None of us was fined for being late, as our driver was even later. And so was Bill. Dr. Chan had resealed Tree-San with a roll-and-clamp arrangement to permit it to be watered more easily. Bill had solicited Aunt Lilybet’s help. They had managed it together, but not quickly. I don’t know whether Bill had time to pee or not. Auntie, of course, had time—the Hear Me couldn’t roll until Auntie arrived.
We made a meal stop about half past nineteen at a small pressure, four families, called Rob Roy. After the last stop this one seemed like the acme of civilization. The place was clean, the air smelled right, and the people were friendly and hospitable. There was no choice in the menu—chicken and dumplings, and moonberry pie—and the price was high. But what do you expect out in the middle of nowhere on the face of the Moon? There was a souvenir stand of handmade items, presided over by a little boy. I bought an embroidered change purse that I had no use for, because those people were good to us. The decoration on it read: “Rob Roy City, Capital of the Sea of Serenity.” I gave it to my bride.
Gwen helped the one-armed woman with the three children and learned that they were returning home to Kong, after having visited in Lucky Dragon the paternal grandparents of the youngsters. The mother’s name was Ekaterina O’Toole; the kids were Patrick, Brigid, and Igor, aged eight, seven, and five. Our other three passengers turned out to be Lady Diana Kerr-Shapley and her husbands—wealthy and not inclined to fraternize with us plebs. Both her men carried side arms—inside their suits. What is the sense in that?
The ground was not as even from there on, and it seemed to me that Auntie stuck a little closer to the marked track. But she still drove fast and with dash, bouncing us around on those big, low-pressure doughnuts in a fashion that made me wonder about Bill’s queasy stomach. At least he was not having to hold Tree-San; Auntie had helped him lash it down in the cargo compartment aft. I wished him luck; getting sick in one’s helmet is dreadful—happened to me once, a generation ago. Ugh!
We made another rest stop just before midnight. Adequate. The Sun was now a few degrees higher and still rising. Auntie told us that we now had a hundred and fifteen klicks left to roll and should be in Kong about on time, with God’s help.
God didn’t give Auntie the help she deserved. We had been rolling about an hour when out of nowhere (from behind a rock outcropping?) came another rolligon, smaller and faster, cutting diagonally across our path.
I slapped Bill’s arm, grabbed Gwen’s shoulders, and down we went, below the driver’s port and somewhat protected by the steel side of the bus. As I ducked for cover I saw a flash from the strange vehicle.
Our bus rolled to a stop with the other vehicle right in front of us. Auntie stood up.
They cut her down.
Gwen got the man who beamed Auntie, resting her Miyako on the sill of the port—she got him in the lens of his helmet, the best way to shoot a man in a p-suit if you are using bullets rather than laser. I got the driver, aiming carefully as my cane shoots only five times—and no more ammo closer than Golden Rule (in my duffel, damn it). Other suited figures came pouring out the sides of the attacking craft. Gwen raised up a little and went on shooting.
All this took place in the ghostly quiet of vacuum.
I started to add my fire to Gwen’s, when still another vehicle showed up. Not a rolligon but related to one—but not any contraption I ever saw before. It had only one tire, a super-giant doughnut at least eight meters high. Maybe ten. The hole in the doughnut was crowded with what may have been (or had to be?) its power plant. Extending out from this hub on each side was a cantilevered platform. On the upper side of each platform, both port and starboard, a gunner was strapped into a saddle. Below the gunner was the pilot, or driver, or engineer—one on each side and don’t ask me how they coordinated.
I won’t swear to any details; I was busy. I had taken a bead on the gunner on the side toward me and was about to squeeze off one of my precious shots when I checked fire; his weapon was depressed, he was attacking our attackers. He was using an energy weapon—laser, particle beam, I don’t know—as all I saw of each bolt was the parasitic flash…and the result.
The big doughnut spun around a quarter turn; I saw the other pair, driver and gunner, on the other side—and this gunner was trained on us. His projector flashed.
I got him in the face plate.
Then I tried for his driver, got him (I think) at the neck joint. Not as good as punching a hole in his face plate but, unless he was equipped to make a difficult patch fast, he was going to be breathing the thin stuff in seconds.
The doughnut spun all the way around. As it stopped I got the other gunner a nanosecond before he could get me. I tried to line up for a shot at the driver but could not get steady on target and had no ammo to waste. The doughnut started to roll, away from us, east—picked up speed, hit a boulder, bounced high, and disappeared over the horizon.
I looked back down at the other rolligon. In addition to the two we had killed in the first exchange, still sprawled in the car, there were five bodies on the ground, two to starboard, three to port. None looked as if he would ever move again. I pressed my helmet to Gwen’s. “Is that all of them?”
She jabbed me hard in the side. I turned. A helmeted head was just appearing in the left-hand door. I lined up my cane and punched a starred hole in his face plate; he disappeared. I hopped on somebody’s feet and looked out—no more on the left—turned, and here was another one climbing up through the right-hand door. So I shot him—
Correction: I tried to shoot him. No more ammo. I fell toward him, jabbing with my cane. He grabbed the end of it and that was his mistake, as I pulled on it, exposing twenty centimeters of Sheffield steel, which I sank into his suit and between his ribs. I pulled it out, shoved it into him again. That stiletto, a mere half-centimeter width of triangular blade, blood-grooved three sides, does not necessarily kill quickly but my second jab would hold his attention while he died, keep him too busy to kill me.
He collapsed, half inside the door, and let go the scabbard part of my cane. I retrieved it, fitted it back on. Then I shoved him out, grabbed on to the seat nearest me, and pulled myself up onto my foot, took care of a minor annoyance, hopped back to my seat, and sat down. I was tired, although the whole fracas could not have lasted more than two or three minutes. It’s the adrenaline—I always feel exhausted afterward.
That was the end of it, and a good thing, too, as both Gwen and I were out of ammo, utterly, and I can’t use that concealed blade trick more than once—it works only if you can lure your opponent into grabbing the ferrule of your walking stick. There had been nine in that rolligon and all of them were dead. Gwen and I got five of them between us; the gunners of the giant doughnut killed the other four. The body count was certain because there is no mistaking a bullet hole for a burn.
I am not counting the two, or three, I shot of the super-doughnut’s crew…because they left no bodies to count; they were somewhere over the horizon.
Our own casualties: four.
First, our own gunner, riding shotgun in the turret above the driver. I crawled up and had a look—at one-sixth gee I can climb a vertical ladder almost as easily as you can. Our gunner was dead, probably that first flash marked his end. Had he been asleep on watch? Who knows and who cares now? He was dead.
But our second casualty. Aunt Lilybet, was not dead, and that was Bill’s doing. He had slapped two pressure patches onto her, fast, one on her left arm, one on the top of her helmet—had known enough to cut off her air as he did it, then had counted sixty seconds before he cracked the valve and let her suit reinflate. And thereby saved her life.
It was the first evidence I had seen that Bill was even bright enough to pound sand. He had spotted where the kit with the pressure patches was kept, near the driver’s seat, then had gone through the rest like a drill, no lost motions and paying no attention to the fighting going on around him.
I suppose I should not have been surprised; I knew that Bill had worke
d in heavy construction—for a space habitat, that means p-suit work, with safety drills and training. But it’s not enough to be trained; in a clutch it takes some smarts and a cool head to apply even the best of training.
Bill showed us what he had done, not to boast of it, but because he realized that some of it might have to be done over: In sealing Auntie’s suit in a hurry he had not been able to get at the wound in her arm to stop bleeding, and did not know whether or not it had been cauterized by the burn. If she was bleeding, that suit would have to be opened again, a pressure bandage applied to the wound, then the suit closed again—fast! In view of the location—an arm—the only way to do this would be to cut the suit fabric to make a larger hole, get at the arm and stop the bleeding, patch the bigger hole, and wait counted seconds for one endless minute before subjecting the patched suit to pressure.
There is a very narrow limit on how long a patient can take vacuum. Auntie was old and wounded and had had it done to her once today. Could she take it twice?
There was no question of opening her helmet. The bolt that had hit her there had carved a slice into the top of the helmet but not into her head—else we would not have been considering whether or not to open her sleeve.
Gwen put her helmet against Auntie’s, managed to rouse her and get her attention. Was she bleeding?
Auntie didn’t think so. Her arm was numb but didn’t hurt much. Did they get it? Get what? Something in the cargo. Gwen assured her that the bandits didn’t get anything; they were dead. That seemed to satisfy Auntie. She added, “Taddie can drive,” and seemed to slip off to sleep.
Our third casualty was one of Lady Diana’s husbands. Dead. But not by either set of bandits. In effect, he had shot himself in the foot.
I think I mentioned that he was heeled—with his gun for God’s sake inside his suit. When the trouble started, he went for his side arm, found he could not reach it—opened the front of his suit to get at it.
It is possible to open your suit and close it again, in vacuum, and I think the legendary Houdini could have learned to do it. But this joker was still rumbling for his gun when he collapsed and drowned in vacuum. His co-husband was a half-point smarter. Instead of going for his own gun, he attempted to get at that of his partner after his partner keeled over. He did manage to get at it and to draw it but too late to help in the fight. He straightened up just as I was pulling myself to my foot, after I stabbed the last of the bandits.
So I find this custard head waving a gun in my face.
I did not intend to break his wrist; I simply meant to disarm him. I slapped the gun out of line and cracked his wrist with my cane. I caught the gun, shoved it into my p-suit belt, went forward, and collapsed in my seat. I did not know that I had hurt him, other than a bruise, maybe.
But I feel no trace of remorse. If you don’t want a broken wrist, don’t wave a gun in my face. Not when I’m tired and excited.
Then I pulled myself together and tried to help Gwen and Bill.
I hate to tell about our fourth casualty: Igor O’Toole, the five-year-old.
Since the tad was on a back seat with his mother, it is certain that he was not killed by anyone from the rolligon; the angle would have been impossible. Only the two gunners of the super-doughnut were up high enough to shoot in through the driver’s port of Hear Me and hit someone clear at the back. Furthermore it had to be the second gunner; the first gunner had kept busy killing bushwhackers. Then the doughnut turned, I saw this gun leveled at us, saw its flash just about as I fired and killed him.
I thought he had missed. If he was firing at me, he did miss. I’m not sure he was aiming carefully as who would aim at the least likely target?—a child, a baby really, clear at the back of the bus. But the flash I saw had to be the bolt that killed Igor.
Had it not been for Igor’s death I might have had mixed feelings about the crew of the giant doughnut—we certainly could not have won without their help. But that last shot convinces me that they were just killing off business competitors before getting to their main purpose, hijacking the Hear Me.
My only regret is that I did not kill the fourth doughnut rider.
But these were afterthoughts. What we saw at the time was simply a dead child. We straightened up from dealing with Auntie and looked around. Ekaterina was sitting quietly, holding the body of her son. I had to look twice to realize what had happened. But a p-suit does not hold a living child when the face plate is burned away. I hopped toward her; Gwen reached her first. I stopped behind Gwen; Lady Diana grabbed my sleeve, said something.
I touched my helmet to hers. “What did you say?”
“I told you to tell the driver to drive on! Can’t you understand plain English?”
I wish she had said it to Gwen; Gwen’s replies are more imaginative than mine and much more lyrical. All I could manage, tired as I was, was: “Oh, shut up and sit down, you silly slitch.” I did not wait for an answer.
Lady Dee went forward, where Bill kept her from disturbing Auntie. I didn’t see this, as just then, while I leaned forward to try to see what had happened to the consort who had (I was still to learn) killed himself with his p-suit, his co-husband attempted to recover that gun from me.
In the course of the tussle I grabbed his (broken) wrist. I could not hear him scream or see his expression, but he did an amazing piece of extemporaneous Method acting that let me know the agony he was in.
All I can say is: Don’t wave guns in my face. It brings out the worst in me.
I went back to Gwen and that poor mother, touched my helmet to Gwen’s. “Anything we can do for her?”
“No. Nothing till we get her in to pressure. Not much then.”
“How about the other two?” I suppose they were crying but when you can’t hear it or see it, what can you do?
“Richard, I think the best we can do is to leave this family alone. Keep an eye on them but let them be. Until we reach Kong.”
“Yes—Kong. Who is Taddie?”
“What?”
“Aunt Lilybet said, ‘Taddie can drive.’”
“Oh. I think she meant the turret gunner. Her nephew.”
So that’s why I climbed up to check the turret. I had to go outside to get up there, which I did—cautiously. But we had been correct—all dead. And so was our turret gunner, Taddie. I climbed down, then back up into the passenger compartment, got my three together—told them we had no relief driver.
I asked, “Bill, can you drive?”
“No, I can’t, Senator. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever been in one of these things.”
“I was afraid of that. Well, it’s been some years since I’ve driven one but I know how, so—Oh, Jesus! Gwen, I can’t.”
“Trouble, dear?”
I sighed. “You steer this thing with your feet. I’m shy one foot—it’s sitting over there by my seat. There is no way in the world I can put it on…and no way in the world I can drive with just one foot.”
She answered soothingly, “That’s all right, dear. You handle the radio—we’ll need some Maydays, I think. While I drive.”
“You can drive this behemoth?”
“Certainly. I didn’t want to volunteer, with you two men here. But I’ll be happy to drive. Two more hours, about. Easy.”
Three minutes later Gwen was checking the controls; I was seated beside her, figuring out how to jack my suit into the bus’s radio. Two of those minutes had been spent delegating Bill as master at arms with orders to keep Lady Dee in her seat. She had come forward again, with firm instructions about how things were to be done. Seems she was in a hurry—something about a directors’ meeting in Ell-Four. So we must drive fast, make up for lost time.
This time I did get to hear Gwen’s comment. It was heartwarming. Lady Dee gasped, especially when Gwen told her what to do with her proxies, after she folded them until they were all sharp corners.
Gwen let in the clutches, the Hear Me shook, then backed, swung past the other rolligon, and we wer
e away. I finally punched the right buttons on the radio, tuned it to what I thought was the right channel:
“—O, M, F, I, E, S spells ‘Comfies!’ the perfect answer to the stresses of modern living! Don’t take the cares of business home with you. Take comfort from Comfies, the scientific stomach boon therapists prescribe more than any other—”
I tried another channel.
XIII
“The truth is the one thing that nobody will believe.”
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW 1856-1950
I went on hunting for eleven, the emergencies channel, by trial and error; the read-out was marked but not by numbered channels—Auntie had her own codes. The window reading “Help” was not help for emergencies as I had assumed, but spiritual help. I punched it in and got “This is the Reverend Herold Angel speaking from my heart direct to yours, at Tycho-Under Tabernacle, Christ’s Home in Luna. Tune in at eight o’clock Sunday to hear the true meanings of the Scriptural prophecies…and send your love gift today to Box 99, Angel Station, Tycho Under. Our Good News Theme for today: How We Will Know the Master When He Comes. Now we join the Tabernacle Choir in ‘Jesus Holds Me in His—’”
That sort of help was about forty minutes too late, so I moved on to another channel. There I recognized a voice and concluded that I must be on channel thirteen. So I called, “Captain Midnight calling Captain Marcy. Come in. Captain Marcy.”
“Marcy, ground control Hong Kong Luna. Midnight, what the devil are you up to now? Over.”
I tried to explain, in twenty-five words or less, how I happened to be on his maneuvering circuit. He listened, then interrupted: “Midnight, what have you been smoking? Let me talk to your wife; I can believe her.”