“Crater Trueblood.”
“Really? He’s like a legend.”
The coach nodded. “Yes, he is. Now I know why.”
Crater ducked out through the hatch.
::: TWENTY
Crater visited his mother in her room. She sat on her throne. “They are not men of good will,” Q-Bess said. “No matter what you do, the Colonel and his sheriff intend to see Crescent dead.”
“Have you thought of talking to the Colonel?” Crater asked.
Q-Bess looked ashamed, then told him about Petro and the threat the sheriff had made in behalf of the Colonel. “I don’t really think the Colonel would deliberately hurt Petro,” Q-Bess said, “but he might subconsciously put him in harm’s way. I can’t risk that. I have thought of something you might do.” She told him what it was.
Crater was a bit shocked. “If anyone found out,” he said, “I would be fired. Perhaps even exiled.”
“I know,” Q-Bess said. “It’s a lot to ask of you. I know you love what you do and you love Moontown. It is a hard choice, Crater. Do what you think is best.”
“How will I know what is best, Mother?”
“By what seems right to you.”
“Is it ever right to steal?”
“Never,” said Q-Bess.
“And yet . . .”
She nodded gravely. “And yet to not steal in this case . . .”
“Let me think about it.”
Q-Bess nodded. “As always, Crater. Now, go. The creation of this plan has left me much fatigued. I must rest from it.”
Crater bowed, then left. His thinking was complete by the time he was through the Dust Palace hatch. He headed for his dustlock. It was between scrape shifts so no dusties were on duty. He selected a convoy backpack, then slapped a red maintenance tag on it. If anyone saw him with it, they would assume he was carrying it to the repair shop. Carrying the pack along with a bag containing his outside gear, he headed for the east maintenance shed where his fastbug was stored in a mooncrete truck shelter. After registering with the dispatcher, he exited through the shed’s dustlock, opened the shelter, then drove his fastbug onto the dust. After loading it, he drove to the Copperhead Bridge that spanned the rille of the same name and then drove back again. He garaged the fastbug in the shelter, then went inside to log out. He keyed in the necessary information, then asked the dispatcher, “Do you have a pencil?”
The dispatcher, a little man with old-fashioned wire spectacles, raised his eyebrows. “A what?”
“A pencil. You know, to write with? Most dispatchers have at least one around.”
His moustache twitched. “Maybe the previous dispatcher, but not me. Let me look in the junk drawer.” He leaned over and dug into a cluttered drawer. “What do you know?” he said after stirring the contents around. He held aloft a stubby yellow pencil. “The old fellow left one behind.”
“Perfect. How about a scrap of paper?”
“You don’t ask for much,” the dispatcher grumbled. He scratched his head, then brightened. “How about a paper bag? I got a couple of those. Company on Earth still uses them to ship peanuts in.”
“That will do fine.”
The dispatcher got off his chair and opened a locker, then carried back a grease-stained brown paper bag. “You gonna write something? Kind of a lost art, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Crater said, then tore a scrap off the bag, went to an empty counter and wrote on it, tucked the scrap in his pocket, then returned the pencil to the dispatcher. “Thanks a lot.”
“You’re welcome. People used to do that, didn’t they? Write notes by hand?”
“They did. They’d write them, put them in an envelope, and send them to people anywhere in the world. Sometimes it took weeks before an answer came back, but according to the history books, it worked pretty well.”
The dispatcher tossed the pencil back into the cluttered drawer. “Well, I was never much for history. I’ll stick to the puters.”
“If your puter ever goes down, you can use that pencil to keep track of things on your paper bags.”
“I never thought of that. Problem is I can type but I never learned to write by hand.”
“Never too late to learn,” Crater advised, then headed for the sheriff’s office. At the entrance hatch was a dozing deputy, a skinny fellow named Campos. He was leaned back in a chair, his cap over his eyes. Crater ignored him and pushed through the hatch where he found the sheriff also dozing, his boots up on his desk and his hands clasped over his ample belly. Crater eased around him and opened one by one the drawers in the desk until he found what he was looking for. He then touched him on his shoulder, which had the happy result of the sheriff jerking awake, swinging his boots to the floor with a crash, and crying out, “Don’t kill me! I wasn’t the snitch! T’was someone else!”
“It’s just me, Sheriff,” Crater said. “Nothing to fear.”
The sheriff blinked at Crater, then moved his shoulders around as if rearranging his body to a different place. “Of course it’s you. Fear? I’m not fearful of anything. I’m the sheriff. People fear me.” He gulped. “Don’t they?”
“Yes, sir, they do. I’m heartily sorry to interrupt your busy day, but Q-Bess sent me to remind you of your bill.”
The sheriff’s eyes narrowed. “What bill?”
“Check your puter. It’s all there. Under company debt.”
The sheriff eyed Crater suspiciously, then clicked the necessary keys. “A large number,” he concluded. “There must be a mistake.”
“No mistake, Sheriff. Q-Bess has kept track of what food and drink you and your deputies have taken from the cafeteria since your appointment as sheriff. By the Colonel’s rules, all expenditures at the Dust Palace must be accounted for. She has vids of all these unpaid transactions, of course.”
The sheriff leaned back in his chair. “There is more to this. What does Q-Bess want?”
Crater shrugged. “She just wants to be paid. When will you send the funds over?”
“Never. I’ll go to the Colonel about this.”
“Are you sure you want to do that? Even if the Colonel wipes the slate clean, he will probably tell you to pay for your food and drink in the Dust Palace from now on. Do you want that to happen?”
The sheriff rocked in his chair. “Despite your denial, I think you and Q-Bess want something else.”
Crater shrugged. “Well . . .”
The sheriff sighed. “Let’s hear it.”
“I want to see Crescent.”
The sheriff processed Crater’s request. “For what purpose?”
“I need to apologize. After all, she wouldn’t be in this mess if I hadn’t brought her back to Moontown.” He dug into a pocket on his tunic and drew out the phoenix pendant with a new chain. “And I want to give her this.”
“How did you get that?”
“I took it from your desk while you were asleep. It’s important to Crescent. If she’s going to die, she ought to have it.”
The sheriff frowned. “Frankly, I think this is a ruse. I suspect you mean to help her escape.”
“How could I help her escape? I’m certain you have recorders all over her tube, not to mention vidcams. You’ll hear and see everything I say and do.”
“True,” the sheriff conceded. He drummed his fingers on his desk, then shrugged. “All right. When do you want to do it?”
“Now.”
“The charges on the puter?”
“Wiped out the moment I complete my visit.”
The sheriff’s eyes never left Crater. “Deputy Campos!”
There were scrambling noises followed by the sound of a chair turning over. Finally, the deputy appeared, his cap sitting askew. “You bellowed, Sheriff?”
“Careful, Deputy. You might find what it’s like to work as a scragline picker. Wake up and take Crater along to see the creature. Stay with him the entire time.”
“It’ll be awkward with Deputy Campos hanging over my shoulder,” Crater said.
“You can watch the vids later. There’s no way I can get away with anything.”
The sheriff studied Crater’s innocent face for a long second, then said, “Deputy, pat Crater down before he goes inside. He is not to carry anything with him save that chain and pendant he’s holding. Then stay outside the door until he leaves.” The sheriff glanced at Crater. “Ten minutes. No more.”
“That’s all I need. Thank you, Sheriff.”
“Nothing nefarious, hear?”
“It is well known that I am an honest man,” Crater replied.
“You just rifled my desk.”
“But I told you about it.”
The sheriff pointed a finger at him. “If you do anything to help your monster escape, you will regret it for the rest of your life.”
“I’m certain of that. Nobody can do your job better than you.”
“Thank you.”
“It wasn’t a compliment,” Crater muttered under his breath as he turned and walked out of the office and past the deputy. Campos hurried to catch up. “I’m supposed to take you there.”
“I know my way, Deputy. I grew up in these tubes.”
“Really? I’ve been here six months and this place is about to drive me nuts. Same tubes, same people, day after day.”
“It grows on you,” Crater said and kept walking, the deputy sheepishly following.
At the tube where Crescent was housed, the deputy patted Crater down, then waited at the hatch while Crater went inside. He found Crescent watching a black-and-white movie on the vidputer. “I thought never to see you again,” she said, looking up.
“Q-Bess misses you and so do I. She sends her love. What are you watching?”
“Citizen Kane. The best movie ever according to the reviewers. It’s okay, I guess.”
“Well, you’re almost at the end. Go ahead and watch it. I’ll fix us some tea. You like tea, don’t you?”
“Yes, very much.”
While Crescent watched the end of her movie, Crater glanced around before going to the kitchen. The tube that was her prison was a pleasantly furnished one, painted a cheerful, sunny yellow, the plaston furniture cushioned and comfortable. It also had four security vidcams that were exactly where they were supposed to be, that knowledge gained by an easy hack into Moontown’s security system using the passwords the gillie had provided him years ago. At the time, Crater had condemned the gillie for being a bad gillie but had kept the passwords just the same. He silently thanked the gillie for being bad and the sheriff for being too lazy to change the passwords.
The kitchen was modest but functional. He noted the location of the vidcam there, then got to work and soon had the tea pot whistling. He stooped down to a low cabinet for a tray, then placed the teapot, two cups, a bowl of sugar, and a container of milk on it. He carried the tray to a small table. The movie over, Crescent joined him there. “Is this all you do every day, Crescent? Watch movies?”
“There isn’t much else to do,” she said, “except when men come to ask me things.”
“What kind of things do they ask?”
“They ask me how I was created, what my childhood was like, what kind of training I was given, and to name any names I might recall.”
“What do you tell them?”
“I tell them what I remember although, like every Legionnaire, I was given a drug that makes me forget much of my early life.”
“And what do they say about what you tell them?”
“Not much. They just smile and nod. I don’t always know what humans are thinking because I can’t read their expressions very well. You are the exception. Worry is written all over your face. What is it?”
“Crescent, I want you to know something. I’ve tried everything I can think of to find proof that you’re innocent but I’ve come up short. Is there anything you can tell me about that night that might help?”
“The deputy deserved to die,” she said.
“He deserved to be punished but did you kill him?”
Crescent said nothing, just looked at him with a fixed expression.
“I’m sorry I brought you here,” Crater said. “If I had just left you where I found you, it would not have come to this.”
“That is true.”
He pulled the pendant and chain from his pocket and handed it to her. She took it and draped it around her neck. “Thank you. I missed it.”
“Do you still consider me your enemy?”
“What difference does it make? You are you. I am me. I will die soon. You will live a little longer. We’ll end up at the same place.”
The deputy swung open the hatch. “Your ten minutes are up.”
“We’re not quite done with our tea,” Crescent said. “Could he stay a little longer?”
The deputy shrugged and closed the hatch.
They had their tea quietly, until Crater said, “I’ve been rebuilding a fastbug. I drove it over to the Copperhead Bridge the other day.”
“Was it fun?”
“It was very fun. I caught vacuum a few times by launching off crater rims.”
“I wish I could do that.”
The deputy swung the hatch open again. “All right. That’s it or the sheriff will have my rear end.”
Crater started to pick up the tray but Crescent stopped him. “It’s okay. I’ll clean up.”
She walked with Crater to the hatch. “Don’t give up hope,” he said, then put out his hand.
Crescent looked at his hand, then grasped it. Her hand was rough and very strong. “Good-bye,” she said. Crater was astonished when she leaned in and hugged him, her arms like steel bands. “I found you pleasant,” she said, then turned away.
Outside, the deputy scratched up under his cap. “I thought that creature was going to crush you. You’re braver than I am.”
“She’s just a girl.”
“She’s a monster.”
Crater heard the deputy lock the hatch as he walked away.
::: TWENTY-ONE
For two weeks, the transport was forced to loiter in orbit until finally the warpod arrived. The transport docked to it and the Legionnaires, sticky boots on, filed off, entering a bay with a deck of aluminum plate. “Get used to it, gents,” the ranking decan said. “It’s your home for at least a month.”
Lucien, Dion, and Absalom found a space near a spaghetti of conduit and humming electronics, doffed their packs, slapped them sticky side down, and hooked their boots through the straps to keep from floating away. “A month in this hole,” Lucien moaned. “We shall all go mad.”
Absalom produced a pack of sticky cards designed for weightless conditions from a pocket on the tunic that covered his armor. “We can while the time away with these.”
“And play for what?” Lucien demanded. “We have no money.”
“I will remember the amount you owe me and collect later.”
“That will be in Hades.” Dion laughed. “We won’t live long enough to collect.”
A veteran came over and slapped Dion on his helmet. “That kind of talk is forbidden,” he growled.
Dion was not intimidated. “If that is so, Carillon,” he said, “why did I hear you whimpering to the decan about needing more armor?”
“The armor I was issued is defective, sprout. Not that I should explain anything to you.”
Absalom held up the deck of cards. “Could you explain how to play a game with these?”
Carillon squinted at the raw recruit. “Are you telling me you do not know how to play cards?”
“I know you’re supposed to match them in some way with these odd symbols.”
The veteran squatted and held out his hand. “Then I will demonstrate a game I just happen to know. It is called five-card stud poker. But to play it correctly, bets must be made. What do you have?”
Lucien, Absalom, and Dion all traded amused glances. They knew the game very well, of course. They had played it many times after being taught by their decan. Carillon, transferred in from a different contu, di
d not know that. “We have this,” Absalom said, producing a small reader from his pocket. “We will keep track of these things you call bets.”
“Put me down for one hundred johncredits to begin,” Carillon said. “Each of you must put down the same.”
Lucien pressed the reader, which had a sticky cover, to the aluminum deck. Carillon shuffled the cards and dealt them, one by one. An hour later all their johncredits were gone according to the marks on the reader. Carillon scratched up under his armor. “You will pay me as soon as we get back. If you don’t, I will kill you.”
Absalom studied Carillon. “What are you looking at, sprout?” he demanded.
“I am trying to figure out how you cheated.”
“Who says I cheated?”
“I do. Lucien and Dion do too. We say you cheated because we also cheated and did not win. What is your trick?”
Carillon formed his lips into a misshapen smile. He reached in his pocket and produced a deck of cards. “We have been playing with my cards, not yours. I swapped them within seconds of you handing your deck to me. This does not change anything. You will still pay me.”
“We will not pay,” Lucien said, grabbing the cards from Carillon and throwing them across the room where they hung in the air like the fluttering wings of birds.
Carillon drew a huge elk sticker from a holster strapped to his leg. “I should kill you,” he growled.
Decan Flaubert flew over and touched down on deck. “You know the rule, Carillon,” he said. “If you draw a knife in anger, it must taste blood.”
“That was my intention,” Carillon said. “Which of you is to supply the blood for my elk sticker?”
Lucien, Dion, and Absalom drew back. Flaubert grabbed them by their armor and shoved them forward. “You will fight,” he growled.
Reluctantly, the trio drew their knives. Carillon laughed and attacked. He kicked Lucien’s knife away, elbowed Dion in the stomach, wrenched his knife away, then nicked Absalom’s cheek. It all happened so fast, Absalom dropped his knife, which hung in the air, while he grabbed the bloody notch in his cheek. Decan Flaubert laughed. “Let that be a lesson to you sprouts. Don’t fight Carillon. He is a poor excuse for a soldier at times, but he knows his moves.”