DEAD MAN ON THE MOON
by Steven Harper
copyright 2006 by Phobos Books LLC
all rights reserved

Back to the previous page

The itch was still there, right between Natalie’s shoulder blades.  It felt like a prickly feather brushing her skin.  The more she tried to ignore it, the worse it got.  Her skin twitched, and she shifted around, hoping the fabric of her shirt would scratch the spot.  No dice.  The slight whisper of cloth over the spot only aggravated the feeling.  The itch screamed for relief, begged for a deep, satisfying scratch like a dehydrated man begged for water.  Natalie Espinoza grimaced.  A half-second scritching would take care of the problem, but no such thing would be available until she went through an airlock, disconnected all the tubes, and climbed out of her space suit.

Natalie knelt next to the core sampler, a machine that looked like a table lamp which had lost a fight with a microscope.  She checked the hollow tube that pressed against the regolith--the moon’s surface--to be sure it was positioned properly, then stood up.  The push to her feet was a little too strong, and it sent her bobbing upward a little too fast.  Her boots left the ground for a moment before she dropped back down to earth.  Or Luna, she supposed.

Bill Hayes, her partner, reached out a gloved hand to help her, realized she didn’t need it, and pulled back.  Behind him, Earth had risen about halfway up the horizon, well over the lip of the crater.  The oceans and continents of eastern hemisphere glowed blue, green, and brown amid a backdrop of hard white stars.  It was actually quite pretty.  Or it would be, if the damned itch weren’t spoiling it.  Natalie wiggled again, but it continued to nag at her like a stubborn imp.

“Still adjusting to the gravity?” Bill’s voice asked over the com-link.  The darkened faceplate of his helmet hid his expression, but she read helpful concern in his voice.  Lately Natalie had been wondering if he was harboring a small crush on her.  When her thesis advisor had sent her out for yet more core samples, Bill had been quick to volunteer his help, even though such menial work was well beyond the purview of a doctoral candidate like him.  And there were other signs--standing a little closer to her than circumstances required, offering small favors, looking at her when he thought she didn’t notice.  It was only a matter of time before he asked her out.

“I’m getting there,” Natalie replied, her voice bouncing around her helmet’s interior.   “What’s worse is the itching.”

“Itching?”

“Every time I climb into one of these stupid suits, my back starts to itch,” she complained.  “It drives me crazy.”

“Don’t!” he begged, holding up gloved hands.  “You’ll get me feeling it.”

Natalie smiled, though now her right cheek was starting an itch of its own.  It was purely psychological.  Had to be.  But knowing this fact didn’t help in the slightest.  To distract herself, she gestured at the sampler crouching at her feet.

“I think this one’s ready,” she said.  “Where should we put the other one?”

“Dr. Gu said he wanted the samples taken at least fifteen meters apart,” Bill reminded her.  “And he wanted half of them taken from the shade.  We’ve got three samplers in the sun, so let’s start on the shade.”

“Okay.  You stake out a spot, and I’ll get another sampler.”

Without waiting for an answer, Natalie loped over to the crater wall.  It slanted steeply upward, and the gritty slope was strewn with fist-sized gray rocks.  The lip of the crater only came to the top of her head.  Natalie leaped upward, bounding in a single leap to the edge of the crater and touching down in a perfect landing.  A small smile crept across her face--maybe she was finally getting the hang of this.  She strode toward the wagon, feeling like a child playing a game.

“Take three giant steps forward.”  “Mother, may I?”  “Yes, you may.”

The wagon, a larger version of the red flyers kids still used back on Earth, held three more samplers.  Natalie lifted one without effort.  On Earth it would have weighed about thirty kilos, but here it barely topped five.  She headed back to the crater, which was exactly sixty-seven meters across.  Natalie knew because she had measured it.  Below, Bill had almost reached the thin crescent of the shady side.  Overhead, the sun made a harsh, white disk that showered the landscape with deadly light.  Without an atmosphere to blunt the sun, every rock and crater cast a shadow sharp as a knife.  The comparison made Natalie shudder just a little.  If her suit ruptured and failed to repair itself, she would be unconscious within ten seconds and dead within ninety.  The itch between her shoulder blades flared again.

Natalie was just about to jump back down into the crater when Bill started shouting into the com-link.  “Oh my god!  Oh Jesus!  Shit!  Natalie!  Oh god--Natalie!”

Natalie’s heart jerked.  She dropped the sampler and leaped into the crater, breath coming harsh within the helmet.  Raw sunlight hammered down on her from above, and Bill had moved into deep shadow.  Natalie couldn’t see him.  The metallic smell of canned air mingled with the sharper smell of her own fear.

“Bill!” she shouted as she dropped to the crater floor.  “Bill, are you all right?”

“Oh god.  Oh shit!”

Natalie hit the ground and tried to run, completely forgetting about the moon’s weaker gravity.  Her first step sent her bounding upward and she drifted back down with maddening slowness.  Natalie’s stomach lurched.  When she touched down on the gritty surface, she forced herself into the careful lope she had only recently learned.  A few more half-leaps got her into the shade of the crater’s far wall.  The light around her vanished as if she had thrown a switch.  Ahead of her, she could make out Bill in his space suit.  He was kneeling on the ground behind a small boulder.  Natalie’s stomach tightened and fear clawed at her chest.  Emergency protocols flashed through her head--how to handle a small puncture in a suit, what to do if a victim vomited inside his helmet, which frequency to use for a distress call.

“Bill!” she shouted again.  “Bill, say something.”

Harsh breathing came over the com-link.  Then Bill said, “I’m all right.  Jesus.  I’m just--shit!”

Relief flooded Natalie’s veins with cool water.  “Don’t scare me like that,” she scolded as she came around the boulder.  “You almost made me--”

The words died in her throat.  Bill was kneeling next to a human head.  It was lying face-up on the lunar sand.  The skin had blackened and pulled away from the eye sockets and mouth, leaving behind a hideous mummy’s grimace.  Below the head lay a simple red shirt and pair of light brown trousers.  Vague lumps inside indicated an emaciated, mangled mess of a body that occupied far too little space.  No space suit.  Natalie stared at it, not sure what she was seeing.  It was like coming across a camel in a board room.  Bill reached down to touch the corpse’s neck, and for an insane moment Natalie wondered if he were going to check for a pulse.  Bill’s gloved hand brushed the blackened jaw.  Tissue flaked away and trickled lazily into the collar.  Natalie’s gorge rose and she tasted sour bile.  Several deep breaths and hard swallows kept her from throwing up.  Would Bill still want to ask her out if he saw her barf inside her helmet?  The thought made her want to laugh and she tried to clap a hand over her mouth.  Her hand hit her faceplate instead.  She cleared her throat.

“I think,” she said, “we need to call someone.”

The itch was completely gone.

    CHAPTER TWO


The acceleration pressure abruptly ended.  For a brief moment, Noah Skyler floated weightless in his harness.  Then he dropped back to the chair as the shuttle touched down with a lurch and a bump.  Noah’s stomach lurched and bobbled in sympathy.  The passenger in the chair next to him snatched up an airsickness bag and held it in front of her face.  Noah’s insides oozed with nausea, and he silently begged her not to throw up--it would set him off as well.  The passenger, a dark-haired woman about Noah’s own age, took two deep breaths and held a third.  Finally she exhaled and set the bag down.  Noah swallowed with relief and reached for the stiff release catch on his harness.  In the passenger bay around him, other people were doing the same, filling the space with clicks, clacks, and murmured voices.  Several were already up and opening the overhead bins to drag out shoulder bags and backpacks.

A chime sounded.  “This is Captain Shelly Mills, hoping your flight was just the way we like ’em--straightforward, uneventful, and boring.  We’ve touched down in a perfect landing and it is now safe to unbuckle your harnesses, though I’m sure most of you have done so and are reaching for your carry-on.”

The passengers doing just that paused, then laughed and went back to their business.

“We just want to remind you,” Captain Mills continued over the loudspeaker, “that the moon’s gravity is about one-sixth that of Earth’s.  Not only do you weigh less, your luggage does as well.  So don’t--”

A yelp as a blond man in his early twenties hauled a bag out of the overhead bin with too much force.  It wrenched the owner around, tore itself away from his grip, and crashed into the opposite bulkhead, narrowly missing a flight attendant.

“--pull too hard,” Mills finished.  “We hope you enjoyed your flight, and enjoy your time at Luna City.”

The red-faced owner of the errant bag retrieved it.  Several passengers hid smiles behind their hands, others laughed outright.  Excitement fluttered in Noah’s chest as he got carefully to his feet.  He felt light and airy, as if he could leap to the top of a skyscraper.  After six hours on a windowless shuttle, he wanted to.  Every muscle screamed for exercise.  Moving with a meticulous caution that belied his trembling hands, he retrieved his backpack, unable to avoid rubbing elbows and bumping into the people around him.  The shuttle carried two hundred passengers, and every seat had been taken.  Everyone looked rumpled, and the air smelled of sweat and stale clothes despite the hard-working filters and fans.  Still, a sense of anticipation hummed through the compartment, keeping the mood light.

Noah forced himself to wait patiently in the inevitable crush to exit the passenger bay, though inside he was jumping up and down like a little kid.  He had arrived safely on the moon, and he was going to study at Luna U, the most prestigious university on . . . Earth?  He grinned.  The term didn’t seem to apply.  Still, he was here, and on an all-expense grant to boot.  He couldn’t wait to get out and explore.

Ahead of him in line was a guy barely out of his teens.  He was bopping his head up and down, apparently listening to music piped in from his on-board computer.  Noah shook his head.  Was the kid even old enough to study at Luna?  Look at him.  He was dancing in place like a child who had to go to the bathroom.  And his clothes were--

The line edged forward, and Noah grimaced wryly.  Only twenty-seven, and he was already thinking like an old fogey.  He readjusted the bag on his shoulder and scootched forward, trying to see over the kid--okay, young man--in front of him.  Noah was a little on the short side, with auburn hair, dark blue eyes, and a boyishly handsome face that often got him more attention than he really wanted.  He had a whipcord build achieved partly from lucky genes and partly from hours spent clinging to near-vertical surfaces by piton, rope, or just his fingertips.  Noah wondered if rock climbing on Luna was allowed--or a challenge.  In this gravity, even free climbing would be a cinch, vacuum suit notwithstanding.

Vacuum.  If he wanted to climb, he’d have to go . . . outside.  Well, all right--maybe there was a climbing gym somewhere.

Eventually Noah filed past a smiling Captain Mills, through an airlock, down a corridor, and into the receiving gate at Luna City port.  It looked rather like an airport, complete with a blue-carpeted waiting area and rows of hard plastic chairs.  The crowd of rumpled passengers threaded their way through them, following an arrow-shaped sign that pointed them toward baggage claim and customs.  The people walked with an odd, bounding gate.  Occasionally someone leaped above the crowd and drifted back to the floor.  Green plants bulged and arced out of pots and planters around them, breaking the cold monotony of white ceramic walls and floors.  Voices and conversation bounced and echoed.

One entire wall of the waiting area was a window that looked out across the lunar surface, and Noah paused at it.  The lunar outdoors looked like a dirty beach studded with rocks and boulders spread beneath an utterly black velvet sky.  Stars, thousands of them, shone hard and unmoving as diamonds.  It was stark, beautiful, and deadly.  Noah stared, entranced.  Pictures and holos didn’t do it justice.  He put a hand on the cold plexiglass.  Death lay only a few centimeters away.

Something cracked against the window like a rock hitting a windshield.  Noah snatched his hand away and a jolt of fear touched his stomach.  A tiny puff of dust spurted up from the ground a few steps from the window, leaving a tiny crater.  The window wasn’t even scratched.

“Micrometeor ricochet,” said a woman standing beside him.  She had long blond hair that reached almost to her waist, enormous brown eyes, and a round, merry face.  Pretty.  Very pretty.  Noah’s practiced eye picked out the fact that her matching beige blouse and trousers--raw silk--were hand-tailored to fit her well-toned body.  She had a sun tan, and her shoes were Italian leather.

“Glad we’re in here and not out there,” she continued, looking out the window with him.

“Yeah,” Noah said.  “The weather’s gonna put a crimp in my workout schedule.  Hard to jog when your lungs are getting sucked out of your chest.”

She laughed and held out her hand.  Her fingernails had been done by a professional.  “I’m Ilene Hatt.”

“Hi,” he said, shaking.  Her grip was firm and dry.  “I’m Noah Skyler.”

“I know.  We’re rooming together.”

He blinked at her.  “Say again?”

“A friend of mine works in the housing office,” she said.  “I got a copy of the assignment roster, and apparently we’re rooming together.”

“Oh.  Um . . . hooray?” Noah said, feeling off-balance.  “I mean--”

She laughed again.  “It’s obviously a mistake.  We’ll just have to go down there and straighten it out.  Come on--the line at customs and immigration is going to be horrendous.”

They stopped at baggage claim to pick up their single allotted pieces of checked luggage--Noah had a duffel bag, Ilene a leather suitcase--and followed more arrows down plant-lined corridors to customs, chatting along the way.  Ilene, Noah learned, was a second-year graduate student at Luna University.  She was studying chemistry, and she had gone home to visit her family for a couple months before the new semester started.  Noah suppressed a small start at that.  A trip from Earth to Luna City was a two-stage process.  First step was riding the tether up to Tether Station.  Second step was a six-hour shuttle trip to Luna itself.  It was expensive as hell, and Noah had only been able to afford it because it was part of his grant.  Then the penny dropped.

“Ilene Hatt,” he said.  “As in, Hatt Testing Laboratories?”

Ilene sighed.  “Yes, that’s them.  Us.  I’m rich, I’m wealthy, let’s move on.  What about you?”

“I’m not rich.”

“Most people aren’t,” Ilene said with a touch of exasperation.  “I mean, what you are studying?”

“Forensic science,” Noah stammered, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he was talking to a pretty woman whose family could buy and sell a small country without even noticing.  “A non-thesis track.  I’m a crime scene investigator.”

“A cop?” she asked, brown eyes wide with interest.  “What are you doing up here?”

“I told you--getting my master’s.”  It was his turn for exasperation.  “Why shouldn’t a mere cop get a degree from Luna U?”

Ilene shrugged as they joined the long line before the customs and immigration station.  A hint of her perfume--something floral--hung in the air around her.  “I never thought about it.  It’s why I asked.  So why does a cop need a master’s degree from Luna U?”

“That was arrogant,” he said.

“No more arrogant than what you’re thinking,” she shot back.

“And what’s that?”

“ ‘Why would someone with her kind of money need a master’s degree?’ ”

“Well?  Why would she?”

“I’ll answer yours if you answer mine.”

Noah paused and looked at her chocolate-brown eyes.  “Are we arguing or flirting?”

“Not sure yet.”  She reached out to straighten his collar, and a cool fingertip brushed his neck.  Noah swallowed hard.  “If we’re roommates, it’d be inappropriate and awkward for us to flirt.”

“Then let’s hit housing right after customs,” Noah said, and managed a grin.

“You,” she said, “have an amazingly cute smile, Noah Sklyer.  I can say that, since we’ve decided we won’t be roommates.”

“And you, Ilene Hatt . . . you . . . ”  He floundered.  “You’re very pretty,” he finished lamely, and felt stupid again.  His cheeks grew hot.  Ilene smiled anyway, for which Noah felt grateful.

Back to previous page