep.

There were maid robots who rolled themselves up and down the poles of the ladders. Each went into every room on the endless vertical route when a guest left. Mr. Suzuki presumably initiated room cleaning after the bill was paid.

Bill supposed the cleaning robots entered the rooms, vacuumed, removed the used sheets, and replaced the sheets with fresh linen left for the next patron to use. There was no need for blankets in the constant temperature, but each room had a sleeping bag consisting of a single sheet. The robots also sprayed down the surfaces with disinfectant.

His card key lighted the door handle and an electric motor slid the door open. As it did so the interior light turned on.

Since the whole room was only four feet he had to enter on hands and knees. There was a fold-down bed that took up most of one side of the room.

There was a relatively huge monitor and keyboard, lights, A/C and heating and fan controls. He noticed you could even adjust humidity levels. There was a large, comfortable looking headphone for private listening and noise cancellation. There was a phone with a direct line to the front desk.

For safety there were not just a smoke and CO detector for fire, but also auxiliary snoopers to test atmospheric pressure, CO2 and oxygen content. The far end of the room contained a one-size-fits-all emergency vacuum suit with a one-hour oxygen cylinder. It was in a sealed box and had a dated and stamped inspection tag on it.

Once settled, he decided to make use of the facilities and went back down the ladder. A robot going up several floors below saw him and sidestepped automatically to a landing so the human would not be inconvenienced.

The bathroom area was as large and sumptuous as the common living room area. Bill entered a tropical arena of plants and live parrots, turtles, and an unsmiling, giant iguana. There was a riot of color with greenery and bamboo everywhere else. Floor-to-ceiling 3D video screens added to the jungle and a Sumatran tiger on the screen growled at Bill as it passed.

Although there were private bathing areas and sinks, toilets, showers, tubs, saunas, and steam rooms, the central feature of the rooms was a large swimming pool.

A sign in several languages advised the uninitiated to bathe and rinse first in the Japanese manner before entering the pool. Otherwise, many nonJapanese guests would have dirtied the pool water with clouds of soap.

Four absolutely naked Japanese men soaked in the almost boiling water, contented lobsters, eyes closed, arms behind them on the rim of the pool. These men were healing their souls, thought Bill and he longed to get in, but the nudity thing got in his way. The sign did not forbid a swimsuit, but he had none.

The shower was more American in nature with a modesty door on the anteroom for changing. The shower door itself closed completely except for a transomlike gap at the top. The air gap at the top had a splashguard, which kept the volatile low gravity water from splashing out of the shower into the anteroom.

The high-pressure spray of the shower nozzle was more than enough to overcome the light gravity. When the water was directed onto the floor it bounced up more than the eight feet to the ceiling. Bill had to be careful not to inhale water.

When he finished he wrapped one of the supplied towels around his waist while brushing his teeth at the sink. A birdlike Japanese voice of a kimono clad woman preceded her entrance into the sink area room and she motioned Bill with a broad arm gesture into the pool area.

He was embarrassed as all get out, but went as directed. The Japanese men were still there, but now two of them were lying on their stomachs on couches.

Bill was grateful they were covered across their waists by towels. Two Japanese masseuses were massaging them.

They all nodded as he entered, the men and the masseuses, then ignored him and continued what sounded like a business discussion.

Bill, with extreme Western trepidation, with all the modesty of an American teenage boy, with all the Christian guilt, eventually, quickly got into the pool.

It was hot. It was incredibly hot. In a minute, his body grew used to the inevitable and his muscles were greatly consoled. His skin still protested, but his bones and spirit were refreshed as tension left both body and soul.

He settled in for the long haul and just sat there listening to the Japanese businessmen. There was very light music in the room, some sort of Japanese lute accompanied by a quavering, beautiful Japanese soprano.

The businessmen said something to the masseuses and they laughed, stopping their work, bowed and left the room. The Japanese men donned kimonos, bowed to Bill, and also left the room. Immediately, a cleaning robot rolled in and began mopping up, spraying disinfectant as it went.

A young girl, about ten, red hair and pigtails entered and put a fresh towel out for Bill.

"We never close, so you can stay as long as you want, but my aunt told me to tell you not to fall asleep in the water."

A young couple both in bathrobes entered the pool area, peeking around the corner. Bill guessed them to be newlyweds. Suddenly he felt so trapped, unable to get out with people there, especially a lady.

They withdrew, perhaps waiting for him to leave, which he did as fast as he could as soon as they vanished. He dressed quickly and headed back for his room.

Bill pulled down the folding cot, adjusted the pillow and sleeping bag sheet and was soon asleep, so tired he almost forgot to turn off the room's light. He put on the headphones, though, and adjusted it to some music. It was the same stuff as in the bathroom and he heard the same Japanese lady singing a different song.

And then he slowly fell asleep, fully contented for the very first time in his life, his goal now realized of sleeping in low Earth orbit aboard ES1.

"GOVERNMENT:
Three-fourths parasitic and the other fourth stupid fumbling."
— Robert Heinlein

Chapter 24
POLITICAL REVERIE

Chandler still had an evening ahead and decided not to waste his infrequent visit to ES1. Ever since his family had been killed he had insulated himself and worked alone a lot. Normal, but psychologically unhealthy, and he knew it. But he had channeled the grief into constructive energy and used his solitude as an adjunct to concentration and productive work.

He did not get to be around large groups of people very often during this miserable phase in his life and he missed people. He recognized, vaguely, that this was a good sign, that he was 'getting well'. He liked being among and seeing the crowds, hearing them, the colors, and the smells. His Lunar home had a lot going for it but it was a lonely world he had made after losing his family.

No action. There was a lot of sensory deprivation. He checked in to his own room 3B to stow his few belongings before heading out.

He decided to make back to food section and started out at a brisk pace. The rush hour crowds had thinned out so he was able to make good time. It was fun being able to move fast without a vacuum suit. He owned an apartment in Copernicus, but for the most part was not there any longer, due to the memory of his dead family. Mostly now, temporarily, he lived at a smaller place, several kilometers East of East Dock, out in the unexplored and uninhabited region East of Copernicus. It was a tiny apartment in Crater Placida, at its center, in a hollowed out impact-stalagmite.

No one knew about it, except a few of his friends. People who knew him casually were aware that he had two abodes, an apartment in the fabrication area of Copernicus near East Dock. He also had a well-publicized large place that was the envy of all, the whole of Aristarchus Crater, accessible from the very crowded and highly used West Dock, the built-up area near the rail line.

At home he was limited to the confines of his homestead and, although large by most standards, he was forced to don his suit for long distance walking since he had to go outside to do so.

Now he almost flew. It felt good to feel air rushing by on his body again. He reflected on this, but did not overly miss Earth, its crime, hunger, and crumbling political climate. He rejected the prevalent victim mentality of Earth's population, its helpless attitude and sense of entitlement.

The problem with Earth was there was no other new place to immigrate to. Europe had spilled over into the 'New World' centuries ago, its best people uprooting themselves for a better life, more freedom, better opportunities, 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'.

But now that option of moving away to a better place was no longer possible because Earth was filled up, more or less, each continent stagnant with self-serving politicians, each intent upon control and power.

Ironically, the benevolent, noncynical, nondespotic governments were the worst. They harmed the population, not with rapacious greed, but rather with good intentions, an offer to help, concern for the downtrodden. The Devil did not come at humanity with a gun and a knife, but rather with kind words, concern, loving kindness, a cry for justice, a demand for fairness.

But the fairness always had a cost, an expense factor never considered. Every time law invoked 'social justice' for the victims, it did so at the expense of the producers.

Despite the intentions for the opposite, usually, rich people just got richer, poor people just got poorer, and more money and power and control went to lawyers, bureaucrats, and politicians.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Famine, War, Disease, and Death) had been joined by additional riders: taxes/subsidies, cradle-to-grave safety net, wage/price controls, and regulation/certification. These ended up not replacing the horsemen of old, but adding to the number. Now there were eight.

The cycle fed itself. The underclass became smothered in a cocoon of good wishes, freeing them from the necessity to strive, shaming them into a position of dependence, with reduced chance of breaking the cycle. Underclass, lower class and even middle class became the recipients of governmental largess. Not seeing their true status as milk cows for bureaucrats, they voted in more and more unearned favors.

"Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another."
— Milton Friedman

They became angry, distrustful of success and hard work because they did not see or experience the link between success and hard work. They became divisive in their thinking, incorrectly evaluated their lot in life as scapegoats of the rich instead of scapegoats of bureaucrats. Yet, it was easy for politicians to pit poor against rich, any class against any other. You could easily evaluate riots, any riot, all riots as class envy turned into class warfare.

Some Earth people were not yet spoiled: immigrants came to North America without misconceptions. They brought no money, but plenty of hope and most of them succeeded extremely well, completely without government help. No one had yet trained the immigrants with welfare checks, aid to mothers with dependent children, food stamps.

There was a race against time. If the immigrants succeeded on their own without government help they did so before they were ruined by the 'help'; those, which succumbed, to 'help' invariably never succeeded, their families converted into multigenerational welfare recipients.

Politicians fed on hate and envy and were successful in turning poor against rich, rich against poor. Although there was a very real worry by politicians of staying on the good side of the poor, of being an advocate for the poor, there was no real worry about losing votes of the rich because there were not that many rich people as individual constituents, so their quantity of votes was ineffectual anyway. There was also a 'wink, wink' understanding between politicians and the rich whenever a politician criticized the rich. The rich knew about and tacitly approved (or at least understood) the necessity of politicians to blame all ills on the rich.

Politicians turned minority races against racism, but it was a thinly veiled subterfuge of minority race against majority race. The amount of resulting racism and prejudicial bad feelings only grew worse.

In a certain light the politicians did not count votes anyway. They were more influenced by lobbyists and the success of lobbying efforts was completely independent of the voting public, transcending the concept, removing it from the loop.

The lobbyists perverted the Republic form of government, directly controlling the senators and congressmen themselves, removing the individual citizen completely. No worry about feedback and removal from office: the lobbyists controlled reelection of their pet congressmen so much there was a 98% retention rate of incumbents. So, if the Rich had control of an effective lobbying effort, the Rich did, in fact, have influence greater than their voting numbers.

The citizens were under the false impression that they voted to put in place congressmen who made law based on the wishes of their constituents. The voters did not control the votes of the congressmen; congressmen controlled the voters with 'spin' by means of one of the congressmen's assistants, the news organizations.

"The most important ways in which I think the Internet will affect the big issue is that it will make it more difficult for government to collect taxes."
— Milton Friedman

Print, radio, TV, Internet all became organs of unwritten lobbyist agendas. Spin could be used to bend a social trend into shape and voters into submission such that a voter believed his 'independent conclusion' on an issue paralleled that of a congressmen, yet lobbyists fed the voter AND the congressmen the idea in the first place.

When force-fed with a steady diet of spin, a constant media barrage, voters naturally believed most constituents must also think along the same lines as the spin. Yet only a small minority of the voting public actually believed along the lines so advertised. But very few alternative points of view were let out.

"The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of prediction with experience."
— Milton Friedman

The Left did not want to make use of 'Tried and Proven' methods and did not really care if prior methods of government or economics worked well or did not work well. They rejected anything that conflicted with their dogma.

The Communist ideal of central authority became a reality when federal government took over control of state governments. State governors functioned to comply with federal regulations and reaped the reward of collecting federal dollars and programs for their own state.

The more they received from the federal government the more did the state come fully under control of federal bureaucrats and less autonomous and more entrenched in a thought process of entitlement.

The loss of the Republic form of government did not bother most people because it was a slow process and was replaced by the lowest, rankest form of democracy, the kind that appealed to those people who could be molded to perform as desired, the poor, the ignorant, the unmotivated nonproducers.

Chandler had always found it obscene that although there was in place a one-man/​one-vote rule, there was not also a corresponding one-man/​one-dollar tax rule in place.

Certainly no one would suggest that if a man paid ten times the amount in taxes he should be granted ten votes.

Chandler cringed to conclude that a rich man (who paid more taxes) SUPPOSEDLY did so because he SUPPOSEDLY got more government than a poor man!

Obviously, the man who paid more taxes did so for SOME reason. If one analyzed this larger tax amount one could, perhaps, conclude that the richer man was more than willing to donate the tax since he had so much money or that he felt charitable towards financing the good work of the government.

The only other conclusion left, one that Liberals would never concede, was that the Rich were taxed more just because they had it and it was easy to steal the money they had 'inherited or stolen from the labor of the poor'. And they would never, never admit that they were soaking any hard-working, productive rich, taking money that had been earned.

"Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it."
— Milton Friedman

Also, there was always some way to make the rich richer if you got the poor to hate the rich.

It was saddest when the True Believers did the dirty work for the cynical. And historically it had worked both ways: the most fervent Communists in the former Soviet Union had been the poor Ivans who had derived the least, had not gotten the privileges, the perks of the Politburo. The poorest Americans who had the rawest deal of Capitalism were also the most patriotic, the ones who volunteered for war.

For it was very true that a good number of politicians knew what was really going on, that they were deceiving the poor, the uneducated, the nonanalytical, thoughtless voters.

Just as the Roman Empire patricians provided 'bread and circus' for the poor plebeians — 'the Great Unwashed' — so did the modern equivalent of Patricians and it worked out well for the rich because the rich owned the circus and the bread production.

It was always easy to mislead the poor, to convince them falsely there were only a few ways to become wealthy:

THE ONLY WAYS TO GET RICH
(ACCORDING TO LIBERALS)

steal it

marry rich

be born rich

inherit wealth

win the lottery

sue the rich people

tax them half to death

obtain the money illegally

become a left-leaning moviestar

Politicians did nothing to dissuade their constituents of this view of life and the prevalent viewpoint was to be suspicious of success.

They never uplifted the poor's spirits and showed a path to success through work, preparation, discipline, good habits, and behavior. Their only solution was to blame the rich and tell the poor that only government could help them, help them by increasing taxes on the rich.

Plan B with
The Rich People

blame them for your poverty

tax the bejeesus out of them

claim they got rich immorally

get the rich aboard by implementing crony capitalism

don't tell anybody that bureaucrats are themselves rich

convince everyone the rich are a bottomless pit of wealth

if anyone is in doubt, show how mere power leads to wealth

Little did the poor know that most (almost all) of the tax money brought in from "the greedy rich" never ended up in the hands of the "deserving poor". Most of the money — more than eighty percent — ALWAYS went to government workers and well-to-do friends of the government workers.

"Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed."
—Robert Heinlein

Of course, all this had been tried before under Communism in the former Soviet Union, resulting in a miserable lowest-common-denominator sort of existence. The false promise was to elevate the poorest by robbing the wealth of the richest and giving it to the poor.

In practice, the poorest of the poor were not elevated in the least. However, most of the productive rich were robbed entirely of their possessions. The five percent in power became extremely powerful and rich themselves in a clandestine way while everyone else became shamelessly poor and led a frightened, fearful existence.

Once the Soviet Union fell, the world's liberals did not withdraw from the economic dead end of Communism. They merely repackaged it into other '-isms'.

They were successful in infiltrating environmental concern and creating great fear of ecological disaster, imminent death of all human beings, global warming, water shortages, famines, fear of 'nonorganic' food production, fear of genetically modified livestock, fear of nuclear radiation.

At the same time they began to clamor for cradle-to-grave health care of everyone, guaranteed education, guaranteed food, guaranteed minimum wage, guaranteed housing, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed citizenship and voting franchise for all.

When direct taxation was impossible, it became equally useful to levy indirect taxes via inflation or through forcing citizens to buy this or that.

It was ever so easy to point out a pitiful victim, say, a blind widow with a leg off, a formerly hard-working virtuous woman now in a wheel chair. Who could dare resist helping her? What politcal party would dare deny benefits to such a miserable wretch. And it was easier than pie to point to a million similar such cases, all tacitly the fault of the opposition party.

Setting such a course was preliminary to an all-inclusive medical coerage bill, one that disguised the largest tax hike of all time. In effect, the main thrust (taxes) was entirely masked by the emotionally wrenching medical coverage of "those who would otherwise die due to corporate greed".

"There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him."
— Robert Heinlein

They railed against the death penalty, but enabled abortion and euthanasia. The punishment for murder became less than many other, lesser crimes. You had to watch how you acted, what you said, where you went, what you read. It was important to avoid certain points of view and certain people.

Your corporate career path could be terminated inadvertently by yourself by a single accidentally-uttered word, sentence, action, or inaction. Everyone tip-toed through the workday and even at home, for children had ears.

They became successful at obtaining the Communist goal, not all at once, but a little bit at a time. They were very good at chiseling away at the bedrock of Capitalism and freedom by focusing on small individual items, becoming advocates for separate downtrodden groups: women, the poor, racial minorities, homosexuals, those with disabilities, those in prison, the uneducated, the disabled, the addicted, those with certain diseases, the homeless, illegal immigrants.

"The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another."
— Milton Friedman

Many of these groups were greatly helped in the short term and one could point out the progress made. In the long term, almost without exception, many of these groups were all themselves later harmed by such helpfulness. It happened all over the Earth, too, not just the former USA. The indigenous peoples world-wide had been 'helped' into Reservations, to subsist on welfare handouts.

"Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one."
— George Orwell

And who became selected as a minority group which needed help? Never the smallest of the minorities. Only the easily visible ones easily led.

"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities."
— Ayn Rand

It was an example of the cocoon to butterfly story: that if you help an emerging butterfly he will not have enough strength to survive on his own. Somehow his struggles prepare him for the rigors of life. Somehow help for his necessary struggles diminishes his life force, in effect, kills him. While this may or may not be true for butterflies it is definitely true of human beings.

They began worrying about overpopulation — never mind that Europe's population was in decline — by choice, not through regulation.

Abortion, birth control, eugenic euthanasia of the infirm and elderly became common practice. Assisted suicide for depression was encouraged.

Every single item brought to the table for discussion was investigated as though it were a crisis requiring immediate attention. Liberals demanded immediate solutions, many of which impacted the whole and created further problems, which, in turn, became fodder for the next crisis intervention. The Communist-style micromanagement created a huge top-heavy priesthood of vindictive bureaucrats, the nonproductive powerful, and the 'parasitical political'.

"Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government."
— Milton Friedman

Personal and family responsibility went out the window. You were no longer in charge of your behavior, success or failure, addictions or personal discipline. Only the state could help.

Prevalent attitudes of lifestyle became reinforced at all turns in the all-encompassing, lifelong propaganda machinery of public school, entertainment, and the news media.

It became the norm to seek luxuries first, plan for necessities and the future dead last. Easy credit for personal consumption enticed consumers into a life of luxury behavior, while credit for personal growth such as a business loan was difficult to obtain.

It was hard to find kindred souls if you thought independently; almost everyone was under the spell. It became easier to go with the flow and become one of the sheep, easily fed, easily led, and easily led to slaughter.

One would have thought that there would have been an outcry from some, but the 'natural' heir apparent — the conservative movement — was strangely silent in a self-absorbed, weak sort of way. They offered no answer, had no solution, did not even criticize.

And the Libertarians? They stressed freedom, but never insisted loudly on personal responsibility. Besides, they had no power, no money, and no experience. They were naïve.

Chandler and fewer than a million others had found a way out, not a way to beat the bad system, but at least a way to escape it. Most of the people on the Moon were the same kind of people who once fled Europe centuries ago. The Adventure of the Moon did not call them so much as Freedom itself.

Still, the bureaucrats tried to control Lunar emigration with taxes, quotas, subsidies, paperwork overhead, contracts, regulations, requirements, wage and price controls. Even so, the freedom loving would-be emigrants always found a way around these obstacles.

There had been several hundred thousand people working and living on the Moon, all of them subservient to their sponsoring employers, the companies or governments or military or academic groups, which sent the people.

This long-range government from afar began to become ineffective. Never mind that the Moon was only one and a half seconds away by phone, radio, Internet, or TV. Never mind it was only three, four days away from face to face discussion. It became light years away from Earth in attitude, self-reliance, sense of freedom, and expectations.

Common sense said that although the Moon would hardly be sending products back to Earth and would be very, very dependent on Earth, that it would not be self-reliant. After all, there was not even an atmosphere, no open water, hard vacuum. Yet self-reliance became the most common attribute of Lunar people.

A strange characteristic of self-reliant people seems almost counterintuitive to their independent natures, that they are most willing to help others and also accept help from others, that they cooperate extremely well with kindred spirits.

They had developed many different Mutual Aid Societies, groups that fostered true self-help, real development of the individual and the family. They solved problems and planned. They cut through Earth's red tape snarls, ignored Earth's many stagnant attitudes, bad law, and burdensome regulations.

Eventually, something had to give and it did. One day, seemingly overnight, there arose a voice of reason with forceful authority. Several of the Mutual Aid Societies combined, had incorporated, ratified a written charter, a constitution, and assembly.

"The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom."
— Milton Friedman

It was The Lunar Autonomy, a homespun Lunar entity whose members refused to cooperate any further with Earth's governments. They were initially called rebels, but that name did not stick, for they maintained the highest possible level of behavior and only rebelled against idiocy.

They made and maintained law, but it was something new, something never before concocted and it worked so exceedingly well. They eliminated top-down decision making. The Lunar Autonomy had the same reputation as something from up high, perhaps from Mount Olympus, from some benevolent Titan, like Prometheus, perhaps, thought Chandler, the Titan who so liked the human race he defied Zeus and gave mankind fire — the 'fire' no doubt being a metaphor for knowledge and fully developed human consciousness.

The Lunar Autonomy was not entirely a governmental body. It bled over into a sort of quasi-religious or philosophical overview of business and also living freely on the Moon.

There were very few actual laws, almost none to hinder business freedom. One did not break laws lightly on the Moon. The consequences were swift and harsh, but by all counts fair.

Nor did The Lunar Autonomy profess benevolence and citizens could not expect any special charitable considerations. Everyone had to pay his own way and did so. If you got help it had to be paid back.

Chandler's mind freewheeled happily like this when he exercised by walking; his mind transported itself into a reverie. Sometimes it seemed as though an inner self gently counseled and consoled him when he was in such a state, occasionally, his creative muse, his problem solver rescued him while in such a reverie.

Chandler arrived at Molly's greatly refreshed. Behind the counter he saw and recognized Molly who was now accompanied by two other young women also in waitress uniforms. There, with those two new shining faces, he saw hope for the future. He felt his world-view vindicated.

"Dr. Chandler! Did you and Bill get squared away at the Sapporo?"

He nodded and added, "He's asleep in his room."

"He stayed awake — working for hours. It must have been a couple of days, anyway. Say, let me introduce you. Two new employees, Sylvia and Rhonda."

They nodded and smiled. Chandler recognized one of them and addressed her. "Were you at the Hiring Hall this morning?" he asked.

Sylvia nodded. "Yes, I was. I saw you there, I think. You had a small table?"

"That was me." He did not pry, but she continued.

"I was going to interview with TLC but something kept me back. The line was so long. I decided to go out into the hallway to see if there were any prospects elsewhere, permanently up here on ES1, not just Luna. I wandered in here for a drink and got to talking with Molly."

Chandler wanted to ask about the two replacements coming up from Earth but did not think it was appropriate to comment on this. He did not know if the two girls had temporary work or not, but Molly rescued him.

"Rhonda just came up on contract; there was supposed to be one other — a fellow — but he canceled at the last minute."

Chandler nodded, now fully informed. "Well, girls, you could not have hooked up with a better boss. This is a pretty good place to work."

Chapter 25
DATE

Molly got Chandler a coffee and he sat at the counter and began looking at his papers again. They were real paper sheets, not a book reader. Apparently, he was old fashioned in that regard. Molly left him alone for an hour, only bothering him to refill his coffee from time to time.

He had reached a stopping point on his calculations and stretched, both hands held aloft, pencil in one hand, papers in the other.

"You look like you did a lot. Figure it out?"

"Think so. I'll recheck tomorrow."

"Want to go out?"

"Huh?"

"You heard me. You know. Walk around."

"Sure. Let's go. Can you leave the whippersnappers?"

"They're good. I feel comfortable with both of them. Let me just get out of this uniform?"

Chandler paid his coffee tab with Sylvia and in a few minutes Molly came out. She looked so different Chandler did a double take. She had on makeup and her hair was arranged differently. She wore a bright outfit instead of her waitress uniform and he had never seen her so differently attired. She looked like a different person.

"So, I guess Bill met Randy?"

"Yeah. Took him up and it went real well. We didn't stay too long. You know how he is with crowds."

She nodded. "Any number over zero people in the room makes him uncomfortable. It must be rough. At least he has figured out a way to live that psychologists would call 'well-compensated'."

"Yes. I think he may be getting a little better. After all these years of solitary living you think he would want to change."

"He comes down from time to time during nonbusy times to get a coffee. He tolerates a half hour now and again. I even asked him about it — none of my business, really — but my inquiry and him talking about it, that in itself seemed to calm him down a little. Just acknowledging the problem and talking about it seems to help."

They passed a couple places, some bookstores and an all-night drugstore. There were some other couples walking around. Several of the couples seemed to be newlyweds on their very expensive honeymoon. ES1 was now as traditional a place to spend a honeymoon as any other well-known place.

"Well, you know his impairment has caused him to be able to concentrate wonderfully well on a problem. And the excellent work he does here..."

"Oh, I know! I just wish he could get out some more. He must be miserable."

"I'll admit crowds make him uncomfortable, but I don't know if he is miserable. You know, he does not take anything — no medicine. No tranquilizers or mood elevators or anything at all. He copes as is and seems all right. This is a weird thought: it may be he 'hangs on to' his impairment because somehow he knows it helps him regulate his life into productive channels. If he were 'normal' he would just not get as much done. And I think he knows it. That's what probably hurts the most. I don't think he misses people and don't think he feels like he's missing out on life."

Molly walked a few steps in silence, and then continued.

"Well, I'm missing out on life a little. I sure had fun, though, taking care of the place by myself. What a challenge!"

Chandler shook his head in admiration. "You did good. You did real good. Everyone knows it, too. It would have been so easy to shut down the place one shift out of three just to catch sleep, but you kept it open. That's great."

"Well, it's my responsibility, this place, and it's kind of a public debt to keep a public house open at all costs."

"I certainly understand your thinking there, but you said 'missing out on life'. You weren't just referring to this recent temporary personnel shortage, were you?"

"No, not at all. Like I said, this was just a challenge and I did it okay. I know I can rise to the occasion if necessary because I have done so. Not everyone can. No. I was talking about my life in general. I want more. I came up here for more and found it. I wouldn't go back to Earth for any amount of money now. First of all, the pay here is so much more than anything there. But I still want more."

"Not more money?"

"No, not money. More freedom. More adventure. More life. Freedom is addictive. Freedom IS life! I've tasted real freedom up here and I'm never going to give it up, ever."

"Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."
— Milton Friedman

"You've been here — what? — couple of years?"

She nodded. "Two and half. I came up as an Indentured after my husband died. I was a complete wreck emotionally, more or less a zombie in complete grief. I'm surprised they hired me at all. All I can figure is they hired me thinking I was professional acting and reserved and somber in my demeanor. I worked hard — I paid back my Peculeum within a year. Most people take two years, but I worked hard at it and Consolidated is good. I recommend them as a company. I like them and, I guess, they like me."

"I didn't know you had been married. You said 'widow'?"

"My husband and I had been married less than a year and he was killed during the East Coast Food Riots. I don't know exactly how he was killed."

Chandler knew about it. It had been an international scandal, hundreds of thousands killed during mindless rioting and looting. It was on TV on the Moon, but with a good telescope you could train it on the East coast and see smoke from the fires.

"I was caught in a mob but managed to hide in a doorway. A Roman Catholic Priestess pulled me into her Cathedral. It was full of people like me she had pulled in. She bolted the door and took us all into an underground storage room — sort of a bomb shelter — and we stayed there for a week. When we came out I looked around. I had been hoping my husband had also somehow found shelter, but the complete destruction, the smell of death, made me give up after a few days. Nobody was left alive. All the cities had been burned, bombed, looted."

"The East is still unrebuilt," admitted Chandler.

"How about you? I know your family died on the Moon."

Chandler nodded. "My wife and both kids. Freak accident. It was explosive decompression. Very quick, luckily for that. I'm thankful there was no suffering. I'm still spinning, but I'm functioning. I guess... After a while... Well, anyway, I'm not altogether in top form again yet, but I'll get there soon."

"I knew you then, saw you a couple times, I saw your wife and kids. When I heard about them dying I thought that maybe you had been killed also. The Roman Catholic Priestess I told you about had given me some candles as a gift to burn for my husband, but I never did at that time because I was so distraught. When I heard about you and your family I lit one in the chapel."

"You lit a candle for me"?

She nodded.

"You know, it's funny about how to think about death," began Chandler. "I have no anger, none at all about my family's death. I never could get mad about a devastating natural disaster. I can't get mad at nature, like if someone gets killed by a tornado or eaten by a lion or even is killed by a disease. There's no anger in me because I just can't get mad at natural forces. I'm very sad about it, but no one's to blame, so there's no anger on my part.

"But the riots... YOUR husband... That's not a natural disaster. That's people. Bad government. Pure evil." He shook his head.

"I feel that way, too. That's why I left Earth. But I'm still sad about your family. Me? I'm ready to settle down again. This time I'll have money to start a life with some capital."

Just as soon as Molly said this she regretted her too-forward-sounding phraseology, but the poor male Chandler did not even connect and he responded without noticing her advance.

"Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation."
— Milton Friedman

Her reference to money was really about inflation. The NAU had double-digit inflation coupled with GDP of less than half a percent over the last decade. The NAU never spoke of inflation except as a vague reference that 'rich people' in greedy banks might be causing it. Certainly the NAU never stated that the government really liked it to occur. It controlled the populous as effectively as anything invented by Emperor Caligula.

Molly's salary in Lunars, on the other hand, was inflation-free and she was able to invest the ample surplus.

"The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy."
— Milton Friedman

"What are you planning? Mars?"

"I'm adventurous, but not that adventurous. Mars is still risky. So far away. You know, I've never been to the Moon. Not ever. I'd like to see Copernicus."

"The city's beautiful." He shook his head in admiration. "I live there, nearby, and it still gets to me."

"Maybe I'll come see you and Bill on a vacation trip. Once I get these girls squared away, that is."

They passed by a park bench area, a little alcove surrounded by trees. There were more potted trees and bushes and flowers here than anywhere on any city on Earth, as though the colonists wanted to bring life with them. Little watering robots circulated among the pots, probing for proper soil humidity. These trees in this area were decorated with hundreds of tiny lights. It was not Christmas anymore, but they were so pretty that people complained about their removal, so they were left up year round.

Chandler took Molly back to the restaurant, then made his way back to the Sapporo and his room. After he dropped her off he began to think about her, suddenly realized that he felt real affection for her.

"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."
— Robert Heinlein

He almost turned around and headed back, but did not. He knew she would be there tomorrow and he would invite her formally to visit him on her vacation.

By the time he got to the Sapporo he was elated at the prospect and at the same time engaging in the million year old male dilemma, trying to remember what color her eyes were. He did not know Molly's last name. He blinked and suddenly realized her importance.

Chapter 26
LUNAR SHUTTLE

"If you want, we can go help them load cargo into the Lunar Shuttle," offered Chandler. "It's customary for passengers and crew to help load the very shuttle in which they ride. It sort of involves everybody and develops a sense of 'shipmates, one and all'. It's a long-standing tradition. Passengers board last. First cargo, then fuel, then passengers. It's a safety and a time thing."

They took the elevator up to the hub. The Hub proper was an immense volume, the largest open space on ES1.

There were hundreds of people loading and unloading cargo, some of them so far away they looked like bees hovering. The garage door-size hatches that looked so big up close were little circles across the giant room.

Because of the acoustics you could not hear well across such a long distance, but there was an unusual phenomenon: sound traveled around the parts of the cylinder which were unbroken by projections. There was a place where you could practically hear whispers 3/4 of the way around.

It looked to Bill like there were three ships being loaded for outtransit — to Luna — and two just arrived from Earth. One of the Earth Ships offloaded its entire cargo to ES1. So did one of the Lunar ships.

One Earth ship was transferring cargo directly to a Lunar ship, just using ES1 as a transfer point; nothing from Earth was staying here — ES1 was just a way station.

"There's no such thing as 'stand around and watch' in zero gravity. It's worse: 'FLOAT' around and watch — it's mostly getting in the way. We'll have to make ourselves useful."

"Hey, Lyle! You goin' back with us?" A smiling face hailed them from behind a huge, huge package he was nursing along. He rode behind the bundle, swimming fashion, holding on for the ride with both arms, feet trailing directly behind like a fish.

"Hi, Jeff. Yeah, we're returning with you. Thought we'd lend a hand in cargo here if you can use us."

"Sure, sure! The more the merrier."

"Jeff, this is Bill. New partner. Bill, this is Captain Billings."

Bill shook hands as Billings passed them, just a palm tap as he floated by. Bill was careful not to yank him off course. It was astonishing to Bill that the extremely young man was a captain. He did not look much more than nineteen or so.

The captain had this, the largest of bundles under control, had pushed its huge bulk through the Hub. He had been 'behind' the package when he had pushed off from the wall, using his legs for power; as it neared its destination he clambered around to the front so that he could get in between it and the destination so that he could stop it gently by pushing it in the opposite direction, so that it would not slam against the wall.

He did this expertly by flexing with his feet against the package, hands against the wall, absorbing the deceleration with his muscles. Bill could see the temptation to rigidly lock your stance, but that might break the bones as you brake.

From the size of it, it looked heavy, but size did not necessarily equal high density. For all Bill knew, it could have been a huge bundle of packing peanuts weighing twenty pounds. You could not tell by looking.

You COULD estimate mass by bracing your feet against something and giving whatever you wanted to move a 'test' shove. If it moved easily it was light — low mass. If you felt resistance it was heavy — high mass.

If it was EXTREMELY massive you could feel that with the push you exerted on it, but you could still get even the heaviest object moving by bracing yourself against something with your feet then pushing against the item you wanted to move and giving it a continuous push for several seconds.

No matter how massive the item, even a relatively weak person's constant, inexorable effort of how-many-ever pounds of push he could come up with leveraged over several seconds of effort would start the massive object moving.

The big danger here was overeagerness and impatience. The zealous novice would continue building speed by continuous pushing. Even a small child could build up dangerous momentum on the heaviest of boxes this way.

A five-ton item, for instance, could crush a man if he got between it and a bulkhead. Worse, the five-ton object could easily tear through the exterior wall and cause explosive decompression.

Moving heavy, heavy items took patience and experience. In other words, it was necessary to move an extremely massive item slowly and carefully.

But it was fun, even though it was hard work. Soon Bill and Chandler were as covered with sweat as was the captain.

There was a remedy for the sweat, too. The men all carried white hand towels and continuously dried themselves off.

It was considered extremely bad manners to let raindrop-sized beads of sweat come off your body. This sweaty rain would float in the middle of the room until someone else swam into it and such traffic was considered disgusting and everyone tried to avoid causing floating spheres of sweat.

The smaller packages were easier to handle and a 'thrower' could brace himself against a bulkhead and 'throw' the package to a 'catcher' as far away as his aim would allow.

There was a problem sometimes in doing this in certain directions because coriolis forces from ES1's constant rotation cause the trajectory to appear to curve. Actually it went in a straight line, but appeared to curve because the environment was moving.

The men were used to this effect and compensated by throwing way to the side of the intended target — 'leading' it — and, like a slow motion baseball pitcher, the curve ball unerringly made its way to the catcher.

Over a very long distance the very air slowed down bulky items due to air resistance. Bill noticed this concept came into play a great deal with curves: you did not miss just from throwing too fast or too slow due to the Coriolis, but if you threw without enough energy, air resistance made the object slow way down and you really missed your mark by a lot.

Most people carried little battery backpacks, which powered a shrouded pistol grip fan. Not only would it get you moving, but also provided a little air conditioning.

Without such a propulsion devise you might carom off something mid journey and cancel out your forward movement and you would just hang in space in the middle of the room forever, unless some air conditioner gust might take you. The experienced men had great fear of being 'becalmed' like this, for you could not extricate yourself in case of an emergency. "Worse," put in one, "in case you gotta go to the head."

"Well, I knew a becalmed guy who tried throwing stuff in his pockets so he would go in the opposite direction, but he didn't have enough stuff — not enough weight in his pockets. So, finally he tried his shoes, but they were like slippers and weighed hardly more than socks.

"Eventually, he decided since he couldn't wait any longer anyway he just went right ahead and peed. The reaction mass of his full bladder was enough to move him to the bathroom, but by that time it was too late anyway, 'cause he had already — you know — peed.

"So, anyway, he learned his lesson; six months cleaning public toilets in the jail on Copernicus."

The men all laughed at this oft repeated, probably not true, myth.

"Was that you, Larry?" they asked, laughing.

The handlers made a game of their work. It combined bucket brigade and baseball. It took a line of six men to span the room when they threw straight across.

One at the wall of origin, one at the destination wall, and four hanging evenly spaced in between. The man at the wall of origin braced himself against his wall and threw his package to the first man hovering.

This fellow caught the package and was imperceptibly moved a little bit in the same direction as the throw by the transfer of force when he made his catch. However, he, too, immediately turned 180 and threw the package to the next man out.

His throw theoretically exactly compensated for his prior movement and canceled out his displacement; in theory, he could hang forever in the same spot.

In practice, if his throws were harder than his catches he would eventually end up at the wall of origin. If his throws were weaker than his catches he would move towards the next man out.

The men were all used to this and could correct their spacing.

"Here, Bill. You take wall for a while. I'm going on break." A red faced heavily perspiring man relinquished his position and Bill gave it a whirl.

His first throw was, indeed, a whirl, curving off, almost going out of reach of the first catcher. This man was a couple hundred yards in the distance and he could see Bill's delivery was going to miss him.

Like a baseball outfielder he sped over in the direction of travel, using his pistol grip fan to do so. The fan imparted a push, but only a small one and it took a long time to begin moving him, but move him it did, just in the nick of time, barely enabling him to catch the package.

Instead of using the fan to go back to where he had been he just continued in that spot and the bucket brigade line was now zigzag. Bill's second throw was more accurate.

With each catch the first catcher was able to offset his displacement progressively with each of his own throws to the second catcher. After a dozen pitches he was no longer odd man out, no longer zigzag. The line of six men was straight again.

Bill noticed most of these guys looked as though they were in excellent physical condition with enviable physiques, as though they were all competitive athletes. He had worried about low gravity or no gravity letting his muscles atrophy. But this aerobic exercise seemed to more than compensate for Mother Earth's own 1 gee gymnasium.

After a half hour he was huffing and puffing and bathed in sweat. He had gotten used to the Coriolis twist and now was not even conscious of it, any more than he was on Earth of a thrown football dropping during the course of its trajectory.

Now, depending on your viewpoint, the arc of the drop was 'sideways' instead of 'down'. Bill tried reorienting himself so that the Coriolis force seemed in the 'down' position, but he never ventured a throw. The men — by some tacit agreement — all oriented themselves along the idea that 'up' went to the left of the direction of spin; 'down' went to the right of the direction of spin.

Chapter 27
VISIT TO THE TLC SHUTTLE

Across the way, far in the distance, an elevator discharged a dozen red ants. They were so far away, yet Bill recognized some of them individually by their mannerisms. He recognized Red Ryder, Jeremy, and Johnson-from-Wisconsin

The Poster Boy, Will Walston and Ginny were together up front, leading the group. They were holding a tether and Bill watched them disappear into TLC's own Lunar vehicle. He would have liked to see it up close.

"Once a week we have a game, unless there's an emergency delivery. Otherwise, we schedule around it," explained Captain Billings.

"Game?"

"Yeah. It's sort of like no grav baseball, but they changed the rules a little. There's a bat and ball, but the bases are different.

"They keep changing the rules. One of these days the game is going to shake out and become very major league. Right now, though, it's just fun.

"There's a form of basketball, too, or, I guess you could call it soccer."

Chapter 28
AFTER WORK

The ships were all loaded and unloaded as required and the hub became less active as the men departed. Someone turned down the lights and it became twilight. You could still see well enough, but it was no longer day-bright.

"I'm going to grab a quick shower in the public bathroom, Bill. If you want, you can have a look around the hub if you want to cool down first."

Bill decided to try to make his way around the hub's periphery. He found a quick way to travel. There were stanchions every twenty feet and he grabbed them and pushed off from one to the next.

Several hundred stanchions later he felt his hands begin to blister and decided to try another method.

A blade guard shrouded the pistol-grip fan so you could not accidentally injure yourself. If you accidentally let go of it, it would fly itself away from you, so, to prevent this, there was a wrist tether.

Bill had seen similar devices for scuba divers, electric motors pulling the aquanauts through the water. When he pulled the trigger his arm pulled him in the direction he pointed the gun and he felt a refreshing breeze from the fan. It hummed. Once he got moving he had to force himself to cut the thrust before building up too high a speed.

He coasted through space, cutting across the arc of the cylinder. The night-lights all around him were like stars and he felt as though he were floating among the constellations. His pace was maybe walking speed on Earth, about 2 or 3 miles an hour, but it was enough to measure progress.

He approached the far wall until the numbers grew. He saw 22 where Captain Grady's UPS shuttle had docked. He passed it and came to 24. Someone had put up a white banner with red letters:

"TLC 'THE' Lunar Corporation!" As Bill got closer he saw how big it was. Each letter was at least ten feet tall.

A couple red-clad figures finished up departure routines. All the newbies were aboard, presumably seat belted into position, ready for the little bit of thrust necessary for 'dedock'.

Bill appraised the process of decoupling with a professional eye. He wanted to see how the airlocks were shut down and sealed.

As he still glided forward he began to make out more detail and — to his complete surprise — recognized both Jeremy and The Poster Boy. He was now close enough to be able to hear voices.

"No, no! You've got it all wrong! Red before yellow. You want to blow us up?"

"Uh, sorry. I didn't know," apologized Jeremy.

The poster boy rudely ripped Jeremy's work from his hands and redid the lines. Bill did not know what they all were, either, perhaps some kind of communication or test lines.

The Poster Boy saw Bill's approach and turned a bit to face him and did a double take.

"So, it's YOU! Well, well, well. If it isn't Mr. scullery maid! What's up? You trying to join up with TLC? Well, it's too late. We're overstaffed with twerps now."

Rudely, he accentuated his statement by jerking a thumb to indicate Jeremy.

"Fact is, we're UNDERstaffed, so they've decided to make up for manpower by OVERstaffing us with twerps. If I had my way about it, none of you morons would be coming with us.

"I get to cut a few, though, as I see fit — sort of to show the retainees they can be let go any time. Come to think of it, it might not be a bad idea to cut loose a twerp or two right now — sort of as a timely object lesson — we wouldn't want the ride to Luna to go without a lesson, would we, Twerp?"

Bill listened to the ranting and raving, but went ahead and answered the single question he heard and abstained from commenting with his own comments on the commentary.

"No, thanks, I'm not here to make application to TLC. I've signed with another outfit. I was just here for cargo loading and just finished up. I'm just site seeing. My name's Bill." He evenly offered his hand.

The Poster Boy was taken aback. Normally he met the same kind of invective he dished out. Apparently, very few people offered to shake hands with him. He stood transfixed for a minute before tentatively offering his own hand.

Bill shook it and added, "Glad to meetcha."

The Poster boy did not, in turn, give his own name, just mumbled, "Uh, yeah. Sure." TLC was not into good social graces.

"We all rode the same bus," added Bill. "I'm glad everyone got a job. No one disappointed. And TLC is supposed to be the best."

Jeremy just stood mute. He felt saved by Bill again. His face looked bedraggled, as though he had taken abuse far too long.

Probably had. His one reprieve was, again, a rescue. It was not going well for Jeremy and Bill wondered if getting the boot would be so bad and he continued that line of thought.

"Well, if you feel compelled to give the ax to anyone, there are other jobs here, apparently, some right here on ES1."

He said this partially — mostly — for Jeremy's benefit. It was almost a dare: 'Hey, Poster Boy! I dare you to let him go; he'll be better off without you and can get another job within a matter of hours, a better job, under better conditions.'

"No one else would take this twerp. Nobody! I feel sorry for him and on account of that he can stay." The Poster Boy went inside, leaving Jeremy to say a forlorn goodbye.

"Leaving might not be such a bad idea, Jeremy. I'll help you hook up with another outfit. Nothing could be worse than this bozo."

"Thanks, Bill. I have my heart set on TLC despite this guy. Things will get better once we arrive. I'm sure of it."

Just then the door opened and a weeping, almost hysterical newbie girl floated out. She was in a bad way emotionally and shot out of the door lock in an uncontrolled ejection, as though her very emotional dejection ejected her.

Bill and Jeremy had to grab hold of her because she had no tether and the force of her exit would have catapulted her into the vast cargo hold. Her eyes were teared over and because of the absence of gravity the tears just pooled up ludicrously around the eyes, twin bubbles of water over her eyes. She finally wiped them away on her sleeve.

Jeremy — ever the gentleman — produced a Kleenex and she blew her nose. The girl's suit tag identified her as JOHNSON, N and Jeremy knew her as Nancy.

Bill put two and two together and correctly guessed that Nancy took the brunt of Poster Boy's anger when he went inside. He had taken out his rage on Nancy, displaced to her only because she was available and in sight.

"Thanks. I just can't take it anymore. I'm not going. It's too much. There's something wrong here. This is such sadism. I thought it was like a 'pressure interview' — you know — to see if you can hold up under stress. But it's not. That guy and his group are just mean!"

They let her get under control for a couple seconds. She took a deep shuddering breath to regain composure. Nancy looked across the void of the cargo hold, eyes narrowed with calculation and resolve.

"I have enough for a coupla nights at the Sapporo. There were almost half a dozen HELP WANTED signs I saw. I'm going to stay here."

She looked up at them perhaps defiantly, perhaps just seeking approval. And they gave it. Jeremy was the first to admit it.

"You're right," he agreed. "Absolutely right." They looked now at him, to see if he would decide to stay also.

"I'm going to go ahead and go — against my better judgment. I had my heart set on TLC and will stick it out. But I support you on your decision to stay.

"I saw those HELP WANTED signs, too. If it doesn't work out for me with TLC on Luna I'm coming back here, too."

Nancy hardly heard him. She just kept nodding, looking at him as he talked. Mostly, she was sequencing her next moves.

"I'm pulling my bag," she proclaimed and abruptly returned to the doorway. She was all firm resolve and her tears had dried up entirely, though her makeup was a mess. She vanished inside.

"Oh, boy! I wouldn't want to get in her way right now. She's plenty mad. I don't blame her."

Jeremy nodded. Nancy was a large and tall girl. She had a lot of strength as well as a lot of strength of character. Jeremy started to recalculate his tentative decision to stay.

"I'm still going to tough it out, Bill."

"Sure, but let's see what happens."

He wondered if she might change her mind, if an apology would be forthcoming. Or maybe she would calm down and decide to stay based on a minor thing like not being able to retrieve her bag.

Suddenly a very large green duffel preceded Nancy through the lock and her beaming face followed.

"I'm going to do it!" she proclaimed. She caught herself with a foot to stop forward motion with the practiced expertise of an old hand. She shook hands all around then launched herself back to the same embarkation access tube the TLC people had all used.

"Well, I hope she makes it," Jeremy intoned solemnly.

"She'll be okay. How 'bout you?"

"Fine. Good luck to you, too, Bill."

They shook hands and Bill bid Jeremy goodbye. "We'll probably see each other pretty soon. Moon's a small place."

END OF PART TWO
(to be continued)

LUNAR APPRENTICE JONES
(Part 3)
The Emigrant
by RJW Seddon

Chapter 29
LAST NIGHT IN THE SAPPORO

It was late now and the automatic timer had turned down the lights even more, from a dim twilight now to an almost dark nighttime level. You could still see, though. It was not pitch black.

Bill decided to strike out directly across the immense room instead of the more cautious route around the periphery he had taken to get come here. He had seen others launch themselves directly across. It took a while to coast and the air slowed you down so that there was some danger of becoming stranded midway.

Bill launched himself across the void. He pushed off with all his might, all the strength he had in his legs. The wind rushed by him.

He knew the distance he would be traveling through the air would slow him down. His biggest worry was not getting there too fast, with too much force. He worried mostly about slowing down due to air resistance, then stalling out mid way to his destination.

The wind whipped his hair and he streamlined his body like a diver and head first he traveled toward his destination. Imperceptibly the air slowed him and the rushing noise of wind past his ears reduced. The distance across was so great his sense of speed was from the wind noise rather than the destination getting bigger.

He slowed to a crawl and worried that he would become becalmed. But a funny thing happened: although his launch speed bled off extremely fast, his now slower pace did not. It seemed he could go more-or-less forever at the slower speed, air resistance notwithstanding.

When he neared the destination stanchion on the other side he expertly flipped in mid air with a move very much like a swimmer's flip turn at the end of a pool and cushioned himself with his feet.

The whole trip back was a couple minutes transit time. The trip around the edge had taken almost an hour. He smiled with delight at the new achievement and felt like and old hand.

The men's room light was still on and he saw three, four figures coming out. One of them he recognized: the young captain Billings. Accompanying him was Chandler.

"Hey, Bill! Saw you shoot across. Get to say goodbye to the TLC folks?"

"Yes, I did. One of them jumped ship at the last moment to find a job here or with another outfit."

Chandler nodded. "Happens ever trip. Not just 'cold feet' I take it?"

"No," admitted Bill. "More like good common sense." He did not elaborate, did not have to.

They made way for the Sapporo. "Tomorrow we take the Lunar Shuttle. You've got a busy day, Bill." Chandler handed Bill a memory stick.

"Instruction courses: vacuum protocols, safety regs, communication, emergency plans, Lunar law, courtesy requirements, first aid. There is a lot to learn."

Bill fitted the little memory unit to his reader, then handed back the stick. The transfer — deceptively fast because it was just a computer file transfer, not a human knowledge transfer — would take him hours and hours of reading, then days, weeks, months, and years to absorb.

"Captain Billings and I will be conducting some business and I want you to glue yourself to this course of study. It's not that I want you to disappear and stay out of my way.

"Far from it. You would really enjoy our business discussion. It's just that your life and the lives of others depends upon your complete mastery of this information."

Bill nodded and bid them a good evening. He went back to the library-like common room of the Sapporo to study.

There was a good reading lamp behind a comfortable leather wingback chair and Bill began studying furiously after surveying the range of material.

It was divided up into twelve mini-courses, very easy to understand, but a lot of material. He figured it to be the length of a couple of novels and hoped to be able to make it through the course before morning.

The safety section alone on solar radiation scared him into redoubling his speed. Bill had always been able to remember what he read at a fairly good level of retention.

Some good Samaritan had included true and false and multiple choice test questions at the end of each section and, so, Bill could evaluate the quality of his study and not fool himself into thinking he had full mastery of the material when, in fact, he might not.

Mr. Suzuki offered him coffee after an hour into the reader. Bill thanked him and was about to offer payment, but stopped himself when he saw the 'with compliments of the Sapporo' on the carafe.

"Dr. Chandler, you know, wrote many of the sections in the training course himself."

Bill looked at his reader in awe and noted the authors cited did include a 'Chandler', but he had not connected the possibility. He reread that section once again and almost heard Chandler's own voice as he read.

Never noisy, the Sapporo guests were, nevertheless, not quite library-quiet as they entered for the evening. Bill took this opportunity to stretch and stand. He found his legs stiff even in the low lunar gravity.

A trip to the restroom and some cold water from the fountain revived him somewhat. He had gone through about half of the material. The clock read past two in the morning and his eyes felt heavy.

He bumped into Chandler on his way out of the restroom. "You still up? Thought you'd be in the sack long ago."

Bill held up the reader as explanation. "About half through already."

"'Half'? That's a good week's study. I meant for you to spend Lunar transit on that."

"I will. I can go over it again."

Chandler nodded, approvingly. "Well, tomorrow's another day." He bid Bill a good night and retired to his bunk.

Chapter 30
VACSUIT

Bill took in another shower after he woke up. The pool was packed when he got to the bath area, but there was no waiting for the other facilities.

The Japanese liked to rush through cleaning, then lounge in the pool. The full pool was his excuse for not parading naked into the pool with the rest of them, so he finished and went back to his room.

There was a blinking message from Chandler, offering to meet him in the living room area when he was ready for check out. Chandler was seated there reading the morning news on his reader.

There was a large cup of coffee waiting for Bill and Chandler motioned for him to take it. He finished chewing a mouthful of breakfast roll and got right to business.

"We need to inventory your duffel to see what else to buy here. The main thing will be a vacuum suit. Do you mind if we go through your stuff? I'm concerned about safety, duplication, and things you might be missing."

"No, of course not." He looked around. "Right here?"

"No, we'll check out and go to the suit shop. They have a big table."

Mr. Suzuki bowed low at the waist, as did the nameless Sumo. "We are always honored to have you and your associates as our guests at the Sapporo. May I offer you a small gift for your journey?"

He handed Bill a memory stick whose sides advertised:

THE EXCELLENT
SAPPORO FAMILY HOTEL, ES1

(Yoshi & Walter Suzuki, prop.)
sapporohoteles1@lol.com

Bill thanked him and rolled his duffel behind him on its little wheels.

They took the Green elevator up to the weightless hub, then transferred to the Blue elevator back down again to Third Level, ending up on the opposite side of the wheel.

PAUL'S LUNAR EXPEDITIONS was a store down a side corridor, well off the beaten path. It had a counter and a few merchandise displays like a retail-clothing store, but in the back you could see busy activity.

It was about a third each of factory, workshop and custom tailor. Bill watched a couple of sewing machines being operated blindingly fast by ancient, serious women.

There was a man standing on a short stool with his arms outstretched, getting himself sized for a suit. He looked like a toreador being fitted for his bullfighting 'suit of lights' or, perhaps, a medieval European knight getting a suit of armor.

Several people attended him; one old Chinese lady kneeled with a tape measure and screamed unintelligible Chinese measurements at her colleague behind her shoulder who typed them into the programmer of the garment-weaving machine he operated. It was half sewing machine/half loom.

Another couple people concentrated on his torso. A lady had him bend over, took those measurements, then made him extend his arm and measured again.

The suits looked less bulky than you would imagine. This one was striped like a tiger, but the colors were green and red. Suit colors were definitely not somber or utilitarian.

There was a shelf of helmets and a poster advertised:

GARMIN DISPLAY SYSTEMS
COM & NAV
GPS, ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS
LINUX, CHROME, or MAC
(MICROSOFT AVAILABLE)

Just the helmets cost more than a year's salary. The upgrade visual display options and other bells and whistles doubled that again.

A four and a half foot tall Chinese lady of about a hundred years noticed them and put down her work.

"Ah, Dr. Chandler! It has been too long. Welcome to our humble shop."

"Hello, Madam Chang. May I introduce my new colleague, Bill Jones?"

"How do you do, Sir?" Gravely and formally, she bowed low at the waist.

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am." Bill attempted his best imitation of an Oriental bow. His reciprocity was not lost on the old lady who beamed at him in response.

"We're going to need a full kit, Madam Chang. If possible, enough to get us by for the next shuttle. The remainder we could ship after the items are ready.

"I've got a few patches which need repairing myself." He held up an abraded boot for her to see.

"We can begin fitting immediately, of course, Dr. Chandler, and will need young Bill for approximately an hour for measurements. When the garments are ready tomorrow we will need a final fitting before the shuttle departs."

Chandler nodded. He had been through this before.

"You will want to advise us on radios, environmentals, and upgrades," prompted Madam Chang.

Bill figured she was politely inviting Chandler to tell her how much he expected to spend.

Over in the corner Bill saw a selection of used suits, name tags still on some of them. One of the suits had a piece of paper on it inviting people to attend Shorty Johnson's funeral.

The suit had a new-appearing right leg on it from the knee down. Bill looked close and saw the name tag JOHNSON, S over the pocket area.

Bill wondered why Chandler did not save money and go with such equipment, used, but still suitable. In this case 'suitable' was an apt term, he reflected. But he thought better not to mention such thinking, because Chandler had not brought it up.

While Bill stood on a stool for the tailors Chandler lounged back and shot the breeze with the old proprietress.

Bill watched her demonstrate the various helmets with their several features. Chandler politely investigated each item and acknowledged its merits.

Bill watched his delight at some of the features and saw him shake his head at some dubious accessory with little practical benefit. Apparently, he liked one accessory so well he not only bought it for Bill's suit, but also had his own helmet upgraded with a retrofit.

The fitters finished with Bill and he stepped off the stool. He still marveled at how he seemed to float down from such a small height. The tailors and fabricators began in earnest with his order, one of the tiny Chinese-looking old men pointing at the wall clock and screaming, presumably, Chinese epithets.

He heard the English phrase, "Lunar Shuttle" in the foreign language sentence. The ladies nodded without looking up.

Bill watched some kids fill what was presumably his order. They unwrapped a new backpack-looking assembly, installed a newly charged battery pack and air supply regulator. The kids looked like they knew what they were doing, worked fast at powering up the central processing unit, testing its many redundant circuits for integrity, putting it through its paces.

It looked to Bill like the breaking in might take them several more hours; they were in it for the long haul.

Chandler was at ease, Bill saw, still lounging back, on the recipient end of the old Chinese lady's sales pitch. A beautiful Chinese girl dressed in the old style brought Chandler a drink and hors d'vourers on a tray.

They had gone all out to impress him and influence a sale. They were successful in their technique, too, for he did purchase some of the items. Others he rejected out of hand or after a cursory inspection. A few he put on the back burner, perhaps something for the next visit, dependent more on emotional appeal than fortune.

A Chinese kid rolled out a cart filled with numbered gloves. They were gauntlets. Each number was a different size and Bill dutifully tried on a range of numbers for fit. They discussed getting extra-large to allow for growth as he got older, but Dr. Chandler advised them to go for correct fit.

One of the kids handed Bill his helmet and said, "It's traditional for you to take the helmet with you while we work on the suit."

"'Traditional?'"

"Yes. For luck."

Bill took his new helmet and, while holding it, awkwardly bowed at the waist.

They finished up and Bill found himself surprisingly tired. He found it funny that such a passive thing as clothing purchase could wear a fellow out. He wondered why women spent so much time at it voluntarily.

The whole shop simultaneously arose in silence and stood at military attention as Chandler and Bill left. They gravely bowed in unison at the waist and sincerely bid their customers goodbye.

"That kit will support them all for a month," explained Chandler. "But it's more than that. It's their calling, their profession, and their entire identity. Nobody, no one, makes a better suit than Chang's, but they are only five percent or so more expensive than the next best. They have never steered me wrong, either.

"Madam Chang moved up here from Hong Kong where they had a regular tailor shop. She learned the suit business from the ground up maybe forty years ago. Her kid told me she's never been back to China, but she visits Little China in Copernicus regularly."

"There are a lot of Chinese on the Moon, aren't there?"

"Maybe fifty percent of the population. Well, think about it. There are a lot of Chinese on Earth. It's just that most of them are in China, so we do not have that many in the West."

They walked out from the side street back into a main corridor. Bill felt real pain in a couple of muscles in his feet. There was a totally new way of walking here that used completely different muscle groups. He experimented with a slightly different stride.

"You haven't got your Moon legs yet," observed Chandler. "It takes a week. Oh, I remember that feeling so well! So many years ago! Now it hurts to walk when I go back to Earth."

They turned into the main concourse.

Chapter 31
MAIN CONCOURSE

It was past rush hour, so the many shops lining the walkway were now observable. Most people were at home or at work, not in transit, so Bill and Chandler were able to site-see at a dawdling pace.

There was the full array of shops that had so impressed Bill earlier: locksmith, gunsmith, even blacksmith for horse shoes! There were micro-farms consisting of hydroponic arrays, mini-schools, dentistry, barber, haberdasher, chapels for all competing religions.

The sight of one stopped them cold. It was a Guardsman office. Uniformed, indolent, insolent, smugly confident young men stood in the front of their shop front and button-holed any likely passerby.

"What are they doing here?" asked Bill.

"Legally, we have to grant them access just like anybody else. They are not exactly welcomed here by the populous in general, so it creates a charged atmosphere. Molly told me they rent themselves out as security guards. That almost covers the cost of sending them up here. But there must be more to it. I don't know what it is, something political probably."

Just then Bill froze. He recognized Spc 4 Stigliano. It could not be! Yet it was the very same Guardsman. The man had his back to Bill and Chandler but Bill knew that man very well, even when seen from the back. He had his arms folded and was speaking to a pair of Guardsmen. They were standing in a clump just outside the doorway of their store front. But Bill had that arrogant stance imprinted firmly on his memory and when Stigliano turned a bit Bill was able to identify him with certainty.

Quickly, Bill donned the newly acquired helmet they had just picked up at Madam Chang's shop. Chandler somehow knew Bill's move was out of character, but did not comment or act surprised, though he did look at Bill strangely for a brief moment.

After they were just past the Guardsmen store front, Bill put the new display to good use and, inside his helmet, he used the rear view screen to zoom in on the Guardsmen and he recorded a video of Stigliano.

After a bit Chandler asked, "So, what was that about?"

"The draft. I barely escaped. One of those men there followed me, even to the spaceport, but now here he is! I can't figure why they would go to the trouble to track me down, to spend so much money. I'm not that important. I'm nobody."

"They might not see it that way. Because you are an independent spirit and because you escaped their clutches they see you as somebody they want to make an example of. They do want to turn you into a 'nobody', though. Maybe they are here for the Enclosure contest to ensure TLC will win."

They pulled into a Chick-fil-A and took a booth. Chandler filled Bill in about political realities.

"TLC has now an alliance with the North American Union. TLC is running at a financial deficit and runs only because the Earth government finances it. In turn, the NAU wants and needs the tremendous Lunar wealth. It is sort of like a couple of centuries ago when all the countries needed the petroleum companies. The world then ran on oil. Today, the world is increasingly running on Lunar wealth. Maybe that's it, then, that they are going for broke on the contest, for prestige, for control. They want the Moon back and will do anything to achieve that goal."

"'Anything'?"

Chandler nodded. "I do not see good days ahead until this is resolved."

Chapter 32
TO LUNA

Bill watched a space-suited figure tow a sleeping companion by a rope, actually, his lifeline tether. He none-too-gently stowed his coworker along with other accouterments, boxes, cargo, along with others, everything jiggling and jostling.

Bill looked closer to make sure, then recognised them both from his first night on ES1 when he had encountered them both in the corridor outside the honky-tonk beer joint. They had not been the only Western-attired men he had seen, but these two stood out.

All of them aboard ship knew each other and worked as a team calling loudly to each other without regard for their oblivious, passed-out companion.

Chandler grinned. "Sleeping it off, I guess. Some of those crater boys don't get out much. Probably tied one on. I can't read his name on the suit; otherwise I could probably tell you who he is."

"'Crater boys'?"

"Homesteaders. They got their own crater staked out. Probably ice miners. They may make oxygen and sell it. For all I know, it's food they grow. They do SOMETHING to make money.

"Anyway, they all come once every couple months or so to ES1 to let off steam and buy supplies. They're all right. Just a little overworked and bored."

"Probably wake up feeling pretty bad, you think?"

"I don't drink myself. Looking at him, now I know why."

"It reminds me of the wild, wild West. Cowboys."

Chandler gave Bill an appraising look at his observation. "It is! I never thought of it before. It IS like the Wild West. It's 'Lunar Expansion', not 'Western Expansion'."

"This go around there are no Indians to learn from."

Chandler laughed. "We're BOTH cowboys AND Indians this trip. No one to teach us; have to learn from our own mistakes."

They helped load the cargo hold and everyone joked about stowing the drunken 'cowboy' among the boxes, but, of course, no one would do that and they towed the still-sleeping space-suited figure into the passenger compartment.

Bill was surprised at the spacious cabin, then realized there was no streamlining requirement to impose size limitations on the Lunar shuttle service. The Earth-to-Earth-orbit shuttles had to push through Earth's air and, thus, required a beautiful, needle shape to cut the thin air for a 25,000 mile-per-hour red-hot reentry.

By contrast, the Lunar Transit Shuttle landed on the airless moon only, never on Earth herself and, so, had an ungainly, boxy shape, with protuberances, antennae, and asymmetrical parts studding its surface. It never got red hot from air friction landing on the moon, for the moon had no air to heat up the shuttle's skin from high speed friction. No air also made wings or control surfaces unnecessary.

Bill could not see the shuttle's exterior, but he had seen pictures and now — for the first time — its spacious interior. It was not Spartan at all, positively luxurious.

There were actual small circular windows, but most of the 'windows' were actually TV screens with an outside view; the views looked convincingly real, at any rate, and the 3D plasma screen gave a fair impression of being a real window.

He saw the whole Earth through one, Luna through the other side; abruptly, as he was looking at it, the scene changed — altered to another camera — and he saw the side of ES1.

There were fold-down couches along the walls, but these were now stowed out of the way, folded up into recesses. They were for sleeping and, perhaps, landing on the moon.

There were oxygen tanks lashed to a bulkhead, spare emergency suits. There were half-dozen permanently fixed chairs for the crew along one wall, seats in front of instrument displays and controls.

The back wall had a couple doors one of which was labeled RESTROOM, the other SHOWER. Someone had taped BRIDAL SUITE onto a third and several ribald comments and names had been added to the homemade sign over the years.

An old-fashioned cork bulletin board with a wooden frame held a bunch of letters, notes, want ads, and photos. There were a couple faded eight-by-tens of two smiling astronauts; in the background of the black and white picture was a wall banner proclaiming 'WALLY'S RETIREMENT PARTY!'.

Another more somber picture next to Wally's was a smiling lady labeled 'IN MEMORIAM' and in smaller script, 'We will miss you, Sheila' and "You were the best of us, kid!'

There were several items offered for sale, a couple of job offerings and a note from someone looking for a 'durable partner, matrimony a possibility'.

Bill felt like he was in the Yukon gold rush reading these kinds of things. In the corner an older, smaller photograph caught his eye. It was of a man, woman, and two small children in spacesuits waving at the camera. Next to it was a newspaper clipping whose headline read, 'CHANDLER FAMILY FEARED DEAD'.

Bill looked closely, but could not make out features through the suit's visors, but he could read the stencil labels DR LYLE CHANDLER and EMILY CHANDLER.

The kid's suits were obscured and he could not get the names. Bill caught himself and realized he was, perhaps, being ghoulish and as soon as he realized what he was doing he looked up in case Chandler might be observing Bill peering into Chandler's intimate, painful past. But his boss was still busy, stowing gear and boxes, so Bill beat a hasty retreat from the bulletin board.

The pilot seats were flimsy and lightweight. There was no need for a stout framework against a sixth Earth gravity.

Even a bad landing would not need a better frame. He reasoned a bad landing — such as from engine failure — would result in explosive decompression of the room and, probably, immediate death for everyone aboard.

A crash-landing usually meant fifty thousand miles an hour right into the Lunar dirt, gouging out still yet another crater. There was no point to seat belts, either, except as something to keep you from floating away while at zero gee.

Bill noticed one wall held a fridge and a microwave and a food locker. They would be traveling for 3 days and needed to be fed. Although spacious when empty, the passenger berth was close quarters, in fact, cramped for 17 persons and 3 days was a long time.

Bill wondered how they would do. He did not have to wait for long.

"Welcome! Welcome passengers, one and all!" The captain and copilot/navigator swam in and Bill recognized Captain Billings, but was again taken by the captain's extreme youthfulness.

Although it must have been hard to project leadership presence while swimming into a room the captain managed to do so, at once announcing a greeting, his authority, and a smiling, businesslike approach. Everyone immediately turned to face him and — by shipboard custom — rotated themselves so that their heads were 'gravity aligned', i. e., facing the same way.

"I see only three new faces." The captain smiled a brief nod in turn to Bill and two others. "We have been given an unexpected open window only minutes away, so let us dispense with formalities and take care of the usual amenities en route."

He glanced at his wrist and announced, "I make us 7 minutes to departure. The slot opening gains us about nine hours if we take advantage of this window. Any objections?"

The drunken cowboy's friend let out a whoop of affirmation at the good news of reduced flight time and the captain got to work. He furiously worked for the next five minutes going through the checklists and preflights. His partner, the navigator, shared duties and the passengers began their own departure rituals.

The passengers had their own checklist and were in deep discussion, one of them writing in an official ship's log, from time to time speaking. The others nodded assent and occasionally someone raised his hand to volunteer for this or that job.

Bill was not in the thick of things, still felt the outsider, and was busy stowing bundles and lashing them down. One of the men called out his name, "Bill! You interested in being cook? Dr. Chandler said you worked at Molly's."

Bill nodded dumbly, agreeing. The cluster of passengers wrote him in and continued their job assignments.

Bill watched one of them retrieve a lethal looking pistol and strap on its gun belt. Sergeant at arms?

One man departed from the group and began checking fire extinguishers. Fireman, no doubt.

A couple began going over the food stores and oxygen; another began tinkering with the emergency suits.

The passengers were at least as busy as the pilots and took a hand in every detail. It thrilled Bill to be part of a group that took active participation, not just being passive passengers. All Lunar life had such a reputation for being fully alive and in the thick of things.

"Who's doctor this trip?" No one volunteered. "Well, we've got three MD's and a dentist and Joe — Joe, aren't you a vet?"

"Sure, I'll do it, I guess. Glad to," offered Joe.

They wrote him in. Bill was amazed. On Earth there were credentials, certificates, licenses, diplomas, but only rarely was anyone assigned to a job because he was truly needed.

Here, everyone was needed. Most people wore several hats. Their doctor for the trip, for instance, Dr. Joe, was also sergeant at arms, oxygen stores monitor, water monitor, toilet waste recycling officer, social secretary, ship's moral officer.

They called on him again. "Bill, we're going to need you to stand watch, an all nighter awake day after tomorrow. You'll be mineshaft sparrow. Can you stay up all night?"

He nodded, but they relented and argued into dividing the night watches into four-hour shifts, so he only had 11 to 3.

Bill figured he could get into his reader then, when it was quiet and dark with everyone else asleep. He quickly ran this by Chandler and asked Chandler's input on this to get permission, then found himself volunteering for that same time slot every evening.

"Not a bad deal, Bill. You cook and do kitchen work and get to study afterwards. A good set of duties for your first time out." The men complimented him on his service and forethought.

"One more job, maybe the most time consuming. Betty and Tom had to leave their kid at ES1 for a tonsillectomy. He's coming back by himself.

"We need an 'Official Guardian' for the trip back. He is eleven. You are the youngest 'Wayfaring Adult' on board and that's the plus side, that your ages are nearest and it would, on that basis, make it easiest for you and him to be on the same wavelength.

"On the other hand, should anything happen to him on the trip back, it would be very easy to assign blame that we didn't get a 'real' adult to watch him."

Bill took a look at the little guy. He was small and wore glasses and projected a somber, serious disposition. Bill did not hesitate a second, but wanted to qualify the job first before agreeing.

"Can he and I talk a bit before I say yes?"

Chandler nodded and Bill jerked his thumb towards the microwave/stove and pushed himself off over to the kitchen. The boy followed.

"Your tonsils okay?"

"Yeah. They took them out. I had a sore throat all the time and they got all infected. They put me to sleep. Little sore, but it's good to be well. I'm still sleepy."

"Just get done?"

"Out of the hospital bed into the shuttle."

"Well, look, they want me to watch you so you won't get hurt. But here's the deal: I'm a newbie. Can you teach me?"

The kid nodded gravely. "Teach you all I know. My mom will give you pie when we get there. Name's Theodore, but they call me Millimeter."

Bill shook hands. "It's Bill. Kind of pie?"

"Apple. We got an orchard. 'Apple Crater Farm & Dairy'."

Bill formally signed for Theodore, and then he and Millimeter got to work stowing the remainder of the gear.

"You folks almost ready to depart?" asked the captain. "We have clearance and can cast off any time."

Billings suddenly stood at even more formal-looking attention. and turned to look at Dr. Joe. "May I inquire of the duly elected Passenger Representative whether the complement of passengers is ready for departure?"

The vet Joe formally responded, "Sir, the gear and passengers are ready for departure and it is 9:32 in the morning, Greenwich time, July eighteenth." The elected secretary made official notes of this official exchange.

Bill idly listened to radio chatter and felt the decoupling hoses being withdrawn. Waste water, clean water, sewage lines were first, then fuel, air, power, communications, fiber optic computer link.

The lights flickered a couple more times. The fans cut for a second and there was a slight air pressure pop.

He felt a light thrust of maneuver control jets and the shuttle slipped away from ES1 ever so gently at a few inches a second. The LED TV 'windows' showed several angles, one taken from afar with a long distance camera mounted in space a mile away. The camera angles changed once a second or so.

Suddenly Bill watched a flame shoot out of the toy shuttle in the viewing screen and he simultaneously felt the thrust as 'room movement' in his inner ear and also felt the rumbling power and even heard the rocket's growl.

But it did not build in intensity, just continued at the same pace, the same constant, low thrust. It was not like the full power, 'desperate' takeoff from Earth to ES1. This was a 'leisurely' rocket thrust, low power for a long, long time.

The small rocket built speed but did so at a more paced acceleration. That is not to say it did not build as much speed as an Earth lift-off.

Far from it. Earth to orbit was limited by air friction and the minimum orbital speed was about 25,000 miles an hour.

This leg of the journey, from low Earth orbit to Luna, went through vacuum and they built up an impressive 50,000 miles per hour. But you would not guess it. There was no reference point. No clouds, no whoosh of rushing air, no harsh vibration.

Millimeter looked at Bill and whispered, "We get to cool our heels for about ten minutes. Can't move around until the motor's shut down. I usually take a snooze. We're going to get a collie puppy when I get back." So having said, he dutifully shut his eyes.

The motor was not loud; you could talk over it and the vibration was calming, reassuring. Bill looked around and the passengers all had the same sort of beatific looks on their faces. Contentment. They were going back home.

Chapter 33
FREEHOLDER HUDSON

Three days transit. Bill cooked three small, teeny tiny meals per day. He noticed right away the size for zero gravity meals was in the morsel range. People in cramped quarters with no physical activity did not need 2000 calories apiece per day. Even office workers on Earth did but require 1500.

But Earth was fighting girth in two different ways: both too many people with too little food, but also too many fat people; fat was endemic in some parts of the world while other parts of the world starved to death for lack of food.

The prosperous nations showed themselves to be sedentary gluttons. It was not always that way; before machinery people had to work hard physically for their food and needed plenty of both food and work to stay alive. Bill had heard of nineteenth century lumberjacks who worked so hard they needed 10,000 calories a day, but here that same amount of food would last your garden-variety weightless passenger a week.

However, what the meals lacked in volume and size was made up for in taste, quality, and embellishments. Lunar transit people wanted and demanded style and elegance since they could not have huge portions.

Although most of the food was prepackaged and microwaved, it was, nevertheless, luxurious. The larder held French brand names and the finest ones at that. Bill had never before heard of any of the French company names, much less the names of the meals.

Every meal came with a tiny bulb of vintage, exotic game birds and seafood from afar, insolently rare desserts, extravagance of every type except size. There were sauces to prepare separately with each meal and he was extremely busy learning to become a French chef.

He had expected military style MREs — Meals Ready to Eat. But no. These freeze-dried pouches came with explicit cooking directions, demands for exact timing for ingredient additions. Lunar people had developed the palates of sophisticated connoisseurs and really, really knew their dishes.

The 'hung over' cowboy came to. When he woke up he made way for the bathroom with hardly a hello to anyone. They all knew him.

Some of them had been there, done that, and left him alone with his miserable headache. When he came out of the bathroom he looked a little better and made for the shower. After a longer time in the shower he came out looking and acting surprisingly well, even refreshed.

"Hey, y'all! When's dinner? Ah'm starved!"

He made for the fridge and, without asking, opened it and pulled out a bulb of ice tea. He nodded at Bill while taking mighty, dehydrated gulps and introduced himself.

"Steve Hudson. A pleasure."

He shook hands with a cowboy's rough sure grip, friendly and likable to the bone. He was a German Shepherd pup of a human being, someone everybody liked and who liked everybody.

The rule about not eating too much did not apply to Hudson. He lived life fast and burned a lot of calories. He asked a snack of Bill 'to tide him over until supper' and the snack was twice the amount of the whole forthcoming meal.

There was plenty of food and since passage covered eats no one was counting cost. The skinny, tall cowboy put it away like there was no tomorrow, talked nonstop, mouth full, chewing, pausing in his dialogue only to ask for more.

He was polite and asked more about Bill than talk about himself, but he disclosed a lot. A surprising revelation came out of the discourse: Hudson did not come aboard hung over, hardly drank at all, was, in fact, more-or-less passed out from having stayed up all night two nights straight, mostly line dancing in a beer joint.

When he was not dancing he was, apparently, eating, talking, or making friends. He was also making business plans, business contacts, and learning.

The guy was intelligence in motion. Never stopped developing his voracious appetite for life. Could not get enough of it.

Bill was impressed. More than impressed. He felt way outclassed. The cowboy thing — was it a charade? Was it mere window dressing or a disguise so that people would accept Hudson more easily if they could immediately identify him as a country bumpkin?

"You ever get away after you're settled, here's our address." He handed Bill a business card with a crater map reference on the back. He had phone/email and his partner's name. They were:

HUDSON & JOHNSON
FREEHOLDERS

Light manufacturing & fabrication

"Partner Johnson over there," — he pointed — "got hisself up and married about a year ago. So, now there's three of us. I was up on ES1 alookin' for a helpmate myself, but none took to me this trip up so I come away disappointed and still single. Maybe next trip."

Bill could not imagine any filly not setting her eye on Hudson, so it must have been that none of the women passed muster. He was going to have a tough time finding someone to keep up with him. He probably had high personal standards and expected the same.

Ship's clock showed ten and the Captain announced lights out and dimmed all but the instruments and alarms which acted as excellent night lights.

The LEDs were all colors and the panel area looked like a technoChristmas tree. Some of them blinked, most were steady, and a few were self-regulating graphs on small monitors. It put you to sleep, little multicolored shadows on the walls, only the thrumming of pumps and motors.

The captain and copilot took their duties very seriously and never once did both of them leave station at the same time. At least one of them remained strapped in all the time, usually both.

They also both continued wearing vacuum suits, sans helmets. The helmets were snapped into their storage mounts within hand reach for easy and rapid retrieval.

Bill now worried about rapid donning of his own suit should another emergency occur. He resolved to time himself with a stop watch tomorrow. In the meantime, he kept suit close at hand, wrapped loose near stove and fridge. He noticed Chandler also kept his suit nearby, though stowed away.

After lights out some of the passengers quietly read, but not lighted book readers, which would have disturbed their fellows. They had flip down in-the-eye monitors.

Bill set to with his course of study. "I'm going to stay awake with you pardner," Bill heard his ward-of-the-trip tell him.

Bill nodded agreement and watched Millimeter begin a comic book. After just a very few minutes Bill reached over and gently took off Millimeter's eyeglasses whose built in reader still shone an action hero into the sleeping boy's closed eyes.

Across the room Bill saw that the grinning cowboy, still floating awake saw what Bill had done and grinned an acknowledgment at him. He was busy reading himself, a copy of Lunar Horseman Monthly.

Bill tackled his study material with a mighty effort now that he had leisure and the room was quiet. The coursework on this mini-course was practical vacuum physiology, the ins and outs of suit life, low pressure/high oxygen living, and water requirements.

He thought it was going to be so easy, but he was wrong, because the first section through which he raced was merely preliminary, just a bare outline of the main course to follow: He had to learn electricity, battery life, air conditioning, condenser and evaporator coils, expansion valves, pump pressures, return lines, water recapturing.

Just when his brain became soggy from too much knowledge he thumbed over to suit radio. That section alone looked like a week of constant study.

Then came emergency procedures for oxygen production. This had always fascinated him. You could actually make your own oxygen on the moon.

Most of the surface rocks were oxides of some type. All you had to do was heat them to sufficiently high a temperature to extract the oxygen you wanted. It had to be done in a closed container and you had to compress the oxygen as it was being made and pump it into some sort of cylinder.

Given enough sunlight to make electricity, a resourceful fellow could breathe indefinitely. The main problem was keeping up with the 14-day-long Lunar night when there was no sunlight. Most homesteaders kept stockpiles of cylinders for emergency use. There were cylinders stored for public emergency use in way stations along with food, water, and electricity.

Bill took his multiple-choice test over the mini-course and chalked up another chore out of the way. He glanced at the clock and noticed his watch was nearly over. Johnson, Hudson's partner was next up.

"I relieve you, Sir," he formally said and signed himself in on the ship's log. Bill signed himself out and within a very few minutes was drifting asleep.

Chapter 34
IN-FLIGHT EMERGENCY

The emergency klaxon woke Bill with its annoying, piercing honk. It was accompanied by flashing, rotating red lights he had not noticed before.

He looked around and others began suiting up as they woke up from the noise. Bill watched Hudson, already completely attired, assisting an elderly woman with her gear.

Chandler was suited himself, but before dogging down his helmet he called out to Bill, "Try for less than thirty seconds. This is a real emergency, not a drill, so go for speed."

Bill paced himself with the suit up procedure, then — in horror — looked around for his charge, Millimeter. He could not find him because the boy was already fully dressed, helping Hudson with the old lady. He was at once shortest suit aboard, youngest passenger, but first dressed.

Both pilots had on their helmets and were also connected by umbilicals to air and com lines.

When Bill hooked up he immediately began hearing the pilots voices on the com line intercom.

"Another one. Two still to go. Mr. Richardson, would you please get a head count?"

"Aye aye, Sir." Richardson floated from passenger to passenger, checking off on a clipboard each and every soul, based on the last name on their suit tags.

He verified helmet-on status of each and took a verbal roll call. Turned out one of the com lines was defective, another not yet plugged in.

"All suited up and accounted for, Sir."

Billings addressed the ship's complement now that they were all present.

"Folks, radar picked up some junk ahead. It's several pieces scattered, of indeterminate nature. We need to maneuver out of the path and we are closing, but not rapidly — it's, ah, 500 mph range — so there is time for course correction.

"And we probably have enough fuel to remaneuver back into Lunar transit without mishap. I am not declaring an emergency, but I am required to notify control and we are all required to stay suited for the duration."

Hudson looked at Chandler and pointed to his suit number 23 and Chandler toggled the private intercom on his own suit, then 23. Bill saw their lips move, but heard nothing. Chandler nodded and they conversed a bit, silent to everyone else.

Chandler pointed at Bill and Hudson nodded. Partners, even very junior ones, were by common etiquette never excluded.

"Bill, Steve thinks maybe the TLC shuttle may have inadvertently dropped something in their wake."

"Right. Ah'm not accusing anyone, but Cap'n Billings said we were 'not closing rapidly', that we are overtaking the object at only about 500 mph, not fifty thousand mph. That means the object came off a ship. Something could have broken away from their ship during their main burn."

Bill looked at Captain Billings and saw his lips move through his visor, but also heard him — and thought for a while that everyone else could, too. But no one reacted to the captain's speech and Bill then realized only his suit was able to hear this private conversation.

Bill's training with the com gear earlier had left on one of the captain's toggles accidentally — Bill's alone, probably — to include him in this private ship's Business.

"Ah, X-ray Delta One, do you read? This is Daisy Mae. Do you read, X-ray Delta One?"

A crystal clear voice from the ship ahead responded tersely.

"Go ahead, Daisy Mae."

"Captain Billings here calling to advise possible loss of externals from your craft. We are on collision course with debris between our ships, closing at 496 mph, twelve minutes to impact. We are jinking our course to avoid contact and advising possible loss of externals from your ship."

There was a period of silence aboard the TLC ship, then another voice acknowledged, "Are you accusing us of dumping, Daisy Mae?"

"No, Sir! Not at all, but the debris is between our ships at a relatively low rate of speed and, for that reason, probably originated from your vessel, because we did not see you jink around it; nor did you forewarn us that you had encountered it. This is just a courtesy call in case you lost some externals during thrust."

He paused before adding, "Would you like to file the report on this after investigating?"

Billings was being gracious. A report had to be filed regarding the incident, including the trajectory and speed of the debris, but he offered the TLC ship leeway in wording. They could provide documentation and evidence that they had done nothing wrong. Further maintenance records would support a repair.

"Ah, we'll do just that. Thanks for the heads up, Daisy Mae."

Bill felt the lateral thrusters at work, a very tiny push moving them sideways. Later, after passing the debris, Captain Billings would use the lateral thrusters on the opposite side of the ship to put them on course again.

"That ought to do it, Jim. We're going to be a mile and a half away. Anything on the scope?"

Billings grunted. "Yeah. Check it out, but don't tell the passengers."

Bill's tiny heads up display began with a fuzzy, jiggly bright cluster which, when enlarged and clarified by the zoom brought the debris into focus. None of the other passengers had this being routed to them.

"Well, I'll be... Take a look, Jim. I'm recording video of it."

Hovering there in space, heading towards them at nearly 500 miles an hour was what looked like a garbage sack and about six escaped aluminum beer cans. Bill was able to read an ornate, red "Lunar Brewery, Copernicus" on one and a bright blue and gold "Rocket City Beer!" on another.

"Think they'll file broken antenna fell off?"

"Oh, probably. Look, I think Lyle needs to know, but no one else, okay?"

"Yessir. Shall I get him?"

Billings nodded and Bill heard the telecom toggle to inquire of Dr. Chandler. Bill heard what must have been the sound of the 'ringing phone' that only Chandler could hear — actually a pleasant beep. Chandler answered with 'Chandler here' which caused his software to open the circuit.

"Captain Billings here, Dr. Chandler. We have some ship's business live video feed coming your way, Sir." Billings apparently now fed Chandler the little video image.

"Oh, my!"

Bill now thought it expedient and overdue to disclose his inclusion in the festivities on the inadvertently open circuit.

"Uh, Captain Billings, Sir? This is Bill Jones. Sir, I think, perhaps, my toggle got left open on your broadcaster during suit training. That is, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be overhearing all this."

There was a pause as the mildly surprised flight crew glanced at their boards. Billings nodded, then added, "Thanks for the heads up, Bill. Yes, it was an accident, but now that you are on circuit please let me caution you on discretion. In other words, please don't repeat any of this. Okay?"

"Yessir. I understand."

"Lyle, he's your partner. We should include Bill anyway. I have an ethical problem here. We have the photos of the beer cans, but we're leaving the report to TLC. My dilemma is should I volunteer the pictures?"

"Precedence is clear. Technically, you do not have to. Technically, you have done your duty in that regard.

"However, if TLC reports — makes at least some kind of report — no matter how they spin it, my guess is that you will be contacted and asked to provide comment or observation. If so, TLC ought to know what you are going to say or provide. Especially something so incriminating."

Billings nodded, agreeing with the wisdom provided by the older man.

"I guess that forces my hand. Wes, would you hale them, please?"

"X-ray Delta One, this is Daisy Mae, do you read?"

A moment later, the TLC ship acknowledged them, perhaps a bit fearfully. This time the radio operator was Johnny on the spot, not short with them at all, but plenty quick to answer.

"Ah, X-ray Delta One, in case you have not yet filed your report we got a visual on the debris. Shall we send you a copy?"

"Ah, affirmative, Daisy Mae. Thank you for the assist. Awaiting transmission."

Billings nodded to Wes after they concluded their radio conversation.

"Wait to send them the video, but the shot we took at distance. Make it small, but discernible so that they can enlarge it enough to get resolution so they can see what it is without us rubbing their face in it, so to speak. This way they will never know if we went to enough trouble to enlarge the picture ourselves and they can save face."

Wes delayed sending them the footage as a video file until Billings gave him the go ahead.

"Ah'm worrying about the fan, is all," comments Hudson.

"'Fan'?"

"Yessir. When Control signals us for a copy they'll want to enlarge the video, too. It's gonna hit the fan."

"Well, we did the right thing. Had those cans hit us at 500 mph one of them could have punctured the hull. This is no laughing matter.

"We just burned 300 kilos of fuel sidestepping. Had it been an antenna or some such, that's one thing, but this is pure negligence, the kind of safety issue that could have killed us all."

"Are you talking fine?"

"Yessir, BIG fine. In mah estimation, this is gonna hit a million Lunars."

"They're gonna try to weasel out of it, perhaps somehow blame us for setting them up."

"'Setting them up'? How? Their junk was AHEAD of us!"

"Ah would definitely wait until we see what they send to control. Do NOT send them our picture until we see theirs."

Chapter 35
LUNAR LANDING

Three days in free fall towards the moon left Bill's muscles weary from disuse. He wondered at such a thing, that not using the darn things seemed to have made his muscles more tired than hard, heavy work.

The Lunar disk filled the little window and its brightness blinded him. Although the moon only reflected sunlight it seemed like it actually gave off light. It was extremely bright, probably because there was no atmosphere to 'dilute' or absorb the sun's power.

The moon looked like it was itself a source of light, putting out wattage internally, but he knew that was not true; it just reflected well, because the rocks and soil of the moon were more white than black.

Up close there was color, but at a distance the individual colors blended together more-or-less into a sort of grayish white. He squinted at the overlapping craters, different-sized circles bounded by jagged, craggy mountains.

Then he saw Copernicus City. Incredibly, it was so large, so beautiful and prosperous you could see it from orbit, the little spires and domes, lights and roads, a grid here, an array there.

At this height it was hard to see more than patterns of objects and their outlines. But he knew there were several hundred thousand people right there in that one city. There were other cities, smaller, but growing.

He caught himself looking for a runway, and then laughed at himself at the absurdity of the thought. Certainly Earth's soup-thick air, and maybe someday in the thin atmosphere of Mars, but never would Luna's vacuum support the wings of an airplane.

There were line-of-sight power transmission poles along side road surfaces. A train ran between the East Dock of Copernicus and the second largest city Aristarchus.

The train supposedly cruised at over a thousand kilometers an hour, there being no air to impede its speed. It hovered on a cushion of magnetic repulsion.

Even with no air, track friction at that speed would melt even steel wheels, so it levitated on liquid helium superconductor electromagnets an inch from the roadbed, the field crawling along just ahead of the train cars which in vain tried to catch up with the elusive field. It looked like a small tabletop railroad.

Bill caught sight of a smaller craft erupting in a burst of flame, taking off for orbit, probably vacating the very berth they were heading toward. It looked like a surface to air missile from a war movie.

He took a better look through a vacant camera and zoomed in on the ground. With startling clarity in the absence of air he could make out individuals walking and he was amazed at the clarity because they were still in orbit! He wondered if people there looking up could see them, perhaps they looked like a star slowly circling the moon.

Bill knew it was possible to achieve Lunar orbit at fantastically low altitudes. It was theoretically possible for a high velocity shoulder rifle fired at ground level to put a bullet in orbit.

The shooter could actually fire, miss his bull's eye target, have the bullet orbit the moon, and then hit the target having gone all the way around the Moon. Alternately, it was possible (again, theoretically) to fire into the distance only to have the bullet hit in the back of the shooter's head after having made one orbit!

They were not that low; it just seemed that way. The impression of speed was noticeable. Bill knew the pilots depended on safety, speed, and fuel usage.

Some orbital transfers wasted fuel; other maneuvers were relatively efficient. Above all, no one wanted a crash. There was one thing worse than a crash and that was a crash into a habitable structure.

"If you gotta go, you gotta go, but, at least, you don't gotta take no one with you that don't wanta go."

The retro-thrusters fired for a brief time and their ship began its descent because its orbit was killed. The second burn would kill their speed until the ship touched the Lunar surface with a gentle kiss.

Bill disliked the violent-sounding terms, 'bleeding some speed', or 'killing an orbit'. He preferred the terms used by pilots themselves, 'breaking orbit' and 'orbit insertion', 'deorbital burn', 'ascension burn', descension burn'.

Their descent was NOT the most critically calculated burn; ALL of them were critically calculated burns. But, at least, the computers made such calculations easy. The on board lasers knew speed, height, direction, mass of ever-decreasing fuel still aboard, total ever-decreasing mass of the ship, Delta V, duration of burn required, at what strength, in what direction.

The on board computer knew mass of the ship. All the program had to do was calculate thrust angle and intensity and burn duration. It even figured the most economical descent — the one using the least amount of fuel.

The engine built thrust as they got closer. Right near the ground the engines positively roared. Then they tapered off and Bill felt the ship light down with a slight rocking motion from strut to strut. He was on the Moon!

"Yee-haw! Home again!" yelled out Hudson. There was homecoming electricity in the air. Everyone smiled at everyone. There had to have been some relief in surviving the landing, too, thought Bill.

The captain began shutting down systems, flipping switches, mouse clicks, softly spoken software commands and counter-commands into the various computer navigational systems, engine systems, fire control systems, and so forth.

Bill looked out one of the real porthole windows and saw a space-suited figure dragging a hose with some lines attached to it. The man saw him and waved. Bill could see him couple the hose to their ship and felt it connect. The lights flickered. Must be air, power, and com, he thought.

Chapter 36
COPERNICUS CITY

"If you add up the best parts of ancient Imperial Rome, Disneyland, Paris, Oz, New York City, the library of Alexandria, and Heaven you just MIGHT come close to approaching Copernicus."

Steve Hudson said this for Bill's benefit but everyone could tell from the awe in his voice that he felt this with his whole heart and soul.

"Shangrila gets close, too," added Chandler.

"Utopia", put in another.

"Shakespeare's London!"

"Marco Polo's Peking AND Atlantis!"

A bus rolled up to the airlock, the bus driver maneuvering his docking collar with practice and care until the bus sealed against their ship's own external dock. There was a jolt as the two rings matched, one air tight inside the other. Bill heard a PFOOOMP as the final seal aired up to make a leak proof connection.

The passengers' eyes were glued to the lock's hatch whose indicator went from red to green. Captain Billings tested the pressure by opening the door's pinhole, which did not complain of vacuum on the other side with a telltale hiss. He began undogging the hatch and finally swung it wide on its massive hinges.

A lighted, short tunnel connected them to the bus.

"Three at a time, folks. Ladies with babies and small children first, gents."

Bill held back and let the first group through, then the next. Chandler helped passengers through, handing them their bags. Eventually they followed.

Bill, Millimeter, and Dr. Chandler filed into the airlock. As always, the Captain and main crew members would be last.

"My mom and dad will probably be in the main concourse if they are not already on the bus."

Bill nodded to the comment, but the totality of his attention was on the airlock procedure. He had read the instructional course while in space and every feature of the seemingly-simple airlock now came to life: the pressures, hinge loads, exploding bolts, purge systems, emergency lights, air supply, radio and land line. The mere airlock alone was as complex as most things mankind could build, despite its apparent simplicity.

The tube shaped airlock between bus and ship held at most half a dozen people, but for comfort's sake they kept each group at three, four. The whole system was merely a redundant safety precaution because neither hatch on the ship nor hatch at the other end of the short tunnel for entry into the bus really did anything.

But should a catastrophe occur, the bus and ship were separately sealed against vacuum. Bill saw that no one complained about the additional time, that everyone was used to redundant safety rules.

"Theodore!" An oriental woman whose name tag read LEE held her arms out wide and Millimeter raced into her embrace like a magnet. Another adult male Lee stood nearby, grinning, and awaiting his turn.

"Thanks for looking after our boy, Lyle," offered the dad.

They shook hands.

"Thank my new partner, Bill Jones." Bill and Millimeter's parents exchanged greetings and pleasantries.

"When you get settled, Bill, when Dr. Chandler gives you a day off, come by our orchard for a day." She augmented her invitation by giving Bill a huge box, telling him it was 'just a pie', but it must have been several. Bill glanced at the box which proclaimed, APPLE CRATER FARM AND DAIRY with its Lunar On Line web address.

The bus interior was spacious. There was a wide center aisle and the seats lined the walls so that the passengers sat sideways, facing the center aisle. There were no seat belts.

There were two drivers at the controls. No front windows except for tiny portholes. They drove by cameras mounted externally with a large 3D monitor screens positioned in what would have been the front windshield area.

Whining electric motors in the wheels sped them on their way. The ride to the city took several hours. Bill looked out the various outside views by switching from monitor to monitor. They were on some kind of highway.

It actually looked paved with a very smooth surface and the bus sped along at a good clip, the regular highway speed for a vehicle just like on Earth. It felt and looked a bit less than 100 kph, but was hard to be sure because of the lower gravity.

They passed slower traffic and there was oncoming traffic coming at them, buses leaving the city, perhaps for takeoff to ES1. When they passed a car or bus it was in eerie silence because there was no wind noise at all, just the whine of the electric motors and the sound of the tires against the pavement.

An oncoming car passing close did not make a whoosh as they passed each other. Bill wondered how the drivers honked their horns at each other.

Buildings lined the highway just like the interstates on Earth. Signs overhead gave traffic directions and there were advertising signs also, billboards and giant animated lighted signs.

The main dome of the city loomed before them and grew to immense proportions as they approached. Then Bill did a double take: the huge dome before them was NOT the main enclosure.

It was just a preliminary adjacent smaller dome. The size of the thing was incredible, but they passed around it and he finally saw their true destination, the grandfather of all geodesic domes, Copernicus City's main enclosure.

The bus jostled them as it jolted across the construction area outside the city. Dozens and dozens of men in vacuum suits were toiling on a foundation site. Some men were driving pressurized bulldozers and cranes.

All of this activity was in eerie silence. The men obviously were all tuned to the same radio frequency and were able to hear each other. There were girders and beams being erected. Bill saw a half dozen temporary construction shacks, consisting of blow-up igloos with blow-up airlocks for entry and exit.

They reentered a paved roadway after passing the construction area and picked up speed again. A large cavern, lit well, was their destination. Bill expected to exit by means of the little airlock again, three at a time, but this time they merely drove into the tunnel.

Large, slow moving, massive doors began to close. They looked in the multi-ton range. When sealed shut, Bill began to hear a hissing and the entire cavern began to fill with air, an immense amount.

It took several minutes. Frost began forming around the small portholes and Bill thought he began to hear outside sounds again.

Eventually, the pressure equalized and Billings went through his test hole safety ritual again. He swung the lock open and everyone got to leave without waiting for the doors to cycle.

The room was larger than garage size. It had capacity for several moon-mobiles, but theirs was the only vehicle there. The driver began checking his exteriors with a flashlight for damage, filling in check marks and photographing panels as he went. Moon dust clung to everything. It caked the treads of the light wheels and their bus had left a mess on the floor. Bill worried that the dust might clog the door hatch, obstructing a vacuum seal.

"I'm for drinks at Harold's!" suggested Hudson. "Who's with me?"

Several of the men hailed his suggestion and the group of them left.

"Not too much in the way of customs or immigration, I'm afraid," commented Chandler. He said this as a brag more than an apology. "We're on our own."

He trundled his several duffels full of equipment and baggage and Bill helped him load it all on a trolley. It was way top-heavy, but they secured the load with bungees and Bill pulled it along as they entered the main door lock.

It was a people-sized revolving door, just like the kind you might see in an office building. The glass was actually vacuum strength plastic and the door could be secured in case of an emergency and was, no doubt, extremely reliable.

The concourse beyond was flooded day-bright and if ES1 was a market place, Copernicus was its grandfather.

It seemed to go on and on and on forever. Bill looked up and the roof was lost to him, balconies overlooking other balconies.

Aerial crosswalks, impossibly slender and seemingly unsupported, crisscrossed everywhere above the dense foot traffic. There were cable ski lifts whose gondolas were packed. He saw people casually jump off second story doorways — an every day occurrence, a normal exit in this light gravity.

"We're going to drop in at Harold's," admitted Chandler. "It's kind of a tradition." He grinned in embarrassment.

.

Harold's was down a side street and a gaudy, broken, blinking LED sign proclaimed H*A*R*O*L*D*S next to an LED outline of an impossibly proportioned, scantily clad, smiling woman.

There were dual swinging doors you had to push through, doors waist high like the kind you see in Western movies but nowhere else. Just like a Western movie there was a bar along the whole length of the room. It looked like a Western movie set, complete with a man in mid-Nineteenth Century dress playing ragtime piano.

The barkeepers were similarly attired, one with a huge walrus mustache, the other with overly long hair parted in the middle. He wore tiny gold eyeglasses whose lenses were only coin size.

They both wore homely collarless shirts buttoned to the top and had on sleeve garters. A wagon wheel chandelier lighted the room and many men sat at different tables playing cards.

A woman in dance hall attire from yesteryear sashayed up to Chandler flouncing her feathered boa.

"Hello, sailor. New in town? Who's your friend?"

"Bill, I'd like you to meet Harold, the owner and namesake of this fine establishment. Harold, this is my new partner, Bill."

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am."

"Likewise. And welcome. Lyle, you show him a good time!"

She flounced away to greet other customers, lost in her Wild West persona. She was a social butterfly, catalyst to business and smiled her way rapidly up to a heated argument over a detail in drunken card play. She arrived and immediately smoothed the waters.

"Well, I suppose we had better get our drink." Chandler ran his hand through his hair. "I don't drink alcohol myself. How about a couple of sasparillas?"

Bill nodded. "I never had sasparilla. Is it like root beer?"

Chandler admitted this and they were both served a couple of ice-cold German-looking 'Bier steins'. The pointed metal flip tops were not just decoration; it was very easy to spill in the low gravity and the tops kept the level of beer slosh down as men gestured while holding their drinks.

The huge liter-sized drinks weighed only a sixth as much and people had a tendency to hold them aloft more than set them down. Since they were so light a large drink container became a gesture device, all-important to the men.

"So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear — there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system."
— Milton Friedman

"Much business and most Lunar politics are carried on here. The card play, drinks, and apparent indolence are a sham. The people in here run the Moon and plan its future. All commerce, all decisions. All the law and policy come out of Harold's."

THE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT

"Government has three primary functions:

It should provide for military defense of the nation.

It should enforce contracts between individuals.

It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property."

— Milton Friedman

"When government — in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost comes in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player."
— Milton Friedman

Chandler paused, then, because he could not help himself in his zealous almost-religious fervor, added, "This is God's own beer hall. Angels and good men only." He almost whispered it in awe.

"Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power. Government is necessary to preserve our freedom, it is an instrument through which we can exercise our freedom; yet by concentrating power in political hands, it is also a threat to freedom. Even though the men who wield this power initially be of good will and even though they be not corrupted by the power they exercise, the power will both attract and form men of a different stamp."
— Milton Friedman

Bill looked around at the card games. The men were all talking as they played, nodding and listening. Was this the famed Lunar Autonomy? It was certainly at the citizen level.

"Dr. Chandler, what about the Earth governments? And businesses from Earth like Pearsons and TLC?"

"Well, they don't come here much, not unless there is a problem. If so, then they come calling."

As if on cue, the swinging double doors opened and a group of red suited TLC men entered the place. Equally on cue, the place suddenly became silent as everyone looked to see them enter.

"The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government."
— Milton Friedman

There was a silence of expectation. Everyone waited to hear what the visit was about. It had to be official.

Bill recognized the Poster Boy, but he was not the spokesman. The TLC people looked around defensively, arrogantly with smirks on their faces. A couple of them had their arms folded defensively across their chests.

An older man led the group and was their spokesman. He looked around until he saw Chandler, then walked up to their table.

"Hello, Lyle. Heard you'd returned from ES1. How's things?"

Rather than answer immediately, Chandler began by demonstrating his manners. So, rather than reply to 'How's things?' he introduced the TLC guy to Bill and vice versa.

"Bill, this is Marshawn Merriweather from TLC. Marshawn, this is Bill Jones, my new partner."

Merriweather kept eyes locked on Chandler, merely nodded, not even making the briefest eye contact with Bill. It was a total snub, an acknowledgment of Chandler's introduction, but not an acknowledgment of Bill's humanity. It was the rankest behavior, arrogance beyond belief.

Merriweather's nod left a dead zone. Neither man now had the conversational lead and Chandler did not fill the dead air. He took a swig of root beer.

"Your boys thirsty? They could sit down, you know."

Merriweather ignored the offer and kept on the offensive. He got right to the point.

"If you dome over Aristarchus it forces us around the long way. We want you to vacate. There are plenty of other craters. The route to our own crater, Kepler, passes directly through Aristarchus."

"Yes, there are several hundred thousand other suitable craters, but I have been living in that one for twenty-two years and have grown fond of it and had no compelling reason to leave."

"You don't live there much any more. It was once TLC and you know it."

Merriweather made reference to the deaths of Chandler's family, that he had not been living much at Aristarchus since their deaths. He had rented an apartment near the East dock.

"Yes and our contract is very plain. You kept assets put forth on the sales document — all of them — and I kept Aristarchus — all of it."

"How much to vacate? Cash. Gold. Right now."

The entire room was listening to the conversation.

"Make me an offer. Put it in writing. Register the offer with The Lunar Authority. I will consider the offer. I may reject it, counter it, or accept it, but I want the terms public and documented."

"The law is clear, Chandler. If you do not maintain residence in Aristarchus you cannot bar right of way through the tunnel walls for our shortcut to Kepler.

"Well, I'm real sorry about you losing your shortcut, but under the circumstances of the Contest I feel compelled to bar entry — trade secrets, you know."

Merriweather abruptly got up out of his chair. He acted like he had been insulted and stormed out the doors and his red suited lackeys followed.

"Don't let the doors hit you in the butt as you leave!" shouted Steve Hudson. By this he repeated the old joke about leaving so very fast that the swinging door would not even have time to swing back. In other words, 'please leave as fast as possible; you are not wanted here'.

"Just got back a few minutes ago and already they cause us trouble," commented Billings. "Dr. Chandler, what's up? How come they want your crater? What's so important about your place? Is it that contest?"

Chandler nodded. "I picked it out twenty-five years ago. The walls are high and it's perfectly round. It's the most perfect crater on the Moon. I knew then two decades ago that I would some day roof it over. I just did not know how. Still don't. But the time is right and now we have this contest. So TLC wants to win very badly. They need the prestige and the money and the control. They think winning this contest will put more Earth politicians in their back pocket."

Chandler spoke in conversational tones to Billings but everyone in the place had listened in. It was a public comment and Chandler's assessment of TLC's position was also publicly acknowledged. He took a swallow and continued.

"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."
— Ayn Rand

"Me? I'm entering the contest too, but for different reasons, not even necessarily to win — although that would be nice — but rather just to participate and mostly just to live here and make a place for others to come and live here also."

"I feel the same way. I think all of us do. Even the losers in this contest win. Win through participation."

Chapter 37
RED HERRING

"Do we take the train or the bus?" asked Bill.

"Neither. There are also overland car or rocket taxi, but I want to show you an emergency route. We're going to go by foot part way."

They left Harolds with their gear still piled high aboard the luggage trolley.

"I want to get home as soon as possible, but TLC is expecting me to go by either train or bus. They will be watching my residence at Aristarchus and also the apartment I have rented near East dock in Copernicus, but I have established a third home in the Placida Crater. We just have to go there without anyone seeing us."

Bill wondered what he had gotten himself into.

"So, we're 'avoiding' them?" he asked.

"Definitely. I don't want them to know where we are. This contest is important.

"But... but... Don't they know where you live? Where you work?"

Chandler grinned wickedly. "Of course, they do. But we're not going to either place. That crater of mine they want to go through so badly — it's a red herring! They're welcome to go around it. We have a better one. Remember, this is a contest. A contest is all about speed. And it's also all about Trade Secrets. With all the people they've got, all they have to do is allocate a coupla people to do a little industrial espionage. Maybe they even got a remote camera or two. We're checking on that, of course — the camera, I mean — by monitoring radio emissions from the rim of the crater."

"So where are we really going?"

Still grinning, Chandler withdrew a map and pointed to a small crater East of Copernicus, to the right side of the map, but it meant nothing to Bill until Chandler explained.

"Right here. Out in the boonies, Crater Placida. We're well along on the project, but well off the beaten path, on the East side of Copernicus, not the West. All building and expansion has occurred West of Copernicus. That's because the train and the space port lie to the West. TLC does not even know about Placida and in many structural ways it is a better crater for the contest than Aristarchus. I'll build Aristarchus later, perhaps ten years from now."

Chandler stabbed a small crater West of Copernicus, "This is Aristarcus, West of Copernicus. A bad line of steep hills keeps you from going easily any further west of it unless you go through Aristarchus. Just West of Aristarchus is Kepler, the TLC crater. Merriweather and I surveyed Kepler and Aristarchus years ago when we were partners at TLC. We registered claim to Aristarchus, but not Kepler. The craters are boxed on either side by the rough route. You more or less have to go through Aristarchus to get to Kepler. When we dissolved partnership I agreed that Merriweather would buy me out with so much cash. At the last minute he was unable to come up with the whole amount. We rewrote the contract and I agreed to take a lesser sum of money along with full rights to Aristarchus. In fact, the crater in lieu of cash was Merriweather's own idea."

"But didn't Mr. Merriweather box himself into a corner? Didn't he understand about the difficulty of the route to Kepler?"

Chandler shrugged. "I never said he was smart. TLC did not own Kepler at that time. Merriweather only put his eyes on Kepler later and discovered, to his horror, the mistake he had made in selling me Aristarchus. Whoever owns Kepler needs to own Aristarchus and whoever owns Aristarchus needs to own Kepler. As it is, I own Aristarchus — the gateway crater — and Merriweather owns Kepler."

Chandler paused. "Besides, Merriweather doesn't care too much about the contest. The floor of Kepler has veins of gold and silver. He wants to strip mine it, not enclose it. Aristarchus is full of mineral deposits, also, but to me, its real worth is its potential as an enclosure."

They had been pushing and pulling the gear laden trolley along the inside edge of Copernicus, following its inner circle. Bill wanted in the worst way to see the city enclosed by the 25 kilometer geodesic dome. He looked up and the roof was impossible to fathom.

"No sense walking. You can see the sights later — as much as you want. I know you're bursting to take in the tourist attractions, but I really want to get going on our task."

They pulled up to a small crowd waiting for a trolley. There were no tracks and Bill watched it pull up, driverless, a long string of what looked like a golf cart train. Some people got off and Chandler helped Bill toss his huge duffel across two seats in front of them and they took the pair of seats behind. The software's cameras sensed everyone safely seated and the train continued its route. Every half mile or so it stopped to discharge and load passengers. Bill took the time to look around.

"Most people without gear take the slidewalks. They go all over." He indicated an overhead ribbon of fast moving people standing in a column, some reading, some clustered in pairs or trios, even standing backwards, zipping across town.

"If you have a really big load — like our ship cargo — most people just wheel it through the city on carts. After they offload the ship I might send you back to retrieve it. But first we'll stow gear at my apartment and get situated.

After an hour of golf cart trolley they disembarked and pulled Bill's duffel down a sidewalk.

"I took this place after my family got killed. I'm leasing it by the year. Heck, I might even buy it. The owner is a friend of mine.

"You see, after my wife and kids got killed I was afraid of being alone. We had been living at Aristarchus for some years — that was our main home — but just a short time before they died — just a few months — we were secretly moving to Placida. There is a small habitat there, big enough but not sumptuous. I plan on us living in the habitat until we dome over the entire crater."

They arrived at Chandler's rented apartment. It was in the industrial part of town, near the East dock. The place was sort of like a loft apartment in Manhattan: a nice assemblage of furniture in the corner of what had once been a factory or warehouse.

"If you can manage, Bill, I want to get going. We'll return here from time to time to buy supplies and so forth, but most of our work will be at Placida.

Having so said, they stowed Bill's surplus — actually, just left it on the middle of the living room floor.

East lock was a short walk. It was not as big as the main West lock. When they cycled through it was in the middle of the night and the lock was virtually vacant. Just a couple of shift workers returning home. They were the only people exiting.

The lock pumped down and Bill followed Chandler out. There were not as many signs, almost no crowd. The billboards blinked, showed little movies — some in 3D — and road signs listed distances.

"We will walk for a short jaunt, but then switch to overland transportation. You'll like it; I guarantee!"

They had been walking along a hard ridged outcropping in the shadow of a rill. Though the suits were well insulated, Bill instinctively knew that while in sunlight they had a couple hundred degrees of heat, while their feet, in shadow, had a couple hundred below zero. Lunar temperature was always roast or freeze.

The landscape was not drab. It was devoid of vegetation, sound, life, but not color. The soil and rocks were varied to an incredible degree, not just gray.

Up ahead, leaning against a boulder, but out of sight of satellite surveillance cameras were a couple of spindly contraptions; Bill was unable to make them out exactly, then — in sudden recognition — his heart leapt. Bicycles! They were traveling by bike.

"Way big diameter spoked rims, each two meters across, but the tires are fat, too — as big as tractor inner tubes. Very low pressure tires. They're geared for any terrain: very fast on the flats in high. Granny gear will take you straight up; if you can get traction, you can go."

Bill marveled at the spindly, shiny things. They were hung with panniers and baskets, one red, the other blue and white.

There were oxygen bottles and provisions of every type. On Earth each fully laden bike would have weighed twelve hundred pounds, but here only a couple hundred.

"Remember the story of Icarus? He got too excited and flew too near the sun. Be very careful on this rig.

"It's hard to get going, but on the straight away, because there is no air resistance, you can easily get going several hundred miles an hour. That's something we're not ever going to do, though, because a crash at that speed is definitely a suit ripper.

"It's hard to stop, too, because of momentum. We're going to lope along at a safe snail's pace, maybe thirty at most, usually less."

Chapter 38
BICYCLE JOURNEY

It took an hour to stow and check the gear. It grew cold in the shadow of the ridge they were in and Bill had to kick in his heater.

Both front and rear wheels had massive panniers with carriers on both sides. Additional gear was lashed outboard each pannier, front and back, left and right.

Additionally, both front and rear wheels had large cargo platforms atop each wheel. Bill cinched down the various loads, checked and rechecked each for snug fit.

He stepped back to examine the image. The six foot diameter wheels each held a huge load on each side, then additional cargo atop flat pallet-sized platforms over each wheel. No camel, nor even elephant could carry such a burden.

"Okay. Bill, when the road narrows, forcing us to go single file I'll take point. Right now the road is wide enough for us to go side by side and I'll give you some instructions on how to drive this rig."

Chandler put his gloved space suit hand up high over his head and grabbed one side of the handlebar. He then gingerly put one space suit boot on a step and swung up his entire body which catapulted about six foot off the ground and landed him on the Lunar bicycle's saddle.

"Leave your kickstand in place until you're ready to pedal off."

Bill copied his mentor and launched himself up onto his own saddle.

"Steering's easy, just like on Earth. Don't worry about that; you won't fall. What I'm going to teach you is how to avoid spills and what to do if you have one. There are some electricity and shade controls also."

Having said that, Chandler pressed a dashboard control button which caused a motorized umbrella to deploy; it was huge.

"Hardly ever rains here; it's a SUNBRELLA."

He demonstrated the kickstand by merely pedaling which caused the kickstand to fold back out of the way. He glanced back and by his look invited Bill to follow.

The pedals were just like bicycles on Earth with one exception. Standing up and putting your entire weight on a pedal would never do here, not in this light gravity. Instead, you pedaled in a more recumbent leg position so that you could press your back against a back rest.

Bill forced against a pedal and he was off. The bike moved forward, wobbled, and he corrected with the handlebars.

The massive momentum resisted unexpectedly. The load was low in weight but just as resistant to change direction as it would have been on Earth where it weighed six times as much as here.

"Think of it as 1200 pounds you want to start, stop, and turn."

There was quite a view of the road from this height, like sitting on a camel, or a six foot ladder. The road they were traveling resembled any garden variety bulldozed gravel road on Earth, no ruts, no weeds on the side, no other traffic.

"We can stay in the shadow of this ridge for another couple hours. That way we'll be invisible to any satellites with cameras.

"In a couple hours more we can get into the sunlight, but we'll be invisible to satellite cameras. I didn't file an itinerary, but we do have a prearranged radio check with a friend on the hour, every hour, so I do have a safety back up."

The ridge on their right was a sheer cliff which looked like it went up forever. The other side of the road was a drop off.

Bill wondered who had dynamited the road and for what purpose. They still rode side by side but he did not like to get near the drop off and rode nervously in silence.

"The gear shift lever's on your right, the big red one. It's range is granny gear for steep hill climbing all the way up to a gear so high I never had courage to use it. Probably get up to a couple hundred miles and hour.

"Over to your left is the umbrella; give it a try."

The umbrella dutifully unfolded. It unfolded with complex multiple expansions and the amount of coverage was huge, all of the bike and then some.

He knew immediately that the danger of it being deployed included side clearance, that it could interfere with an adjacent rider or the cliff wall to his right. That its huge size was not at whim of the wind took some getting use to.

"We're in the shade now, so the umbrella is useless for this stretch of road. Go ahead and stow it again until we get into sunlight. Check out your temperature gauge when we're out of the shade. That umbrella will cool things off quite a bit. The battery will charge, too."

Bill had done his reading in transit and knew the umbrella served double-duty, not just a shade-maker, but also an electricity maker. Its topmost surface was one huge photovoltaic array. It produced enough power that the excess could be stored in batteries for the 14 day Lunar night.

So, really, the sunbrella was not just an option to cool off a space suit. It supplied necessary electricity, without which, one stranded in a suit would die for lack of heat.

The electricity thus generated could also be used to convert the oxides in ground soil into breathable oxygen. It took a lot of power to make heat and air and Bill saw that the worry about a safe margin of both would quickly turn him into a belt AND suspenders man.

"Let's say your pedals broke, the chain, perhaps. Or, let's say you got a broken leg.

"The electric drive converts this rig from bicycle to motorcycle. This thing is actually like a moped, pedal or engine. It's either MO or PED or both. The right hand grip is the throttle.

"Remember, though, it uses up juice if you run the motor. Sometimes, if you have an emergency — a broken leg, say — you don't have a choice. A small leak in the suit — one that you can't get sealed good — will leak less if you aren't pedaling."

Bill had read about the details of Shorty Johnson's death. His left leg, from the knee down had been crushed by a mountain of rock.

Shorty had put a tourniquet around his leg, just above the knee, then used a reciprocating saw to remove his own leg below that point. He sprayed quick drying sealant on the stump, then awkwardly mounted his bicycle and headed back to Copernicus as fast as the electric motor would take him.

He had radioed in his progress and reported speeds exceeding 200 mph on the flatter, straight stretches. He said his tourniquet and seal were not holding against vacuum and his blood loss was pretty severe.

He almost made it.

That well publicized experience goaded many people into action to invent a workable tourniquet and seal under such conditions. Bill had discussed it with Steve Hudson who advised waiting it out in a transfer bag.

"A tourniquet that will work okay under 15 pounds per square inch will leak under zero pounds per square inch. So, what you do is, get in your bag, keep the tourniquet as tight as possible, then you can compensate for blood loss by turning up oxygen content way high.

"Try to pressurize the bag to two atmospheres. You'll be all right that way."

Bill held a sense of wonder for the self reliance demonstrated by the Lunar people. No safety net. You were your own safety net. Nature was not forgiving and conditions could get lethal any time.

On Earth, any time a person died or got injured — his own fault or not — lawyers immediately sued anybody within ear shot if there was money to be made. All the safety precautions on Earth were in place to prevent legal backlash, not because of the safety issue itself.

But he sensed people here loved the Moon, loved the vacuum, the empty space, even the danger. They did not court danger like adrenalin junkies on Earth, risking death with extreme sports. Actually, Lunar people were extremely safety conscious and took almost no chances.

He noticed they seemed to love their fellow man, too. They loved each other because they shared the experience of loving the Moon. It was home. It was Heaven.

The cliff wall to their right got lower and lower, then suddenly vanished and Bill watched in horror as the thermometer on his dash began to climb to an impossibly high figure. He heard his suit a/c compressor kick in to a higher mode, then the circulating fan stepped up, too.

"Go ahead and deploy your sunbrella again, Bill."

He did and, immediately, the temperature gauge dropped. Simultaneously the battery registered CHARGING instead of DISCHARGING.

As soon as they hit the full sunlight his visor automatically rolled down completely, fully covering his face.

But he was now anything but blind. Instead of merely seeing through the window of his visor glass he now saw the world projected into his eyes onto the twin eyeglass displays he wore.

Actually, now he could see better through the adjustable cameras. They were excellent. He saw stereoscopically — in 3D — and in enhanced color. He could zoom like a telescope and could unzoom for closeup — even microscopic detail.

It selectively showed suit readings, telemetry, power, compass heading, temp, time, distance, GPS, radio frequency, maps. The interface was as transparent as the view. It linked to his phone, his reader, medical, wiring diagrams, rear view cameras, even his comrade's cameras.

Chapter 39
BIVOUAC

"This stretch is flat, smooth and everyone would be tempted to speed up. I have actually been thrown off at over 30 mph. Obviously, I survived. You tumble a LONG time on the Moon. The big thing most people worry about, of course, is a suit puncture — especially a cracked helmet. But actually, a cracked helmet hardly ever happens and small punctures are usually very manageable.

"The worst things that can really happen are loss of power or loss of camera vision. Think about it: there you are, visor locked down, blind, heating up, cooking in your own suit. It's not a pretty picture. So, with that in mind, we will resist temptation and remain at about 15 mph."

They plodded along like this for hours. The batteries charged up to full and still they went on.

After a few hours Bill's stomach told him it was lunchtime. So did his time readout.

"What say we pull over for chow, Bill? I'll show you how to set up a bivouac."

Chandler pulled over and slowed to a near stop. He set the kickstand and lit from the saddle. Bill did likewise but did not get too close, for he was afraid of the two umbrellas touching.

Chandler reached up over his head and undid the bungies on the rear wheel. "Always pack your emergency stuff on one side, the side you get off. That way you don't have to run around the bike, back and forth."

He trundled their shelter away from the bikes. Bill noticed Chandler carefully carried it, did not drag is in the dirt.

"Normally, Bill, we would hook up air lines from the cylinders on the bike and wait for it to slowly inflate. That takes seven minutes on this model. In an emergency that would be too much time, so there is an alternative which I want to show you."

He laid out the shelter into a rough circle, top side up, then hit the EMERGENCY INFLATE button. The bag exploded into being about three-quarters full. It was still wrinkled, but the wrinkles were beginning to disappear as it continued filling, albeit more slowly. There was a limp airlock protrusion, a double-door entry tunnel.

"There is no air in the airlock the first time you get in. The first man goes in, seals the OUTER door; when he opens the INNER door, air spills from the main bag into the little airlock. The first man goes into the main bag and reseals the INNER door.

"If you have time you can pump air out of the airlock into the main chamber. If you don't, you can 'blow the lock'. Unfortunately, that spills the air in the airlock out onto the moon and wastes it. The second man can open the outer door either way, inflated or deflated. After getting in the lock, the second man then seals the OUTER door, opens the INNER door, goes in the main bag, and, finally, reseals the INNER door. That way both doors are left sealed for safety and the airlock is full of air.

"Now. Safety. Let's say some bozo shows up unannounced and opens the outer door? If the two guys inside neglected to close the inner door, they will be exposed unexpectedly to explosive decompression. So, here's the rule: whenever anyone opens the inner door or outer door or ANY door, everyone has a suit on. Rule 2: any time you can do so, keep both doors sealed.

"Before we go in there are things to do." He set up still yet another sunbrella over the shelter. The shade of it cooled the shelter and this third sunbrella also began creating electricity.

Chandler went back to the bike and retrieved a large alloy cannister. It was quite a good size container, over a yard across, just as high. It had a flip-top with a gasket and a stout-looking vacuum seal. He began filling it with gray topsoil using a long handled shovel. When the container was about half full Chandler sealed it and connected a power cable to the cannister.

Bill already knew what it was but, except for training videos, had never seen such a device in action before. Chandler connected an air hose to the cannister, a hose that led to an empty air cylinder.

He got out another cannister from Bill's similarly equipped bike and also filled it with Lunar dirt. This time he did something different. He did not hook up a heater. He got out a Fresnel lens and focused a beam of the fierce sunlight onto a target area, one apparently intended for that purpose. Then he hooked up the airline to another small, empty oxygen cylinder.

"Method 1 uses electric power to heat up the oxides. Method 2 uses sunlight only. Both methods work equally well. You can use method 1 when it's dark.

"It takes an hour to cook. After an hour is up, you have to do it all over again."

"How much does each make?"

"That's the problem. Each batch makes less than the air you spill cycling the lock. So, if push comes to shove, and you need air badly enough to do this, you would want to stay in your suit and not go back and forth from shelter to suit."

Now Chandler smiled wickedly. "Fortunately, Jeeves is here. Turns out our buddy Jeeves likes vacuum well enough to work in it." Chandler retrieved the little wheeled robot and set it down on the Lunar surface. He turned it on with his remote and tested the robot's motors by scooting it back and forth on its treads. It went through its power-up rituals, sort of like an athlete warming up for an event. Satisfied, Chandler motioned for Bill to enter the shelter.

Bill crawled into the limp airlock by backing into it. He pulled the oversized zipper talon down, making sure the zipper did not foul on the side fabric. Right at the bottom where the zipper ended was a twist valve in the center of a green and red color coded circular patch labeled FILL LOCK and EMPTY LOCK. He twisted green and the airlock began to fill. Once full, a readout proclaimed ENTER MAIN STRUCTURE.

Bill unzipped the door in between lock and shelter and crawled in. It was about as big as a good sized dome tent, this model not quite tall enough to stand up in comfortably, but it exceeded six feet, at least in the center. The floor area was flat, though, maybe twelve, fifteen feet across. It was not spherical.

As soon as he got in he zipped down the door.

"I have closed the inner door, Dr. Chandler."

"Okay, let's demo airlock deflation by recovery with the pump."

Bill heard the pump chugga chugga, recovering a good bit, but not all, of the air. He heard the last part whoosh out of the airlock as Chandler entered it and repeated the process.

Once inside, alongside Bill, Chandler pointed out the read out panel.

"Never trust it, but check it first anyway. It shows 15 lbs per square inch. Sea level on Earth. It shows 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, one of us — that will be me — will test to see if the readings are true. Test 1. My suit also says 15 and 60. Test 2. I'm going to crack my suit with a test valve."

He twisted a small auxiliary valve for air supply inlet on his torso.

"I hear a very small equalization — half a pound or so — but nothing further. Test 3. I need to make sure the air is breathable, that it's got an oxygen content, that it isn't just nitrogen or something."

He pointed again to the display which said it was 80/20 mix — 80 percent nitrogen, 20 percent oxygen — just like Earth.

"My suit reads the same. We also have these."

There was a little colored patch on his sleeve. Outside, in the vacuum, it had been blue. Now it was pink.

"Test 4." Chandler cracked his helmet gasket, took a few breaths, waited a minute, then proclaimed," I don't feel light headed."

Bill waited for Chandler to take off his helmet, but he only loosened it, then shut down the suit's air supply.

"Don't take off your helmet unless you have to. In case of need it is only a moment for me to seal up and repower my suit. In fact, I don't even have to. Madam Chang added a safety feature. In case we lose air explosively, rendering me unconscious, my helmet automatically reseals and power comes back on. I don't have to do anything. Your suit, too. I hope we don't ever have to test it."

Having so said, Dr, Chandler then admitted helmet removal was necessary for eating regular MREs in the shelter. For these, Bill — as more-or-less official cook — did the honors.

After their quick meal Chandler leaned back against the wall of the shelter on his side and encouraged Bill to take five on his side.

"When we snooze, we take turns. I'm going to shut my eyes for ten minutes. I've set my alarm. You stay awake during this time. Then it'll be your turn. There are only two of us, so it seems harsh. With a whole group of people it's not bad at all."

"Uh, Dr. Chandler, what do you do if you are by yourself?"

"Well, your chances of survival are much lower but, still, there are other precautions you can take. I'll teach you everything I know in due course."

Chandler conked and Bill called up the external visuals. He panned the cameras all around. The Earth hung low in the sky. He looked up and the constellations were incredible. There was no atmosphere to obscure the sky and all the stars were brilliant. He could see that the stars had color. Not just yellow, but red, blue, green, orange. They looked like jewels.

He switched back to the cannisters and called up the internal read outs of the cylinders. The oxides within the cans had heated up enough to release oxygen from the rocks.

Oxygen gas filled the cans gradually, but at low pressure. Pumps evacuated the cans in turn and filled the little oxygen sausages.

Bill did not know how much oxygen there was in each load of moon dirt, but he suspected it might be time to dump the load and start another batch. Ten minutes went by faster than he knew and Chandler's alarm went off.

"Dr. Chandler, I'm too keyed up to sleep. I don't feel tired and I think I would just sit here bored. Could I watch Jeeves start a new batch?"

"Okay with me. I'm very curious how the thing will do. It's a programmed routine. We have to help it along with the remote and need to shape its behavior."

He turned on Jeeves whose readout proclaimed his systems awake and ready. Chandler selected MAKE OXYGEN from a list and Bill watched the treads of the robot go in fits and starts as it considered.

Chandler got a response INDICATE CANNISTER. He directed the robot towards the first can he had filled, the electrically heated one. The robot approached it and one of its hands reached out and flipped the heater to the OFF position. Another hand twisted the bleed off valve which evacuated the can. A third hand popped the top and the can opened. The robot upended the can and dumped its spent load of now-oxygenless rock. It began filling the can with fresh dirt, sealed it, turned on the heater. Chandler repeated the procedure with the second can, the same except for the variations of sunlight lens instead of electric heater.

"Has no one ever done something like this before?" asked Bill.

"No," Chandler grinned. "This is the first time. This is absolutely great." He looked at Bill and explained. "Of course, on a very large scale this is how all air is made on the Moon, so on a large industrial scale, this is exactly how it's done. But at this small individual scale," he indicated with his hand, "we are making history here."

Chandler watched the little robot in awe. It had a little shovel which it used to fill the cannisters. Its dainty little hand deftly removed the spent rock with its own little shovel.

Chandler thought of something and explained about the airlock some more.

"Remember the emergency inflation I showed you? Normally, I said this model took about seven minutes to inflate in a regular manner, but the emergency inflate got up air pressure in about 30 seconds. But remember, you need more time than that because you have the lock to contend with. You have to zip the outer door, inflate the lock, then open the inner door. That's great, but it's not enough time in a real emergency. There is still yet a faster way to get pressure.

"Crawl backwards into the airlock while the bag is still deflated. The INNER door is zipped shut. As soon as you get in, twist the filler valve open and begin inflating the lock itself. Ignore the main bag for the time being. Zip the outer door as fast as possible. The airlock will about half inflate in about ten seconds. After the lock has begun filling hit the emergency inflate button. As soon as you hit that button, open the inner door.

"I know people still alive today who have done this after catastrophic suit failure. Your ears will ring from the pressure change, I guarantee, but you'll save your life."

Chapter 40
PLACIDA

Chandler showed Bill how to break camp after their meal and rest. Stowing tent and oxygen making equipment was just the reversal of setup. Bill felt like an old hand as he lashed gear to his bike panniers.

"The little robot feels more like a person than a piece of equipment now," commented Bill.

Chandler laughed and agreed. "I know what you mean; feel that way myself."

They rode into shade again and Chandler advised sunbrella stowage. They were outside a crater wall from the looks of it. A thirty foot wall to their right protected them from the sun. This shade was provided by the rim of a circular crater enclosed by that wall. Bill could see its curvature, as they approached it, that it receded in both directions. He tried to estimate the size of the circle.

Chandler led the way and slowed to just about as slow a pace as the bike could be balanced. He came upon a break in the crater's rim, a place where someone had been digging. A yellow electric bulldozer was parked to the side. It had done some major excavation work, for tons and tons of rock that had been dug out was not merely piled up uselessly; it now reinforced the crater wall.

The mouth of a tunnel bored right into the side of the wall, straight through to the inside of the crater. It was flat on the bottom, though it slanted downward a few degrees. Its walls were straight up, maybe twelve feet high and had a curved top. Chandler led the way and carefully threaded his bike through. The tunnel was ten feet wide, enough for the bikes to clear easily, so long as their sunbrellas were stowed.

Bill could see that the tunnel was not long because fierce sunlight showed at the other end. The length of the tunnel was the thickness of the crater rim at the bottom.

He had to use his brakes because they were coasting downhill to enter the crater. At first he wondered why this was so. Why would the crater floor be at a lower level?

The crater floor was lower than the surrounding land because nearly all craters were like this. The meteor millions of years ago that blasted into the Moon left the floor of the interior at a lower level. It was as though it had been dug out for them serendipitously just for this engineering effort to put a top on the crater.

When they broke through he saw the size of it. He and Chandler were on the inside rim of a perfectly circular crater, The Placida Crater. The walls around them were somewhere on the range for fifty to a hundred feet high.

He found it difficult to assess scale. Having to look up at a steep angle combined with the difficulty on the Moon for judging size and distance made this an imprecise task.

Moreover, Bill was city-bred and had no such similar experience on the terrain of Earth. His kit included a laser range finder, but he did not take it out.

The floor was rubble-strewn and more or less flat except at the exact center. The rubble size was everything from dust all the way up to refrigerator size, but it was smooth enough that you could ride a bike across it if you carefully threaded your way around larger obstacles.

The centers of many craters — both on the Moon and also on Earth — were characterized by having a peaked mass at the exact center that looked like a stalagmite in a cave.

It was the place where molten meteorite material had thrown up a pillar of rock that had cooled and solidified. It had been weathered by temperature fluctuations of sunlight and darkness for — how long? — Bill did not know. Perhaps only a few thousand years, perhaps millions, maybe even billions. Without rain and wind to help erosion, weathering took a slower pace than on Earth.

Chandler led the way to that pillar.

"The walls are no less than 75 feet tall all the way around. The center pillar is an incredible 50 feet. We plan to erect a building, a skyscraper around the pillar, a building that will be the central structure. The solid central structure is a sort of anchor point of strength and height already in place and we plan to utilize it.

"We're going to put a central mast on top of the pillar. We will be above the rim of the crater at the center. It will be the peak of a central dome. After the central column is in place we will build a canopy spider web fashion, fill in the web, then inflate the structure. The amount of air we need is incredible. It will take months to fill."

They continued on the bike path that led to the pillar. Against the side of it was a jumble of equipment, girders, poles, motors, coils of rope, electrical lines, and the ever-present green, spare oxygen cylinders.

The center stalagmite had another tunnel opening in it. This one, about the same as the one through the rim had been drilled directly through the massive stalagmite. Midway through it was a side passage, one filled with a massive pressure dome. It was a tent just like their emergency bivouac only much larger. Its airlock was stand-up height. You walked into it and could actually even ride a bike in — it was that large. The door was metal as was the door frame which cheered Bill. He did not yet trust fabric and zipper. Chandler parked his bike and Bill did likewise. The tunnel was covered by shade, of course, but sunlight streamed in from both entrances.

"This airlock will hold both of us easily," explained Chandler.

They cycled through the lock and Chandler once again explained its intricacies as they did so. When he opened up the inner door Bill saw his new home, his new work area, and his new life, the life he had been dreaming of for years.

It was beautiful! A huge single room dominated his view. Its lights had turned on as they entered. Against one wall was a complete kitchen. Next to it was an enclosed bathroom area. Following around, he saw bedroom, living room, another bedroom, office area, workshop area, another bedroom area, another bathroom, then storage.

It had started out as an uninflated bag. Each item had been brought in through the airlock, probably while still deflated, then aired up. It was the size of a midsize rich person's apartment on Earth, the single room of it divided up by hanging screens into psychologically separate rooms, all except the bathrooms, which had real doors.

"The one on the left is mine. Randy has the center. Yours is the right one. Each time you come in through the lock you can bring in your belongings a bit at a time."

Bill had left his huge personal duffel at Copernicus. He just had a handful of stuff with him for the road trip to Placida, but he wanted to inspect his area.

He was momentarily shocked to see little kid crayon drawings on the wall and there were a few toys. Bill knew the implications and did not raise voice about these things.

He looked over at Chandler's receding back as Chandler dropped off a few items in his alcove. Bill saw that the bedroom was for a married couple — at least it was a double bed — and there were a couple feminine items of decoration and furniture.

Randy's alcove had tools and mechanical devices and all sorts of bachelor items strewn about the desktop and shelves. Bill had to smile with pleasure at the dedication.

The fourth alcove stood ready for guests or, possibly, additional workers. Bill immediately thought of Jeremy or Molly. He wondered what TLC's accommodations looked like.

Chandler had brought little Jeeves in with him and set the robot down on the nearest counter. It certainly seemed alive! Bill knew robots, though, and had to resist an emotional bond with such a piece of mere equipment.

He felt about robots the way American Western pioneers did about mules. They were necessary and could do work for you, but they were contrary and difficult to control and, if you did not watch them, they could bite and turn on you in other ways. Quite often they seems stubborn — just sat there and did nothing.

"Okay, Bill, let's try out your idea. I want to see if Jeeves can make another Jeeves. If so, we can get a whole crew of workers."

Chandler got out his remote control for Jeeves and selected the file REPLICATE SELF. He set a box of components on the desktop beside the little robot. They numbered in the hundreds, if not thousands.

The parts were all aligned exactly in formfitting recesses in trays. Here, Chandler helped the robot by spreading the component boxes around it in a semicircle.

He consulted the list Randy had given him on how best to do this. When he used the remote to tell the robot to go ahead, he had to indicate parts it could not initially recognize, either by angle or by being obscured by other pieces.

When it had satisfied itself that all items necessary were within reach, it began to assemble. It was a trial and error method.

It knew by diagram how each piece should go and in what order, too. But like a person, it had to progress slowly on this very first iteration.

Its first assembly would be the slowest. Thereafter, it would speed up until its top speed was achieved by experience.

Sometimes it paused, frozen, looking at an item it held. Then it would tentatively try an assembly method. Occasionally it would back track — take apart a project begun — reexamine its work, then try another approach.

"Randy said it would take several hundred hours for the first one. It's on 'R and R' Recording and Recoding. By the time we look at him again I'm sure he'll have actually started.

"Speaking of Randy, let's break silence and see if he can download another batch of software."

Chandler used the wall size communicator to ring Randy. Owing to the distance between Earth and Moon, there was a second or so time lag between question and answer. Bill noticed it with little annoyance. He knew there was a half hour lag between Earth and Mars, so he put up with the negligible pause without complaint.

"Hello, Randy! You in today?" He waited for Randy's ES1 phone to roust him. Within a half a minute there was Randy's screen-size, wall-size face grinning back at them.

"'lo, Lyle. Howdy, Bill. I was hoping you guys would call. See you got to Placida." The room camera had obviously showed Randy where they were calling from. So did the caller ID.

"I got some code for you guys. It's not debugged, though, and it's going to cause you some problems. But the debugger is routed through the robots themselves. They'll figure it out for us, I hope."

He started up a file transfer that showed at the bottom of the screen as they continued talking.

"There's also a shopping list for the items we discussed. The heavy items, beams and such. Listen, I hear the kettle boiling and I've got to go."

"He's feeling twitchy again today, no doubt. I'll decrypt that download and unzip it. As soon as Jeeves is done we'll load him up with some better resources."

They redirected their attention to their tabletop friend. By this time he had laid out some pieces and made recognizable progress.

"Human thought sure ain't robot thought."

Bill agreed. The little robot was stuck in what to the humans was a very easily-solved problem. They saw the obstacle at once, in an instance, yet Jeeves had to ponder the assembly for several minutes.

At other times, though, one could just as easily reverse the aphorism and say, 'Robot thought sure ain't Human thought'. In those instances — and in this case really 'instances' — the robot's CPU could race through, as through instantly, problems which the human brain found almost insurmountable.

It remembered where every piece went and where they went. This was something humans had trouble with. But the robot was very slow — dull, in fact — while seeing how something went together. A human child could glance at an assembly and sometimes intuitively assemble it in his head.

"Let's go outside and I'll show you the work ahead."

Bill gasketed down his helmet and put the suit through its checklist as they made for the door. The airlock had been full and after they entered Chandler set a recapture pump to work to scavenge its air supply.

"In practice you can only get so much. We could remain in here for hours and still would not get it all. The pump uses power, too, and that electricity is worth something, too. Air is not everything."

So saying, he through open the outer door which popped open only a little from the negligible amount of air inside.

They walked through the tunnel to the far side, not the one they had used to come in from. When they got out into sunlight Chandler pointed up the stalagmite.

There was a ladder going up its side.

Chandler led the way. It was almost vertical, but there was a small amount of taper inwards, not much. Bill followed at a safe distance. It rose fifty feet and Chandler clambered awkwardly to the top which was flat.

"It looks a lot like the inner core of a volcano, like those mesas in Arizona. This flat base will be fine to build a tower."

Bill looked around. They were in the exact center of the crater, not quite, but almost at the height of the rim walls. The walls were jagged, yet from this vantage point you could see the rim height was ALMOST uniformly the exact same height.

"It looks almost purpose built for your plan, Dr. Chandler. You could hardly have built so perfect a design from scratch."

Chandler grinned at the truth and luck of it. Bill — a novice — saw the advantage right off.

Chandler pulled out a diagram of the design of the proposed tower and they paced off the six legs of its intended foundation.

"It's going to look a lot like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, but its top will support the ropes for the dome. Initially, six ropes will stabilize the tower itself. We don't have to worry about wind, though, but the six cables will strengthen it and lock it firmly into position."

Chandler showed Bill how the self erecting tower pulled itself up by its bootstraps. Hydraulic jacks carefully lifted the entire tower, then a new section inserted itself into the assembly.

At a certain point the tower grew too heavy to lift, so the jack assembly climbed up to a taller point. An elevator inside of the tower carried the pieces of each new section upwards.

"Take a look at the diagrammatic display, Bill."

Bill toggled his view screen and a computer aided design depicted a slowly rotating green, wire frame miniature. It looked bowl sized, suitable for a table top. With this reference he could see just how tall the center tower was becoming.

"How much higher will the center tower be compared to the outer walls?"

"Another fifty feet. After the tower is completed we will begin shooting spider webs to the walls. We have to balance the load as we do so. Each rope by itself is nearly enough to pull the tower down, so the first one will be delicate. Of course, it's going to be criss cross. After a dozen ropes radiate outwards from the tower to the walls everything will be well anchored and very solid."

Chandler initiated the sequence for enabling the self erecting tower to begin building itself higher. At the rate of progress it was making the tower would be complete within a week.

Bill watched the robotic arms swing out, reach down, grab a girder, lift it, transfer it to a cable. The cable ran along a pulley and up went the girder. When it arrived at the top of the tower additional robotic hands swung the girder into position and snapped it into place.

They descended the stalagmite. The tower erected itself section by section. They did not have to tend it, just monitor for a stoppage. The computer knew to halt at any unforeseen problem. If it needed to do so, it was programmed to contact Chandler who, through his phone video, could assess the problem remotely. Hopefully, he could repair damage or make a decision or reroute work from his phone. He had set the wheels in motion. Now, the tower, at least, would assemble itself.

It was phase I of the plans. Spider web lines from tower to crater rim walls was phase II. Phase III filled in the web lines with solid air tight fabric. Phase IV filled the crater with nitrogen, then oxygen.

"We can head on back now. We'll bring along more supplies each trip. Next trip we will bring the items we transported from ES1. I want to leave the bikes at West Lock, then walk in as though we had just been to Aristarchus. If the TLC people see us, they'll think they missed seeing us before and will wait for us to return to Aristarchus. They'll guard West Lock.

END OF PART THREE
(to be continued)

LUNAR APPRENTICE JONES
(Part 4) The Citizen
by RJW Seddon

Chapter 41
THE HOUSE OF CHIN

They backtracked from Placida, back to East Dock, then around it, north of the dome, along a road little used.

"Later, we can pick up these bikes. No one knows they are here."

They entered West Lock.

Chandler grinned while shouting to make himself heard over the crowd.

"It's quite a contrast, isn't it?" Bill nodded, also grinning. They threaded their way through the market area, gently jostled and gently jostling to get through the produce section.

"It looks more like a Middle Eastern bazaar than anything," added Bill. There were kiosks with scales for weighing vegetables. Some merchants sat on rugs, their wares similarly displayed. Many items were sold loose, scooped out and weighed. There was loud Middle Eastern music here, loud Andean flute music there, and loud bargaining everywhere.

The Chinese area had slaughtered naked ducks and hens hanging by their necks. Querulous good natured haggling accompanied every sale.

They passed a giant barbecue pit rotating an entire cow over an immense bed of coals. The coals were, no doubt, from a lunar tree, grown at great expense, then sacrificed for this almost religious cooking ritual. A small crowd surrounded the rite, entranced by the rarely observed concept of heat from fire, mankind's best achievement. They waited patiently, content to watch the flames, wisps of smoke with sparks, and smell the wood and cooking. Efficient exhaust fans filtered the smoke, but not too much, not enough to dispel the enticing aroma.

Chandler waved a couple times and was about to pass by, but an insistent wave motioned him over.

"You no come by see me!" scolded a 19th century Chinaman. He dressed in black silk pajamas and sported a long, traditional pigtail down his back. "My new wife cook you now. You eat."

For the second time Bill saw a red headed Irish girl married to an oriental. The young woman of mid teenage years looked up from the sizzling wok she was tending and smiled briefly.

"All same, Matilda. Matilda, Masta Chandla."

"Pleased to meet you, Matilda," replied Chandler. "This is my new partner, Bill."

Bill was about to shake hands, but the old oriental beat him to it by giving a low, sincere bow. Bill returned the bow and, again, awkwardly bowed to Matilda. She briefly paused in her work, returning to acknowledge the greeting by also giving a sort of nod and bow.

She scooped out a sizzling deep fried colorful variety of vegetables and chicken into a couple of bowls. The portions were not skimpy.

As Bill ate he glanced at the new young wife and wondered what her story was, whether she was kind of enslaved into marriage with the old man. She turned once in her work and caught him staring, but smiled.

Later, she turned again in her work and looked once more at Bill. He was busy eating but still staring. He thought he was just staring at her amazingly long braided red pigtails, but actually he was totally smitten by her face. He stared at her while she concentrated on her cooking duties and when she looked up again, she caught him paying that most precious form of compliment, but it was embarrassing, too, and she blinked.

Bill quickly looked away but his heart-felt interest was clear. It was not a rude, idle glance she had intercepted, but rather the most sincere look of interest she had ever seen on anyone's face.

Chandler ate with relish, too, but he also managed to keep a pidgin conversation going with Chin. Apparently Chandler — and many Lunar people — maintained at least some fluency in Chinese.

The old man told what must have been a good joke, for Chandler laughed out loud and the old man joined in. So did the new young wife. She clasped the old man's upper arms with both hers and kissed him on the cheek with true affection.

They paid and left after promising to return more often.

"She seems young to be his wife," commented Bill.

"Oh, that's his old joke. He calls all his employees his wives. She's more like an apprentice and servant. Chin teaches women how to cook Chinese style and he also gives a pretty good quick course in Chinese. She'll probably remain with him a year or so. Then he'll get another apprentice." Chandler paused, weighing whether to say more, then added, "I met my own wife through Chin. She was working for him when I met her."

Chandler paused a bit and Bill did not know how to contribute to the conversation, but Chandler rescued him with more of Chin's humor.

"The VERY first time I met Emily she had been working with Chin and he warned me about 'diabetes' and 'low blood sugar' — told me to eat more beets and more rice, that the lack of 'beets' caused 'diabeetes' and more 'rice' would hinder the onset of 'hyporicemia'".

Bill wondered if this was the first time Chandler could bring himself to retrace his steps and return to painful memory. Chin had said something about it being a long time. Perhaps this was the first time Chandler had returned.

The bazaar took twists and turns. There was a clothing area, a furniture area. Computers, suits, appliances, bicycles. It was a hodge podge of barter, new and used items, everything from handcrafted homemade items to multimillion dollar high tech. From the practical to the luxurious, a delicious cornucopia of pure jungle-style capitalism. Everything human was represented here, from mundane cheap necessities to frivolous vanity.

Bill saw an apothecary, also selling candy in time honored open glass reach-in jars — and an occupied dental chair. There were haircuts and an ongoing surgery — he could not be sure — but it looked like abdominal surgery, perhaps an appendectomy.

They passed what Bill took to be an open casket funeral, a marriage ceremony, and a kiosk on wheels with a sign proclaiming PSYCHOLOGICAL THERAPY.

They walked past a wigged, robed judge seriously at work, trying a case, gavel in one hand, pistol and hand cuffs atop the bench. A forlorn man sat writhing, while a witness spoke.

"Hope you were hungry. Sorry about that if you weren't, but I just can't get by old Chin. Pretty good chow, though."

"Oh, I could eat that every meal!"

"It wasn't as good as Molly's place, I'll bet," offered a female voice from their left.

Bill looked up and almost shouted with joy at happy, heartfelt recognition, "Molly! Molly, what are you doing here?"

She grinned back and shook Bill's hand. "Hello, Bill, Lyle. I told you I was coming to visit on a vacation one of these days."

Chandler stood there for a moment transfixed by the unexpected. For a second Bill thought Chandler might not be pleased to see Molly. Then Chandler did something seemingly out of character and he took the liberty of embracing Molly tightly with both arms and kissing her cheek. "Molly! Molly, I'm so very glad you came."

She still pulled her luggage on wheels.

"I just got off the shuttle. Thought I would take a chance on seeing you. I was going to phone after getting a room, but there you were. I spotted you way across the market place."

She let it hang and stood there grinning, waiting for Lyle to respond. Respond, he did. To Bill's amazement Chandler embraced Molly again, this time sincerely, warmly, romantically. Even at Bill's young, inexperienced age, he could see this was the real thing: his boss was totally smitten, irrevocably consumed by ardor and passion. The love bug had bitten Molly and Chandler.

Bill made excuses and asked to be excused for a few minutes. He fumbled in his pockets and apologized that he must have left something at Chin's. As he backtracked away from Chandler and Molly he made a backward glance and saw them grinning stupidly into each other's faces. He saw them make for a coffee cafe for the sake of a table.

Bill easily zigzagged back to Chin's. Maybe he could shoot the breeze or see the sites while Chandler and Molly spoke.

Chin now had a couple more customers. Everyone ate while standing in a crowd like this. It was easy to do with the low gravity.

The red head squatted oriental-style in front of the wok, tending it with a bamboo whisk and skewers and a pair of extralarge chopsticks. She looked up as he approached, then did a double take as she recognized him, then smiled in recognition.

Chin saw Bill and waved. "You come back mo' food? No! You come back see gel?" He laughed uproariously then spat out some staccato Chinese. The red head nodded and stood. She wiped her hands on a towel and said, "My master wants me to take a break and show you around. I'm Matilda."

"Bill. Pleased to meet you."

Matilda directed them towards a park area and Bill followed. It got quieter as the people thinned out.

"I always come here on break. Master Chin gives me lessons to study." She pulled out her reader. Bill guessed it was Chinese, but maybe it was recipes.

"My current boss, Dr. Chandler just ran into someone and I took off to let them talk. It's my old boss Molly from ES1."

"You mean Molly from the diner there?"

Bill nodded.

"Heck! What a day! Everyone knows Molly's been carrying a torch for Dr. Chandler. She finally got up enough nerve to come to Copernicus."

"Well, I can't be sure — since you seem to already know about it — but it seems to me they are attached to each other. But, you know, it's not my business to speak about it. I mean, it seems you already know more about it than I do and it just happened."

"Oh, it didn't 'just happen'. It's been brewing for a long time. Dr. Chandler's wife and kids were killed and he's been alone for a long time. There are quite a few Lunar women in pursuit of him as is. He's quite a catch. You know the demographics: a ratio of three men for each woman on the Moon. However, that statistical advantage for women is offset by the saying 'The odds are good, but the goods are odd'".

Bill grinned in appreciation. He had not heard that one yet. It was true. Many of the men he had seen here were not exactly arm candy. A woman who found a Lunar man did not get a city dandy, full of sweet words and ornamentation. No, the ornamentation was likely a full beard, a man who carried a pistol instead of an ear ring or tattoo.

"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life."
— Robert Heinlein

"Well, Dr. Chandler 'IS' odd; odd that he is so normal. So far, so good, he has been just perfect and I know Molly, too, and she's just the same. They ought to get together."

"How you know Molly?"

Bill told Matilda the story of his trip up, the UPS shuttle, the trial, TLC, the Sapporo. He omitted telling anything about the contest because it was a sensitive topic, an industrial secret. Even so, despite his forbearance, Matilda already knew about the contest and broached the subject.

"Well, I hope you and Dr. Chandler win the contest. It may well be that Molly will stay to help. Anyone else besides her would slow Dr. Chandler down and let him lose sight of his goal. But not Molly. She'll propel him onwards, might even be the principal cause of you guys winning the prize."

Bill did not know how to respond to Matilda's assertion about the contest. He was not clever at oratory and knew he could not just ignore the reference, but nor could he discuss it. Matilda guessed his silence and saved him.

"You probably can't discuss that subject. Sorry if I put you on the spot."

"Hey, I forgot to ask, Master Chin referred to you as 'his wife'. Are you guys, you know, married?"

Matilda laughed. "I'm married to his wok and his Chinese lessons, all right. He's gotta be close to ninety and has been up here seventy years. There must be a thousand of his offspring all around. He knows everybody and knows everything. You see how simple he is? That's a Chinese ruse. He is really very sophisticated. And talk about rich! I think the Chins own the Moon. He takes in an apprentice, one at a time, for a one year course. As you can believe, there's a waiting list. But he does not take everyone. I was lucky." Her face got a pained, far away look.

"So, you gonna tell me?"

"Well. I was here already, about a half year into an apprenticeship with TLC. Push came to shove with intolerably dangerous working conditions. I got injured — pretty badly — and was in the hospital. There was a newspaper article on the accident. When I got well enough to return to work I just wasn't up to going back. I think I would have returned after a day or so, but I needed a few hours by myself after getting out of the hospital to sort of get my courage together for a return. TLC made a big fuss and threatened breach of contract.

"Master Chin showed up all of a sudden, out of the blue, newspaper in hand. He was shouting in Chinese at the TLC people, gesturing violently at the paper. He grabbed me by the wrist and yanked me away. I've been with him nearly a year now. I'll tell you this: a week with him is worth more than six months training with TLC. Some people have a gift of giving. He sure can teach."

Bill just sat there. They were sitting very close on the park bench and he felt all tingly because she was so good looking. But the story was a good one.

The people he had met so far were all real and solid, nothing like the people of Earth. He looked at Matilda and saw a girl unlike those he had known on Earth. Two red braids. No other makeup, nothing at all. None of the Lunar women wore it. She wore a Chinese symbol around her neck and clean clothes and she glowed with good intelligence and virtue. But she was so pretty Bill could not help but stare at her face, so, instead, he mostly looked down.

"We oughta get back. It's been a quarter hour. That's how long I take. I think Master Chin wants me gone sometimes so he can discuss private matters. He does a lot of business verbally and the lunch wok thing he does is just an excuse to be in the market."

Bill saw Chin even now as they approached, speaking seriously to a Sikh in a turban. They stood back a respectable distance until the business was concluded. The Sikh had a monkey on a leash. Even the monkey knew to keep quiet during the transaction. Bill wondered what the deal entailed. Thousands? Millions? Billions? Chin was some sort of banker, perhaps a broker. Bill stared at the Sikh gentleman's waistband into which was tucked ceremonial and religious knife; it was matched on the other side of his belt line by a more than ceremonial pistol.

"You youngsta, both all same too happy!" He grinned and screamed. "Now you steal me my wife all gone. She applentice number one all gone. Next month all finish. You buy contlact? You buy ling?" He laughed uproariously.

Bill laughed too much to be embarrassed at the ring reference. Matilda held up her left hand and wiggled her ring finger. Chin laughed anew.

Bill bowed twice, breaching etiquette by almost laughing as he did so. He gave a last look at Matilda, now back to work at her station.

Bill caught up to Chandler and Molly. They were waiting for him to return but obviously did not mind the wait.

"Bill, Molly's going to stay with us during her vacation."

"I'll keep house and cook in return for staying at the 'Chandler Hotel'. You guys can concentrate more on the contest that way."

"It's going to be a sort of 'busman's holiday' for her."

"Oh, I'm getting the better deal! Hotel prices are really high here, I'll bet."

She was right about that, thought Bill. A week at Chandler's place would save Molly a quarter million or more. In return, they could work full bore.

Bill pulled Molly's trundle bag and the three of them made for Chandler's Copernicus apartment.

Chapter 42
APARTMENT

"It's more on the industrial, rather than residential side, I'm afraid."

Despite Chandler's apology for his apartment, Bill could hear pride in Chandler's voice. But he was right about the location. They passed through a mile of what was clearly family style living. There were kids playing in a park surrounded by what looked amazingly like Earth style patio homes.

There were also Spanish style U-shaped houses called quintas with a wall-enclosed patio. Plants and potted trees were everywhere. Every house had flower boxes. Dogs and cats ran wild. One house had a pony. It seemed like everyone owned birds. Here, chickens could fly, despite their nearly vestigial wings, thanks to the low gravity.

They passed through all that kind of neighborhood and made for just what Chandler had said, the light fabrication part of the city. It was industrial lofts not far from the dome wall, within easy distance of large sized airlocks.

"It's not run down here at all and the rent is about half, so I kill two birds with one stone: no commute, no traffic."

His lock knew him and opened. The threshold lights came on as they entered.

"Wow, Lyle, it's great!" Molly looked around approvingly. She had half expected something like 'Postindustrial Modern Bachelor Geek' but instead it was tastefully furnished and styled like a pleasant, regular family dwelling.

Bill had already briefly seen the place but at a stop and drop pace. His duffel lay in the center of the living room. He took time now for a proper acknowledgement.

"It IS very nice, Dr. Chandler." Bill took in the furnishings and estimated extreme wealth due to the imports: wood, drapes, carpets, Earth style furniture. He approved of the antiques — wooden book shelves with real books.

Chandler shut the door behind him, so happy to be able to have company in his otherwise lonely life. Bill rolled Molly's big duffel into the living room and Chandler nodded a direction. Bill deposited the bag in a private sleeping room. Chandler and Molly made for the fridge and he got her a drink and offer of the couch.

"There I am doing it again, staying up late, doing without sleep." She yawned, grinning, so happy to have arrived. She had explained further about the several simultaneous jobs she held during shuttle transit: cook, sergeant at arms, baby sitter to a pair of colicky twin newborns. She had helped the young mother immeasurably, thought Bill.

Bill heard them speaking intimately and did not know how to make himself disappear. He took his reader into the other sleeping room and began his studies.

"I can't believe how happy I am you came. This is the best surprise in the world. I was going to phone and invite you — we've been outland at a crater — and I had no time to call."

Chandler took Molly's hand in his. "We... We should go dancing!"

Molly laughed. "You probably don't even dance! Besides, you can't waste time dancing now. Right now, you've got to get after the contest. I'm here to help, not distract. Let me catch some Zees so I won't bother you."

She retired to her room to catch up on sleep and this gave Chandler and Bill opportunity to make plans.

"We have a box to pick up. Randy has, no doubt, sent us what we need to get started. You feel like picking it up?"

Bill agreed and reacquainted himself with directions. "You want me to bring it back here, Dr. Chandler?"

"I think so. It's going to be a manual transport from the dock, Bill. It'll take you several hours. After you get back we'll need to unpack, then break it down into transportable bundles for the bikes. I'd like to try it out visually in the workroom here before making the trip out to Placida again. It's always good to plan your moves before donning a suit."

Bill left Chandler at his work station and exited the apartment for the shuttle freight dock.

Chapter 43
CARGO PICKUP

Bill threaded his way back through the industrial section to a main slidewalk. He watched the citizens and copied their moves, because he had never before ridden a slidewalk in low gravity. He wondered at the need — Why would you need such a thing in low gravity? — but soon its speed made it clear to him.

The outside rightmost lane was a conventional, stationary sidewalk. You entered on the right side of the roadway, stepped successively from lane to lane, each one a bit faster, until you got to the fastest one on the left.

There were a succession of faster and faster surfaces, each color coded and they were very pretty. Bill had never trod upon any sidewalks other than plain gray concrete. Now, he had yellow, gray, red, orange, green, blue. He learned when kids were in a hurry they said, "to get over here blue!" If you were late to an event you "yellowed out".

When you stepped up speed, crossing from one to the next, there was a little lurch, and Bill found it trickier to keep his balance here under low gravity than it would have been on Earth with the same set up.

It was like stepping onto an escalator, but without the steps, so, because of the absence of the steps — the vertical component — it SHOULD have been easier. But it was disconcerting; after you made the transition with one foot, your feet and your stance were momentarily being spread apart by the floor surfaces, each going at different speeds. You had but a moment to make the second step and get both feet onto the new surface. Bill watched little kids hop from one surface to the next, both feet at a time. To them it was easy fun and natural.

He even saw single wheel Segway riders, people on crutches, even bicyclists nonchalantly negotiating the bands.

The whole of it consisted of five parallel slidewalks, with the rightmost on the outside not moving, the leftmost one being the fastest at about 18 mph. You entered and exited on the right side and stepped up speed by crisscrossing right to left, progressively speeding up 3mph each transition from one slidewalk to the next.

To get off from the fastest left lane you always got off towards the right where the lanes got increasingly slower.

He went from the zero miles an hour of the stationary, conventional sidewalk to about three miles an hour at the first transition. From there he stepped onto the faster six miles an hour strip. A few more transitions got him going at full speed, about eighteen miles an hour. There was quite a breeze, but no noise.

Bill took in the fellow slidewalk passengers. There were unaccompanied kids and oldsters, including a granny who spoke to him.

"Haven't got your legs yet for this gizmo, I see. Just off the boat?"

Bill smiled back. "Yes, ma'am."

"Well, it sure saves time. I remember having to walk this route as a young girl. It was, oh, about seventy, eighty years ago they built this thing. I didn't know then that it would help me in my old age!" She laughed a bit.

She wished him a good day, then took a deceleration ramp to see her great, great grandchildren. Bill observed her easy grace with the moving platform.

He watched for his destination sign and took his own exit. Each transition from strip to strip slowed him down until he got to the stationary conventional floor. He was not used to it and his stomach actually felt queasy and he wondered that so little a thing as such gentle motion could initiate the onset of motion sickness.

The temporary breeze had cooled him and he was glad of the warmth of still air. They varied the temperature to make a sort of surprise pseudo weather condition each day. They even had seasons and, of course, lighting changes during the course of a day. The Lunar day outside the dome lasted fourteen Earth days.

He recognized the dock area. He was near where they had disembarked, within a half a mile of it, at any rate.

Huge numbers painted above each lockway identified each dock. Forklift drivers had their own roadways and trundled immense pallets of cargo to and from each lock.

Bill made for the cargo redemption, his claim sheet at the ready. A small crowd clustered around a counter and he stood in line waiting his turn.

As Bill wound through the line he recognized a voice and looked over to it.

"You wait here in line and receive our cargo, Shorty. Don't lose the claim sheet! Stay right here with the stuff. We'll go get transport for it." The voice was Bill's least favorite person, The Poster boy, WALSTON, W

But 'Shorty' was his friend and as soon as The Poster boy left — probably to goof off — Bill called out, "Jeremy!"

Jeremy looked around and when he saw Bill, his face erupted into a sincere grin.

"Bill! Oh, hey, Bill! Man, oh, man. Is it ever good to see you!"

They shook hands and slapped backs.

"Well, Bill, it's been a couple weeks. How's life treating you?"

"It's great. I'm picking up some cargo," he said, unnecessarily.

"Me, too." Jeremy paused.

"Well, you getting along good at TLC?"

Jeremy frowned. "Not so good, actually. I don't want to turn into a complainer, but it's pretty gruesome. Well, perhaps not gruesome, but it's certainly not wholesome."

"I see you got left to work while Will and Ginny goof off."

"Oh, that's a given. That's the best part, when they're gone. When they're gone they can't belittle you. That seems to be Will's main function."

The line moved forward and Jeremy turned in his claim chit. The clerk matched the tag and retrieved a bundle for him. Jeremy hefted the package onto a shoulder and bid Bill goodbye.

"Jeremy, can I give you my phone number? And get yours, too?"

"Uh, sure. But, you know, they took up our phones."

"Your phones! But, what about safety?"

"Safety concerns are not a big issue there, I guess. But I'll keep your number. From time to time I get to town and can call you from here."

Bill said his goodbye and waved as Jeremy receded down the corridor to wait for Will and Ginny.

The line moved up and Bill turned in his ticket. The clerk looked up the weight and size and authorized its retrieval by forklift. A few minutes later a forklift rolled up to the waist high dock and deposited Bill's load. The cargo came in standardized aluminum shipping containers, stacked three high, each as large as a big refrigerator.

Each had been inspected, sealed, locked, and had a packing list folded into a pouch glued on the hinged door. Bill had to sign a deposit form for the containers so they could be returned and reused.

They were too large a bundle to lift to his shoulders and he did not know how to proceed. He was about to phone Dr. Chandler, but the forklift driver saved him.

"You can sign for a set of casters and pull your load home. Where you headed? East side?" Bill nodded. The forklift driver had correctly guessed the fabrication area on Copernicus. Bill signed for the borrowed casters which the driver obtained and rolled out. It consisted of a flat platform of aluminum with a wheel at each corner. It was like a wagon with a flat top, no sides. The driver rolled the front off the dock and Bill helped him set it on the ground in front of the dock.

Finally the driver used the forklift to gently lower the stack over the edge of the loading dock onto the caster unit so Bill could push or pull the cargo home. The boxes were stacked three high and just fit exactly on the edges of the wagon.

Now he had three boxes totaling about nine feet tall, four feet wide, eight feet long. On Earth, even empty, he would not have attempted it. But here, even fully loaded, he could push the load himself.

The manifest had totaled 1245 KG, about the same mass as a small automobile. On Earth that 'mass' was synonymous to the same 'weight' of 1245 KG. On the Moon, the 'mass' of 1245 KG equaled a 'weight' of 200 KG. He was familiar already with the distinction: it was hard to get rolling and hard to stop, but once rolling it was easy to keep going.

Bill looked around. Everyone else was doing the same thing. On the Moon, muscle work was more in use than on Earth. His biggest problem was watching where he was going, anticipating turns and stops.

He pushed directly from behind to get it rolling, then was able to keep it going with one hand. In this manner he was able stand to the side and see where he was going. He changed position and ran to the front and switched to pulling from the front, using a rope and tow bar on the front.

Bill knew he would not be able to use the high speed slidewalk with his load, so he resigned himself to the regular sidewalk route. He was not at all displeased, because the slidewalk had shot by some of the sites he wanted to see at a more leisurely pace. He did not dare leave his packages, not even for an instant, but he was completely content to play tourist at this walking pace.

There were no dips, hills, or valleys. The floor was completely smooth and absolutely flat, so he had no problems with managing the cargo. Even so, he tested the foot brake pedal of the casters.

He was not exactly winded after a half hour, but he had broken out in a light sweat from the exertion and now had a slight thirst. An outdoor cafe saved him and Bill checked his pockets for change. He was about to spend an exorbitant amount on a soft drink when he spied a free water fountain across the way. Even better.

While drinking, he looked back at the cafe and was suddenly glad he had not stopped. There sat WALSTON, W and EDWARDS, V languidly, doing nothing, speaking in bored, desultory tones.

They had each consumed two drinks and also something to eat based on table clutter. From the looks of things, they were in no hurry to be productive.

Bill overheard them talking. They had not seen him. He was drinking from the fountain, blocked by the load.

They even had money and time enough for Ginny to read a magazine. She was flipping through the pages in a bored manner while trying to bend Will towards what sounded to Bill like domesticity. He almost liked her.

"Back to Earth, I guess. This Moon thing — there's nothing up here for me. I can enter The Guard maybe not with officer status but at maybe E5."

"Don't you like being boss?"

"Yeah. That's okay, but there's no beach, no money, no excitement."

"Well, our contracts are up soon. We get good bonus if we win the contest. It's a sizable amount, enough to homestead."

"'Homestead!' With these hicks?"

Bill cringed. He could imagine the cafe proprietor clobbering Will over that remark. He decided to move on before they spotted him.

The burden became a reverie for Bill. He liked to experience the automatic creation of a pleasant daydream that his body assembled for him while on a task like this. Any repetitive work like this lifted his spirits. Just pushing and walking and being productive in a plodding, dull sort of way like this was enough to get his creative thoughts rolling and it always sort of cleansed his soul.

He rolled the cargo another hour before taking his second rest. He sat at a park bench. Who needs a gym? This was the best exercise he had gotten since the bike ride. Before that it had been cargo loading aboard ES1. He looked at his forearms. Was it possible? In this dinky gravity? It seemed to him his musculature was increasing, as though he had been working out in a gym with free weights.

"I see you got your load." Bill looked up and recognized the old lady from the slidewalk. She had a toddler and two grade schoolers with her.

"And I see you found your great grand children."

"Two of them. One's a neighbor's. I'm glad to see a youngster from Earth not too proud to work. I'm Eileen O'donnell, by the way." She extended her hand for shaking.

Bill took it and introduced himself, in turn. The little children were too busy to notice and made for the playground equipment.

"So, let's see. You're new from Earth, you've got a big load, so I guess you're in the Enclosure contest. Am I right?"

"Well," grinned Bill, "Mum's the word. My employer would not like me discussing it, you know."

"Oh! Right, right. Well, let's see. You're heading East dock. Gotta be Dr. Chandler." She surprised him, smiling. "Chandler to win. Odds are 3 to 1 his favor. You stick with Chandler. He's a winner."

Bill laughed at her directness and for hitting the mark. "Well, I'm not in the contest to lose."

"That's the spirit. Just remember, whatever's in those boxes does not match what's between your ears. Or in your heart."

"Well, Mrs. O'donnell, with you rooting for us, I don't think we could possibly lose."

Bill sat a few moments to rest from his labor, gathering strength for the rest of the journey. He needed a few minutes and was glad for the pleasant company. It was fun to watch the little ones at play.

"Do you bring the kids here often, Mrs. O'donnell?"

"Oh, yes! Used to come every day. Had a gap in my routine, though. My husband Ben just passed away a week ago. I've been busy with the funeral and so forth." She laughed a bit before Bill could make proper acknowledgement and continued, "He would have scolded me for wasting time on foolishness and would prefer I get on with life, perhaps remarry."

Bill blinked at this deep personal revelation and at the quirkiness of such an old woman considering the idea of remarriage. But he looked into her serene face — she was neither joshing him nor deluded acting and the idea that she actually, really now considered such a thing at her advanced age an option, why, it intrigued him so! It led him to look beyond the very close horizon of years that his youth circumscribed. A very much larger better world lit up for him now, beyond his narrow, youthful horizon.

Suddenly, Bill saw the 'girl' in Eileen O'Donnell's face. He saw past her wrinkles and actually saw what she had looked like when eighteen. She caught him in his stare and knew exactly what was going on in Bill's mind, even if Bill did not know himself — knew that Bill had just met a girl.

They exchanged numbers and Bill promised he would give Dr. Chandler Eileen's regards.

He rounded a lake full of rowboats and canoes. During 'winter' the lake froze over for ice skating and the little grass hills of the adjoining park became snow covered for sleds.

The high speed slidewalk crossed directly overhead. Supporting pillars of the slidewalk bridge seemed too far apart in this low gravity.

After passing the lake, Bill checked his time and noticed dinner hour was approaching. It also grew dimmer and the artificial sundown was almost upon him. Now the air got cooler.

He decided to check in with Dr. Chandler by phone. Chandler did not answer, so Bill left a message, informing him success in picking up the load and that Bill had just passed the lake.

The market area was bit by bit closing for the evening. Most of the merchants were packing up. A few had already left for the day. A few were in mid transaction. Here and there a light went on to compensate for the evening.

Bill watched some tourists taking pictures of each other in front of the waterworks fountains, the ones everyone on Earth knew and associated with Copernicus. He remembered Julio just then and combined his rest with buying the promised postcard. He got a 3D picture of himself photographed and printed by an automated gizmo. He spoke a few words of hello into the postcard's microphone and paid to have it mailed to Earth. It was horrendously expensive.

Bill continued and saw Chin and the red headed Matilda still at work. He decided to greet them, but not stay. Chin had a couple of last minute customers, not eating, just talking. There were also a few at the evening meal at wok side, one with a horse. He saw a llama, too. Some kids were chasing their pet emu that had gotten loose. Bill was about to approach for a greeting, waiting for a moment when he would not interrupt.

One of the male customers looked familiar and Bill recognized him at the distance from his mannerisms. It was the shipboard cowboy, Steve Hudson. Hudson was polishing off an immensely heaped bowl, stood there in cowboy boots, and had, apparently, ridden in on his horse. It stood to the side quietly, still saddled, eating from a feed bag.

"Howdy, Howdy! It's Jones! Good to see! I'm glad to encounter a former shipmate so soon!" Bill thought he would never stop shaking his hand. "Hey, Bill, have you met my fiancee, Matilda?"

He began to introduce each to the other, before they stopped him, that they had already met. Bill was stunned. Fiancee. He felt an undeserved pang of jealousy.

"She no you fiancee. She no my wife no mo. She Matilda now Bill fiancee all same. You no marry gel, Hudson. You cowboy all time too much." Chin refilled Hudson's plate.

No one could fault Chin's logic. Mouth full, chewing, Hudson could not contradict, just reflect his fate as perpetual bachelor. Matilda handed Bill a plate. "Here you go, fiancee."

Bill stood there eating, letting Hudson fill him in on farm business, Moon business, horse business. He made friendly chitchat and inquired after Chandler. "Hey, I heard Molly came down finally."

"She's at Dr. Chandler's place now."

Hudson sighed. "Well, that's 'TWO' fillies I lost today. Best I head back to the ranch." He tipped his hat, mounted his steed, and clip clopped off into the sunset.

"Hmmph! He no offer help hoss pull he." Chin pointed to the cargo.

"I would not have even thought of that. I didn't know horses could do that."

"Actually, he didn't offer on purpose, just to be nice to me," countered Matilda. She shot out some Chinese, causing Chin to agree and laugh in appreciation.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm off work. This way, I can help you push and Steve won't be around to interfere with your romantic advances."

"Oh."

Before leaving, Bill paid for his meal and bowed goodbye to Master Chin. Chin continued his earnest, lively conversation with his friends. Matilda shut down the mobile kitchen, then — without waiting — started pushing the trolley. She leaned into the load and the trolley began to inch forward. Matilda shot out some Chinese and Chin nodded and waved goodbye. Bill scrambled to the front and started pulling. Malilda migrated to the front with Bill and they both pulled.

Bill heard Master Chin call out a goodbye in Chinese and Matilda laughed and turned to face her boss for a last, laughing goodbye look.

"What did he say?"

"He said you came to pick up cargo, but ended up picking up cargo, another meal, and a new girl friend. He said that three is a good luck number."

Bill smiled, but said nothing for a bit. He could not want better good fortune.

"Oh, wow. This is much easier with two. Thanks so much for your help."

"I'm glad for the variety of work. I wanted to ask Dr. Chandler something and I've never seen his place, so this is a good opportunity. Also, it's been nearly a year since I've seen Molly. I got a short trip once to ES1 on an errand for Master Chin and I saw Molly last on that occasion."

"So, your apprenticeship with Master Chin, it's about over?"

"It's nearly been a year. Not a formal training class. I could stay. But I want to move up and he wants me to move on, too. Otherwise, I would get too comfortable at the easy life with him and not grow. My Chinese and my cooking are at a good level, but mostly he gave me back my life, some self confidence. I can study technical by myself now. He taught me how to study for technical." She patted her book reader.

"No going back to TLC?"

"No way."

"I ran into a friend with them at the loading dock. He looked pretty grim, not too happy. He was being bossed around by a pair of TLC people. Maybe you know them. Their names are ..."

"...Will and Ginny? Will Walston and Virginia Edwards?"

"Yeah. That's them. Small world."

"Will was goofing off when I got hurt. I could have died. He was not just dozing. He was AWOL with nobody for safety backup. I thought he had gone back to Earth."

Bill related how Will had been on Earth, that he had come up on the shuttle. "How long was he gone?"

"Must have been better part of a year. That's how long I've been with Master Chin." She reflected. "Merriweather must have sent Will to Earth, almost like he was in hiding. He probably functioned as a recruiter for TLC."

The night had gotten dark and they navigated by street lights. Bill kept looking up for the light of the Moon, then laughed at himself.

"What's funny?"

He explained about the Moon and she laughed. "When you're outside you can see by Earth light. It's just as wondrous. It's funny: the only reason I'd ever go back to Earth is to see the Moon from there."

They navigated by little lights in the sidewalk edges as they passed through the residential section. A few kids were on swings in back yards and in sand boxes at the park and quite a few parents stood around over fences drinking beer.

By the time they got to Chandler's house Bill was plain tuckered out. He rang the bell and they waited. It was a long time before anyone answered.

Molly opened the door and, right away, from the serious look on her face, Bill knew something was wrong. He did not know what was the matter and thought it might have been a personal tiff between Molly and Dr. Chandler.

"Bill, there's been an accident," Molly explained. She opened the other half of the double doors so they could roll in the wide containers. Once through, Matilda took over to close up both doors.

"What happened?"

"It's Randy. He's nearly dead. We just got word a couple hours ago. Lyle got a phone call from ES1."

"Randy?"

Molly nodded. "It was the descent shaft. He must have had a stroke while going down, lost consciousness on the way down and he did not slow down. He built up speed from L1 and fell the whole way to B5. When he hit the floor he almost broke his neck."

Bill took in the information, stunned at the unexpectedness of it. At his age he had not yet had that much experience with abrupt injury.

He looked around for Dr. Chandler and Molly advised him.

"He's in there on the phone talking to the medical people." She did not forget her manners. "Who's your friend?"

"Oh. Excuse me. Matilda, may I present my friend and former boss, Molly Campbell. Molly, this is my friend, Matilda, who works with Master Chin, a friend of Dr. Chandler."

They bowed each to the other, double gravely, under the circumstances. Just as they bowed, Bill remembered: Oops! They already know each other! Molly and Matilda had bowed formally, faces properly blank, but grinned at each other as they straightened, then hugged like the old friends they were.

Just then Chandler came out, phone in hand, still talking. He nodded to them, unsmiling but courteous, while continuing the phone conversation. He grabbed pen and pad and wrote as he talked.

They stood silently as he finished up the call. They heard him say, "next shuttle", that he planned to return to ES1 immediately.

After Chandler rang off he reinformed Bill about Randy's accident and explained the necessity of traveling to ES1.

Bill acknowledged agreement and thought about how he could help in the mean time. "Uh, Dr. Chandler, Matilda was kind enough to help me get the cargo home."

Chandler nodded a thanks, staring vacantly at Matilda. They could see his mind was elsewhere, perhaps lost with the accident and somehow intermingled with the death of his family years ago. The emotional upheaval of Randy's sudden injury probably had dredged up a boatload of bad memories and feelings.

Matilda started to say goodbye and leave, but Bill interrupted her.

"There was something..."

She shook her head and said, "No, not now."

That brought Chandler nearly around to his normal, affable senses.

"Oh, hey, listen. I'm fine. Just rattled. What was it you wanted, Matilda?"

She cleared her throat and indicated the other room with her eyes and Chandler knew she wanted a private audience. Molly took the cue and took charge.

"Why don't we get some drinks, Bill?" She and Bill left Chandler and Matilda alone to talk.

"Well, Dr. Chandler, I'm real sorry about your friend getting hurt. I hope he pulls through."

Chandler nodded. "He's alive. Medical says he's going to have a long recovery. He will be out of commission for months and months to come."

"He's your partner in the contest, too, isn't he?"

Chandler nodded.

"That's why I came to talk to you. If you can use another hand, I would like to sign aboard. I know you will be gone some time. If you are willing to take me on, I would like to sign on for shares. Work speculatively, that is. That way, you will not be out any wages."

Initially, Chandler silently vetoed the idea. His head was in turmoil. But his rational side took over, despite the trauma of the accident. He weighed outcomes. He thought about social friction with two new females. He evaluated that worry, after reflection, as unwarranted. He also worried that the two young people might drift towards mischief — everyone would consider Matilda quite attractive. Her good looks and good personality and youth — when considered as a liability — seemed well counterbalanced by a maturity beyond her years and a goal-oriented spirit.

Eventually, she talked him into it. They agreed upon terms after he inquired about the dissolution of the contract with Master Chin.

Chandler packed his bag and made a few calls — one to Master Chin — and within a few minutes he left. Before doing so, he shook hands with Bill, his new employee Matilda, and he gave Molly a kiss. They saw him out.

Chapter 44
SINK OR SWIM

Molly sighed, a signal resigning them to work, rallying them to redouble their efforts. "Well, chums, we're on our own. Let's get to work. It's sink or swim."

They rolled the cargo into Dr. Chandler's work room. The main feature of his apartment was that the living area — the apartment — was a subset of the building's main function. It was a big warehouse/factory. They had PLENTY of room to work.

Bill hit the light switch and a gymnasium sized room lit up. There were tables aplenty against the walls.

"Let's roll some of those side tables together here in the center and we'll empty these containers onto them."

They carefully laid out the pieces across the table tops. The container they were emptying held thousands of individual components. Randy had carefully packed everything tightly with no wasted space. He had filled in small gaps with small items. Bill wondered how he had gotten all of it to fit.

"We'd never get this stuff repacked if we had to. I'd be forced to get another large packing container or two."

The packing list was not necessary. It was all there. They had to break the seal before opening the topmost box. There was a small booklet, hand written, an instruction set for assembly.

Bill had seen Jeeves and recognized the parts before him as a larger version of the little robot. It took three tables to hold all the items in the first box. Bill studied the manifest and saw that they had opened 'box 3 of 3'.

They began laying out the middle box 'box 2 of 3' and it, too, required three tables. Some of the components were identical, others, different.

The final box, 'box 1 of 3', was different. Packed in shipping peanuts and bubble wrap was Jeeves himself.

"My word! It's cute," exclaimed Molly.

"I've seen him in action," offered Bill, "watched him make and serve coffee. It was incredibly complex."

Matilda bent over and observed, "There's an LED. He's sleeping, not off."

"I'm betting dollars to donuts he's not in this box to merely make coffee. Anything in that booklet?"

Bill flipped to the beginning and read Randy's instructions. There was a parts list for each box.

"We guessed wrong by putting the contents on tabletops. Jeeves, here, will assemble the items for us, but we have to arrange the parts on the floor, preferably in the order that he needs them. Here's the sequence." Bill read on, then discovered some temporary bad news.

"Oh, oh! There are some items missing, items we've got to provide ourselves. It says the CAD drawings of these need to be made here on Luna. Heavy stuff. Large beams and so forth."

"I was hoping we could see the little guy in action," Matilda said. Bill read on. He had assumed they would have to send out to a machine shop to have the missing components made. He thought he would have to sublet the contracts for making these items, but he read on.

"I'll be darned! It says here Jeeves will make the stuff we need himself from raw stock. Here's what we need to buy."

There was a list — relatively short — for a handful of items. Some giant alloy 'I' beams, some extralarge tubing, and so forth.

"I'll get after buying these items at the crack of dawn. Someone in the area will know where these are available. I'll go door to door."

"Meantime, it says right here, we can turn on Jeeves and let him go to town. It says he will work around the missing items until we get them."

Molly read the list of items in assembly order. They located each item and took them one by one from the tables and put them in line on the floor. When the tables were empty they rolled them out of the way against a far wall.

Bill ginned, because he knew they were now about to be entertained by the little robot.

"Matilda, do you want to do the honors?"

She smiled and gingerly depressed the 'on' switch. Immediately, the little robot rolled forward an inch, then backward, going through a warm up and self test. The hands flexed one by one and it rolled in a counter clockwise circle while simultaneously rotating clockwise on its turret like an army tank showing off.

It's eye stalks scanned the components while it threaded its way among them, categorizing them for assembly. It did this for the better part of an hour, occasionally lifting a piece for inspection and, presumably, for identification.

Then it began in earnest, tugging this piece over there, that piece over here, not actually assembling anything yet, but rather readying the inventory for easy assembly.

Jeeves concentrated on the tiny items in box 3 first and began putting together these smaller pieces. They watched him screw little fingers onto hands. There were eight such, just like Jeeves had, only larger.

Little cameras fit on each hand and there were several motors for each hand. Some did double and triple duty, actuating either wrist or thumb as needed.

The rotator cuff of the robot hand exceeded biological design by letting the hand rotate 360 degrees over and over again continuously, making each hand a drill or screwdriver without requiring the 'release and return' of a human hand.

Jeeves had a built in torque wrench and he tightened each component to its required specifications, not too much, not too little. No nut would work loose from under tightening, nor would any nut strip a thread by over tightening.

He finished the first hand in three hours and set it aside. Jeeves immediately began on the second. This time, its movements were faster. Bill remembered Randy had mentioned the robot learned as it went. Its movements improved with use. Experience aided its speed. He reckoned it would put together the eight hands by morning.

They watched him work while Bill studied the booklet. He was worried about the as yet unacquired items, the stock Jeeves needed to fabricate the large structural members. Matilda took over for him as he pointed out the pieces needed.

"Let me get this stuff. I can ask Master Chin. I need to check in with him anyway; he'll be worried. Also, if it's alright, I'd like to inform him about Dr. Chandler, that he left for ES1 to see his friend."

They agreed and she phoned Master Chin. She read from the book, but translated into Chinese as she did so, listing the components needed. After a lengthy, somber conversation she said her goodbyes.

"It's a done deal. Master Chin says his great nephew Herbert will stop by to deliver what we need. He will take measurements and redeliver if we need anything else."

"I need to get supplies for us to take by bike to Placida. Also, we have to figure out how to get Jeeves and his big brother to Placida."

"We also need another bike, don't we?"

"Why can't we just pull a trailer? Put the robots on top. One of us can ride on a trailer, too. I'm just thinking. Maybe a trailer or two — each pulled behind the two bikes we already have — might be better than another bike." They discussed the pros and cons of the idea and made plans.

Chapter 45
BACK TO PLACIDA

Rapidly, they made preparations for their exit. Things happened fast, seemingly at a Fast-Forward speed. Their well coordinated sense of urgency did not leave any idle time.

Bill looked around the workroom and found Chandler already owned bike trailers. They hung from the wall, immense two wheeled rickshaws whose platforms were larger than the beds in pickup trucks.

He pulled them down and thought about the best way to reunite with these the two bicycles now parked at West dock. They were alloy tubing frame. Stowed with them were accessories: sunbrella for shade and electricity production, batteries and capacitors.

It had a three point stance: a trailer hitch to the bike in front and two immense six foot wheels. Like any bike trailer, even similar ones on Earth, there were lights and a wiring harness. Because of the vast load capability, the wheels had integral brakes controlled by the bike rider, through a shrouded cable linkage. There was a humorous, unnecessary license plate affixed to each: LYLE and EMILY. Bill remembered the cork bulletin board aboard the shuttle. Emily had been Dr. Chandler's wife's name.

Again, Bill pondered the best way to reunite trailers and bikes. He consulted Matilda and she suggested hand pulling one trailer to West dock, loading one bike aboard the trailer, then pulling that trailer back here with the other bike on top of the trailer.

"We'll deliver the trailer and pedal back on the OUTSIDE of Copernicus, not through the city where everyone can see us. No sense announcing ourselves to everyone."

"Once we get back here with both bikes we can hook up one bike per trailer, as intended."

"Do you think Dr. Chandler's red herring, telling Merriwether and company about the other location is still fooling them?"

"I don't know," admitted Bill. "I do know — or at least I think — they don't yet know about Placida."

Molly folded her arms defensively and said, "You know, I'm not suspicious of any one particular thing, but I have a bad feeling about Randy's accident. I know Lyle feels that way, too. Something about 'a sudden stroke while descending a dangerous shaft' just doesn't ring true. It's too convenient."

Bill suddenly felt over his head. This sounded too much like disgruntled people cooking up crank conspiracy theories. He deferred to the women's knowledge of local politics and economy.

Matilda looked at him, then Molly. She bit her lip and corroborated the suspicion. "I'm sad to say I concur. In fact, it makes a lot of sense. How many billion is this prize worth?"

Molly answered for them. "To the Moon community? Trillions upon trillions. It's a landmark event. To the winner of the contest it will be worth, oh, maybe billions, long term, but that's not why Dr. Chandler is competing."

"No, but that's for sure why TLC is in the race," put in Matilda. "They play hardball. They play rough. Dr. Chandler and Master Chin and many, many other people — ourselves here included — maintain a very different outlook on life and how it should be conducted."

"If what you suspect is true," put in Bill, "we will have to proceed on two assumptions. They will think they have won based on lack of activity at Aristarchus crater and Dr. Chandler's return to ES1 to look after Randy. The other assumption is this: if they do discover us working at Placida they will recognize Aristarchus Crater as a red herring and they will react with double intensity, out of embarrassment, rage, and revenge. Our lives are completely at risk if we proceed. They would squash us like a bug."

"But they could not imagine, could they, that two apprentices and a fry cook from ES1 could pull this off?"

"You're right. If I was them, I would write off our efforts altogether. They could not possibly imagine that we would proceed without Dr. Chandler to direct us."

"At the very least, they will see Dr. Chandler's absence as a delay. While he is gone, they will make considerable progress, so much so, they will figure Chandler and company would never be able to catch up. Also, I think they recognize an accident like this takes the wind out of our sails. An injury to one of our principal members makes us lose sight of our goals and diminishes our effort

"They don't know about our workforce." Bill indicated Jeeves. Jeeves had been working all night. Now he was tethered to an electric cord. His batteries had been drained by the constant work. Jeeves had finished all eight hands which he had laid neatly to the side in a row ready for further assembly.

Providence spoke again just as they turned to watch Jeeves. The doorbell rang and there stood Herbert in the viewing screen.

"Good morning, Matilda."

A smiling young man, the grand nephew, bowed when they opened the door. Behind him was a hand truck burdened with the supply of aluminum girders and tubes they needed. Molly opened the double doors for entry and he helped them roll in the cart.

"My Uncle Chin says to keep the cart in the mean time while you are using it, that you should call me to retrieve it for you. He insisted that — under the circumstances of secrecy — that you should not be seen going through Copernicus with it."

Nor did Herbert inquire after particulars of construction or progress or ask to see preparations completed thus far. It seemed he was a co-conspirator in their behalf.

"My Uncle asked me to inform you that a squad of red suited TLC apprentices are lounging around the West Dock lock area — where Dr. Chandler's bicycles are parked. The bikes are outside, but you would have to pass the TLC who are just inside the lock in order to retrieve the bikes. Furthermore, two red suits are loitering in THIS area. They did not recognize me, nor did they see me approach your door. Mostly, they are guarding against any of you leaving East Dock through the lock. However, it has been my observation such unmotivated people very often do not think ahead enough to cover for each other when they have a call of nature. In other words, it is probable, that both of them will leave at the same time. If you like, I can maintain clandestine observation of such an eventuality and inform you by phone when the 'coast is clear'". He held up his phone to demonstrate his meaning.

"In general, that's a good plan," observed Molly. "But how can you be sure they will both leave for the bathroom at the same time?"

Herbert smiled and told them. "Master Chin has been testing the waters, so to speak, of a lunch cart near your East Dock. My brother Alfred will take his cart there to attract future business with free lunch offers. All but two of the meals are our normal, excellent Chinese fare. Two special meals — though tasty and nutritious — will require rather immediate evacuation of the bowels within a few minutes after eating." He bowed. "I apologize for the biological reference which is offensive."

Matilda laughed. "It's not offensive to me if it works, Herbert."

"I have but to inform my brother Alfred of a time to advertise. As yet, he is not in the area. Master Chin suggested to me that it is probable these materials" — he indicated the cart — "may require a day or two preparation before you might need to leave. In the meantime, at any and all times, the House of Chin is at your beck and call." He bowed gravely and took his leave.

Bill did not waste time. He rolled the cart into the work room so that Jeeves could continue.

Bill took up the remote and talked to the now idle robot with it by pressing the CONTINUE button. Jeeves looked around — for all the world as though he had just awoken from a nap — then made for the I-beams. He measured them precisely several times from different angles to make sure they were suitable. He selected a drill and began his work.

They watched him work, not knowing exactly what he was doing. He had threaded bolts and brackets here and there. Once he used a plasma cutter to notch a cutout. Here went a motor. There went a relay. A cable actuator assembly added 'muscle' to the bare frame. Bit by bit, it fleshed out and became whole.

"Whew! The little guy never gets tired," observed Matilda.

"Let's allow him to do his thing. We can't help; we can't even hinder. I don't think he 'knows' we are here."

"You know, we ought to make preparations to vacate premises." Molly pursed her lips and looked around. "These guys will fall for the free food. Then out the lock we go. All of us."

Bill agreed. "If we do this, we ought to do it 100%. Sink or swim."

They looked to Matilda who responded. "Very often, Master Chin would quote this or that poem or religious aphorism. One of his favorites was Ecclesiastes: 'Whatsoever thou taketh in thy hand to do, do it with thy might'. But I say, 'in for a penny, in for a pound.'"

They made preparations for final exit. Bill assembled provisions in a corner for final packing aboard the trailers. Food, water, oxygen cylinders, spare batteries. He found a pistol and ammunition. Additional medical emergency kits. All their clothing.

Their phone chimed and Molly took the call. It was notification of package delivery, COD. The return address was Master Chin. Molly accepted the charge, allowing the postal service to process delivery.

Copernicus had developed a thorough pneumatic tube small item delivery system. The seemingly antiquated system had been in place a century and everyone loved and simultaneously hated it. It was the source of much beloved and maligned humor. Almost every home maintained service for shipping and receiving small items, everything from fast food to laundry service. The clear Lucite cylinders were a foot in circumference and two feet long. Instead of using air to power the system — as was done on Earth — nitrogen under pressure pushed each cylinder along. In this manner, air — at least the nitrogen component — became replenished throughout Copernicus, offsetting the leakage occurring at the various locks.

They heard a PHOOMP followed by an arrival chime. Molly took the cylinder from the arrival tray and spun open its end. There inside lay a group of small components cushioned by bubble wrap. A folded note, a greeting card, was also inside.

"It's from Master Chin," said Molly. "I recognize the seal of the House of Chin, at any rate, but I can't read Chinese."

Matilda took it from her and translated as she read. "The card inquires after our health, then advises propitiation of good fortune by noble meditation and hard work. Ah... It goes on and on like that — sort of typical Chinese lead up to the meat of the letter."

"Well, what's the meat of the letter?"

"It says to 'trounce competitors with awe notwithstanding' and 'to enable all but reckless preparation'. Then it says 'cascading waterfalls of evil should envelop the enemies of goodness, that loud and strong breaking wind of minor gods should blow across our enemies.'"

"Did he write all that?" asked Molly.

Matilda flipped the card over to examine its back. "No. That's the inside cover. It's a preprinted Hallmark card, just in Chinese instead of English."

Molly sighed in exasperation and humor. "Man! That card must have been in the CONFOUND YOUR ENEMIES SECTION, right next to BIRTHDAY, MALE RELATIVE. Well, what did HE say?"

"His stuff is on the right side. Here it says further small items will be delivered to public box 812B. That's an outside box. It's in vacuum. We take delivery at 812B." She consulted a map. "Oh, it's just outside the dock here, right outside."

"Lyle must have made arrangements with Chin who was storing these thing for him."

Chapter 46
DEPARTURE

"It's time for the free lunch. Let's phone Herbert."

Molly shook her head in awe at the plan's audacity. "I would give anything to see this in action."

Alfred had actually begun a very lucrative trade and did not even require a sales device such as a free lunch. His business attracted customers without advertising to such an extent he had to watch his bottom limit so that the food would not run out.

Alfred's phone rang. He answered it and acknowledged he would begin the charade.

He moved his push cart near the dock itself, not far removed from the TLC guards. They lounged against a wall. One had folded arms. The other stood back against the wall, one foot on the ground, the other against the wall.

Alfred set up his cart for business, opened its umbrella, swung a counter out and up. A small video camera trained on the guards. The last thing he did was hang a large sign.

TODAY ONLY!
FREE LUNCH
GET ACQUAINTED OFFER!

Almost immediately, the body language of the goons expressed interest. A pedestrian approached the cart and Herbert nodded assent and smiled, then fixed a plate for the delighted patron. A couple more similar such customers convinced the guards to get lunch themselves.

"This really free?"

"Yessir. It's a 'get acquainted offer'. Can I fix you each a plate?"

Within minutes they each walked away carrying plate and drink, not having paid a cent. Alfred watched them eat for a minute or two.

He filled two other free, undoctored orders. Alfred phoned Herbert who relayed a second call to Molly to tell her they were now both eating, that the effects would take place within ten minutes or so.

As per plan, Alfred watched the guards toss their empties into the trash then resume their former stance. Within a couple of minutes one of them began to fidget. He kept changing position and Herbert saw his lips move. The other guard nodded and moved his palm over his belly so as to corroborate the discussion, undoubtedly over digestion.

On cue, one, then the other, darted for the men's room. Herbert phoned Molly the coast was now clear, the dock unguarded. Bill rapidly headed for the dock, trotting his trailer rickshaw style behind him.

He wore his suit, all except helmet. He planned to put that on, albeit loosely, as he neared the dock.

The lock was good size and held a dozen people. One guy drove a segway, but most were pedestrians.

A couple kids pushed their grandpa in a wheelchair. Bill had seen oldsters being pushed in wheelchairs on Earth. There, an upright oxygen bottle connected to the back of the wheelchair meant emphysema. Here, it just meant a spare.

The lock pumped down until you could not hear it anymore, just feel its vibration and he exited into vacuum with the group. The door opened in vacuum-mediated silence. The crowd dispersed, fanning out in all directions.

There were road signs all over, some giving directions to this or that bar or church, train station or funeral parlor. He headed directly to the arrow proclaiming WEST DOCK and followed that path. He had a counter clockwise walk of 25 km to get around half of Copernicus.

This was by all reckoning, normally, a dumb itinerary. All right-minded people would have used the inside route by slidewalk and cut straight across the city, so he hoped the TLC people would not think of him taking it, either.

The outside of Copernicus gave you a sense of wonder. While on foot next to it the curved wall of the large dome went up and up and up, always receding into distance, so you could not see how tall it actually was.

It had been built a hundred years ago when labor and materials had been cheap. No one would undertake building a structure like this today. It was too expensive. There had been less and less extremely large building over the decades and, now, building and design work for new large scale dwelling was almost at a standstill. Hence, the contest.

Hundreds of workers had been killed during the manufacture of Copernicus. Suit ruptures, crushed men, even lost men, unaccounted for. More than one worker was reportedly encased in concrete within the overly thick walls.

Bill had heard urban legends of ghosts of dead workers, lost maps of gold mines with dead workers, lovers who died together encased in concrete, arms around each other. One true story told of a man who dived head first into concrete, successfully rescuing his son, only to die himself. There was a story of a worker who had not existed beforehand, that he had arisen from the work itself. There were time traveling Egyptian stone masons who appeared on Halloween. The ghost of Buckminster Fuller himself showed up from time to time.

There were no more crowds, no more signs. This was for the most part an unused pathway. The East Dock and the West Dock were well congregated avenues of approach, but between them, for miles and miles there was nothing.

Bill was alone on the circular road. It was well lit by starlight. He made a good clip, perhaps 6 mph, each six foot bound magically, poetically pulling him and rickshaw along as though he could go forever.

On Earth the average person walked at about 3 mph. Here, due to low gravity, an average pace was twice that. He had no problem with the load.

Bill kept check on his suit readouts, the biologicals as important as pressure, oxygen, CO2, and humidity. His heart rate was about 80 bpm (beats per minute) and he breathed 11 bpm (breaths per minute). He lost 30 gm water an hour due to perspiration and breathing and urine.

As per plan, Bill took a breather after one hour. He double checked suit pressure and oxygen tank capacity and rechecked his spare tanks.

He wanted to deploy his sunbrella before rounding the dome from shade into sunlight. He did so now, folding upwards the stalk from its horizontally stored position, then cranking it out to its full eighteen foot diameter. He set it upright into a receptacle in the trailer hitch area, the front part he held. This location would amply cover him entirely.

He took a few sips of water and checked his radiation meter. His watch read that he had left an hour and ten minutes ago and the GPS indicated he had traveled a bit over six miles.

Before continuing, Bill checked his rear view. The display showed his suit's rear camera view, a completely empty road. He was the solitary traveler on this little used route.

To his left was the curved wall of the dome and it would always be on his left because he was walking in a counter clockwise circle. For this reason he did not turn on his left camera, but did check right view from time to time.

On this right hand part of the journey there was nothing to see except distant mountains, deceptively close looking. The peaks alone were actually just peeking over the horizon, their bases occluded by lunar curvature.

Dr. Chandler had written a rule of thumb about this in one of his training courses, CROWSNEST. Chandler referenced a similar rule of thumb from airplane pilots on Earth.

It works like this on Earth: if you take the square root of one and a half times your height in feet, the answer is how far you can see in miles. For example, if your eyes are six feet off the ground you will be able to see three miles, because 1 1/2 times 6 is 9 and the square root of 9 is 3. Similarly, if you are at 600 hundred feet altitude in an airplane you will be able to see 30 miles, because 1 1/2 times 600 is 900 and the square root of 900 is 30.

This ability to see farther when at a height is why mariners used to put lookouts into crows nests atop the masts of Nineteenth Century sailing ships. There, while on top of a 42 ft mast one could spy whales or enemy ships or land as far as 8 miles away. 1 1/2 times 42 is 63 and 8 times 8 is 64.

On Earth, because of its eight thousand foot diameter, a six foot tall person could see about three miles. Here on the moon the horizon was closer and a six foot tall person could see only 1 1/2 miles.

This difference very often led one into a sense of 'apparent distance complacency' because, from accumulated experience walking, you got into the habit of being able to walk to the horizon very quickly, doubly quickly due to being able to walk rather fast on the Moon and also because of the very real nearness of the horizon.

However, the Moon was a mountainous place, more so than Earth, and distant mountains — mountains beyond the horizon — very often showed in the distance as foreshortened objects, peaks visible, extending vertically ABOVE the horizon, bases obscured UNDER the horizon, thus deceptively near. Experience told your eye they were no more than a mile and a half distant, but in reality might be more than fifty.

There was no dust, no haze, to obscure distant objects, all of which were startlingly clear as though a hands-breadth away.

This trick of perspective combined with a near horizon made it very, very easy to become lost on foot. You could be within two miles of a town and miss seeing it entirely because the town was over the horizon from your viewpoint.

As Bill walked, sunlight began to show itself as a sliver peaking around the edge of the immense dome. It was incredibly bright and Bill's front camera took over when he manually lowered his visor.

The camera's screen was actually a Microvision laser that shined directly on his fovea. Its resolution was so clear on his retina, it rivaled reality and actually enhanced normal vision, showing better resolution than the biological limitation of mere unaided eyes.

Despite the sunbrella, Bill imagined he could feel the 250 degree heat. He had been in the shade which was 250 below zero and had been comforted by the suit's heater.

Now the air conditioner took over and it had a different sound. He plugged his suit's power into the sunbrella and he watched his heads up display as the batteries accumulated charge. They filled to the maximum rapidly and he switched to topping off the spare batteries on the side of the bike trailer.

His vacuum suit's boot soles insulated him from the ground, but Bill could imagine the heat, hot enough to grill on. The bikes and bike trailer did not have pneumatic tires, so were not affected from the heat and cold, did not lose or gain air pressure.

Bill encountered only one other fellow traveler and only during part of the journey. He overtook a tiny suited figure as he rounded the dome of Copernicus. The figure grew larger and waved when he got in hailing distance.

At first Bill worried that TLC had spotted him, but the solitary walker had on an old white suit, not red. Also, this fellow had an unusual, harmless look.

"Howdy. Heading for East Dock?" It was a stoop backed old man. Bill could tell his age because he relied on a pair of walking sticks. Also, his voice quavered from age on the radio intercom channel.

"Yessir, that I am." Bill noticed the old guy had on a really old fashioned suit, one that had been out of style from since before Bill had been born. It had patches upon patches. There were externals affixed to it, things that were normally now subminiaturized and put inside a suit routinely rather than plastered all over the exterior.

Bill noticed the suit's name tag FLEMMING, G but, somehow the significance of the name did not register. It was not until later that Bill put two and two together on whom he had just met.

"I'm heading that way, but will turn off at the junction. Mind the company?

"No sir," Bill replied evenly. "Glad of it. My name's Bill"

"Gus. Glad to meetcha. You sound like a youngster." Flemming shook hands with Bill.

"That I am. Just sixteen."

"I have a few years on you."

They trudged along in silence a while. The old man loped beside Bill. Bill watched how the walking sticks helped propel him along. Each leg thrust was accompanied by a helpful push off from the opposite side walking stick. It was almost a four legged gait like a quadruped.

Bill had seen Alpine hikers employ dual walking sticks to help ease the weight of backpacks on Earth, but this was something else again. The nascent scientist in him wondered at the energy expenditure saved with such a rig.

"You say you're taking a turn off?" inquired Bill.

"That's right. 'Bout a mile, I reckon. I prospect the Pyrenees and the Apennines."

"But, but, they're a couple hundred miles off, aren't they?"

"Just under 225 miles. But don't worry, I don't walk the whole way. My buggy's broke down about 75 miles out. I had to get a part to repair her." He indicated his backpack.

"Still, 75 miles. That's a long haul by yourself."

"It is. I'm used to it, though. That's just a jaunt, a beautiful route for me. Never tire of the sights. Years ago I walked just to walk sometimes. Did my best prospecting then. Would just inadvertently come upon something. More often than not, something worth enough money to justify the hike."

It was then that Bill put 2 and 2 together and came to realize just who it was he had been walking next to. Could this possibly be none other than Gustav Flemming, the author of Prospecting the Lunar Apennines? Then he decided the old guy was either pulling his leg or semi-impersonating the famous author, for Gus Flemming had written that book 120 years ago.

"My dad was the famous author Gustav Flemming. I grew up here with just him and my mom. My own cousin's kids now live in Copernicus. After I retired I returned to Luna and lived with my folks, then after a few years both my folks died and I decided to take up where my dad had left off. At first I thought it would be lonely, but not now. Now I like living out here. Every couple weeks or so I come back to civilization for company. Meanwhile, I perform a good service for my fellow man. I've registered and sold several homesteads for settlers — ice miners, mostly. There are also some small mineral mines. I found a couple ready-made caves, too. They've been sealed up and turned into housing or factories."

"You said you 'returned to Luna'. Were you back on Earth?"

Bill thought perhaps Gus Junior had returned to the Moon to escape Earth's troubles.

"No. I've never set foot on Earth. I was part of the Ganymede expedition. It kept me busy for 48 years, to and from."

Bill blinked. Exploration ran in the family. Gus Junior certainly did not live in the shadow of his more famous father but was perhaps even more so an explorer in his own right. 48 years!

Bill kept mum about the contest and did not mention Dr. Chandler. Nor did the old prospector pry. They exchanged numbers before parting company.

The turnoff Flemming had referred to as the junction was just a well worn foot path. Stirred dust never blew away, just settled, so you could rely on trails and everybody did. At the very least, when you saw a trail, you knew that someone else had walked down that route. It may have been today, last year, or a century ago, but at least you knew it had been at one time traversed.

Bill kept going but checked his mileage and was pleased to discover he was three quarters of the way done. He decided to rest a bit again and took stock of his rations and performed a complete suit check. Chandler had advised Bill never to skimp on these necessary precautions and had recommended doing these things rather constantly while on the move, but Bill had yet to learn how to walk, pull a load, and run a complicated diagnostic.

He would have to learn to multitask later. Right now he was afraid to trip himself and fall sprawling to the ground.

He broke silence with a check-in text message. Bill phoned Molly with 'OK' every hour. She phoned back with another 'OK' a moment later each time.

Suddenly there were more sign posts. Suddenly outbuildings sprouted up like mushrooms. Bill saw highways with fast traffic. A set of parallel train tracks dwindled off into infinity. A group of Lunar shuttles parked sporadically in the distance, one of them descending or rising, a drifting star.

There was no sound, of course, but plenty of light and movement. And signs! There were so many signs, all lit up and blinking, some short movies, some in startling 3D. Everything from JESUS SAVES to LUCKY DICE PARADISE.

Gas stations advertised their prices on placards. People drove up or walked up to the pumps to replenish air and fuel. Bill noticed prices were higher here at East Dock, presumably because rent was more.

The sidewalk widened, necessarily so, for the crowds filled it. The sidewalk got so wide it became a mall and crowds milled in all directions. Bill looked down and the pathway had been improved into an intricately tiled pattern of cobblestones.

Bill had to slow to a walk, slower than a walk. He had to stop occasionally to make way for crossflow and contraflow. He surged with the crowd going in his direction.

Soon he got near the lock. He had to rendezvous with the parked two bikes and he had his claim tickets at the ready, available in an outside pocket. He saw the parking garage and made for it.

Bill recognized the place, but the angle of perspective was different from the memory of when he had parked them. He nudged forward and recognized the bikes.

The kid at work actually recognized him. "Hey, how you doing? I remember you. You were with Dr. Chandler. Got your claim ticket?"

Bill nodded hugely, so the kid could see his assent. He augmented his head movement with a, "Sure do. Here it is," and he produced it. Bill paid the parking garage invoice and hooked up one bike to the trailer. Then he trundled the other bike aboard the trailer. Within a few minutes he had everything tied down and ready to go.

The plan now was either/or. That is, he had to decide whether to return through the inside of Copernicus or return outside, on the path he had come.

Bill sent a text message by phone 'EL', standing for East Lock. He waited for reply. Molly and Herbert and Matilda said they would inform him of the best route, whether to return on the outside or enter the East lock and cut through.

Bill felt a tap on his right shoulder. Someone, probably a salesman, perhaps a beggar, vied for his attention. He looked over and there was Matilda.

"Howdy, chum. I see you made it."

"Yes. My first solo trip outside." He waved at his rig and said unnecessarily, "We need to get the other trailer."

She could tell he was nervous and nodded, the way you do in a suit, with exaggerated head bob. She pointed to her left and there stood Molly in front of the other trailer. It was overloaded so much he wondered how she had gotten it through the lock.

"We had to offload cargo, then make two trips through the lock," she explained. Molly waved at Bill when she saw him look her way. She now joined the conversation on the private channel they were using.

"Herbert's trick must have worked. TLC thinks the bathroom diversion was used to let us all escape out West Dock and are already heading towards Aristarchus Crater they think we are enclosing. They don't know we are all heading back to East Dock."

Chapter 47
CONVOY

It took a hour to distribute the cargo evenly on top of both trailers. They bought additional supplies from vendors who did business outside the lock, boxes and boxes of food and water, green cylinders of air with shiny brass gauges. There were also the giant girders they needed. An enormous spool of black string lay on its side, filling most of one trailer.

"On the narrow part of the trail we can only go single file, but along this stretch there is enough width to travel side by side."

Molly stood on the trailer behind Matilda. The cargo piled high aboard the trailers, higher than the bikes.

She had to either crouch or sit very high to get benefit of the sunbrella. Molly held onto the lashed down cargo to stabilize herself. It was like riding way up on a rollicking camel. You could get seasick.

Matilda set out first and took the lead. Then Bill took off and caught up. At first they went single file, but he pulled up to the side.

Matilda drove to the left of Bill and they could all easily see each other to converse.

"We have to keep at least twenty feet apart for safety, preferably fifty," explained Matilda. "We don't want the sunbrellas to overlap or touch. Not only could they become damaged from rubbing each other, but a static discharge from one to the other could fry an electrical item."

"Dr. Chandler taught me a trick about that," offered Bill. "Molly can extend her sunbrella height."

Molly did just that, freeing her to stand upright without crouching. Now the two sunbrellas could overlap without danger of touching, Matilda's much higher.

It reminded Bill of a gaggle of Huey helicopters whose pilots tailgated so closely they actually overlapped rotors as they flew.

Molly stood on top of the topmost box after she extended the sunbrella stalk which she held now to stabilize herself.

"Wow! You can really see good from this height." Her feet were planted up about 18 feet in the air, putting her eyes at about 24 feet.

Bill remembered his lesson about Lunar curvature and figured Molly could now see about 3 miles, the same as that on Earth while standing on the ground. Analyzed that way, she was actually not able to see all that far, but by comparison to normal walking-height on the Moon it must have been impressive.

Bill handed across a flare gun to Matilda who, in turn, handed it up to Molly.

"Molly," he called. "Hook into this thing's external video feed, then fire this flare gun straight up. Point it a little bit forward of straight up, so it won't fall back on us. Whatever you do, don't shoot through the sunbrella. You'll have to step back."

The pistol he had handed her served multipurpose. It was a flare gun but also shot 'video bullets'.

After she took it he also hooked into the gun's forthcoming video feed. Molly stepped backwards on the moving trailer and fired the pistol forwards, almost straight up.

A tiny, almost invisible special bullet shot forward and up. As it did so they all saw their surroundings via its camera lens through their helmet monitors.

It spun due to rifling, but software recorded and slowed down the video and let them manipulate the view for selection through all 360 degrees. It depicted an ever rising panorama of their surroundings which grew ever higher until the bullet's height topped out at maximum ascension.

There, it momentarily seemed to hover, the illusion of hovering enhanced by the video's slow motion. Then, the panorama began to change as the bullet began to dive and the viewpoint became lower and lower.

Since it had gone in a slight forward direction to avoid hitting any of them on its way down, it now also included their two bikes in the video. They could see themselves, tiny figures aboard toy bikes pedaling in slow motion.

One of them poised atop the trailer, arm still pointing straight up with pistol, now arm slowly, slowly lowering to the side.

When the expendable video bullet crashed into the ground the feed abruptly stopped. The figures shown at the bottom of the screen showed speed, height, direction.

At its maximum the bullet reached a 1056 feet, giving a 360 panoramic view of 20 miles to the horizon in every direction. It was a circular map of 40 miles diameter.

The software, upon verbal command, could make you a flat bird's eye map and you could scroll across it to look at any feature in detail.

You could freeze an image and verbally move a cursor to any item on the image and the software gave distance and direction to this hill, that mountain range, or any crater.

"We can also extend additional telescoping sunbrella stalks about a hundred feet in the sky for a nonvolatile image in real time. It takes some time to erect them with stabilizing wires, though. These bullets are expendable and they don't cost too terribly much.

"We also have all of this preloaded, of course, in our Lunar map compiled from orbital survey done 50 years ago, but that reference does not show what's happening this moment."

"That flyby stuff, that worries me, Bill. Can't TLC see us right now from orbital cameras?"

"It could if we were going West. Stuff in the direction of East Dock is not caught on camera because it's not overflown. Never monitored. Some day they'll do that, but right now they don't 'cause no one goes that way."

"I wondered why Dr. Chandler picked out this direction," put in Matilda. "Do you think TLC will scout around when they realize we aren't where they think we are?"

"I don't know. We are going to have to ask Dr. Chandler's input when he returns. Right now, he's too busy to ask, though, and I think he means for us to sit tight — not do anything until he gets back."

"We won't have to. We have a workforce. Jeeves and his friends will work for us, 24 hours of the day, too. We can just sit tight."

"Well, is Herbert going to have to stay away from East Dock for a while? I mean, he has probably been marked as the culprit who made it possible for us to escape."

"They don't know who he is, probably could never recognize him again. The two TLC guards? They are pretty much in hot water, I suppose."

"What were they supposed to do, stop us?"

"That we don't know. I figure sabotage or, at the least, follow and report. But if you are asking whether we are in physical danger, I just don't know. But sabotage for sure. Trouble is, when equipment gets sabotaged on the Moon, very often people get hurt or die."

"The good news is they have lost our trail. Don't have a clue where we are heading. They are watching Dr. Chandler's crater of record in the contest."

Chapter 48 CHASM

It had taken them the better part of a day to load up and begin a backtrack to their intended destination. They circled around civilization, the area around Copernicus dome, back along the way Bill had come, then made off tangentially into the boonies.

"I ran into an old prospector headed out this way, fellow by the name of Gus Flemming; said he was son of the famous guy; had the same name."

"I know Gus," added Matilda. "We all do. He's a legend in his own right, independent of his dad's reputation — I mean, he's found LOTS of our water — he's outland a lot. How did you get to meet him?"

"Like I said, I ran into him, just a few hours ago, on my way around Copernicus. He had just come back in, on foot, to get a repair part for his buggy."

They continued their journey, thinking about Bill's accidental meeting with Flemming and Bill added, "He did invite me to come see him. He was headed back out. Do you think we could raise him? I've got his phone number." When they agreed, Bill gave him a call.

"Yo-ho!" answered Gus. Bill projected his phone video on the side of their cargo, using a large white box as screen. They watched the video of Flemming's dancing head as he held his own phone in front of himself to film himself. Everybody on the Moon except Flemming had a helmet phone. His was a hand held model.

"It's 'Bill' isn't it?" asked Flemming.

"Yessir. I got to the other lock and picked up some cargo and two lady friends and was wondering if we might stop by. Our destination passes through your homestead."

"'Course you can! That's why I invited you. 'Lady friends' you say. I'll have to roust the maid! Need to get on my tux. How soon?"

"Checking the map, I'd say maybe three, four hours. We're on bikes with trailers."

They finalized locations and consulted their maps. Bill programmed his display and the heads-up marked a peak ahead with an overlying green X. All they had to do was head towards it.

"Dr. Chandler told me to stay on footpaths for at least a year, until I became more familiar with emergency scenarios."

They pedaled along the well-worn trail. So many people had come this way in the last century that it looked like a sidewalk. Matilda read Bill's mind and explained how it had gotten so smooth.

"After a footpath gets worn and been in use for some years they turn it into a more or less official road. They drive a bulldozer with a V-shaped front — a cow catcher blade — down the footpath to smooth it out — sort of pave it. That's why the side border rocks are so uniform."

The path looked like the white rural roads of Texas lined on either side by cleared chalky rocks. The bordering rocks were laid out in a pretty straight line, delineating the edges, sort of an invitation not to disturb the five billion year old landscape's beauty on either side of the road. Also, leaving the path invited death.

They drove single file, Bill in front. Matilda stayed behind him a safe fifty feet. The fully laden bikes and trailers took more distance to stop than one would think, so this was not an overly-cautious distance. Because of their suit radios it was not as if they had to shout to converse.

"Here's the turn off." Bill had been watching for Flemming's footprints. Entering their sidewalk obliquely there was the telltale sign of foot traffic — a few dozen times a lone footman had trod this route and disturbed the soil.

Bill slowed down almost to a stop and gently threaded his bike's front wheel through two soccer ball sized border rocks, then cautiously rolled over them with the immense rear wheel. Next, the two trailer wheels had to negotiate the side rocks of the path, one threading between two rocks, the other riding over a rock. This made the bike and trailer tip precariously.

Once through the sidewalk border rocks, most of the rubble was smaller: gravel, dust, talc, up to baseball size. The occasional waist high rocks that Flemming had already avoided were to either side of the trail, but Gus had been on foot and the width of his body was narrow and he had threaded between two extra large rocks easily. Not so for the eight foot wide bike trailers. Occasionally Bill had to deviate from Gus's trail to avoid such boulders.

"Oh, boy! This could get tricky. I don't want to box us in." He had to choose the path carefully when he detoured.

On one such obstacle where Flemming had walked between two fridge-sized boulders that were a scant yard apart, Bill found no way around either to the left or to the right. He slowed, then stopped altogether and announced, "Got a toll booth here."

Matilda dismounted, Molly following, and the three surveyed the predicament. Matilda made sense of the strewn boulders and tidied them up in her mind. "If it weren't for that one," — she pointed — "it's a straight shot."

Matilda walked up to the rock in question, crouched down, then did a mighty leap to its top. There she stood, calculating a path.

"I think we can move it. Think we can use one of those girders as a lever?"

Bill and Molly retrieved a twelve foot aluminum I-beam from the second bike's trailer and carried it to the boulder in question. Bill planted his end at the base of the offending boulder. They used a smaller knee high rock near the large boulder as fulcrum and all three of them pulled down on the other end of the beam. The huge boulder rolled its multiton mass obediently out of their way, the first time it had so stirred in two billion years.

"I want to tell you a dangerous thing," said Matilda. On the Moon, that was a phrase people used to start off on a safety instruction. You heard it all the time and everybody perked their ears and listened obediently and quit talking whenever anyone started out with 'I want to tell you a dangerous thing.'

"There's a hand ratchet — a 'come-along' — in our gear. What you don't want to do, NEVER do, is move a boulder by standing in the middle of two, looping both, and drawing them in towards the center. Remember, YOU'RE in the center, and more often than not you'll get crushed between them as they meet. It's sort of like sawing off the tree branch upon which you are sitting, what we call a 'dumb suicide.'"

Molly nodded gravely and Bill did, too.

The boulder that they had rolled out of the way cleared the path for their caravan and they saw Gus's footprints, for the most part, threaded through light rubble which their wheels easily negotiated.

Sunlight kept their batteries at full charge despite the drain of suit air conditioners and bike motors. They had not bothered pedaling, just had to steer.

"Molly, you tired of riding? Want to try driving?" asked Matilda. They stopped as Molly and she exchanged places.

The orientation and driving lesson gave Bill a moment to survey the land ahead. He was able to follow the footpath with his eyes until it vanished over the horizon. His map display in the helmet marked their destination with a red X. He used voice command to zoom and pan the image. He called out "map command menu" and found a few toys, then spoke "color foot path green". Suddenly his map showed a more or less straight green line. Somehow the software recognized the dust disturbance of Gus's trail and marked it. They had only a few miles to go. He decided to ring Gus when they got closer.

They pulled over to take a breather and stretch their legs. Bill deployed the kickstand and allowed the bike to come to a stop. As it slowed, the huge wheels lost their centrifugal force and he could no longer keep the bike upright and it leaned over, now supported by the kickstand. Matilda came to a halt beside him.

"We gonna set up the shelter?" Bill asked.

Molly looked at Matilda and something passed between them. Molly answered for them both. "I'm okay. How 'bout you?"

Bill did not know the sanitary details of female suits. He had skipped that chapter during his training, just read the male portion. He had to urinate and — even though no one could see him and nobody knew what he was up to — he found it embarrassing to just go ahead and go, right there, in front of everyone. The suit took care of the details of this. Enough said.

Drinking was easy. A water sipper within easy reach of one's mouth.

Food was only slightly more difficult. A dispenser lobbed standard sized pellets directly into your mouth. Candies, cereals, meats. All sorts of food was available and so prepackaged. A lot of it was freeze dried like ice cream and veggie balls. Salty stuff made you thirsty. The markets were very competitive for flavor, all of the food grown locally and packaged here. You could even get smelly fish balls, Kosher and Halal. Absurd nomenclature, often irreverent, were household names: Appenine Pizza, Crater Fish, gooky cooky, turd balls, Maltomoons, chocolunes, moondogs, squooshysushi, UFOs (pronounced 'OO FOs')

"Man, I could take a snooze!" commented Bill.

"That's 'cause this experience is new to you and that takes a lot of energy. Maybe we should set up camp."

"No. I'm okay. I wasn't hinting at that. We don't have that much more to go. Just a few miles."

Matilda studied her own map display, then commented. "True enough, just a few miles as the crow flies, but I want to show you a dangerous thing. Activate the contour lines on your maps."

Molly and Bill both did so, each mouthing, "map command menu" followed by "color contour lines". Their helmet maps displayed concentric kidney bean ovals showing different elevations along their route.

For the most part everything is flat on the Moon, neither uphill nor downhill. The craters, of course, are plateaus or valleys, but mostly flat. There are a few hills and mountains, some of whom are immense. But there were neither mountains, crater rims, nor hills along their path.

However, Bill immediately saw what Matilda referred to. There was a chasm cutting diagonally right in front of Flemming's homestead. The concentric contour lines bunched up diagrammatically all together in front of the canyon. Bill did not know how to command his menu as speedily as he should and Matilda taught them both how to order the software about so that the display labeled the elevation of the contour lines.

"It says zero meters along our route here. We're at 'sea level'. The channel drops down to a negative 1200 feet and it looks like its a quarter mile wide. Pretty steep if I read this map right. We have to be real careful coming up to it. We might go off a cliff, but that's not what I'm worried about. I think we could see a cliff and stop in time. I'm worried about a gradual downhill run that gets steeper and steeper. We could lose control of our brakes."

They checked their brakes. The handbrakes operated front and rear bicycle wheels, just like regular bikes on Earth. But they also had a footbrake that activated the two trailer wheels.

"Molly, can you drive solo a while? I want to visit the fiancee." Matilda clambered aboard and stood on top of the trailer.

"I'll play lookout. Later on, one of us — me, I guess — should walk ahead of the bikes as a scout."

It had been seven hours since they left the dock. Speed around the circumference of Copernicus on the paved road was really fast, averaging 15mph. They had turned off that main paved road four hours earlier but it was gravel, slowing them to 8mph. When they left the rock lined road and began on Gus's footpath their speed reduced yet again to an average of 2mph, less than walking speed.

Their bikes and trailers slowed them down greatly. That was the price they paid for being able to convey the immense cargo.

"I calculate about eight metric tons, including bikes, us, trailers, cargo, and gear." She shrugged. "That's ballpark. Could be off a ton or two either way."

Molly dropped back fifty feet behind and told them, "You guys don't take any which kind of chance. We can leave our gear and walk to Mr. Flemming's house."

"It might be too steep to even walk. It looks like mountain climbing terrain from the map."

"Well, how does Flemming get across, then? Somehow he negotiates this route."

They had no answer and just rode on. After an hour Matilda saw it.

"Pull over, guys. This is it, I think." She hopped down from her crows nest position and waited for them to follow. The three walked down the path like Dorothy, Lion, and Tin man.

The road did not dip but kept flat right up to the edge of a sudden cliff. Bill did not approach the edge, but stayed back at a safe distance. He was close enough, though, to be able to see the bottom across the way. It was too steep to traverse except with alpine climbing equipment.

He looked closer and saw a rope tied around a boulder. The rope disappeared over the edge. Matilda saw it, too, and decided to approach it, but Bill put out his hand to stop her. He had seen it move.

"Look. This rope's wiggling."

They could see a habitat across the divide. It was a silver module. There were some outbuildings. Bill saw a parked MoonMobile. All sorts of gear lay about the house. A huge solar array protected it from sunlight.

"Those outbuildings are battery houses," explained Matilda. He's got plenty of juice for a solitary camp."

Just then, a figure appeared over the edge, Gus, apparently. He had pulled himself up the rope.

They suddenly heard his voice on the common circuit. "Plenty of juice is right! Electricity to sell!"

Gus righted himself from the edge and bounded towards them. "Well, these must be your two lady friends, Bill. Howdy, ladies. I'm Gus Flemming. Welcome to my place."

They made introductions and he invited them in. Here, Bill got a surprise, for Gus had in place a rope bridge crossing the canyon, a rope bridge with aluminum plate planks. The bridge spanned the chasm, securely anchored on both sides.

"This is the longest rope bridge ever built, I think. On Earth there's gravity and winds to worry about, but not here."

It went on and on and on, dipping in the center, diminishing in size until reaching the other side where it made contact with Gus's house that looked toy size because it was so far away.

Gus pointed to the rope he had just clambered. "I was just over the edge monitoring my diggers. Today's bore holes are yielding a very good percentage of reclaimable ore. Gold here," — he pointed — "and a silver vein there. That's why I live on this face."

Chapter 49 FLEMMING

"So you think I have too much electric," asked Gus. "Actually, I use it up as fast as Mr. Sun makes it for me. My drill absolutely drinks electricity."

He led them back to the cliff's edge, then around the big boulder to which his rope had been attached. There was a platform, a flat aluminum plate, perhaps 10 feet square, with a waist high fence around it.

"My drill has bored holes all along this cliff face. It left shafts all over the place. Vertical shafts, horizontal, some diagonal. I got tired of all the zig zags and one day interconnected them and made an elevator. This will take us down, then across, then up to my place."

They assembled on the plate and he pressed a red button. It lurched a bit then smoothly descended.

"We'll get your bikes across later. Right now you guys probably need to de-suit and rest. Ever been to Gus's Restaurant?"

Bill grinned and asked, "Your drill bore out gold, Mr. Flemming?"

"I mine gold, silver. All kinds of metal are facing this ravine. I could mine this area for a century and not touch its wealth."

They descended and Bill saw the various bore holes, tunnels throughout the side, some going in perhaps miles.

When they got to the bottom Bill thought to ask, "Uh, Mr. Flemming, you already have the elevator and also the bridge, so how come you clambered up the rope ladder?"

"Well, like I say, I mine gold and silver. This chasm is part of my burglar alarm. Most burglars are lazy and dumb. An obstacle won't keep the smart, ambitious ones out, but it sure acts as a filter to discourage some of them."

Bill did not even consider asking how many tons of gold Gus had mined.

Flemming led them single file to his ground floor apartment at the bottom of the deep chasm. "These are just work quarters — my main house is on the other side on the top edge. This here is a resort home."

An industrial airlock was big enough for all of them at once. Flemming activated the swing door motors which ponderously moved on massive hinges. Once shut, additional motors activated seals and only then did the room begin to fill with air. Bill's visor fogged and gradually he began to feel his suit inflate, then sounds arose, now audible by the air.

"Welcome to my place! Very honored and glad of the company."

They made through the hangar-size lock into the living quarters proper. Low music and lights were already on. Bill wondered why until he heard Flemming's dog bark. A pair of cats accompanied by kittens sidled his leg as they looked around. "I hope you like ice tea?" asked their host.

"We're mighty dry, Mr. Flemming," answered Molly, "and tea sounds the best."

Matilda set her helmet down and helped Gus in the kitchen. "Sit down and take a load off. I know how tiring a heavily laden bike can be."

Bill assessed the ancient furniture of a style two generations old, some of it imported from Earth. The kitchen, the fridge — everything — looked as though it had just arrived out of an old "time machine" from the far distant past. There were real paintings on the walls. Flemming had radio gear and visual screens Bill had only seen in old movies. He had most of his furniture made out of wood and leather cushions covered the seating areas of the couches and chairs. There were leather-bound books in wooden cases. The books — no matter what was in them — were, therefore, worth an incredible fortune as rarities and antiques.

"I know it's all old stuff, but my gear is reliable and safe," offered Flemming. "Here, let me show you."

He powered up his main screen. It was, incredibly, an old cathode ray tube. A monochromatic display of text listed an assessment of household operations. Bill was not readily able to make heads or tails of it, but Flemming grunted approval and caused the computer to display the rest. The screen changed every second from camera to camera.

"These are my drills. It's pretty automated: drill the ore, load the ore, transport the ore, refine the ore, dump the slag, store the ore. Every once in a while I have go out and fix something, but mostly it's autonomous."

The screen shots made sense now, showing little train cars, moving, loading, dumping, returning. One camera showed an immense mound of slag at the bottom of the canyon.

"That's a shot of 62 years of mine shaft tailing. I've made a small mountain down here, but it would take me ten thousand years to fill the canyon up."

Bill did not want to ask how much gold had been extracted, but Flemming more or less answered that question. "About half the gold I dig must be spent on drill and equipment upkeep. As you can imagine, the import costs of mining equipment from Earth is almost unimaginably expensive. Each heavy drill bit is almost a million AU dollars and I go through them weekly. Bulldozer parts! Worth their weight in gold, too."

Molly took a seat on the couch and nursed her tea watching the outside camera shots which were as interesting as a movie.

"Earth governments have upped the tax burden. They want their cut, especially the AU New Progressives. That party wants it all."

Though still teen-aged, Bill and Matilda had heard adults argue this way and that way their entire lives. Molly, as a young adult, had lived through the horrible aftermath of Progressive totalitarianism gone awry in the form of the East Coast Food Riots.

Chapter 50
R&R (Rest & Relaxation)

Their meal had already been prepared by Mr. Flemming and he had gone all out. It was sumptuous. The four of them sat at an Earth-style full-gravity table on real wooden chairs, real wooden table, but it was not a stuffy, formal affair. Instead, Gus entertained them such that it was homelike and relaxing. True, many people on Luna ate standing, but here, what with the space and the furniture, Bill, at least, felt as though he had returned to a more gracious time in the past, some Nineteenth Century alcove of social behavior.

"Why don't you kids look around while Molly and I clean up?" suggested Gus.

Matilda began her protest and started to clear her place setting when Molly sided with Gus and took the plates from Matilda's hands.

"It'll take you more than several days to see it all," Gus pointed. "The place is immense." He pointed a direction and off they went.

Bill led the way down a corridor. Lights ahead turned on as they walked. There were, every so often, vacuum doorways along the route, automatic safety systems at the ready to close up each and every section. Emergency suits at the ready were in little glass-doored closets every so often.

As they travelled down the miles-long hallway there were hangar-sized rooms on either side from time to time. They were old, immensely old, full of old machinery, an unused living room area with yet even more Earth furniture. Bill saw hundreds of cylinders of air at the ready. There were fuel cells, enough to light a city for a year.

They stepped into a room full of gold ingots and stopped in their tracks at the brightness.

"They shine like there is a light in them!" Bill hefted one. It was one-sixth as heavy as on Earth, but he could feel the mass, the resistance to move.

Matilda estimated. "There must be BILLIONS of Lunars here, BILLIONS." Bill nodded, but commented for the both of them.

"The real wealth here, though, is still in the kitchen washing dishes."

Matilda nodded and they continued walking around, exploring this Lunar Disneyland of Gus Flemming.

Against the wall were two bicycles and Bill grinned. They mounted the bikes and rode the miles-long corridors at a higher speed.

There were rooms of stored bulk freeze-dried food, again, enough to feed a city, perhaps for years.

"It's incredible! I don't believe anyone knows this is here. No one has ever made mention of this."

They smelled it before getting there, a park, a botanical garden, a damp, green horticultural volume, a room the size of England's famed Crystal Palace. Little robots tended the plants and there were birds and squirrels.

There was a sound of rushing water. A waterfall fed a kidney-bean-shaped pool in which they could see large gold fish. They disturbed some roosting parrots who screamed insolence at them. The birds side-stepped the branch of their tree as though to make room for Matilda and Bill.

A Japanese motif, a Zen garden with a torii lintel sheltered a bench. A vertical line of Oriental characters descended each pole of the torii.

Matilda fingered the pole longingly and translated, "Peace. Wealth. Honor. Health. Loving kindness. Joy."

She began to read a Chinese inscription chiseled into an ornamental rock, but when she did a darting rabbit caught her eye. She followed it to see a vista beyond the shelter of surrounding bushes, bushes which led her along where the pond narrowed but continued.

She disappeared as Bill explored the coy fish. He found a hopper with a small ladle with which he could feed the fish little pellets. They obediently extended their heads out of the water, mouthes open, hoping to get fed. He laughed as he tossed food to them.

"Hey, Matilda, did you ever see fish..." He trailed off when he noticed she had disappeared around the corner. Bill got up off his knees at the water's edge and followed the course of the pond.

He rounded the corner to see Matilda diving from a thirty-foot-high boulder into the deep water. Bill blinked twice at the brief sight, not sure if he had seen what he had glimpsed, then looked down at a pair of shoes and a pile of clothes.

"You getting in? Smell like a goat." Her red hair, normally frizzy, was now plastered down and her grin was infectious. She did not wait for his reply but began swimming away. The pool was immense and the other side was — what? — half a mile away. The water looked to be twenty, maybe thirty feet deep.

Bill had a quick deja vu of the Japanese men in the Sapporo's pool and instantly was in the water, safely covered by its blurry modesty. His eye sight was now closer water height so he lost sight of Matilda. Her head was barely visible in the distance and he began swimming in that direction.

He found himself to be incredibly buoyant in the low Lunar gravity. In repose, while just floating, he did not even have to tread water, not even a little bit. His head and shoulders naturally extended above the surface.

The water splashed more, too, as he swam. The speed with which he swam felt incredible. He had never swum so fast before. It felt almost as if he could run on top of the water if he had on big swim fins designed for that purpose.

It took only a few minutes to traverse the expanse of water. The other side was much the same, surrounded by greenery and there was a foot path around the edge of the pool. It was incredible. There was another corridor leading away, a sidewalk to still yet more of Gus Flemming's secret world.

"Took you just a couple of seconds. Pretty fast. But watch this!"

Matilda began swimming, then changed into a different stroke. It was neither Australian Crawl, nor breast stroke, nor side stroke, not even butterfly. Bill was unable to see the exact moves, but he did notice one thing — extreme speed!

Matilda reversed direction and, now out of breath, returned within conversation distance.

"It's a new stroke. Can't do it on Earth in high gravity, but here on Luna it's the fastest thing going."

Bill did not dare ask for instructions on how to duplicate the moves, though normally he would have. He was a bit uncomfortable about their closeness in the water, kept trying to see through its depths without being obvious.

Matilda was breathing hard still from the exertion and said, "This is as clean as I have been in a hundred years, body and soul. I don't ever want to leave."

Bill nodded. He did not ever want to leave either.

She got serious, lost the smile, and blew away a braid which clung to her mouth.

"You know how I told you I had been injured while at TLC?"

He nodded.

"Well, I have lingering difficulties from that. It might scare you."

She held onto the edge of the pool and pulled herself out of the water and sat on the edge. Matilda's rib area was covered by an inflamed puffy scar. Bill blinked.

"Gross you out?"

Bill shook his head. "Does it still hurt?"

"No, just emotionally. But I wanted to make sure you were not repulsed."

Bill reached out his right hand and linked fingers with her right hand. "I am not repulsed. I am so attracted, I cannot put it in words, so attracted it is not possible to put it in human speech." Her eyes got as big as a full moon on Earth and Bill very gently kissed her cheek. But neither of them gave into the moment, though both of them, were at the ready.

"Our host has graciously been match maker, but 'let us not despoil his house.'"

"What's that?"

"I know all the Chinese fortune cookies."

They swam back to the other side for their clothes.

"Did you see, while we were over there, it went on and on and on? I wonder how far this goes."

"Mr. Flemming had mentioned 62 years."

They rode back on the bikes and their passage dried even Matilda's long hair before they got back. He kept staring at her.

And she kept looking over at him, too, giving him a Mona Lisa smile, one that solidified their emotional union.

Bill was in agony, but did not know Matilda's own emotional state until she looked over at him on his bike and voiced the thought both of them had. "Perhaps we should have invested an additional hour or so while in the pool."

"'Invested'?"

"That's how you say it in Chinese." She blew out a volume of air. "I'm afraid we would have invested for the rest of the day, all night, and through tomorrow. Thank goodness for the bicycles to let off steam."

She pulled away with a sudden acceleration and with a laugh called over her shoulder, "Besides, I don't know if your intentions are honorable. Also, according to the Chinese, we are both too young."

He called out to her, "How old you gotta be?"

She shouted back, "According to Master Chin, at least forty! You gonna catch up?"

When they arrived astride the bikes Gus commented, "You saw only part of it, even with the bicycles to speed you on your journey. Past the lake my dig extends an additional 72 miles. Mostly old rooms full of junk. But I keep plenty of supplies for an emergency. I could house quite a few people here if anything happened to Copernicus."

"Mr. Flemming has agreed to help us at Placida."

Gus nodded. "We can leave in the morning after breakfast."

Bill sat on a real leather couch in one of the living room areas next to Matilda. There were real oil paintings, framed in wood. There were several old photographs and one caught his eye. It was a young woman's portrait, from yesteryear as evidenced by the hair style, a black and white picture. He thought he recognized the person and searched his memory for history of the Moon, but through that avenue came up with nothing. It nagged him that the face looked so familiar. Then he had it, or thought he did, and got up to look more closely at the portrait. There was a penned caption. In hand writing it said, "To Gus from Eileen. All my love."

Chapter 51
RETURN TO PLACIDA

They traveled single file, Bill and Gus on the lead bike and trailer, Molly and Matilda following on the second rig. Gus advised them of trails he knew and their passage to Placida was thereby not as direct but more rapid.

Bill saw the yellow bulldozer in the distance and its warm color quickened his pace. The craters they had passed had all begun to blur together in his mind, so much so he felt doubt about his orientation. It would become very easy to get lost, but the presence of the bulldozer was like a lighthouse.

"I've passed this crater a time or too," commented Gus. "I never knew Dr. Chandler owned this place, too. I thought he was at Aristarchus."

"It's a secret for the contest, Mr. Flemming. As soon as we get set up I will show you around."

The tunnel through the crater wall felt familiar to Bill this time, but he knew the passage through was awe inspiring. When they broke from the dark tunnel into the light of the inner side Bill heard both Molly and Matilda exclaim "Ooh!" and "Ah!" Even Gus seemed impressed.

"These walls are straight! So high!" exclaimed Gus.

"Dr. Chandler measured it as perfectly round. The walls are nearly a hundred feet, but it's the SIZE of the place — nearly a half mile across."

They continued to their goal, the spire in the center, the stalagmite housing the apartment.

Bill parked and dismounted. "I want to get the robots to work but I guess we should rest first." The others nodded, fatigue showing in their faces. A meal was in order.

"Good size lock," admired Gus. "Lyle never skimped on safety."

They all entered the apartment together and Bill powered up the environmentals for full usage. As before, it smelled a little musty from disuse, but soon cleared up from the fan.

The air conditioner fan and filter made a comforting background sound, the lights were cheery. Molly tried out sink and stove, inspected the fridge and pantry. Matilda put on some music, then a news broadcast.

"Can we contact Lyle?" asked Gus.

Molly shook her head. "He's worried about them tracing the location of the call. We can relay once, but once only through the Chin family."

Gus nodded, recognition of the Chin family's involvement denoting seriousness of the highest order.

Bill had trundled one of the little robots into the apartment with him. He began setting it up.

"Cute little fellow", remarked Gus.

"As soon as he is fully awake, we'll put him to work."

"There's a bigger one, too, isn't there?" asked Matilda.

"That's what the beams are for. They are his arms and legs. The little guy here will assemble his big brother. That's his first task, anyway."

*** CLIMBING

"Can he climb, okay?" asked Matilda.

Bill had to remember not to nod. He was still actively acclimating to suit life.

"Yes. The ladder is a natural for him. I think Randy modeled that subroutine after the Sapporo cleaning robots. They go up a ladder, but use the rungs."

They watched the little robot approach the bottom of the ladder. It zipped up the vertical rails as if they were not even there. Little rollers on its 'arms' grabbed the pipes of the side rails and rolled straight up. Bill went up first after the robot, then Matilda.

"It is not carrying anything. Why is he going up?" asked Matilda.

"I have no idea," admitted Bill. They watched the little robot go to the top of the ladder. When it got to the top, it climbed further. There was a sort of flag pole that went up another hundred feet or so. It grasped the flag pole by hugging around it with a couple of arms, then it accelerated up the pole, looking as though it were being pulled up.

They watched it roll to the top. They had to tilt backwards in their suits to look straight up, but still could not look upwards through the visor at enough of an angle to look straight up. Bill refocused his camera and got a visual that way. So did Matilda and they both watched the little guy survey the rim. He did a 360 around the tip of the flag pole.

There was no wind on the Moon, of course, but the robot was so high that the pole did, in fact, sway a little bit.

"I think he is measuring the distance from the pole to the rim all the way around. We're not EXACTLY in the center here, so he will have to run different length lines from the center to the edges. Each line might vary by as much as, oh, a hundred feet."

After a half hour the robot had finished his task and they watched him roll down the flag pole, then roll down the ladder again.

"Is he going to need his partner out on the rim to catch the lines?" asked Matilda.

"No. I don't think they planned on shooting the lines from the center out to the rim. It's the other way around. They will attach the lines on the rim every few feet, them drop them each over the edge to fall into the crater, onto the floor. All those lines will be tied to the top of the center flag pole. What they will do is drop splicing lines from the center, then attach them one by one to the lines dropped from the edges of the rim. We will have to carefully draw them up tight one by one using a tightening pattern each one opposite the other so that we don't put too much tension on one side of the pole."

"How long will it take, do you think?"

"Dunno. Couple weeks, perhaps. Then these lines will have to be covered with sheeting, some kind of cloth. Randy told me it's going to be gossamer thin, as light as possible, but still be strong enough to hold air. When we fill it — if it holds air and doesn't leak too much — then we can reinforce the fabric with really airtight sealant. We figured to spray it on over the top, a stretchy gooey sealant."

*** LOOP

After anchoring a loop of rope around a boulder near the edge of the crater Bill attached the line to his suit and then — and only then — risked a look-see over the edge of the crater. It was indeed awe-inspiring, at least a hundred feet straight down. He stomped the edge gingerly with one foot. It did not crumble. It was solid as granite, as secure as concrete. The blast of the meteor which had made this crater a billion years ago had melted the rock and when it cooled it was as if cement poured by construction workers on Earth. Nevertheless, one could not and should not trust its solidity.

Even the little robots themselves had anchors attached to boulders in case they should fall or slide or even stumble. Their safety ropes would only allow them a safe fall over the edge only to the length of the rope. Bill expected at least one fall, perhaps more.

Bill carefully minded his footing. There was no wind, of course, but he feared his own inattentiveness and carefully stayed at least a couple meters from the edge of the crater.

His job was simple. He mere acted as helper. Wordlessly the robots made their way clockwise around the crater and he followed. Every hundred meters the robots stopped to drill a hole into the rock. Each hole was ten meters from the edge. Bill followed and screwed a one meter long threaded aluminum bolt into the hole. The top of each bolt had an eyelet. After Bill put in his bolt Matilda followed him with a spool of thin string, to which she clipped to the eyelet.

Another robot followed her. Each time she finished connecting spool to anchor bolt, the precise little robot lifted the spool and accurately — more precisely than any human baseball pitcher — threw the spool towards the center of the rim, towards the center stalagmite. The spool always landed very nearly at the foot of the base, ready for retrieval later.

They did not dare yet attach any of them due to imbalance of weight on one side. When finished, they would attach them one by one in a star pattern, in the same way people tighten lug nuts on a car's wheel, going from one side to the opposite in order to keep all forces at an even tension.

"This is going to take a long, long time just to even get up the initial spokes," offered Matilda.

Bill agreed. "If we just merely walked the rim of the crater, say, at one mile an hour, I make it several days."

Matilda nodded and added to the assessment. "It's taking maybe ten, fifteen minutes per anchor bolt. Each one of them is ten meters apart or so. The circumference will have — what? — how many hundred bolts-and-lines around its edge?"

Bill did not know the program of the robots. He watched how the lead robot went about its routine, traveling forward, then turning toward the center spire, then inching forward. It would do this several times, each jaunt shorter and shorter.

"It must be measuring the angle, figuring an EXACT number of ropes, each EXACTLY the same distance apart."

"When Number 1 finishes the assembly of Number 4 we'll have enough help to speed things up enough so we — as humans — will be superfluous."

"What'll we do, then?" asked Matilda.

Bill shrugged. "Dunno. We can actually go to the interface and ask to be put to work. I'll type in a query and ask to be made useful in some way. It will give us a task. Also, if it gets stuck it will ask our input."

*** MAGELLAN

"We have gotten a quarter of the way around. Do you think we could start another of the robots to begin line dropping on the other side?"

Bill agreed. He checked his air supply gauge and the time.

"We've been out longer than I thought."

Along with them, on the trailer he hauled were spare oxygen bottles as well as the miles and miles of line on dozens of spools. The sunbrellas were up, too, providing both shade and their all-important electrical power supply.

They returned to the apartment, but this time did not have to backtrack along the rim, then down the slope, then, finally, through the main entrance tunnel.

"Want to rappel down the inside wall?" asked Bill.

Matilda agreed by saying, "Okay, but safety first." Bill rigged an additional safety line by looping a multiton boulder. He threaded that line through his motorized ascender/​descender, then affixed that unit to one of his suit's utility D-rings. He twitched the motor first forward, then back, and the threaded line fed and retracted as expected.

Matilda lifted then handed him the main line they had already dropped over the edge.

"Most people would just hold the secondary safety line in their hands and let it feed itself along, but I learned that is a dangerous move. You can abrade your gloves doing that."

She showed him how to loop through a couple rings which she knotted with a small length of rope and actually referred to it as a brake knot.

Over the side he went, facing the cliff's edge, a hundred feet above the floor.

"Turn the speed rheo to as slow as possible and you can just hop/walk down."

Bill descended, monitoring the two ropes, not letting his second, manual safety backup rope get too far from synchronization with the other. He reached bottom in a few minutes.

A few minutes later Matilda followed. When he looked up he saw how small she was at that distance, lit by Earthlight, showing how far down he had come.

"We really saved some time!" Indeed, they were now only the distance from inside crater wall to center stalagmite. It was the radius of the crater, a mere quarter mile.

Bill looked up and now, for the first time considered the scope of the engineering project. Each rope, a quarter mile long, from rim to center, every ten meters. Then, later, the entire area of a half-sphere: two times pi, 17179367.04, times a quarter mile, times a second quarter mile had to be covered and sealed. He did a rough mental calculation. Twice 3.14 is 6.28 times a quarter mile times a quarter mile. .25 times .25 is, ah... He got lost in mental calculation, called up a calculator program and spoke it out. The display showed a calculator in his head's-up display and the answer amazed him.

3.14 x 3.14 x 1320 x 1320 = 17,179,367 sq ft

Bill remembered a square mile was 640 acres and a square mile consisted of 5280 squared, or 27,878,400. It was nearly 2/3 of a square mile. When expressed that way it did not seem possible.

*** LONG TIME OUT THERE

"You guys were out there a long time," commented Molly.

"But just in time for lunch, I hope."

They discussed their progress and once again inventoried their equipment, provisions, and tools.

Despite his age, Mr. Flemming did not seem to be tired in the least and worked away at keyboard and screen. A half sandwich and half drink kept him company. He directed the robots generally, coaxed them when they stalled indecisively, goaded them into action when they appeared to be deliberating.

Bill found this kind of work, more or less, exactly like his job at Fred's Diner. Instead of clearing tables, these robots were now building a spider web.

Flemming noticed the speed with which Bill worked and how he seemed to anticipate the way the robots 'thought'.

"You seem to have a knack for controlling our little friends, Bill."

Bill nodded and explained about his bus boy job and how he had juggled 99 tables and the quirky, out-of-date Hitachi robots.

"I missed a lot of the robot technology on my trip. Was gone for 47 years on the Conestoga."

"You were on the Conestoga?" asked Bill. It was a name from yesteryear, well before the prior generation. He was in awe. The ship was mankind's first and (so far) only trip to Jupiter's moons. The journey itself, to and from, took up most of the years of the voyage. The expedition had only spent three years actually at their destination.

"It must have been to you guys a very, very long trip."

"We were actually quite busy during the voyage and continued making preparations during the long travel time. Those years were not wasted at all and I only have a regret or two about the isolation and the removal from society. There were sixty of us aboard ship when we left Luna and 34 of us survived the round trip. Most of the deaths were from natural causes, old age and such. We did have a few accidental deaths during the voyage."

Bill did not want to pry, but he was fascinated at the tale.

"Many of us were married or got married to other crew members. Twelve years into the voyage my best friend passed away of leukemia and I married his widow a few months later. Linda and I were married until her own death by accident on Ganymede."

Bill remembered the picture of Eileen O'Donnell he had seen in Gus's living room and was dying to ask, but Gus did not offer additional history, so Bill only offered proper condolences about Gus's wife, Linda.

"Do you think we will ever go back?"

"Sure. Sure, we will. The bad political and economic climate on Earth will pass and a new prosperity will arise again. Luna just might be the source of a new hope that will spill back to Earth. The repressive regimes on Earth cannot sustain themselves too much longer. I just hope the bad times do not create a war."

"Dr. Chandler once said he thought under normal conditions mankind would already have had colonies on Titan and Ganymede, that, perhaps, mankind would already have had a star drive and might have gone to other solar systems."

"True enough. I believe it, too. Have you seen the planets?"

Bill nodded. "It's amazing! The resolution. We can make out weather, water, continents, islands. They have extrapolated atmospheric composition and temperature. And the time lag!"

Gus nodded. "The time lag, indeed. What we see through the telescope is an old video image, a picture of 1200 years ago at the speed of light. For all we know, the planets we see in such a manner these many light years distant are not even any longer there."

"They're still there. I know it just as much as I know it that we will some day travel to them and, perhaps, settle them."

*** SPOOLS

The little robot lugged a bundle of spools up the ladder of the stalagmite and dumped them unceremoniously in a heap, then went back down for another load. It repeated that pattern several times.

After it had brought all its spools of rope to the top, it then began attaching the spools, one by one, to the base of the center spire. There were a hundred attachment rings around the base of the spire for this purpose.

Another of the robots then began tossing the spools, one by one, in number order, beginning with 1 and ending with 100, over the edge. They unwound as they fell. Each one hit near the base of the stalagmite before rolling a bit more, finally stopping.

Bill and Matilda watched the robot at the base pick up each dropped spool, beginning with 1. It unraveled the spool it carried as it walked outwards toward the rim. Its program let it match the correct ropes to splice: #1 from the rim to #1 from the center. It pulled out the center ropes and pulled the rim ropes inwards towards the center until they met and could be joined.

"There are two robots on the rim drilling and dropping and two more robots on the floor of the crater splicing together the two halves. Once they are all connected we can begin the delicate job of pulling them taut."

Chapter 52 AUTOMATION

"There is no longer too much for us, as mere humans, to do. I think the robots are okay on their own. Of course, they still have to be monitored in case they get stuck."

Bill was able to see that this was so, that robots on their own - - unlike their more versatile human creators - - needed guidance and rescue from time to time. He looked down at one of the temporarily-stumped 'bots and wondered how long it would take, how many generations, before that divine spark was positioned into the robotic code, a loop of self-awareness, of Consciousness, some kind of soul. He hoped - - prayed - - that this gift would not turn creation against master. Had that been the case of humans against God? No, not really, he reflected. Prometheus?

Chapter 53
ATTACK OR ACCIDENT?

Chapter 54
EILEEN O'DONNEL TO THE RESCUE

Chapter 55
MOONWALKING

"Okay, kid. End of the line. Pile out."

That abrupt order slowly revived Bill and he came to in a groggy manner, disoriented, not knowing where he was, when it was, or even who he was. Almost immediately he became aware of his aching, throbbing head and he touched the back of his skull. He felt a huge goose egg of a bump and his hand came away bloody. The salt from his palm made his scalp sting. His hair was matted with a sticky scab and it was still bleeding a small amount.

His kidnapper did not let him look out the window at the bleak Lunar surface. He just bumped Bill along with his rifle. One slo-mo shove sailed Bill along the length of the moonMobile's passenger section to the airlock.

Bill halted, thinking the goon was going to kill him by forcing him to enter the lock, then opening the outer door into hard vacuum.

"Go on through," friendly said.

Bill did not have a pressure suit on and did not look forward to blowing himself up, so you could say he hesitated too much for friendly.

"It's got a tunnel, stupid", he added, then shoved Bill forward again.

Both airlock doors opened, not having to cycle through the pumpout or bleed parts. Friendly pushed again, then followed on through.

The tunnel was a long vacuum cleaner hose, big enough to walk in, about twenty, thirty feet long. Light came through the translucent sides, enough to see the corrugated hoops of plastic and plastic is made from hydrogen and carbon, neither of which are plentiful or cheap on Luna.

Friendly and his pals decided to help the owners forego Customs inspection by surreptitiously and anonymously removing the cargo enroute from Port to Customs. They had just about completed this perfect crime when they noticed Bill crouching among the stock.

A pressurized warehouse office is all the tunnel connected to. That and two other scared-looking crooks. They were not scared OF Bill or FOR Bill; they were scared ABOUT Bill.

"Now you done it, Moose", began one. He licked his lips nervously. "I told you to make sure no one saw us."

Friendly, or "Moose" rather, began defending himself. "How was I to know the kid was there? We'll just have to get rid of him is all."

"No way, man! I say let's drop the whole idea now and split. Kid here 'll never recognize us again."

While Bill calmly, unbelievingly, listened to this discussion about his disposition the other two suited up and went out another lock. They began offloading the stolen loot, spherical tanks from the moonMobile's rooftop cargo carrier.

The warehouse had a little window near the lock connecting to the moonMobile, so while Friendly was arguing Bill could see those guys doing their thing outside.

On top of the moonMobile was a regular roofrack holding half a dozen tanks, each a meter through, probably made of aluminum. A spacesuited figure hopped up on top and undid the fastenings and carefully lowered each sphere to his awaiting companions.

Though massive, the spheres did not weigh much on Luna. Each was a potential bomb if ruptured, though, enough to blow everyone back to Earth. Each sphere was also worth about a year's wage.

The other two guys reversed the procedure and hoisted the tanks to the roof of another moonMobile — their get-away car, probably.

Meanwhile, management decided on how to solve the problem of Bill's presence. It would not be difficult because they thought he would not be missed.

Nevertheless, the goon squad did not have it in them to do him in, at least in an active way with one of their weapons. They decided to clear their consciences of his demise by letting Mother Nature do the honors.

Now, no one looks forward to any type of Lunar death — starvation, dehydration, heat, cold — none of them. But the worst, the absolute worst, has got to be running out of air in a run-down warehouse.

Just as they left through the lock Bill had heroic thoughts of holding them at bay by threatening to blow up one of the methane tanks. But how? He didn not know how the valves worked.

There were a couple gauges and couplings but it would take time to analyze them for effective destructive use. Besides, they could have easily stopped him by just shooting him. It is best not to provoke riled goons into action, he thought.

Besides, after they left Bill could always figure out a fast way to go — like opening one of the airlocks, or flooding the place with nitrogen from one of the other tanks stored here.

All the tanks were outside, anyway. Moose and his buddy put on their helmets and, without another word, exited the other lock.

Bill watched them disconnect the tunnel. Both moonMobiles drove off. It was very quiet.

He resisted an impulse to check the doorknobs: the doors had no knobs and he had no pressure suit.

Bill looked around. The place must have been 30,000 square feet, a huge warehouse. It was well-lit and pressurized and not just in the office area! Pressurized! Of course, there must be emergency equipment of some type. First aid and a phone. Perhaps even a pressure suit!

The wall switch for the lights was easy. No phone, though. He found a first aid box, but only with bandaids and stuff and next to it was a locker.

It contained a spare helmet (visorless) and a couple tanks. He cracked the valve and it hissed. Someone had taped a map to the back of the locker door.

The map was all folded into tatters from hard use, but those are the best kind. In ballpoint the owner had sloppily circled a small area — the warehouse, probably — and had drawn several routes to various other places on the map.

Bill looked at the scale and visually compared the routes. The shortest one looked about twenty kilometers.

The map had a topographical feature, showing hill contours with concentric ovals. Based on the elevations one could see that some of the routes were very, very steep.

The 20 km route, for instance, stayed within the confines of the 2400 m elevation oval for about 50% of its length from the warehouse.

Then the route entered the 2450 m oval.

A couple cm later the route hit the 2500 m oval, then the destination.

From the map he could not tell if there were two 50 meter cliffs or 100 meters of gradual, constant rise along 10 k's travel. He hoped for the latter.

Bill flipped the map over, looking for more information. He found it, too, in the way of a crater map.

Of course he could just wait and hope for rescue, but would the air hold that long? Most of the warehouse's volume was filled with stock.

Bill began searching through the pressure tanks for oxygen. If he found one he could set the regulator to bleed slowly and provide breathing air.

But something in his memory began bothering him about CO2 buildup even as he began his search. He found only a few cylinders of oxygen and in his limited experience could not say if that represented a couple hours or a couple days.

Over in a corner there were some boxes of one man emergency transfer bags. These are horrible little poor-man pressure suits, ball-shaped, each carrying a salami sized oxygen cylinder. In an emergency you could presumably scrunch up inside, sitting crossleged and zip yourself into it to wait helplessly in free-fall for a half hour, relying on someone in a REAL pressure suit to manhandle the bundle to safety.

Definitely not for claustrophobes. He salvaged six salamis of oxygen, all presumably full.

Bill idly imagined getting inside one of the little balls and somersaulting twenty klicks, clutching his little air cylinder. He thought that he would have thrown up after ten feet, like Joe College in a dryer. Or summer fun: rolling down a grassy slope inside of a tractor inner tube to splash into a lake.

Could he rig a signal device? His imagination absurdly envisioned a cartoon of someone on the Moon standing by his picture window looking for smoke signals.

Bill found a larger version of the emergency transfer bags. It was huge, an economy model 9 feet across. The entry/​exit zipper was small, only three feet long, about the same size as on the one-man job.

What was it for? Maybe family emergencies? Could be. How do you change a diaper on junior, otherwise, after your house leaks?

Bill dragged it to the open receiving dock area and inflated it slightly. It was opaque, an icky yellow color, some kind of fancy fabric. It smelled like Boy Scout summer camp, of rubber and nylon. He hoped it smelled of Kevlar, something durable enough for what he had in mind.

It had a half dozen windows all around its circumference. There were quick-release interconnects on the outside so someone in a suit could add air lines, communication, water, etc. On the inside there were bleed valves, and every which kind of meter: humidity, power, clock. Bill liked it. It was neat.

He found some telescoping aluminum tubing, a bit longer than he was tall and carried a few pieces to the air lock and put them inside of it.

Thirty thousand square feet is a good, large area to search for usable implements. Any number of things can come in handy when it comes to survival. He ran across a vacuum pump. It was electric, of course.

Now you must have wondered many times if a lunar vacuum pump grows lonely, chugging away at nothing outside on the moon. But Bill was wondering if this little pump could fill one large empty air tank from the six little ones he had found. A single large tank was lighter and easier to carry than the six smaller ones. Could the pump also fill another large empty cylinder from the residual air in the warehouse and how long would this process take?

Simple problems in topology had always intrigued Bill. How do you get into a 9-foot bag? It has to be inflated, remember? Outside, in a vacuum!

How do you get a deflated bag outside, inflate it, then get in it, when you have no space suit?

Or, how do you get a 9-foot INFLATED bag out through a closet-sized airlock? Or, how do you — without a pressure suit — get into and inflate a 9-foot bag AFTER you go outside in hard vacuum.

Then he remembered the story of the man who built a boat in his house and, when it was finished, had to take down a wall to get it out. He thought about getting into the bag while still inside the pressurized warehouse, then somehow knocking down an exterior wall — perhaps with an explosion.

Unfortunately, he had no explosives; nor did he know how to use them. Also, any explosion that close would probably rupture the fragile air bag. Or, if it didn not actually burst the bag it would at least turn him into a Baron Munchhausen INSIDE a cannonball.

But he figured it out.

He connected the large empty cylinder to the discharge side of the pump. He hooked a full salami to the intake, switched the pump on, then cracked the salami's valve. With satisfaction Bill watched the gauges dance as he, in turn, emptied all the little cylinders into the large.

He put that full, large cylinder into the large bag along with another half-full cylinder and completely empty large cylinder, then threw in some rope.

Have you ever seen a "glove box"? They are sometimes called "environmental chambers" and look like an aquarium with two elbow-length gloves. The gloves go INSIDE the box and are sealed at the elbows to the wall of the box. You can reach in the box and pick up things with the gloves on.

Well, the little emergency bag had one such glove below its single, coffee-saucer-sized window. The glove faced OUT, unlike an environmental chamber.

With it, an occupant could manipulate something or other — perhaps play one handed cards with a similarly attired buddy. The things people skimp on! What he would not have given for a one-size-fits-all suit.

Bill folded the big bag up into the larger of the two locks. It filled the floor area and came up more than half way. He had to keep shoving in the material to get the door shut. But he did not just let it rest on the floor in an orderly, folded fashion. He folded it so that it rested and leaned against the outer door, so that it would fall outside into the vacuum if the outer door were opened.

Bill sealed the inner door and overrode the air-save pump by doing what they call "blowing the lock", that is, he opened the outer door while the airlock was still full of air. You do this occasionally to save time, like in an emergency. Usually it is more economical to wait and let a vacuum pump recapture the expensive air in the airlock.

The air in the lock exploded outward when the outer door seal opened at Bill's electrical signal. The outer door banged open on its hinges and the air escaped in a puff.

And so did the big bag. Through the window he could see it. It lay three feet away. Or, most of it did. The window did not give a complete view.

He wanted to close the outer door slowly to make sure the outer door would not pinch any of the bag's fabric that still might be caught in the threshold.

Unfortunately, the solenoid that operated the outer door didn not think in terms of tentative, slow movements. With trepidation he cycled the lock. The outer door swung shut with what sounded like a satisfying clang. Bill immediately began airing up the chamber.

When it registered full by the arc of its gauge entering green, he opened the inner door. No bag sticking through the door seal.

He entered the closet-sized airlock then squeezed himself into the little bag on the airlock floor. It was scary work to pull the zipper's talon the last inch. He was squatting inside the bag with the zipper side up so that he could get inside; this orientation had the glove and window on the floor. It went dark inside except for the lights of the winking gauges. He grabbed the deflated fabric and rolled himself and the bag around so that he could see out the window and insert his hand into the protruding glove.

Bill inflated the thing to just shy of the green arc of its gauge; he reasoned that by keeping the pressure as low as possible (when surrounded by one atmosphere) the bag would not pop from overinflation (when suddenly deprived of the surrounding atmosphere).

The external glove (a southpaw, by the way) allowed Bill to manually tug the inner door shut. He dogged it down, not too easy from a scrunched up position on the floor.

This time he slowly cycled the lock by pumping the air out of the airlock into the warehouse. As the lock slowly evacuated he monitored the gauge of his little bag, watching total pressure and partial pressure of oxygen. The bag turned into a rigid sphere and Bill's ears popped. He squeezed his nose with his free right hand and swallowed and bled more air into the bag, keeping within the green.

He grabbed the aluminum pole and whacked the outer door solenoid. The outer door cracked open slightly when the electromagnet released the deadbolt and he butted it a good one with his head to get it to swing open all the way.

It was about a one stair step drop, enough to knock the wind out of him. He about-faced within the confines of the little bag so that he could see out the window and get his arm into the glove.

There he was, folks. Under all them perty constellations, surrounded by desolate real estate, not a cloud in the sky.

Bill did not have to roll, exactly. A kind of frog hop did the trick. It got him close to the warehouse interconnect near the outside warehouse lock. There, he threaded a demand-feed airhose from the warehouse to the big bag. He also interconnected an electrical line from same to same.

From then on it was an easy matter to froghop over to, and into, the big bag. This did require some second trys and unusual maneuvering.

After getting in he did not zip it shut until searching through the opening and flipping on the pump just outside. Then, as soon as he zipped up the big bag from the inside it began to inflate.

In a couple minutes the gradually-filling big bag held enough pressure for him to begin bleeding air from his little bag into the big one (also saving that air). Eventually he was able to unzip himself from the small one he was in. He got out and hooked the empty cylinder to the chugging stream of air. His empty would fill until the warehouse evacuated.

While the pump filled his empty he rigged a backpack for all the loose gear. In one-sixth gravity the large oxygen cylinders weighed very little and, except for their mass, would not be a problem.

That did not take him long and all he had left to do was wait for the warehouse to empty. The big bag was truly big. He could stand up, even jump up to touch the roof nine feet up. He crouched down and jumped up to look, in turn, out of every window. It was like a camping dome tent, but completely spherical.

The empty cylinder registered nearly full when the needle quit moving. The pump's chugging sound changed in pitch so that it was more a vibration and less a sound.

Bill tried out the airflow by disconnecting the cylinder. Sure enough, very little entered.

To disconnect the large bag from the power and air he merely just started his journey.

He began moonwalking towards the North wall of the bag. Bill pushed out with his hands against the wall and walked up the curvature at the same time. The net effect rolled the bag — now a rigid ball — along the ground while allowing a semblance of normal walking.

Let us rephrase that: it allowed easier, freer walking than with a spacesuit.

Underneath, bill could hear a silty crunch as he passed over broken ground toward the dirt road to the settlement twenty kilometers away.

Every minute or so he stopped to peer out one of the windows, using a prominent peak of the distant mountains for reference. Behind him the warehouse receded until it shrunk to a dot, and finally vanished from sight.

He worried about several things, all at once, if that is possible.

What if he got lost?

C02 buildup bothered him. So did humidity. He tried to roll so that the gauges affixed to the wall did not bump the ground with each revolution. The gauges also held equipment, the all important C02 take up business.

Bill had a patch kit, but what about a seam rip out or wearing out whole square feet of area?

What if the goon squad came back?

Bill took off his shoes in an attempt to tiptoe across the Lunar surface, to expiate his sins of treading too heavily, taking his penance in blisters and, hopefully, in longer-wearing bag fabric.

By timepiece readout he made about three kilometers an hour. For some reason his progress always seemed to tend toward the right and he had to keep correcting left.

The sun had been too hot when he was in Earthshine, but it steadily grew colder when he entered the shadow of the mountain range.

He monitored the temperature gauge closely. The temperature dropped steadily because he was in the shadow of a mountain range blocking him from the warmth of Earth's reflected light.

Breath came out in steam. The inside of the bag grew more and more humid with exhalations which froze to the walls. It got so cold Bill's feet grew numb and he worried about not being able to feel sharp rocks with them, not that he worried about his feet; it was the bag's fabric that concerned him.

The cold got so bad he decided to detour back by tacking into the sunlight for awhile. He had to. Ice formed on the oxygen valve. The gauge fogged up, too. Air quit hissing and CO2 built up. Bill grew light-headed and daydreamed even as he began to hyperventilate.

Once, when Bill had seen a video of a Summer Camp contraption like the one he now found himself in, but it was for going across the water. The video had been a huge, open cylinder in shape, not a sphere. By itself the six foot cylinder floated and to make progress across the lake all you had to do was walk inside.

He had also seen something else in a pet store that may have also helped give him this idea. It was a clear-plastic sphere to put a hamster in. There were small holes to let the animal breathe. Inside he could roll all over your living room, getting his exercise but keeping out of mischief and not being able to get lost. It was dog and cat proof.

The dark interior of the bag suddenly brightened as Earthlight hit its top. Bill hurried his pace. A few more steps and the bag lit like a paper Chinese lantern. Only, this very large candle was on the outside.

The air valve began hissing again and Bill darn near kissed the gauge. But instead of resting as he had promised myself he had to confront a new problem.

The walls glistened when their frozen surface melted. A puddle of water formed at the bottom, adding to his difficulties. As the temperature rose the pool deepened. He could not believe how much there was, all from exhalation and perspiration. The sight of it registered and he suddenly felt a terrific thirst. The water's origin may have been suspect, but it was pure, free of any salt, and it satisfied his craving.

A couple of hours had passed since beginning his journey and another problem developed, one solved by accurately aiming at the carefully opened pressure relief valve — and not getting too close. Bill vowed to design a good airbag toilet right then and there and has since done so.

Despite the low gravity, he was tired, almost at his limit. On Earth his backpack of cylinders, vacuum pump, small bag, and aluminum pole would have weighed several hundred pounds.

He looked at the pole and laughed at insight coming a bit late. But not TOO late. The pole was really two; nested, telescoping aluminum tubes — like a shower curtain rod.

He expanded and locked the tubes to their full (you guessed it) almost 9-foot length and tied each end to opposite interior walls. The interior was lousy with tie-down grommets and little ropes. Bill suspended his gear from the pole.

Now, a really deluxe version of this bag would hang Bill from the pole as well. The Victorians — bless their hearts! — had already invented and improved upon this design during the heyday of the bicycle, or "dicycle", rather.

The Otto dicycle consisted of two six foot diameter spoked wheels interconnected by a four foot axle. The rider's saddle and crank hung suspended from the center of the axle. The rider's weight was at all times below the center of gravity as he pedalled, driving the two six foot wheels, one on either side of him.

Bill did not find a bicycle crank in the warehouse, though, or you would have already heard about it.

He kept the Earth centered between two peaks and as he approached them he learned about how gradual the 100 meters of rise was.

He looked at the map again. He had reached the wall of a crater. The wall looked abrupt.

But an eon ago that cliffs' face had bit-by-bit begun to weather under quakes, meteors, sunlight, Earthlight, and gravity. Once, long, long ago, there had even been a river. Bill found myself ascending a more-or-less smooth up-ramp.

He began puffing when the incline forced him to lean into the wall more. He stumbled a time or two and his feet slipped out from under him.

In the prone position of his fall Bill rested at 20% grade or better. It got progressively worse and he could not make progress upwards.

Bill rested again and started to take a visual bearing out the nearest window when he felt the beginning of a slide, one that he knew would turn into a runaway roll. He could not stop it.

The ball careened down the hillside. Bill dodged the massive oxygen cylinders with each revolution. 'Forget blowout', he thought. 'The equipment will get you first!'

The bag impacted a boulder, mushed, then rebounded, becoming airborne. In the low lunar gravity the spherical bag stayed aloft for a long, long time. During the flight the bag tilted so that it came down sideways: the bag struck the ground such that the pole (and all its massive gear) stuck the side wall like a javelin.

The pole had been bent in two and Bill could see the jagged, gleaming ends. He worried about those ends but forgot the blunt, capped end against the wall.

He pulled the pole up out of the ground. A sickeningly long length of it protruded through a hole it had made in the fabric. It felt to Bill as though he were withdrawing an arrow from a mortally wounded friend. There was no blood, but he soon began to hear 'his friend' moan in pain. Bill quickly stuck the pole back in, both to stop the hiss and also to prevent the hole from becoming the reaction jet which would lift the bag off the ground.

Bill fumbled for a patch from the supply sack near the gauges. He peeled apart the patch, tossing the backing aside. The patch was circular, about the size of a floppy dinner plate, large enough to do a window.

He quickly withdrew the pole, then lobbed the patch in place. It went on wrinkled, but he could not reposition it; the glue was too strong. He could hear hissing where the patch wrinkled. There were no other, larger patches, but he found a Singer Son-of-a-Stitch. Bill held it like a pistol and ran a stitch line around the circumference of the patch, then began to spiral them inwards toward the damage. By doing so he hoped to prevent the exterior from fraying or — worse — allowing gravel in between patch and bag.

The air pressure lost proved to be a benefit in his reattempt at the climb up the hill due to the bag being less circular and more mushy. It took a good hour to reach the top.

When he crested the rim of the slope the floor of the sphere abruptly changed from angled-upwards to flat. One footfall pitched up; the next overtopped the ridge. He almost tripped. Suddenly the going became easier. Bill took a look through a window and — sure enough — he was on the flat and level once more.

In the distance he saw his goal, a tiny outpost, a small cluster of buildings. Since he could actually see his goal he knew it was within a mile, no more than a mile and a half.

The last several hundred yards were the most emotionally upsetting for him. He was now terrified of running out of air, of a rip, of CO2 buildup, of another unknown obstacle.

Obviously, Bill made it to the place marked on the map. When he got there he rolled right up to the lock and banged on the wall. For a few minutes he feared this, too, might be another deserted warehouse. But it was full of people, a group of private homes, in fact.

They came out in suits and Bill got into his little bag and deflated the larger one, reversing the procedure he used at the warehouse.

The folks there warmed him up and fed him. He had to tell the story again and again. Finally someone got the police and Bill had to tell THEM again and again.

Eventually they caught the goon-squad by staking out the abandoned warehouse until they showed up.

Bill identified them for the police and when he did any doubts about guilt were swept away when Bill told the goons how he got to safety. The dummies kept INSISTING they left him without a suit and even argued among themselves over whose fault it was he got away.

There is a heavy penalty for abandonment on the Moon. The local prison is not particularly strong. In fact, it is amazingly insecure. It is just a pressure building, not unlike the aforementioned warehouse, without any pressure suits available to the inmates. Or bags.

The crooks were linked to other crimes by evidence brought out in their trial. As chief informant for this evidence the judge gave Bill access to some reward money as dictated by Lunar law. He was allowed all of it — it had accumulated to over three million Lunars. By custom bill donated most of it back to the government even though this king's ransom would have set him up for several years. Bill felt honor bound to reprime this pump of justice we all depend on so much.

Chapter 56
KIDNAP

Chapter 57
DOUBLE WEDDING

THE END

MoonWalking

Bill also applied for and received broadcast rights to MoonWalking races, the latest craze watched on Earth by hundreds of millions. That billions of AU dollars are bet on the championship cross country event is of no benefit to Bill; gambling itself is not illegal on the Moon as it is on Earth, but he does not participate in gambling. However, as uncontested champion three years running Bill does derive one heck of a commission from the broadcast events. Bill has had unfair advantage through practice.

The Triangle is a sliver

Tangential to the Earth and the point from which you are looking makes a right angle triangle to the center. The distance from this point on the ground at which you are looking to the center of the Earth is the Earth's radius (half way through the Earth; in other words, half its diameter).

If you think of a line going from the height of your eyes to the center of the Earth, that line will be six feet longer than the radius (a very small amount relative to 4000 miles, but the additional six feet is enough for you to make use of it in a calculation. You have now only to visualize a triangle. The longest side goes from your eyes to the center of the Earth. The next shortest side goes from center of the Earth to the point on the ground you are looking at on the horizon. The shortest side of the triangle is the distance from your eye to the horizon line on the ground. You can calculate the distance from eye to horizon (how far you can see) with Euclidean geometry using the Pythagorean Theorem.

You have to visualize a triangle consisting of a line going from your eyes down to the center of the Earth. Another line goes up from the center of the Earth to the surface at the point on the horizon which is as far as you can see into the distance. The longest side of the triangle (where you are standing) is called the hypotenuse consisting of the Earth's radius plus the height above the ground — in this case six feet. The other side of the triangle we know also, consisting of the radius of the Earth, from its center to its surface. The point at the surface is the focal point of how far we can see. The unknown, and shortest, line of the triangle is the distance from your eyes to the point on the ground. The sum of the squares of the two short sides equals the square of the hypotenuse. Subtracting the square of the radius (4000 squared) from the square of the height of the observer's eyes (the square of the sum of 4000 miles plus six feet) yields the square of the tangential line of the observer. whose square root is 3 miles.

When you are on the Moon the only thing that changes is the radius. The Moon has a diameter of 2000 miles, so its radius is 1000 miles.

CROWSNEST

(excerpt from one of Dr. Lyle Chandler's Lunar Survival Training Manuals)

On Earth, while at sea, or anywhere on Earth where the land is flat, you can see about 3 miles to the horizon if your eyes are about 6 ft above the ground. If you are shorter or seated or closer to the ground than 6 ft you will not be able to see as far. Conversely, if you are taller than 6 ft or if on a hill, or higher still, perhaps in an airplane, you will be able to see farther than 3 miles. The higher you are, the farther you can see; the closer to the ground you are, the closer is the horizon.
The limitation of how far you can see is imposed by the curvature of the spherical Earth. Everything beyond the horizon line is beyond the curvature of the intervening ground and obscured by this ground. You can think of the Earth as a giant hill you can not see over unless you are high enough to see beyond its top.

The line of sight from your eyes to the horizon is a straight line to the horizon. The point on the horizon you are looking at makes an exact 90 degree right angle from that point to the center of the Earth.

You can use the Pythagorean Theorem to determine how far you can see, no matter how high in the air you are, no matter what size the planet you are on. The triangle has 3 sides. The shortest is the unknown, which is the distance between your eyes and the point on the horizon you are looking at. You already know the distance of the second shortest side: the center of the Moon to the point on the surface you are looking at. Since the diameter of the Moon is 2000 miles this distance is the radius, 1000 miles. The longest side of the triangle is the radius plus your own height. To compute the unknown distance of how far you can see, you must convert 1000 miles to feet, then square that figure. Now take that ....... square 1000 for one side, square 1000 The distance from the surface of the Moon to its center is 1000 miles and that is also the length of one side of a triangle: from the point on the Moon's surfce you are looking at to the center. The sid

LEGAL DISCLAIMER

This story is a work of fiction and none of the characters or names or institutions in the story are real, nor based on anyone or anything that exists in real life.

The names of characters, though reminiscent of reality, are merely a satiric literary device making use of the well-known tongue-in-cheek science fiction device of the so-called multiverse. Hopefully, lawyers, even those in the other realm, will be thwarted from dishonorable activity by this statement.

Some of the fictional characters in this science fiction novel possess names similar to or identical to real people, both living and dead. However, the author employs a well-known and overused literary science fiction device sometimes called 'a parallel universe', so these references are not real, nor are they intended to be taken as representing any truth or any real people. The author apologizes in advance should any passage cause an unintentional slight of the real living or dead. The people in the story from the parallel universe are not real and the author intends this story as an entertaining, humorous satire.

Dedication

To Miss Hall my Elgin, IL first grade teacher

To Ms. Morton my Hamlin Junior High School English teacher

To Clara Blackwell my Kingsville High School English teacher

To Dr. Pat Wortman my Baylor University English teacher

OTHER BOOKS by RJW Seddon

You will also enjoy reading these other stories by RJW Seddon. They are either soon-to-be-published or already available.

The Bureau of Interplanetary Indian Affairs

Libertarian Science fiction story about a teenage American Indian boy on a Reservation

Ralph Littlefoot is a mathematical genius on the level of Newton or Einstein who makes three important discoveries leading to inventions that change the world. His family is imperiled when an overarching, secret governmental agency tries to suppress these inventions before their widespread use rips apart the fabric of stable society. His grandpa Maxwell, step-mom Louisa, dad Horton, his step-brother Johnny, and their lawyer Mr. Hankes flee for their lives. They escape using the very invention everyone is after.

Although this qualifies as a science fiction story, a boys' adventure story, an Indian story, it is also a Libertarian political story, an exercise in practical politics when freedom is at stake. There is nothing to shake up stable totalitarianism like a new, far-reaching invention.

The Timeloop Gods of K-T

The second time travel expedition to the past encounters two other species visiting the same time period

An 18 member time-traveling geological field team has spent a year in tents studying the Cretaceous (the K-T boundary) just before the Yucatan catastrophe. Before their scheduled return to the 20th Century they stumble upon two other groups: another, unknown set of time-travelers derived of four-fingered dinosaur stock and some three-fingered intelligent, primitive, indigenous, paleo-dinosaurs. Somehow the advent of the first expedition has altered events to create a new reality with a much larger catastrophe which imperils all three groups. The problem is not time loop paradox, but politics. Much of the length of the story involves the combined efforts of the three groups to make sense of the danger to them all and to find a way to survive.

The story cuts back and forth between the three groups (the Threes, Fours, and Fives) up to the point where they discover each other. There is romantic involvement, skinny-dipping sex scene, political intrigue, a jealous, mentally-ill saboteur, a cross-country motorcycle thunderstorm chase, little girl rescue, cannibalism, humor, hunting, motorcycle/tyrannosaur joust scene, a trip to Mars. There are Nazilike, slave holding, cold-blooded bad guys. There is murder and violence, but no prurience or bad taste. A good bit of alien religion in the face of evolution.

Jack in the Bots (The Series)
by RJW Seddon

Jack in the Bots
(part 1)

Dr. Jack Johnson, suffering from a lethal brain tumor, transfers his full consciousness, memories, and personality into a 2 petabyte hard disk. His exact copy initially communicates via word processor, sees the world through a web cam, uses a prosthetic arm, and refers to himself as Jack-in-the-box. Later, Dr. Sam Harrington and Jack's friend Dr. Jill Simpson make several Jack-in-the-bots as mobile bodies, each becoming better and better. The government becomes concerned that Jack will become a danger, Jill worries about their romantic life, and O.J. (Organic Jack) deals with his tumor. Two government operatives, Barringer and Campbell, monitor the demise of humanity.

Jack in the Bots
(part 2)

A continuation of the hunt for Johnson's alter ego is carried out with full intensity by government operatives Barringer and Campbell. Their worry is that Johnson-in-a-box will want to procreate and make copies of his copies. Their justifiable worry watches events occur — extreme creation of wealth in short order, taking over paralyzed bodies, enlisting aid of orphans. Barringer considers even a nuclear option for containment. His partner Campbell comes up with plausible options that are even worse. Perhaps other people will clone themselves into computerized vessels and the scenario might lead to dominance or even war.

Jack in the Bots
(part 3)
The Laws of Clonbotics

The famous 'Three Laws of Robotics' are superseded by the 'Three Laws of Clonbotics'

Jack in the Bots (The Series)
by RJW Seddon

Gold for Steam

an alternate reality romance /murder mystery /female detective story

(1) A research institute contacts an alternate reality,

(2) populated by a polygamist culture of humans with extremely heterozygous sexual features,

(3) who are at a medieval technological level,

(4) whom we have contacted because they have a surplus of gold which they are eager to trade for our technology.

(5) The Institute sends a female detective (Susan, the main character) to the other realm to investigate the sudden death, perhaps by heart attack, of our elderly representative there.

(6) Susan has just had a romantic breakup and is soured on the idea of men not being manly enough, soured on herself for having chosen a too-manly career path, when she is suddenly, ironically, thrust into a culture where she encounters more manliness than she could ever hope to see.

(7) She comes to understand the more intimate details of the culture while investigating the death of our representative, which proves to be a murder, not heart attack.

(8) Susan, like Anna of Siam, is offered a marriage proposal by her host, Torlat, the wealthiest man in North America.

(9) His proposal would consolidate his position as main trade representative.

(10) Torlat offers marriage despite the fact that he already has eight wives, potentially thousands of concubines, and is secretly bisexual, a crime punishable by death.

(11) Susan discovers her moral concern for the technologically backward culture and how the introduction of our technology (they want a steam engine) might cause them greater harm than did the steam engine of Christianity harm the New World.

(12) Susan is in a quandary at the marriage proposal and at an impasse of not solving the murder and is furthermore enamored of her host's neighbor (brother-in-law, Henifor) when the murderer makes his appearance and Susan solves the crime.

Although otherwise completely human, they are obligate polygamists by nature, due to extreme heterozygous sexual diversity. They find our appearance repugnant since, to their eyes, our males look too feminine; our females, too masculine.

They have developed into a society which has learned to curb group-aggression by gelding their surplus male population at a nearly-universal religious ceremony. At the onset of puberty, most males choose this route through inclination, though some risk being 'duel fodder' and only a very few males survive to adulthood. The gelded majority develop into, intelligentsia, workforce, or priesthood.

Females are, all of them, available for marriage and/or child bearing or, for a few, as clergy.

The few surviving males have divided up the world into a hundred thousand fiefdoms which are run like Imperial Roman latifundia and the world is a very, very stable environment with a low population, hence, the technological backwardness of their culture.

But the males are themselves ruled by testosterone and personal duels, yet their culture has never known war due to their method of controlling aggression. To them, the very concept of group aggression — war — is as foreign a concept as is the absurd notion that mere gold has monetary value. However, they are not unsophisticated, not unaware of jealousy, trysts, greed, and the undercurrents of society.

This is kinda, sorta, 'chick flick' SciFi, but with some Richard Dawkins memes, Robert Ardrey territoriality, Matt Ridley's "Red Queen" and Desmond Morris "Naked Ape". Men may swagger and duel and die — and some of them even get to rule — but women run the show.

Trans-Temporal Field Study

A SHORT STORY ABOUT TIME TRAVEL.

Assuming that (1) time travel into the past does not alter the present, (2) that people go back in time repeatedly to study the past for the sake of scholarship, what would be the inevitable outcome of all those forays into the past?

Time traveler as history-major graduate student visits medieval England only to encounter ANOTHER time traveler from his far-distant future. His love interest is ignited. They are both in the same occupation, each writing dissertations about the past.

What could go wrong?

The Peculiar Institution

A SHORT STORY about genetic slavery

The term refers to the ante bellum euphemism for slavery. It is a tragic love story whose union is thwarted by pangs of morality.

A lost colony's genetic engineers develop 'The Beast' and successfully use it for many generations as their main (and only) work animal on their planet, Demeter. The Affiliated Trading Consortium sends a representative to evaluate The Beast for export. While there, he almost goes native, falls in love with the culture, with Matilda, and even the Beasts. This pastoral planet may be the place he will finally settle down upon.

He discovers a terrible secret and his revulsion prevents him from remaining on Demeter, prevents him from marrying Tilly, and stops him from exporting The Beast.

Lunar Apprentice Jones (The Series)

by RJW Seddon

  Lunar Apprentice Jones

The Series

Lunar Apprentice Jones
(part 1) The Orphan

Lunar colonization by post-apocalyptic orphaned teen-age apprentices. A coming of age story, a "Bildungsroman". Bill saves his part-time busboy wages to make application for employment right after graduation from high school with TLC (The Lunar Corporation).

Hot on his heels is Guardsman Spc Stigliano who will deliver Bill to the New Order teenage draft if he stays on Earth. Bill makes friends (and enemies) with other applicants on the way to the spaceport.

Lunar Apprentice Jones
(part 2) The Libertarian

When Bill's flight is overbooked Rupert The Rat swindles Bill for his ticket to the aging ES1 (Earth Station 1) satellite, but Bill finagles a ride with a UPS mail shuttle. Prior to the flight, TLA (The Lunar Autonomy) police arrest, try, and convict Rupert and Bill receives a refund on his ticket price in addition to the free UPS ride.

He arrives on ES1 a day early and because The Sapporo and Grand hotels are both full Bill saves himself from a vagrancy arrest by working all night as a busboy at Molly's Diner. Bill declines a TLC interview and takes a job with Lyle Chandler as apprentice/personal assistant and the work at hand is the contest, the BIG contest: The Enclosure Act prize, an engineering project to seal up large craters for habitation.

Lunar Apprentice Jones
(part 3) The Emigrant

Bill discovers Chandler (1) had been original part owner of TLC and (2) had been the recruiter who years ago in junior high had interested Bill in Lunar employment! Chandler and Bill get fitted for new vacuum suits at Madam Chang's, spend the night at Yoshi and Walter's wall-module Sapporo Hotel, meets Chandler's hermit-like partner Randy-the-robot-maker, and take the Shuttle to Luna.

Bill sees Copernicus City from orbit before landing, then accompanies Chandler and other passengers to a traditional "safe-arrival drink" at Harolds. Chandler is accosted by his former partner who demands a concession from Chandler.

Bill meets the love of his life, the red-headed Matilda, who joins Chandler. Molly takes a leave of absence from her orbital job and also joins the crew.

Lunar Apprentice Jones
(part 4) The Citizen

Spoiler alert: the rest you will have to read.

books and magazines
featured in the series

Lunar Apprentice Jones
by RJW Seddon

Dead for Sleep Apocalypse

A SCIENCE FICTION DYSTOPIAN APOCALYPTIC MEDICAL ROMANCE THRILLER.

An abandoned experimental cancer treatment begins being used illegally as a recreational drug due to its power to suppress the need for sleep and its enhancement of mental state. Despite the danger of long term usage causing death from heart overuse 2-beta-somatein sweeps across society and changes the world into a dystopian totalitarian state. The few who cannot or refuse to take the drug (Rejectors and Sleepers) become an oppressed minority who cannot easily accommodate to the standard 120 hour work week.

How would your own life, society, and commerce change if most people did not need sleep, but you did? The business world gradually demands having employees who can and will work 120 hours per week. In this story, the 'normal' people are the zombies, considered pariahs by 'enhanced' members of society.

The novel follows the course of the drug's dispersion through society, from development in Houston's medical center to world-wide prevalence. The story lines track researcher, cancer patients, psychologist, chiropractor, Hollywood, and a Moonie-like cult. The personal relationships are strung through with romance and manipulation, hunt-down and attempted containment by organized crime.

Kvetched

A SHORT STORY ABOUT Time Travel

Your garden-variety time travelers usually frequent the future and the past for adventure, money, knowledge, or curiosity. Sometimes they go to alter history or save a loved one. Changing the course of history for the betterment of mankind is also a noble reason.

But there are also less-noble, desperate reasons to visit the past. And it is not always a mad slasher or psychopath, someone who wants to control the world. He just may want to control himself.

It isn't about evolution and it isn't about Relativity. It's about Psychology.

Nazi Payback, Inc

A SHORT STORY ABOUT RPG (Role Playing Gamesmanship) as real life

Travel to alternate realities and REALLY shoot bad guys. Go ahead, kill as many Nazis as you want. The multiverse is better off without them. At least, that particular reality, THAT universe will be better off. Or so you think.

Love and Mourning Glories

a beautiful romance story with a happy ending

Sarah Johnson gets a phone call at home from her friend Rachel, a nurse at their small-town East Texas hospital, saying Sarah's husband Sam has just been brought in with a heart attack and that he is already dead. Sarah rushes over to the hospital.

She had been dreading this inevitable event, caused more by alcoholism than any bad heart. The EMT drivers tell Sarah they had responded to the emergency call at Koochies, the town's Porky's-like strip club/beer joint, not at Johnson's Garage. Sarah retrieves Sam's truck at Koochies and enters that low-life world, seeing it for the first time.

She worries about how to proceed with ownership of the faltering business. Sarah, on summer vacation as a high school teacher, had been earning a master's as a hedge against Sam's downward spiral. Now, half into her career move, she finds herself thrust prematurely into ownership responsibility.

Sarah's daughter Sue returns home from her first year at Baylor University, an expensive private school Sarah worries now she can no longer afford.

Sarah meets with Richard her accountant who advises her not to sell, but to repair the business, get it organized, and run it herself. She finds out immediately Sam had been worse off than she knew, had re-mortgaged their previously paid off house against the business, was in arrears to the IRS, was heavily in debt.

Sarah knows nothing about the business, but begins working at the garage and finds that Sam's manager Stan has been stealing hugely, catches him red-handed, and has him arrested. Meanwhile, Sam's competitor Tommy at the Firestone makes a good faith offer to buy the business from Sarah.

Stan hires an attorney and files against Sarah, claiming Sam had offered full partnership.

Cameron Mitchell, an unmarried car repair owner, is about to bail his main mechanic Dobie out of the drunk tank. While at the court house Cameron runs into and meets Sarah and her attorney, Trippet Fanning.

Not knowing why, not knowing he is smitten, even though Sarah's husband has just died, he decides against bailing out his errant Dobie and instead asks Sarah if he might borrow one of her mechanics for a half day. She agrees and afterwards also agrees to his invitation, at week's end, to have dinner together. Cameron feels very awkward, realizing he has asked out a woman whose husband had just that week died. Instead of going out to eat, they have dinner at Sarah's house, since Sue had already fixed a home-cooked meal. Cameron, they learn, has bought five acres on the outskirts of town and has recently gone into car repair himself. In the meantime he is living in his new business. At dinner, Sue announces she signed for a certified letter which Sarah now opens in front of Cameron. She thinks it might be further lawsuit business from the sleazy exmanager Stan, but it is from a new landlord announcing that Sam's rent has immediately just tripled. Sam had let the lease lapse, so the new landlord had exercised his right to demand an immediate increase.

She thinks, at first, it might be Tommy, that perhaps he had bought the building. She reasons he may have made an end-run around his offer to purchase the business by merely buying the building. She phones him for clarification and finds out from him that he did not know anything about HER rent going up, but that HIS rent also has. During this conversation Tommy discloses that he and his wife Sandra are divorced, that terms of the settlement left her as owner of the building and land, that he also just has been served notice of a rent increase, and — most significantly — that Sandra's romantic interest is a lowlife character named Stan.

Sarah, Tommy, Cameron, and Richard combine forces and plan an immediate relocation by both Sarah and Tommy to new buildings on the five acres where Cameron already is. During the course of the move Sarah finds Sam had kept an old business card from a seedy motel used for illicit affairs across from Koochies with Sandra's phone number penciled on it. She breaks down at this hidden betrayal and Cameron comforts her, disclosing his love. In the midst of her breakdown Sarah realizes she has likewise fallen in love with Cameron.

Sandra and Stan had been expecting a huge revenue increase via monthly rents from both Tommy and Sarah and now suddenly have zero rent income and heavy debts, but they are saved by an accident.

Sarah has completed her move and Tommy is in the middle of his when Tommy is accidentally killed. Sandra and Stan are now in an even better financial position from Tommy's triple indemnity life insurance. Moreover, Sandra stands to inherit Tommy's equipment, now half moved to the new location.

Sandra and Stan squander the inheritance within a few months and Stan begins his pattern of theft again, this time against Sandra. He knows she will be broke in a matter of a few months and he conspires with Dobie to set up a theft ring in the same manner he had used when he had been a manager at Sam Johnson's Garage. Sandra grows increasingly erratic due to her increased use of drugs and alcohol. She begins blaming Sarah, Dobie, Cameron for her bad fortune and even Tommy's death. She acquires a pistol and seeks revenge and death as a way out of her dilemma.

The Spirituality of Bugs

SCIENCE FICTION ABOUT CONSCIOUSNESS

When a hungover spaceman wakes up in an off-world jail with a feline alien he finds out his carnivorous cell mate is about to do him in.

It deals with what appears at first glance to be an incongruency: the far-flung future, but one with a prevalent trailer-trash mentality. Despite achieving interstellar commerce, many humans are still low level, unplanning philistines, devoid of any spiritual or intellectual attributes.

In this story some alien species consider Earth people unusual in that many humans behave in an animal-like fashion. Most aliens are are built on a different plan, with accountability for actions NOT on the sleep/wake cycle of Earth's day/night. Among many nonhuman species there are alternating periods of Consciousness, but this does not follow the human concept of sleep/wake and day/night. The aliens are always awake (i.e., not in the coma-like state of sleep) but rather they "Revert" to an animal-like state from time to time, to rest, eat, reproduce. During that time of reversion, they are decidedly irresponsible for their actions.

The aliens certainly understand that we human are unaccountable for our actions while in our coma-like state of 'sleep' but they assume that except for the presence of daily temporary coma that we would be accountable for our actions at all other times while 'awake'.

They do not understand why humans seem to be unconscious at odd intervals while awake. They do not understand why we humans habitually accept that many of us are not held accountable for our animal-like actions while awake.

In human culture inexorable social forces excuse bad behavior by removing accountability in small pieces: bad upbringing, alcoholism, addiction, etc. The one excuse all of us, whether liberal or conservative, take for granted is that of 'being asleep', one that the aliens find as an unusual feature of our makeup, but certainly understandable. What they do not understand is our unconscious behavior while awake.

This story shows how an alien forces a drunken sailor to equate 'awake' with 'enlightenment' and 'asleep' with 'unconscious animal-like existence'. And sleep has always been a metaphor for 'unenlightenment'. The alien is amazed that not only do ALL humans go into a nocturnal coma-like unconscious state but that MOST also, more or less, sleep-walk their way through their waking hours and are not really awake in any spiritual sense.

Except for the punishment of actually falling asleep on guard duty, we humans maintain no level of responsibility for ourselves while asleep and that is easy to reconcile due to the coma-like paralysis we are accustomed to. But the aliens are amazed that we have also removed responsibility from most of our actions while awake due to legal and social exemptions, i.e., 'addicted', 'insane', 'enraged'. But 'UNconscious' (in the sleeping sense) with us means 'INactive'. What if it didn't? Alternating periods of consciousness and unconsciousness might not follow the wake/sleep paralleling the day/night pattern we have evolved on Earth.

In this story, the aliens alternate periods of Consciousness (during which they are 'intelligent') with periods of Unconsciousness (during which they are active, but are like animals). While Unconscious, they mate, hunt, eat, as well as refresh and rest their brains. To them, the idea of going into the coma-like state we call 'sleep' is a foreign idea and it intrigues them we have a heavy urge to drink alcohol, as though we were attempting to mimic their own pattern.

Do you hate the trailer trash mentality? I mean, do you really HATE it? Unfortunately, we will always have such people and such low level thinking can reside anywhere and everywhere among us, not just a rural setting of poverty. The trailer trash mindset can even take root (dare I say it?) in Manhattan or even in the far flung future.

I give Mr. Buddha a good bit of the credit for the idea behind this story as well as the ponderously entitled book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by the Princeton psychologist, Julian Jaynes — hence, the duality of my two characters, 'Julian' and 'Jaynes'.

Julian Jaynes' thoughts on this idea that consciousness did NOT evolve in humanity until just recently, that the Pyramids were built by unconscious humanity is at a level of idea-generation that Isaac Asimov referred to as 'CP' (crackpot), right up there with Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision.

But who knows? When DID consciousness start? Is it a process, a little bit more at a time, or is it an all-or-nothing affair? Certainly, intelligence is not all or none, so how about consciousness?

If you think this is totally nuts, I invite you to peruse the Wiki article on the Iliad. The article makes mention of Jaynes' theory in reference to the way thoughts were portrayed by Homer, that people had no actual forethought, just the edicts of Olympus, followed by action and reflection. Today (except in Congress and in trailer parks) people actually think.

I also give credit to John Campbell who said he wanted an alien character that 'thinks' like an alien, not a human.

All this science fiction fooferah about having a delightful, alien bar scene camouflages the fact that bars, in the final analysis, are for dissipation and for low life.

Franchise Screams
THE Franchise Handbook

A LENGTHY BUSINESS BOOK relating details of the franchise industry, car repair, Detroit, business, how (and how not) to live a good life

Many specifics and anecdotes, advice, warnings, roadmaps of pitfalls. Go into business for yourself with eyes opened by the experience of someone who has been there. You cannot buy a mentor, but you can read a book or two.

I forewarn you: this book is like the offspring of Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road and Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast. There is nothing like 'been there, done that' to lend credibility to writing style to overcome its artistic, technical deficiencies. The naive, earnest, young, blue-blooded gentleman Dana went to sea because 'his eyes were weak', but he NEVER, NEVER said he regretted the loss of time spent. Wow! I love the metaphor 'weak eyes', now strengthened by having worked two years with those men.

After Dana returned to privileged high society he visited his old ship several years later and greeted the same sailors still aboard. Once they had worked side-by-side as equal laborers, but now they were no longer peers and the uncouth sailors deferred to the young gentleman's finery. He would have none of it and embraced them as equal fellows, despite their difference in rank, privilege, wealth, power. His unclear, 'weak eyes' had been made clear by the direct experience and I hope you enjoyed reading this and I hope to have 'clarified' some business issues. Bless business and bless you.

Sandy's Story (prequel to Jerome Bixby's The Man from Earth)

Sandy's Story (by RJW Seddon) is a prequel to The Man From Earth (by Jerome Bixby). In 2007 Richard Schenkman produced and directed a movie by the same title as Jerome Bixby's play. This prequel fills in the background decade preceding the motion picture, how Sandy met John Oldman and how she came to be the history department's secretary. The other characters in the film (Harry, Edith, Art, Will, Dan) are also introduced, as well as some original significant others who were not in the play.

Sandy's Story by RJW Seddon

prequel to The Man from Earth by Jerome Bixby

This is the story of a man born 14,000 years ago who inexplicably does not age past an appearance of about 35 years. In order to keep his secret, every decade or so he finds it expedient to vanish and relocate. He has seen the end of the last Ice Age, known The Buddha, lived in the empires of Sumeria, Babylon, Imperial Rome. His past identities have been varied, but the most incredible one is his most closely guarded secret, that John is the historical figure we today know as Jesus Christ.

In the figurative sense, this story is an allegory of Western civilization's back drop of religion. In the literal sense, it is a science fiction adventure story. Either way, the subject matter is fascinating. It is a way, for some, to do what Christianity advises: to meet Christ personally, to see him directly, both in the here-and-now as a man and as someone very special.

Conventional Christianity maintains Jesus was a man without sin, but that does not necessarily mean a man without faults. It is the flaws that make him and us human and it is his flaws and problems that make him accessible. He is not lofty, beyond reach, but very, very human, just possessing a different set of problems.

The original story and this prequel offer the possibility of a whole series of stories.

The Journey of Little Hans

A JUNGIAN FAIRY TALE (for children and adults)

This is a translation by RJW Seddon of Hänschens Reise, a German language children's story written and illustrated by Erica von Kager. This under-the-sea dream adventure of a little boy was a gift given to him by The Sand Man (a mythical being who bestows our dreams).

In his dream Little Hans becomes tiny and visits the princess of the ocean in her kingdom at the bottom of the sea. Homesick and terror sets in when he feels trapped by the princess. He ends the dream adventure and returns home to his mother.

Children enjoy the story on a literal level and adults on a symbolic Jungian/Freudian level.

The Carpenter (a tale of the Christ)

A retelling of the Christ story in a modern setting.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER

This story is a work of fiction and none of the characters or names or institutions in the story are real, nor based on anyone or anything that exists in real life.

The names of characters, though reminiscent of reality, are merely a satiric literary device making use of the well-known tongue-in-cheek science fiction device of the so-called multiverse. Hopefully, lawyers, even those in the other realm, will be thwarted from dishonorable activity by this statement.

Some of the fictional characters in this science fiction novel possess names similar to or identical to real people, both living and dead. However, the author employs a well-known and overused literary science fiction device sometimes called 'a parallel universe', so these references are not real, nor are they intended to be taken as representing any truth or any real people. The author apologizes in advance should any passage cause an unintentional slight of the real living or dead. The people in the story from the parallel universe are not real and the author intends this story as an entertaining, humorous satire.

Dedication

To Miss Hall my Elgin, IL first grade teacher

To Ms. Morton my Hamlin Junior High School English teacher

To Clara Blackwell my Kingsville High School English teacher

To Dr. Pat Wortman my Baylor University English teacher

OTHER BOOKS by RJW Seddon

You will also enjoy reading these other stories by RJW Seddon. They are either soon-to-be-published or already available.

The Bureau of Interplanetary Indian Affairs

Libertarian Science fiction story about a teenage American Indian boy on a Reservation

Ralph Littlefoot is a mathematical genius on the level of Newton or Einstein who makes three important discoveries leading to inventions that change the world. His family is imperiled when an overarching, secret governmental agency tries to suppress these inventions before their widespread use rips apart the fabric of stable society. His grandpa Maxwell, step-mom Louisa, dad Horton, his step-brother Johnny, and their lawyer Mr. Hankes flee for their lives. They escape using the very invention everyone is after.

Although this qualifies as a science fiction story, a boys' adventure story, an Indian story, it is also a Libertarian political story, an exercise in practical politics when freedom is at stake. There is nothing to shake up stable totalitarianism like a new, far-reaching invention.

The Timeloop Gods of K-T

The second time travel expedition to the past encounters two other species visiting the same time period

An 18 member time-traveling geological field team has spent a year in tents studying the Cretaceous (the K-T boundary) just before the Yucatan catastrophe. Before their scheduled return to the 20th Century they stumble upon two other groups: another, unknown set of time-travelers derived of four-fingered dinosaur stock and some three-fingered intelligent, primitive, indigenous, paleo-dinosaurs. Somehow the advent of the first expedition has altered events to create a new reality with a much larger catastrophe which imperils all three groups. The problem is not time loop paradox, but politics. Much of the length of the story involves the combined efforts of the three groups to make sense of the danger to them all and to find a way to survive.

The story cuts back and forth between the three groups (the Threes, Fours, and Fives) up to the point where they discover each other. There is romantic involvement, skinny-dipping sex scene, political intrigue, a jealous, mentally-ill saboteur, a cross-country motorcycle thunderstorm chase, little girl rescue, cannibalism, humor, hunting, motorcycle/tyrannosaur joust scene, a trip to Mars. There are Nazilike, slave holding, cold-blooded bad guys. There is murder and violence, but no prurience or bad taste. A good bit of alien religion in the face of evolution.

Jack in the Bots (The Series)
by RJW Seddon

Jack in the Bots
(part 1)

Dr. Jack Johnson, suffering from a lethal brain tumor, transfers his full consciousness, memories, and personality into a 2 petabyte hard disk. His exact copy initially communicates via word processor, sees the world through a web cam, uses a prosthetic arm, and refers to himself as Jack-in-the-box. Later, Dr. Sam Harrington and Jack's friend Dr. Jill Simpson make several Jack-in-the-bots as mobile bodies, each becoming better and better. The government becomes concerned that Jack will become a danger, Jill worries about their romantic life, and O.J. (Organic Jack) deals with his tumor. Two government operatives, Barringer and Campbell, monitor the demise of humanity.

Jack in the Bots
(part 2)

A continuation of the hunt for Johnson's alter ego is carried out with full intensity by government operatives Barringer and Campbell. Their worry is that Johnson-in-a-box will want to procreate and make copies of his copies. Their justifiable worry watches events occur — extreme creation of wealth in short order, taking over paralyzed bodies, enlisting aid of orphans. Barringer considers even a nuclear option for containment. His partner Campbell comes up with plausible options that are even worse. Perhaps other people will clone themselves into computerized vessels and the scenario might lead to dominance or even war.

Jack in the Bots
(part 3)
The Laws of Clonbotics

The famous 'Three Laws of Robotics' are superseded by the 'Three Laws of Clonbotics'

Jack in the Bots (The Series)
by RJW Seddon

Gold for Steam

an alternate reality romance /murder mystery /female detective story

(1) A research institute contacts an alternate reality,

(2) populated by a polygamist culture of humans with extremely heterozygous sexual features,

(3) who are at a medieval technological level,

(4) whom we have contacted because they have a surplus of gold which they are eager to trade for our technology.

(5) The Institute sends a female detective (Susan, the main character) to the other realm to investigate the sudden death, perhaps by heart attack, of our elderly representative there.

(6) Susan has just had a romantic breakup and is soured on the idea of men not being manly enough, soured on herself for having chosen a too-manly career path, when she is suddenly, ironically, thrust into a culture where she encounters more manliness than she could ever hope to see.

(7) She comes to understand the more intimate details of the culture while investigating the death of our representative, which proves to be a murder, not heart attack.

(8) Susan, like Anna of Siam, is offered a marriage proposal by her host, Torlat, the wealthiest man in North America.

(9) His proposal would consolidate his position as main trade representative.

(10) Torlat offers marriage despite the fact that he already has eight wives, potentially thousands of concubines, and is secretly bisexual, a crime punishable by death.

(11) Susan discovers her moral concern for the technologically backward culture and how the introduction of our technology (they want a steam engine) might cause them greater harm than did the steam engine of Christianity harm the New World.

(12) Susan is in a quandary at the marriage proposal and at an impasse of not solving the murder and is furthermore enamored of her host's neighbor (brother-in-law, Henifor) when the murderer makes his appearance and Susan solves the crime.

Although otherwise completely human, they are obligate polygamists by nature, due to extreme heterozygous sexual diversity. They find our appearance repugnant since, to their eyes, our males look too feminine; our females, too masculine.

They have developed into a society which has learned to curb group-aggression by gelding their surplus male population at a nearly-universal religious ceremony. At the onset of puberty, most males choose this route through inclination, though some risk being 'duel fodder' and only a very few males survive to adulthood. The gelded majority develop into, intelligentsia, workforce, or priesthood.

Females are, all of them, available for marriage and/or child bearing or, for a few, as clergy.

The few surviving males have divided up the world into a hundred thousand fiefdoms which are run like Imperial Roman latifundia and the world is a very, very stable environment with a low population, hence, the technological backwardness of their culture.

But the males are themselves ruled by testosterone and personal duels, yet their culture has never known war due to their method of controlling aggression. To them, the very concept of group aggression — war — is as foreign a concept as is the absurd notion that mere gold has monetary value. However, they are not unsophisticated, not unaware of jealousy, trysts, greed, and the undercurrents of society.

This is kinda, sorta, 'chick flick' SciFi, but with some Richard Dawkins memes, Robert Ardrey territoriality, Matt Ridley's "Red Queen" and Desmond Morris "Naked Ape". Men may swagger and duel and die — and some of them even get to rule — but women run the show.

Trans-Temporal Field Study

A SHORT STORY ABOUT TIME TRAVEL.

Assuming that (1) time travel into the past does not alter the present, (2) that people go back in time repeatedly to study the past for the sake of scholarship, what would be the inevitable outcome of all those forays into the past?

Time traveler as history-major graduate student visits medieval England only to encounter ANOTHER time traveler from his far-distant future. His love interest is ignited. They are both in the same occupation, each writing dissertations about the past.

What could go wrong?

The Peculiar Institution

A SHORT STORY about genetic slavery

The term refers to the ante bellum euphemism for slavery. It is a tragic love story whose union is thwarted by pangs of morality.

A lost colony's genetic engineers develop 'The Beast' and successfully use it for many generations as their main (and only) work animal on their planet, Demeter. The Affiliated Trading Consortium sends a representative to evaluate The Beast for export. While there, he almost goes native, falls in love with the culture, with Matilda, and even the Beasts. This pastoral planet may be the place he will finally settle down upon.

He discovers a terrible secret and his revulsion prevents him from remaining on Demeter, prevents him from marrying Tilly, and stops him from exporting The Beast.

Lunar Apprentice Jones (The Series)

by RJW Seddon

  Lunar Apprentice Jones

The Series

Lunar Apprentice Jones
(part 1) The Orphan

Lunar colonization by post-apocalyptic orphaned teen-age apprentices. A coming of age story, a "Bildungsroman". Bill saves his part-time busboy wages to make application for employment right after graduation from high school with TLC (The Lunar Corporation).

Hot on his heels is Guardsman Spc Stigliano who will deliver Bill to the New Order teenage draft if he stays on Earth. Bill makes friends (and enemies) with other applicants on the way to the spaceport.

Lunar Apprentice Jones
(part 2) The Libertarian

When Bill's flight is overbooked Rupert The Rat swindles Bill for his ticket to the aging ES1 (Earth Station 1) satellite, but Bill finagles a ride with a UPS mail shuttle. Prior to the flight, TLA (The Lunar Autonomy) police arrest, try, and convict Rupert and Bill receives a refund on his ticket price in addition to the free UPS ride.

He arrives on ES1 a day early and because The Sapporo and Grand hotels are both full Bill saves himself from a vagrancy arrest by working all night as a busboy at Molly's Diner. Bill declines a TLC interview and takes a job with Lyle Chandler as apprentice/personal assistant and the work at hand is the contest, the BIG contest: The Enclosure Act prize, an engineering project to seal up large craters for habitation.

Lunar Apprentice Jones
(part 3) The Emigrant

Bill discovers Chandler (1) had been original part owner of TLC and (2) had been the recruiter who years ago in junior high had interested Bill in Lunar employment! Chandler and Bill get fitted for new vacuum suits at Madam Chang's, spend the night at Yoshi and Walter's wall-module Sapporo Hotel, meets Chandler's hermit-like partner Randy-the-robot-maker, and take the Shuttle to Luna.

Bill sees Copernicus City from orbit before landing, then accompanies Chandler and other passengers to a traditional "safe-arrival drink" at Harolds. Chandler is accosted by his former partner who demands a concession from Chandler.

Bill meets the love of his life, the red-headed Matilda, who joins Chandler. Molly takes a leave of absence from her orbital job and also joins the crew.

Lunar Apprentice Jones
(part 4) The Citizen

Spoiler alert: the rest you will have to read.

books and magazines
featured in the series

Lunar Apprentice Jones
by RJW Seddon

Dead for Sleep Apocalypse

A SCIENCE FICTION DYSTOPIAN APOCALYPTIC MEDICAL ROMANCE THRILLER.

An abandoned experimental cancer treatment begins being used illegally as a recreational drug due to its power to suppress the need for sleep and its enhancement of mental state. Despite the danger of long term usage causing death from heart overuse 2-beta-somatein sweeps across society and changes the world into a dystopian totalitarian state. The few who cannot or refuse to take the drug (Rejectors and Sleepers) become an oppressed minority who cannot easily accommodate to the standard 120 hour work week.

How would your own life, society, and commerce change if most people did not need sleep, but you did? The business world gradually demands having employees who can and will work 120 hours per week. In this story, the 'normal' people are the zombies, considered pariahs by 'enhanced' members of society.

The novel follows the course of the drug's dispersion through society, from development in Houston's medical center to world-wide prevalence. The story lines track researcher, cancer patients, psychologist, chiropractor, Hollywood, and a Moonie-like cult. The personal relationships are strung through with romance and manipulation, hunt-down and attempted containment by organized crime.

Kvetched

A SHORT STORY ABOUT Time Travel

Your garden-variety time travelers usually frequent the future and the past for adventure, money, knowledge, or curiosity. Sometimes they go to alter history or save a loved one. Changing the course of history for the betterment of mankind is also a noble reason.

But there are also less-noble, desperate reasons to visit the past. And it is not always a mad slasher or psychopath, someone who wants to control the world. He just may want to control himself.

It isn't about evolution and it isn't about Relativity. It's about Psychology.

Nazi Payback, Inc

A SHORT STORY ABOUT RPG (Role Playing Gamesmanship) as real life

Travel to alternate realities and REALLY shoot bad guys. Go ahead, kill as many Nazis as you want. The multiverse is better off without them. At least, that particular reality, THAT universe will be better off. Or so you think.

Love and Mourning Glories

a beautiful romance story with a happy ending

Sarah Johnson gets a phone call at home from her friend Rachel, a nurse at their small-town East Texas hospital, saying Sarah's husband Sam has just been brought in with a heart attack and that he is already dead. Sarah rushes over to the hospital.

She had been dreading this inevitable event, caused more by alcoholism than any bad heart. The EMT drivers tell Sarah they had responded to the emergency call at Koochies, the town's Porky's-like strip club/beer joint, not at Johnson's Garage. Sarah retrieves Sam's truck at Koochies and enters that low-life world, seeing it for the first time.

She worries about how to proceed with ownership of the faltering business. Sarah, on summer vacation as a high school teacher, had been earning a master's as a hedge against Sam's downward spiral. Now, half into her career move, she finds herself thrust prematurely into ownership responsibility.

Sarah's daughter Sue returns home from her first year at Baylor University, an expensive private school Sarah worries now she can no longer afford.

Sarah meets with Richard her accountant who advises her not to sell, but to repair the business, get it organized, and run it herself. She finds out immediately Sam had been worse off than she knew, had re-mortgaged their previously paid off house against the business, was in arrears to the IRS, was heavily in debt.

Sarah knows nothing about the business, but begins working at the garage and finds that Sam's manager Stan has been stealing hugely, catches him red-handed, and has him arrested. Meanwhile, Sam's competitor Tommy at the Firestone makes a good faith offer to buy the business from Sarah.

Stan hires an attorney and files against Sarah, claiming Sam had offered full partnership.

Cameron Mitchell, an unmarried car repair owner, is about to bail his main mechanic Dobie out of the drunk tank. While at the court house Cameron runs into and meets Sarah and her attorney, Trippet Fanning.

Not knowing why, not knowing he is smitten, even though Sarah's husband has just died, he decides against bailing out his errant Dobie and instead asks Sarah if he might borrow one of her mechanics for a half day. She agrees and afterwards also agrees to his invitation, at week's end, to have dinner together. Cameron feels very awkward, realizing he has asked out a woman whose husband had just that week died. Instead of going out to eat, they have dinner at Sarah's house, since Sue had already fixed a home-cooked meal. Cameron, they learn, has bought five acres on the outskirts of town and has recently gone into car repair himself. In the meantime he is living in his new business. At dinner, Sue announces she signed for a certified letter which Sarah now opens in front of Cameron. She thinks it might be further lawsuit business from the sleazy exmanager Stan, but it is from a new landlord announcing that Sam's rent has immediately just tripled. Sam had let the lease lapse, so the new landlord had exercised his right to demand an immediate increase.

She thinks, at first, it might be Tommy, that perhaps he had bought the building. She reasons he may have made an end-run around his offer to purchase the business by merely buying the building. She phones him for clarification and finds out from him that he did not know anything about HER rent going up, but that HIS rent also has. During this conversation Tommy discloses that he and his wife Sandra are divorced, that terms of the settlement left her as owner of the building and land, that he also just has been served notice of a rent increase, and — most significantly — that Sandra's romantic interest is a lowlife character named Stan.

Sarah, Tommy, Cameron, and Richard combine forces and plan an immediate relocation by both Sarah and Tommy to new buildings on the five acres where Cameron already is. During the course of the move Sarah finds Sam had kept an old business card from a seedy motel used for illicit affairs across from Koochies with Sandra's phone number penciled on it. She breaks down at this hidden betrayal and Cameron comforts her, disclosing his love. In the midst of her breakdown Sarah realizes she has likewise fallen in love with Cameron.

Sandra and Stan had been expecting a huge revenue increase via monthly rents from both Tommy and Sarah and now suddenly have zero rent income and heavy debts, but they are saved by an accident.

Sarah has completed her move and Tommy is in the middle of his when Tommy is accidentally killed. Sandra and Stan are now in an even better financial position from Tommy's triple indemnity life insurance. Moreover, Sandra stands to inherit Tommy's equipment, now half moved to the new location.

Sandra and Stan squander the inheritance within a few months and Stan begins his pattern of theft again, this time against Sandra. He knows she will be broke in a matter of a few months and he conspires with Dobie to set up a theft ring in the same manner he had used when he had been a manager at Sam Johnson's Garage. Sandra grows increasingly erratic due to her increased use of drugs and alcohol. She begins blaming Sarah, Dobie, Cameron for her bad fortune and even Tommy's death. She acquires a pistol and seeks revenge and death as a way out of her dilemma.

The Spirituality of Bugs

SCIENCE FICTION ABOUT CONSCIOUSNESS

When a hungover spaceman wakes up in an off-world jail with a feline alien he finds out his carnivorous cell mate is about to do him in.

It deals with what appears at first glance to be an incongruency: the far-flung future, but one with a prevalent trailer-trash mentality. Despite achieving interstellar commerce, many humans are still low level, unplanning philistines, devoid of any spiritual or intellectual attributes.

In this story some alien species consider Earth people unusual in that many humans behave in an animal-like fashion. Most aliens are are built on a different plan, with accountability for actions NOT on the sleep/wake cycle of Earth's day/night. Among many nonhuman species there are alternating periods of Consciousness, but this does not follow the human concept of sleep/wake and day/night. The aliens are always awake (i.e., not in the coma-like state of sleep) but rather they "Revert" to an animal-like state from time to time, to rest, eat, reproduce. During that time of reversion, they are decidedly irresponsible for their actions.

The aliens certainly understand that we human are unaccountable for our actions while in our coma-like state of 'sleep' but they assume that except for the presence of daily temporary coma that we would be accountable for our actions at all other times while 'awake'.

They do not understand why humans seem to be unconscious at odd intervals while awake. They do not understand why we humans habitually accept that many of us are not held accountable for our animal-like actions while awake.

In human culture inexorable social forces excuse bad behavior by removing accountability in small pieces: bad upbringing, alcoholism, addiction, etc. The one excuse all of us, whether liberal or conservative, take for granted is that of 'being asleep', one that the aliens find as an unusual feature of our makeup, but certainly understandable. What they do not understand is our unconscious behavior while awake.

This story shows how an alien forces a drunken sailor to equate 'awake' with 'enlightenment' and 'asleep' with 'unconscious animal-like existence'. And sleep has always been a metaphor for 'unenlightenment'. The alien is amazed that not only do ALL humans go into a nocturnal coma-like unconscious state but that MOST also, more or less, sleep-walk their way through their waking hours and are not really awake in any spiritual sense.

Except for the punishment of actually falling asleep on guard duty, we humans maintain no level of responsibility for ourselves while asleep and that is easy to reconcile due to the coma-like paralysis we are accustomed to. But the aliens are amazed that we have also removed responsibility from most of our actions while awake due to legal and social exemptions, i.e., 'addicted', 'insane', 'enraged'. But 'UNconscious' (in the sleeping sense) with us means 'INactive'. What if it didn't? Alternating periods of consciousness and unconsciousness might not follow the wake/sleep paralleling the day/night pattern we have evolved on Earth.

In this story, the aliens alternate periods of Consciousness (during which they are 'intelligent') with periods of Unconsciousness (during which they are active, but are like animals). While Unconscious, they mate, hunt, eat, as well as refresh and rest their brains. To them, the idea of going into the coma-like state we call 'sleep' is a foreign idea and it intrigues them we have a heavy urge to drink alcohol, as though we were attempting to mimic their own pattern.

Do you hate the trailer trash mentality? I mean, do you really HATE it? Unfortunately, we will always have such people and such low level thinking can reside anywhere and everywhere among us, not just a rural setting of poverty. The trailer trash mindset can even take root (dare I say it?) in Manhattan or even in the far flung future.

I give Mr. Buddha a good bit of the credit for the idea behind this story as well as the ponderously entitled book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by the Princeton psychologist, Julian Jaynes — hence, the duality of my two characters, 'Julian' and 'Jaynes'.

Julian Jaynes' thoughts on this idea that consciousness did NOT evolve in humanity until just recently, that the Pyramids were built by unconscious humanity is at a level of idea-generation that Isaac Asimov referred to as 'CP' (crackpot), right up there with Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision.

But who knows? When DID consciousness start? Is it a process, a little bit more at a time, or is it an all-or-nothing affair? Certainly, intelligence is not all or none, so how about consciousness?

If you think this is totally nuts, I invite you to peruse the Wiki article on the Iliad. The article makes mention of Jaynes' theory in reference to the way thoughts were portrayed by Homer, that people had no actual forethought, just the edicts of Olympus, followed by action and reflection. Today (except in Congress and in trailer parks) people actually think.

I also give credit to John Campbell who said he wanted an alien character that 'thinks' like an alien, not a human.

All this science fiction fooferah about having a delightful, alien bar scene camouflages the fact that bars, in the final analysis, are for dissipation and for low life.

Franchise Screams
THE Franchise Handbook

A LENGTHY BUSINESS BOOK relating details of the franchise industry, car repair, Detroit, business, how (and how not) to live a good life

Many specifics and anecdotes, advice, warnings, roadmaps of pitfalls. Go into business for yourself with eyes opened by the experience of someone who has been there. You cannot buy a mentor, but you can read a book or two.

I forewarn you: this book is like the offspring of Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road and Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast. There is nothing like 'been there, done that' to lend credibility to writing style to overcome its artistic, technical deficiencies. The naive, earnest, young, blue-blooded gentleman Dana went to sea because 'his eyes were weak', but he NEVER, NEVER said he regretted the loss of time spent. Wow! I love the metaphor 'weak eyes', now strengthened by having worked two years with those men.

After Dana returned to privileged high society he visited his old ship several years later and greeted the same sailors still aboard. Once they had worked side-by-side as equal laborers, but now they were no longer peers and the uncouth sailors deferred to the young gentleman's finery. He would have none of it and embraced them as equal fellows, despite their difference in rank, privilege, wealth, power. His unclear, 'weak eyes' had been made clear by the direct experience and I hope you enjoyed reading this and I hope to have 'clarified' some business issues. Bless business and bless you.

Sandy's Story (prequel to Jerome Bixby's The Man from Earth)

Sandy's Story (by RJW Seddon) is a prequel to The Man From Earth (by Jerome Bixby). In 2007 Richard Schenkman produced and directed a movie by the same title as Jerome Bixby's play. This prequel fills in the background decade preceding the motion picture, how Sandy met John Oldman and how she came to be the history department's secretary. The other characters in the film (Harry, Edith, Art, Will, Dan) are also introduced, as well as some original significant others who were not in the play.

Sandy's Story by RJW Seddon

prequel to The Man from Earth by Jerome Bixby

This is the story of a man born 14,000 years ago who inexplicably does not age past an appearance of about 35 years. In order to keep his secret, every decade or so he finds it expedient to vanish and relocate. He has seen the end of the last Ice Age, known The Buddha, lived in the empires of Sumeria, Babylon, Imperial Rome. His past identities have been varied, but the most incredible one is his most closely guarded secret, that John is the historical figure we today know as Jesus Christ.

In the figurative sense, this story is an allegory of Western civilization's back drop of religion. In the literal sense, it is a science fiction adventure story. Either way, the subject matter is fascinating. It is a way, for some, to do what Christianity advises: to meet Christ personally, to see him directly, both in the here-and-now as a man and as someone very special.

Conventional Christianity maintains Jesus was a man without sin, but that does not necessarily mean a man without faults. It is the flaws that make him and us human and it is his flaws and problems that make him accessible. He is not lofty, beyond reach, but very, very human, just possessing a different set of problems.

The original story and this prequel offer the possibility of a whole series of stories.

The Journey of Little Hans

A JUNGIAN FAIRY TALE (for children and adults)

This is a translation by RJW Seddon of Hänschens Reise, a German language children's story written and illustrated by Erica von Kager. This under-the-sea dream adventure of a little boy was a gift given to him by The Sand Man (a mythical being who bestows our dreams).

In his dream Little Hans becomes tiny and visits the princess of the ocean in her kingdom at the bottom of the sea. Homesick and terror sets in when he feels trapped by the princess. He ends the dream adventure and returns home to his mother.

Children enjoy the story on a literal level and adults on a symbolic Jungian/Freudian level.

The Carpenter (a tale of the Christ)

A retelling of the Christ story in a modern setting.