Heinlein base’s Communications center was a confusion of voices and rushing bodies as Foxworthy ran in. He scanned the room. “Derek!”
“Yes, Chris?” the communications man answered.
“I need you to run a secure, scrambled line to the mining operation on Mare Australe,” she said. “You’ve got a cousin out there, right?”
“Yes. What’s this about?”
“I need you to run a maser line out there, highest priority,” Foxworthy said. “Get it on the Cowles corporate code.”
“When?”
“Five minutes ago,” Foxworthy said.
Derek knew that tone, and didn’t question. His fingers danced across the board.
At the mining operation, a call came through. A man there touched it into his PDA, and then ran down a pressurized hallway to another room.
He read the display. “We have a request for secure line-of-sight with Heinlein.”
“Just a minute,” their communications man said. “I have to retask the dish.”
And with a few tweaks, a microwave dish turned toward Heinlein.
“This is Australe base, what’s the sit?”
She leaned forward. “This is Kendra Griffin, Chief of Operations, Heinlein base. I need you to run secure line- of-sight to the gaming bubble. We have three walkers, and two of them should be visible to you.”
A pause. Then: “I… yes, we have them. Can patch you in in three, two, one…”
A crackle, and for a moment the air in front of them seemed gray and patchy. Then it cleared again. “We have a line.”
“Thank you! Scotty! Can you hear me?”
“Kendra?” His voice crackled with static. She felt weak with relief.
“Are you all right? We’ve patched into the Maintenance network. It should be shielded from the Earthers. What is the situation, sweetheart?”
He sighed. “I shouldn’t have come out here.”
Foxworthy turned back to her. “Kendra… his heartbeat is above one thirty. His respiration is spiking, and he could be hyperventilating.”
He was definitely panting. “I’ve got to get back inside. I have to…”
“Scotty,” Kendra said. “If you go back in there is no one to trigger that alarm. Which means that your people can’t cut through the wall. They’ll be trapped, recaptured.”
“I can’t,” he said. It was heartbreaking to hear that tone in his voice. It was filled with defeat, and shame.
“Scotty…” She had a different idea. “Darla, are you there?”
“Here, Kendra.” Darla’s voice.
“How close are you? To Scotty?”
“A hundred meters, around the curve of the dome. I’ve bypassed the safety.”
“Asako… where are you?”
“In position. My pod is linked into the surface computer system, and I can input the code as soon as Kendra gives it to me.”
“Do you hear that, Scotty? Everyone’s in place. But the codes have to be entered within sixty seconds of each other, so that no one or two people can possibly override. Do you hear me?”
Scotty’s voice choked. “I hear you. But I can’t do it. If I open my eyes, it feels as if I’m falling. Falling.” Despair.
“Scotty,” she said. “Listen to me. Why did you come back to the Moon?”
“I had a damned job, Kendra.”
“No. That’s not it, and you know it. You came back because you loved it here. You came back because you love me.”
A deep intake of breath. “Kendra…”
Her focus had contracted to a point. They might have been alone in that room. “Scotty. We knew from the first weekend together. I knew.”
“Don’t do this. Not with…”
“What? Everyone listening? I’m not embarrassed. I love you, Scotty. I’ve missed you every night we weren’t together in my-”
“Good Lord, woman!”
She managed a throaty chuckle. Now she had his attention. “What? How personal do you want me to be? Remember the last night before you left, when I finally let you take-”
“Dammit!” he yelped. But he was laughing and maybe crying now.
“Scotty,” she said. “Open your heart to me. Lean on me, just a little, now. There are just a few things that you have to do, and it’s over.”
“But, what if I can’t…”
Darla was moving into position atop the dome, climbing one ladder rung at a time, her voice rasping in her ears. She opened the control box.
Halfway through the process she stopped, gazing out at the lunar landscape, momentarily overwhelmed with its unweathered beauty. Then she returned to the work, moving clear chunks of plastic from one box to another. She used her tool to unscrew a box, and tapped in a series of codes.
“Here we go,” she said.
Celeste found Shotz sitting among a pile of red cartons, gazing into a map. “The difficulty is in sealing off the bottom of the dome, and then searching every level in turn.”
“The good thing in this situation…”
“I’m so happy to know that there is one. Please,” Shotz said. “Enlighten me.”
“The good thing is that we actually don’t need to have the Prince in hand. As long as people outside the dome believe we do, we are safe.”
“Yes… still, it does not serve our reputation. Not this instance, but for the next time.”
“Shotz… you said that this was it. That if we could do this, everything we’ve ever dreamed would come true. Our own island. The nation of Neutral Moresnot, brought into reality by our will.”
His eyes slid over her, slid away. Her heart sank. “Already, do you dream of a next time? There is no way to prevent our identities from becoming known. Our faces… but we’re being paid enough to stop.”
He chuckled. “We stop? I should stop? And what do you imagine I would do, Celeste?”
“Whatever you choose to do, it doesn’t have to be alone.”
For a moment, the air between them seemed to shimmer, and for that moment, a remarkably human smile softened Shotz’ face.
He brushed his scarred knuckles down her cheek. “And what, Celeste? Did you imagine a picket fence? Bouncing babies? A rocking chair at sunset? How exactly did you imagine this playing out?” His voice was surprisingly gentle, not mocking at all. The machinelike character of his voice had relaxed into something approaching humanity.
She smiled. “Not a picket fence, Alexander.” She almost never used his given name, even in moments of passion. His expression flickered surprise. “But General Motabu owes us an island, perhaps near Madagascar. Near the equator, where we could build a… what was it called?”
He smiled wanly, as if at a fond child. “A beanstalk,” he said. “A space tether.”
“Yes! This! We could be rich, and powerful.” She grasped his hands. “When this is over,” she said, “give me a chance. Give me a chance to make it good with you.”
He was still pressed back against the wall, as if waiting for disaster. “All right. I owe you that much.”
“We owe ourselves,” she said. Her eyes and smile softened her face. “I could make you happy.”
