Flatlander - Larry Niven [140]
In my mind’s eye, that hill was an ancient British barrow and all the ancient dead were pouring through the portal in its side, into the living world. But on this dead world what crawled out of the factory was only another set of arms riding tractor treads. Still, it was more deadly than any murderous old king’s risen army.
Hecate Bauer-Stanson said, “Soon as we reach civilization, you start a search for missing flatlanders who could have wound up on the moon, and a search for that model pressure suit. We’ve already ruled out anything manufactured here. It’s got to be flatlander.”
“Not Belter?”
“The boots, Gil. No magnets. No fittings for magnets.”
Well, hell. I’d just lost serious sleuthing points to Lawman Hecate Bauer-Stanson.
“Come on, Gil. We’ll let the waldo tug take the body back.”
“You can program it?”
“I can get it down from Helios Power One, which is where we’re going. It’ll be five hours en route. She’s waited a long time, Gil; she’ll wait a little longer. Come on.”
“We taking the Mark Twenty-nine?”
“It could go back by itself … no. If anything happened … no, I think we bloody have to.”
Hecate directed me: we set the Mark Twenty-nine on a rock ridge. I didn’t guess why until she went back to the lemmy for an oxygen tank.
I asked, “Can we spare that?”
“Sure, the whole lunar surface is lousy with bound oxygen. I have to get the dust off, don’t I?” She pointed the tank and opened the stopcock. Dust flew from the Mark Twenty-nine, and I stepped back.
“I mean, we wouldn’t want to run out of breath.” “I packed plenty.” She emptied the tank. Then we lifted the Mark Twenty-nine back into the lemmy’s cargo hold.
Hecate took us up and away.
How hard would she hit? Isaac Newton had it all worked out. I was trying to remember the equation, but it wouldn’t come. Postulate a mass driver on the rim wall. Launch her in lunar gravity, three kilometers to the center. Up at forty-five degrees, down the same way, Sir Isaac had that straight, and land running. Keep running. Switch the oxygen to high and run, run for the far side of the rim, away from the—rap rap rap—mad scientist who had set her flying. “Gil?” Rap rap rap.
Knuckles on my helmet, an inch from my eye sockets. “Yah?” I opened my eyes.
We were falling toward a hole in the moon, a vast glittering black patch with fine lines of orange and green scrolling across it. As we dropped—as the lemmy’s thrust pulled me into my couch, creating a sudden scary sense of down—I could make out the shape of a rounded hill with a few tiny windows glittering in the black.
Hecate said, “I thought you might freak if thrust started while you were asleep.”
The orange and black logo was upside down. Helios Power One was sheathed in Black Power. I was amused, but it made sense: If the fusion plant went down, they’d still want lights, cooling, and the air recycler.
“What were you dreaming? Your legs were kicking.”
I’d been dozing. What had I been dreaming? “Hecate, she turned the oxygen all the way up. Maybe there was no leak. Maybe it was to run better.”
We settled into an orange and green mandala, Helios Power One’s landing pad. Hecate eeled out of the cabin, then hustled me out. She said, “We’ll see if her suit really has a leak. Anything else?”
“I was thinking a ship landed in the middle of Del Rey and left her there. A little ship, because you’d want the drive flame sploshing into a crater, and those are little craters. Your lemmy could do that, couldn’t it? And nothing would show—”
“Don’t bet on that. It’s always amazing what you can see from orbit. Anyway, I’d hate to ride anything into Del Rey Crater. Gil, I’m feeling a little warm.”
“Just your imagination.”
“Let’s get to decontamination.”
Copernicus Dome was three hundred kilometers northeast of Del Rey. Helios Power One was only a hundred, in a different direction, but both would be just a hop in the lemmy.
Copernicus Dome certainly had medical facilities for rad poisoning. Any autodoc off Earth could treat us for that. Radiation treatment must