Apollo's Outcasts (42 page)

The speaker of the House then returned to Washington and, escorted by National Guard soldiers, FBI agents, and Justice Department officials, went straight to the White House. The justice
officials ordered the Secret Service detail to stand down, then the Speaker went to the Oval Office, where Lina Shapar was found seated behind the presidential desk, wondering why her phone had suddenly gone dead.

She refused to surrender, of course, but her fate was no longer hers to decide. Five minutes later, she was led from the White and taken to the same Maryland military base from which she'd summoned troops the day she'd taken power. Someone must have told Vice President O'Hanlon that the jig was up, because a few minutes later Capitol Hill police pulled over his limo on Independence Avenue just before it crossed the Potomac.

As her first act of office, President Pro Tem Ferguson issued an executive order calling for an end to martial law; all federal troops were to stand down, and all political prisoners were to be set free at once. No shots were fired; the insurrection was peaceful. By midnight, the crisis had come to an end.

At least, that's the way it was back on Earth. Where I was, things were a bit different.

I'd just dropped another armload of dead branches into a wheelbarrow when my wristband beeped. Brushing wood chips from my hands, I pulled off my work gloves and raised it to my face. "Jamey here."

"The ferry just touched down at North Field,"
said the voice of a friend who worked in MainOps as a traffic controller.
"Passengers will be here in about twenty minutes."

"Thanks, Stu." I'd asked him to let know me when the ferry arrived. It was supposed to rendezvous with an LTV from Earth scheduled to reach the Moon that day, and I wanted to meet the passengers when they showed up. No sense in sitting around until then, though. There was no shortage of work to be done, and Colony Service was now a full-time job for everyone.

Shoving my gloves in my back pocket, I turned around. Hannah was kneeling on the ground, pulling up dead flowers from a nearby garden. They may have been ones that Eddie had planted; it made me sad to see that, but now that the dome had been repaired and the crater's atmosphere restored, the next step in bringing the solarium back to life was gathering and composting all the plants killed by the blowout. I told myself that Eddie probably would've been happy to do the job again; these gardens had been his pride and joy.

Hannah glanced up as I walked over to her. "Ferry's here," I said. "Want to come with me to meet them?"

"Umm...I dunno." There was a hesitant look in her eyes. "I'm not sure if that's such a good idea. I mean, they might not be so happy to see me."

"Yeah...maybe you're right." I squatted beside her. "It's not like you haven't met them before, but now that we're going together..."

"That's what I mean. I..." She shook her head. "Maybe you ought to do this on your own. It might be...y'know...awkward."

The last thing I wanted to do was make her uncomfortable. "Okay, sure. Maybe later?" She nodded, giving me a quick smile. I kissed her on the forehead, then I stood up and headed for the bike that I'd parked nearby. If I hurried, I'd have time to run up to the Laglers' place, change into some clean clothes, and get to Customs before the ferry passengers showed up.

Melissa was already at the apartment. I'd asked Stu to call her, too, and she'd left her job in Ag Dome 1 as soon as the call came in. I hastily pulled on a clean shirt and a fresh pair of trousers, and Mr. Lagler showed up just as we were getting ready to leave. There was no reason to ask why he wanted to come with us; he knew who was on the ferry.

The three of us went back downstairs, where a small crowd had already gathered on the balcony outside Customs to await the incoming passengers. Mr. Porter was among them; I gave him a brief wave, which he returned with a smile and a nod, then Mr. Lagler
excused himself and went over to speak with them. I made small talk with a couple of people, and it wasn't long before the Customs exit door opened and the first of the newly arrived passengers came through.

Dad was the third person to walk through the door. Jan was the fourth.

Melissa and I had spoken to both of them a couple of times already, after the lunar comsat was replaced during the month that had gone by since Lina Shapar was forced from office. Nonetheless, their physical changes since the morning they'd put Melissa and me on the magcat were startling. My father had put on weight during the time he'd been held prisoner in upstate New York; too much starch in his food and virtually no exercise had done a number on him. Although Jan had washed the brown dye from her hair and was starting to let it grow long again, she was still scrawny from being on the run with her Resistance cell. Both of them had haunted eyes; although they'd been reunited shortly after Dad was freed, I don't think an hour had gone by when they weren't worried about each other, or Melissa and me.

The first thing they noticed was that I was standing upright, without crutches or leg braces to hold me up. They'd never seen me do that before, not in my entire life. Jan's mouth fell open in astonishment, and I don't think Dad even recognized me at first. They were still getting over their disbelief when I walked over to Jan and, without any effort at all, wrapped my arms around her.

"Hi, sis," I said. "Good to see you again."

Jan's duffel bag fell to the floor. She slowly let out her breath, then her body shook within my arms. She was sobbing with relief, but that wasn't what I noticed. Until then, I'd always looked up at her from the seat of a mobil. Now, all of a sudden, I discovered that she and I were the same height.

Dad had also dropped his bag to hug Melissa, and it seemed to me that he was surprised to find that she was letting him do so,
without any trace of self-conscious embarrassment. Melissa had made some changes, too, since she'd been away; he was going to be pleasantly surprised to find how different she'd become.

But then he looked at me again, and an eyebrow went up in disapproval. "So...who said you could get a tattoo?"

I felt my face go red. "Didn't you see it when you called me?"

"The phone picture wasn't clear. I thought it was just a smudge on your face."

"I think it's cute." Jan smiled as she reached up to touch the wings-and-crescent moon Rangers symbol on my right cheek. "Does your girlfriend like it? Hannah, I mean."

"She wants me to have it moved to..." Then I stopped. "Hey, who told you she's my girlfriend?"

I'd deliberately refrained from mentioning Hannah when I'd spoken to both of them on the phone. I didn't know how they would feel about the fact that I was having a relationship with the girl for whom Jan had given up seat on the shuttle. After all, she'd made that sacrifice so that President Wilford's daughter could escape her father's enemies, not so that her little brother would have a steady girl when he got to the Moon. Hannah had felt the same way, too, so the revelation that they already knew about her was something of an embarrassment.

"Your friend told us," Dad said, then he nodded to someone standing beside me. "Didn't you, Captain Rogers?"

I looked around to see Gordie's broad grin. "Y'know how it is," he said. "Three days from Earth to here...you got a lot of time to talk about stuff."

I'd all but forgotten that Gordie had gotten back his old job as an LTV pilot, and that his first round trip would include transporting my father and older sister to Apollo. Maybe it was because, when he'd left two weeks ago, his outbound cargo had included the caskets containing Logan and Eddie's bodies. Nina had gone with him, too, and Melissa and I had spent a lot of time preparing her for that sad ordeal.
It had been painful for all of us, and during the last couple weeks, I tried to put it out of my mind.

"You told them..." I began, and Gordie's grin disappeared when he saw the expression on my face.

"Don't worry about it." Jan gave me another smile. "It's okay. I mean...y'know, it's nice to know my little brother has good taste in women."

Dad didn't appear to be quite so amused. Perhaps the knowledge that his son was going steady with a president's daughter was just as much of a shock as discovering that he was no longer an invalid. And the tattoo didn't help, either. He was about to say something when Mr. Lagler walked up to us.

"Algis...good to see you again." Gently disengaging himself from Melissa, Dad offered his hand to him. "Thanks for taking care of my kids."

"The pleasure's been all mine, Stan. Same goes for my wife." Mr. Lagler took my father's hands in both of his. "We're just relieved that you and your daughter are safe again. It was a terrible thing, what you've been through."

"Yes, well..." Dad's voice trailed off as he looked down at the balcony tiles. I'd already noticed that he didn't like talking about his incarceration. He hadn't been tortured, but apparently the interrogations he'd gone through had been pretty grueling. He was probably mending wounds of his own, and it would take time for them to heal. "So long as Jamey and MeeMee..."

"Melissa," my sister said quietly. "I'd rather not be called that anymore...please."

Dad and Jan both stared at her. "Please" had never been a word in Melissa's vocabulary. Jan shot me an inquisitive look and I slowly nodded. If they were shocked by the fact that I was walking, then they were going to love the changes that Melissa had gone through. Before either of them could respond, though, Mr. Porter came over to join us.

"Dr. Barlowe?" he asked. "I don't know if you remember me...Loren Porter, Apollo city manager."

"Of course, Loren." Dad shook hands with him. "Thank you, too, for..."

"Not a problem. Having them here has been a pleasure." Mr. Porter laid a hand on my shoulder. "And Jamey here has been...well, I'm sure you've already heard about what he's done for us."

"So I've heard." Dad nodded toward Gordie. "Captain Rogers told us everything."

Gordie gave me a quick wink. I could've kicked him just then, and had to remind myself that I needed to be on my best behavior. "Very well, then," Mr. Lagler said. "In that case, perhaps you and your daughter could join us for lunch a little later. After you've found your rooms in the hotel, of course."

Melissa and I gave each other a sidelong glance. This was something neither of us had expected. "I'd be happy to," Dad said as he bent over to pick up his bag. "If you'll tell me where to go, we'll..."

"I'll get it, Dad." Melissa reached for his bag before he could get to it, slung it over her shoulder. "It's this way...."

Jan stared at her as Melissa walked off with Dad's duffel bag. "When did that happen?" she whispered to me.

"There's been a lot of changes lately," I murmured. And I wasn't looking forward to telling them about the biggest one.

Lunch was rather meager: red beans and rice, seasoned just well enough to hide the fact that it came from the supply of freeze-dried food that was what the loonies were eating until we were once again able to grow enough vegetables to feed everyone. I was embarrassed that this was all we had to offer, but Dad and Jan didn't seem to mind. They'd been living on space rations for the past three days, so anything that didn't come from a plastic bag tasted just fine to them.

I sat quietly at the end of the table, listening to the technical discussion between Mr. Lagler, Mr. Porter, and my father. One of the reasons why Dad had come to the Moon was to advise Apollo's recovery efforts. The ISC wanted to send a senior administrator who'd been there when the city was being built, and since my father had personal motives for making the trip, he was the logical choice; he'd brought Jan simply because she wanted to see Melissa and me. So I picked at my food while they talked about various life-support issues, including the cost of rebuilding Ag Dome 2, and waited for the conversation to change to an inevitable topic.

"So..." Mr. Porter wiped his mouth on a napkin and dropped it next to his plate. "I imagine that, when you're done here, you'll be taking Jamey and Melissa with you."

"Of course." My father gave him a querulous look, as if he'd just stated the obvious. "I appreciate the hospitality you've shown them, but I think it's time for them to go home." He glanced across the table at Melissa. "Isn't that right, Mee...I mean, Melissa."