Helium3 - 1 Crater (32 page)

“Nice try, folks,” Crater said with a sigh. His perusal of the designs had informed him that he came from intelligent parents who were probably great scientists but, sadly, sometimes lacked practical engineering sense.

Some people dream
, the gillie said.
Others believe only in reality. We turn dreams into reality. That was the motto of your father and mother
.

Crater absorbed the motto, then asked, “Did any of their dreams turn into reality?”

Yes. They made water from sand
.

Nurse Soichi had mentioned this invention, and Crater watched the gillie's presentation of it with interest. His parents had built a device that gathered dispersed water, such as might be found under the driest desert, then caused it to rise to the surface.

We turn dreams into reality
.

What was the dream of all who lived in the wayback of the moon? Abundant water. To get it, ice trucks had to make their way to the poles, there to harvest ice locked in permanent shadows within certain craters. The trek up and back was dangerous, and the amount of johncredits the icemen at the poles charged for their product was necessarily outrageous. Because it was so difficult and expensive, and the amount of water brought back was so small, the number of people the moon could support was limited.

How much water lay beneath the regolith rubble of the moon had been long studied, and the conclusion reached was startling. There was an enormous amount of water there, most of it probably brought over billions of years by crashing comets, but it was unusable because it was dispersed, almost molecule by molecule.

Crater sat back and dreamed. He dreamed of a lush moon, of real trees and plants in vast geodesic domes, and even broad savannahs where animals might roam free beneath the stars.

He dreamed of lakes beneath the domes and people swimming and families on the beaches with picnic baskets. He dreamed of cool and peaceful forests with hiking paths and birds chittering in the branches.

We turn dreams into reality
.

When Dr. Arnold would allow it, Crater sat with Maria and willed the monitors connected to her to click, buzz, and whir on, audible and visual demonstrations that she yet lived.

He prayed for her when he was with her and he prayed for her when he wasn't. He went to the ship's chapel and there he prayed too. Before long, crew members heard he was in the chapel and joined him to add their prayers for Maria's recovery.

There was a great deal of work to be done on the Cycler, and Crater signed up to work with the repair crews hoping that hard work and sweat would dissipate his pain. He helped scrub away the blood the demons had left behind as the crew fought back against them, corridor by corridor, hatch by hatch. The demons had proved to be fierce but inept warriors, and Crater wondered why anyone would use them. They were nearly mindless in their ferocity, leaving themselves open to thrusts of elk stickers taped to metal tubing, and their armor could not stop a bullet from a powder gun. Warriors might be bred in laboratories, but clearly their brains weren't always up to the task.

Cycler work crews sealed the battered hatches, welded shattered wall struts, and went out on the hull to remove the remnants of the battle, including one deceased demon who'd gotten tangled in a grapple line.

In the lounge was the only passenger aboard the Cycler.

He wore a gray suit, had a square jaw, crisp blue eyes, and silver hair. When Crater went there, the passenger stuck out his hand and Crater shook it. “Todd Vanderheld,” he said, then explained that he was a government official of the Unified Countries of the World, an organization of about thirty nations. Crater noticed that Vanderheld had a small case chained to his wrist.

When he saw Crater looking at it, he said, “It holds fifty million johncredits.”

Crater was stunned. “Are there really that many johncredits in the universe?”

“Oh, yes, indeed. It is to establish a UCW office in Armstrong City.”

“Why?” Crater asked.

“Because the UCW has passed a law that regulates the quality of Helium-3 that enters our various countries. The office I am going to establish will house a team of inspectors.”

Crater pondered the answer, then asked, “Has the quality of heel-3 delivered to your countries been low?”

“Not that I know of,” Vanderheld replied. “But this way we can assure it will always be high.”

Crater pondered some more, then said, “The fusion companies that buy heel-3 would know right away whether it was good or bad. And there are lots of companies producing heel-3, so if one company produces a bad product, another will step in and take its place. It's a competition thing.”

The UCW man smiled. “I'm sure that's true, Crater, but the inspectors will act in the interests of the public.”

“The public?”

“The people, you see. The little people. Those people who can't fight the big heel-3 companies and the fusion companies.”

“Why would they want to fight them if they provide good, cheap energy?”

Vanderheld had kept a smile during their conversation, though it had become more fixed than real. “Well, this way we make sure they continue to provide good, cheap energy.

Everybody wins.”

Crater was still confused. “But isn't that the business of the fusion companies? I mean, if they don't provide cheap energy, they go out of business.”

“Oh, we intend to regulate the fusion companies too,”

Vanderheld said.

Crater just couldn't wrap his mind around it. “The heel-3 companies are mining and shipping their heel-3 and are happy, the fusion companies are getting their heel-3 and producing energy and are happy, and the public is getting its cheap energy and they're happy too. Why would you want to interfere with that?”

Vanderheld's smile vanished. “You clearly don't understand the delicate balance between government and business.”

Crater felt like he was trying to put his arms around smoke, but somewhere in his mind there was a little truth knocking around. He nodded toward the briefcase. “Where did all that money come from?”

“The member nations gave it to me.”

“Where did they get it?”

“From their people.”

“The little people?” Crater scratched his head. “Is this why they stay little?”

Vanderheld's expression had by then turned sour. “I'm sorry I wasn't better able to explain to you my purpose,” he said.

Crater's brain was worn-out, and he didn't want to talk to the UCW man anymore. Changes were coming to the moon, he could see that, changes that probably nobody was going to like, maybe not even the people who were bringing them.

Crater was just too tired to think about it. He also had some more praying to do. So far, his prayers had not helped Maria.

She kept getting weaker with every passing hour.

We turn dreams into reality
.

Crater visited the Cycler's machine shop and began to develop a microwave device similar to the one his parents had designed to gather water beneath the Earthian deserts. If it was going to work on the moon, it would have to be far more powerful. He fiddled with it on the Cycler's puter by putting in variables such as the thickness of the lunar soil that had to be penetrated and the sparseness of the water. Using those results, he kept improving his design, then built a prototype.

It was at least an interesting intellectual and physical exercise that kept him from going entirely crazy while Maria lay possibly dying and the Cycler flew in stately fashion to the moon.

Crater also built a neutron emitter to find water. Since water absorbed neutrons, Crater reasoned that sending out a constant stream of neutrons into the lunar rubble would find any water that was there. He attached micro-biofuel cells to both devices to power them.

At last, the Cycler came within distance of the elevator, and the rocket ferry came alongside. The captain came down to honor CP Strickland as his shrouded body was reverently carried aboard the ferry. With Dr. Arnold hovering over her, Maria was also transferred.

Crater carried both the awful bag with its moldering contents and the devices he'd built in the Cycler's machine shop.

“Good-bye, Captain Fox,” he said.

“Just get off my ship, Mister Trueblood,” Captain Fox replied.

But he then added, “You fought for the
Elon Musk
and for that, at least, I'm grateful.”

Crater wanted to reply, to say again how sorry he was for what had happened, but the captain turned away and headed back to the bridge. At least Ensign Klibanoff shook hands with Crater. “Keep me apprised of her condition,” he said, nodding toward Maria, and Crater promised he would.

The ferry ride to the elevator was uneventful, as was the long, slow ride down the ribbon to the surface where Crater and Maria were met by the sheriff and an ambulance. After

Maria was carried off, Crater handed the duffel to the sheriff, who was surrounded by three big men, presumably employees of the Medaris family. They climbed aboard the tram for the ride back to Armstrong City. Once there, they walked to the offices of the Medaris Mining Company. The sheriff put the duffel bag on a table and sat down. “A lot of trouble for this,” he said.

Crater saw no reason to say anything. Of course it was a lot of trouble, not to mention people getting killed and Maria nearly so.

“Sadly, it's not going anywhere anytime soon,” the sheriff went on. “Nobody and nothing is. A convoy coming up from New Bombay was attacked two days ago. A lot of drivers were killed and all the heel-3 cans were destroyed. The dustway is closed and all jumpcars grounded by order of the Helium-3 Producer's Council until further notice.”

“The Helium-3 Producer's Council?”

“The Colonel organized it. He convinced the other heel-3 company owners they needed to come together to defend themselves. Unfortunately, General Nero and the Russians are holding out.”

“Was it crowhoppers who attacked the New Bombay convoy?”

“Most likely. We're not sure where they're coming from.

We're not sure who's hired them. We're not sure of anything.

It's like we're in a war but we don't know who we're fighting.”

Crater thought about that, then asked, “How can we fight a war? We're just a bunch of heel-3 miners.”

“Exactly.” The sheriff shifted in his chair, his hand unconsciously going to the powder gun on his hip.

“Have you seen Petro?” Crater asked.

“Saw him once or twice around town while you were gone.

I'm not sure where he is now. Maybe he joined a convoy. If so, he's probably stuck somewhere in the wayback.”

Crater could feel everything shifting beneath his feet.

He'd done the Colonel's bidding, fought his way across half the moon, then flown nearly all the way to Earth for a bag of stupid bones and none of that mattered. The moon was being attacked for a reason nobody could figure.

The sheriff sensed what Crater was thinking. “I think those bones, placed in the Colonel's hands, could help the situation.

It's a shame they're stuck here.”

Crater left the worried sheriff sitting in the chair in the little office and walked to the hospital where at least he could be with Maria. When he got there, he first sought out Mr.

Justice. Nurse Soichi came out to talk to him. “He isn't here,” she said.

“Do you know if he's with Pegasus?” Crater asked.

Nurse Soichi touched his arm. “He's dead, Crater.”

Crater's legs nearly gave way. “How is that possible?”

The gillie came out of its holster. It, too, seemed shocked.

“Someone came in the clinic and stabbed him to death,” she said. “We have vidpix of the man we think did it. No one has identified him. Would you care to look at it?”

Gillie show
.

That fast, the gillie had tapped into the hospital's puter and produced the vidpix. It showed a big man with legs the size of heel-3 cans striding into the entrance of the clinic, then another angle showed him leaving. He was wearing a tunic and leggings, dressed normally except for a dust mask on his face, but his size gave him away. “I know him,” Crater said. “It isn't a man. I met it on the dustway. It's a crowhopper.”

“Then it has likely already escaped.”

Crater asked about Maria, and Nurse Soichi said, “I had her transferred to my ward. Our best doctors are on her case.

It will be many days before the microbes can repair her liver.

Give it time, Crater, and let her rest.”

Crater nodded, then thought of Pegasus and wondered if the giant crowhopper had also taken his revenge on the horse.

He was relieved when he found Pegasus being spoiled by the mechanics in the maintenance shed, which also gave him an idea. It was a crazy idea, an insane idea, but the more he thought about it, he realized that everything that had happened had somehow put into his hands everything he needed.