April 5: A Depth of Understanding (23 page)

"I thought you weren't going for a few more weeks? What happened?"

"They got everything ready and the owners are nervous about the UN. None of them think they will wait out that ninety day notice in the original message, now that they have their vote. They repudiated that original message anyway and didn't release any new official date. We don't have any narrow exit window to leave, so we might as well go. I'm just as glad. I'm kind of nervous thinking about it. I've been away to Earth, but it was with friends, this feels strange going off with people I just met and my mom is even teasing she might not keep her new guest room, since I'll likely be gone a year and a half. More even if we don't find a good snowball quickly and get the drives mounted up. I mean, I still
want to
, but it's a big deal."

"Are you off celebrating with the crew tonight?"

"Oh no. They all want to say goodbye to family and friends. We'll see plenty of each other soon enough!"

"Then perhaps you'd like to come make me breakfast. Last chance before you go."

 There was a pause like he didn't believe it. "That sounds really nice. What time should I come over?"

"Right now is fine. You're making breakfast. I'll make us supper," she offered.

"Can you come see me off at the lock tomorrow?" he asked shyly.

"I have nothing at all to keep me from doing so," she promised.

She actually heard him sigh over the phone. "I'll be right over."

He had his duffle all packed for his trip with him and a pint of fresh raspberries from Zack's in the other hand.

"You didn't have time to go get these," April accused him.

"I'd have left them in my mom's refrigerator," he evaded. "They'd have gotten used."

"Is she going to worry where you are?"

"I don't even know if
she'll
be home tonight. She didn't ask where I'd been the last time I didn't sleep at home."

"When was that?"

"The last time I was here. Did you really think my mom was ready to rent it out for a hot slot I'm gone so often?" he asked, amused.

"I think you
could
," April said, sliding her hands around his waist. "But I'm glad you don't."

"You, do not look like a woman who wants to cook supper."

She just smiled.

* * *

"It's awfully tight," Johnson complained. His rover was pulled up close, but not inside the opening. It appeared he only had a half meter or a bit less clearance on each side. So it was a bit over a three meter opening. They were outside in suits, eyeballing it. The opening was actually a little higher than the surrounding surface and a ramp went to each side. Inside it had a slope up too. That should help them get out if there was debris blocking.

"Just at the entry," Mo assured him. We don't want a big entry funneling any blast inside."

"Why do I have to back in?"

"The front is sturdier with the port covers down. The heat exchanger fins and stuff on the back are easier to damage."

"If you get actual plasma flow into the entry in hard vacuum, you'd have to be inside the actual edge of the fireball," he objected.

"Yes, but nobody has ever seen how much heat transfer or concussion a nuclear fireball has in vacuum as it expands. Surely sometime before it cools below incandescence it is survivable. It's still glowing when it would be regarded as a fairly good vacuum on Earth."

"Alright, but I need either a camera on the back, or rearview mirrors. I'm not some long distance trucker who can back a big rig up and stop an inch from the edge of the dock."

"They'll be on in three hours tops when we get back to Central," Mo promised. "I'll call ahead and have them start getting the materials ready. We'll do the other rover too."

"This was a good idea," Johnson admitted. He was looking at the huge boulder Mo blew off the side of the mountain further up. It was a good ten meters wide and six meters high. Some unknown portion was driven down into the regolith. It was leaning a bit crooked, but it was in a direct line between Central and the tunnel entry. The gap from boulder to vertical rock face was a little less than it was square, eight and a half, maybe nine meters. "What if it had landed too close to the rock face to get your little tunneling machine between them?"

"We were worried about it rolling further away from the face too. It did a half flip and really dug in when it landed. I'll show you the video we took of it falling. No way it was rolling anywhere. We had two other potential sites picked out each way. But we lucked out and it was usable first try. We're loading you up with extra supplies. There are some already in the back of the shelter. When we go on alert you'll come out here and the 'B' rover with no gun backs in first. The armed rover backs in next and you sit inside out of sight from orbit until the danger passes or we send you out to shoot. It's seven hundred meters south to a point you can see either east or west horizon. If you go, you shoot the rounds and numbers we give you and you should be back here backing into the hole in three minutes, then you sit and wait. We have a laser link on the other side of the rock pointing at a mast at Central."

"And what if we are bombarded and lose contact with you?"

"We will be responsible for digging ourselves out. You'll have about two months of food. I'd check at least daily to see if we've dug out by walking out with a handheld. Let's say noon Zulu time daily. Or set a handheld out and run a line back inside. If we aren't out by two months then you can come out and call Home to see if they can send a shuttle, or you can drive to Armstrong. If you start out while you still have a week of food the French base is reachable."

"Assuming Home is still there and we don't call down a strike on us just by calling."

"Well I'd
listen
a bit first. See what the chatter is."

* * *

It was a press in the north spindle. Either the snowball entrepreneurs didn't want to pay to use the south dockage or they honestly hadn't anticipated what a mob there would be to send six people off. April mentioned to Jeff she was seeing Barak off and he immediately said he'd come too. They looked at the mass of people, all of them spacers, so they were oriented every which way in zero G and comfortable with it.

"There's still some room on that bulkhead," April said pointing.

"Yeah, I see it. You first," Jeff invited.

April jumped for it, but gently. It was so crowded somebody else might be on a trajectory she'd intersect and two bodies moving fast could result in injuries. She looked back and Jeff was following. Good. If he waited until she landed the space might be full.

The bulkhead was positioned to see the airlock, that was great. She had on sticky footies and gloves. She landed flat footed and bent her knees, recovering slowly. The footies stuck. Jeff landed nearby but further away than he wanted to be.

"Give me an assist here will you?" He rolled his feet sideways and peeled them off the bulkhead, but had almost no velocity away from the surface. April grabbed a handful of fabric at the small of his back and tugged gently. She brought him closer and turned him a little to face the same way, then gave a long slow tug to bring him down. He bent his legs until he had some drift and then planted his feet on the surface too.

There was a bit of hooting and a few whistles. One of the snowball crew came through, blushing at the attention. Towing a duffle and on a trajectory for the security station. She lit near it grabbing a take-hold and was the center of a cluster briefly, getting pats, hand touches and a few hugs. She touched the DNA reader checking off the hab and gave a little wave before she disappeared through the privacy curtain into the lock. Above the security station it said, Departure: Yuki-onna. Return: 500 days +.

Sylvia appeared at the spindle entry, grabbing a take-hold bar and looking around the cylinder. When she saw Jeff and April waving she smiled and jumped for them, about twice as fast as April had dared. She landed facing them and touched hands.

"Are you here to see Barak off?"

"Yes, isn't this crazy for six people?" Jeff asked.

"Four actually. Barak said the Command Pilot and his number two went aboard early and are holding the ship off about a half kilometer for the shuttle to bring the crew over."

"Oh! It isn't docked right on the spindle?" April asked surprised.

"No, he said it masses so much fueled up and has the center of mass so far off the airlock, they had no desire to try to dock. Barak said it could kiss at ten centimeters a second mismatch and it would still probably damage the spindle in slow motion. Sylvia looked at them funny.

"I thought he'd be with you guys and you'd all come up here together."

"I thought so too," April said, "but he announced he had something else he wanted to take along, called to arrange it and ran out the door before me."

"There he is," Jeff called out, forestalling any further questions from Sylvia.

Barak had his duffel and a long thin tube. He touched hands with a few people around the entry, looked around and jumped for them. He landed and hugged his mom.

"Thank you again for letting me do this."

"Just do a good job and come home safe. This will look wonderful on your resume. And take some pix. I may do some work off them if you bring back something dramatic."

Barak lifted a foot and replanted it expertly, pivoting toward April. She didn't restrain herself to a hug in public and gave him a very thorough kiss. To the point it got a few hoots from the crowd. Sylvia looked a little flustered, looked at Jeff gauging his reaction. He was grinning. And then looked around at the crowd. April didn't spoil it by trying to talk after a kiss like that. Barak shifted again and grabbed Jeff in a bear hug.

"Be careful out there brother," Jeff said, into his ear, beating him on the back gently with a fist. "We have a lot of other stuff to do when you come back."

Barak looked like he was tearing up a bit, just nodded, turned and touched his mom again on the arm and jumped for the security station. They watched until he went through the lock. He didn't turn and wave or look back.

Sylvia might have been tearing up a bit too, but she asked April, "Do you know what he wanted to take at the last minute?"

"He called the ship builder and asked what the biggest flat surface in his cabin measured. Then he sent a pic off his pad to the office supply and had them print out a poster with a sticky back a half centimeter smaller. It was a pic of all of us lounging around, sun bathing on the bow of the
Tobiuo
down on Earth. You can see everybody's face and the atoll is a line of sand and coconut palms from one edge of the picture to the other behind us. I think it's one of the few we had a crewman take for us that had everybody in it."

There was a brief fuss as another of the crew arrived and they watched it.

"I'm headed home," Sylvia told them, "would you kids like to have lunch at my place?"

"That sounds good," Jeff said right away. "I didn't have any breakfast." He raised inquiring eyes to April.

"Sure, I always learn something, every time you cook for me," April said and slid a hand into the crook of Jeff's arm.

Sylvia made an 'after you' gesture with a sweep of her hand. April and Jeff jumped for the spindle entry together. Sylvia watched them a little before she followed, they didn't tumble and just flew true with April's hand still in the crook of his arm.
Well, they've done that a time or two,
Sylvia thought to herself. She was still trying to figure out the social dynamics of this group. She was of a different generation and more importantly of Earth roots, no matter how much of Earth culture she rejected. However it worked, she couldn't see anything malicious in their personal or business dealings. She had a strong feeling Barak was well served to be attached to them.

* * *

"Jon, we have a relayed message from the Larkin's Line shuttle
Coney Island
in transit from ISSII to New Las Vegas, that four lander style vessels have left a Chinese military space station and appear to be making a lunar insertion as a group."

"Thank you Manny. Has Local Control received any unusual advisories or traffic from Earth Control or the other habs?"

"No, but you know the civilian side doesn't control military traffic," he reminded him.

"I understand. Thanks for keeping me informed." Jon picked a few addresses and touched an icon. "Heather, you might like to know you have four Chinese visitors coming."

"No Americans?"

"Not unless they were invited to dock at the Chinese station and nobody saw them sneak over."

"Ha! As if they'd let filthy barbarians touch their dock. Forget that. I'd bet the UN told the Americans they had to contribute and they had an unfortunate last minute computer failure or an infestation of bed bugs and needed to fumigate. Do you know if they are armed?"

"I've been searching Jane's while I called you and they don't say. But four lunar capable shuttles is
all
the Chinese own. They've bet everything on this."

"I'm willing to assume they are armed, because of the UN vote. It's too dangerous to assume otherwise. How would they enforce the order without arms? If they voted to use force on us and then send unarmed ships... Well that will be fatally stupid. I may just
ask
them if they are armed. The Chinese are so belligerent, they may just tell me yes, in most profane terms."

"You have the militia shop
Flash Gordon
sitting backside as a spotter for you, right?"

"Yes, they agreed to get us targeting data. He can probably get it sitting passively, because we expect them to be actively running their radar. He has two interceptor missiles. The guy is so crazy he'd probably engage four ships with two missiles."

"How many missiles do
you
have?"

"Don't you worry about that," Heather said a little testily.

"Sorry, I'm thinking on calling some of the militia back to defend Home. I only wanted to know if we should share them with you. No offense intended. I hate to pull them off freight runs and strand passengers. We have the projectors Mrs. Singe built, but they might not hit a ship before they've released weapons and the smaller weapons are even harder to hit. They really work better for Terrestrial targets. We don't have any missiles defending Home. We didn't change our strategy from when we were in LEO and there was always lots of militia close."