April 3: The Middle of Nowhere (27 page)

 There was a quilted pad like a mover's blanket doubled over to roll out on inside. That  was a comfort even in a sixth G not for any worries about bruising herself, but because she didn't have to worry about  cutting or puncturing her suit on something. She closed the inner hatch carefully and waited to make sure it was pumping down before she considered herself done. The lock was always held in a state ready to receive someone from outside as anyone from that side would be more likely to have an emergency that required a quick passage.

She stood up carefully making sure she didn't bang her head on the curve of the inner hull above. The lighting was turned low and Heather, having split her suit open, was sitting in the command station and had screens active in front of her and the right hand seat also. Her helmet was racked on the headrest.

Kathy went forward, careful where she was stepping because there was no real walk strip when the ship was laid on its side, just some take-holds easy to trip over. She didn't shuck her suit but took her helmet off and started to set it on the deck, but she gave the volume an appraising look, reseated it and just lifted the faceplate back as far as it would go. Then she stopped and looked at Heather with hands on her hips frowning. "God in heaven you are a young one. I didn't know we were hired by a baby. Are you sure your momma knows you are out of the house?"

"Kathy," Heather said, looking her in the eye, "bag it. I've heard it before. This screen and keyboard are isolated and have an active pipe on public service through our accounts on Home." Heather offered. "It's an open connection so any encryption or graphic transfer besides the camera there you'll have to add yourself. If you want to use spex or a pad of your own you can plug in here," she showed her, touching the sockets.

"Or if you want a Cyrillic keyboard, hit control F6 until the keys show the right characters. All the other connections at this station are down. Do you want me to go away in the back and make some coffee to give you some privacy to talk?"

"You could be splitting the feed off and recording it anyway or have a hidden camera and mic somewhere if you wanted and I'd never know, so what is the point of going away? You're interested in what I'm concerned about aren't you? You might as well stick around," she offered.

"If that is what you think of me, that I'm a snoop, in your place I'd pack up and take a hike," Heather told her honestly.

"It's what I'm used to," the woman told her with surprising bitterness. "We are constantly monitored and everything we do analyzed to death." She stopped and looked at Heather closer where she had the suit opened, surprise growing on her face. "Those clothes, those are lunar. I thought there was an agreement not to make them available to Earthies." They were the same ballistic garments as April had for her Earth trip.

"They
aren't
available to Earthies. You're starting to get on my nerves a bit equating us with them. Do I need to point out we just fought a war with North America over the issue of being separate? Obviously
some
of our lunar friends consider us allies. Don't think the exchange is all one way either. We have some things to contribute ourselves," she said pointedly.

The Russian woman looked less certain as she punched in a com code and waited for the connection.

The fellow who answered the call surprised Heather. He was smiling like he had just finished laughing at a particularly good joke before a word was said. He was a dark haired man with massive eyebrows and a mat of thick chest hair showing in the V neck of his pull-over. Behind him were long rows of shelves piled with supplies until they hung over into the walking space. Everything was crammed in until some places it intruded on the floor. A push cart behind him had some massive piece of equipment she couldn't identify sprouting an abundance of disconnected tubes and electrical connectors.

Before he could say anything Kathy told him sharply – "English Dima, I have overseer sitting here and wish her to understand."

"Ah, polite as always, but have you asked her if she understands Russian?" he asked. There was a definite got-you in his voice. "Did she start speaking English first or did you just assume that was her preference?"

"I spoke first, but she is Nor…, she is of Home and that is what they speak so I am trying to be polite. My English is perfectly acceptable, you empty debater. I use articles even. I have a question for you. The axle cap studs are not listed in field manual. How tight are they supposed to be?" When she finished speaking she laid her finger alongside her nose in the gesture Englishmen use to say –the fix is in.

"Ah my little pumpkin, I am looking it up as we speak. Hold on now." His arms went out of sight under the camera pick-up and Heather assumed he was typing an inquiry in a computer.

"They should be stretched .16mm and in an emergency only they may be torqued to 140 N*m. Both with compensation for temperature extremes. If torqued instead of tensioned to length they must be checked every fourth twelve hour shift of operation for loosening if not safety wired. I hope you make a manual notation in your pad rather than trusting this to memory." He made the same gesture with his finger along his nose as she had.

"Don't teach Grandmother to make cheese, Demetrius. Thanks for the numbers." When she signed off she jacked her own pad in the socket Heather had offered her and sat it where they both could see. She looked over at Heather smiling.

"He's not such a bad sort but it's better not to appear too friendly in public. He will be calling right back on his own pad and using our own encryption. I won't bother to put it full screen because we don't waste much bandwidth on video when we run this private system. Also - why did you welcome me to center of the moon out on field?"

"Zero-zero. It's smack on the equator and the prime lunar meridian. That's why this is called the Central Lunar Ranches." The incoming signal chirped interrupting Heather and Katia barked a command word Heather didn't recognize. The same fellow with the big eyebrows still looked pretty happy but he wasn't at the same desk anymore. Behind him big mesh net bags with space suits and helmets hung on a wall. The image was a quarter screen, but it looked fine to Heather.

"Demetrius, what are you trying to pull here?" Kathy demanded. Do you know to whom you are selling this surplus?"

"Indeed I do my little sugar plum. Why are you concerning yourself with it? I believe I am the one whose job description includes declaring items surplus and disposing of them." He spoke much better English than her, seeming to find articles natural and not hesitating over them.

"Because you are very handy to have in your position and all of… us," she stopped and looked at Heather obviously uncomfortable to define us, "depend on you. If that little mouse of an assistant you have is elevated to your position he will never have boldness to do anything. Certainly nothing as audacious as this!"

"What have I done my little chickadee?" he asked with faux innocence, spreading his hands. "They were surplused out and the lady asked after buying them. Her bank transfer went through just fine and I have gained a nice chunk of change for our poor outpost. Good hard currency too, EuroMarks."

"Don't play innocent with me Dima. You know there is a written agreement which binds you not to not sell heavy equipment or environmental equipment that can be used for development to residents of lunar stations. Only approved governments or reps and I doubt Home is on list. When our esteemed overseer sees what you have done he is going to ship your hairy hindquarters back to Motherland, probably in restraints under arrest!"

"Dear Katia, you complain my clerk is a timid little mouse and then in the next breath complain I am too bold. You should be out assembling rovers, instead of critiquing your supervisors, but just to ease your concern the list of countries and their citizens to whom I am not permitted to sell is not by approval, it is by exclusion. And by the most amazing coincidence Home is not excluded. For that matter if their independence is suspect to you neither is North America excluded or we could never trade with Armstrong. Now if that is not enough the rule about selling such things only applies to residents of the various lunar outposts. This lady and her partners are not residents of any signatories to the compact." He shifted his gaze to Heather and explained, "They want to make sure we cannot set up as independents and stay here when our period of employment is ended. They are quite firm about not allowing anyone to continue here as anything but an employee or a soldier. Your Armstrong has allowed some to stay as independent contractors, but they still have the contract to hold over their head and never allow them to build private shelter or gain ownership of their apartments or business cubic."

"So you don't have any retirees?" Heather asked surprised. "Every blessed one of you is forced to go back to the mud ball?"

"Yes - and the contracts are written so that if we complain about it in a public way or go to the courts for redress they can cut off our pension."

"Why didn't you tell us about this? We could be trying to help you."

He spread his hands again, embarrassed. "In your own way you have been doing what helps us anyway, for your own reasons and when you are under the thumb like we are you grow cautious. Everyone who knows your weakness is another person who can find some way to use it against you. I'm sorry if this sounds paranoid, but we have cause to be wary."

"Oh, Dima" – Kathy sounded sad - even if you are technically right when our administration finds out about this they are going to cut your tour short and send you home."

"Well, do not be so sure. Our administrator is very lazy. To him the rovers are two lines on a long list. And you can be sure I will make list extra long and difficult to understand next month. In any case once I would have fretted about that much more, but you see I bought Lot-9 of Plot 1 of the Central Lunar Highland Ranches from Miss Anderson. So if I am suddenly discharged unfairly I believe I will tell them to keep their free ride back to Earth."

There was an audible gasp from Kathy. She sat looking at Dima with her mouth hanging open.

"So my little turtle dove, why don't you stop arguing with me and get to work? If you need to take an extra day with all this delay and make sure all is well with the rovers… or any other equipment our customer needs your help with, feel free to give it your famous skills. I will not schedule you for anything until you report all is well and completed there."

"Yes, supervisor," she said with a completely different tone of voice. "I apologize if I seemed insubordinate. I will give it my closest attention and render any assistance I can to Miss Anderson. I thank you for your trust in me." She disconnected and looked at Heather stunned.

"I don't understand," Heather asked her puzzled. "You gave the man a hard time until you understood what he was doing, but at the end there when you accepted it you sounded like a very different person. All of a sudden you were very respectful. Why the big change?"

"Well of course," Kathy told her. "I have always had highest regard for Demetrius," she explained. "But now he's a
landowner!
"

Chapter 18

The second day of assembly, Katia and Heather had the wheels back on both rovers and the air supply filled, although the filters and carbon dioxide scrubbers needed serviced before they were taken anywhere far from their new base. Heather and Katia were taking a working lunch in the rover cabin. It was actually a bit roomier than the
Home Again
, especially under gravity and Heather noticed Katia felt safe to take her helmet completely off in the vehicle she knew intimately when in the ship she had only felt safe to raise her faceplate.

"These are our notes on undocumented modifications and ways to maintain your rovers," she told Heather pulling the big binder down from a rack behind the number two control seat. "I suggest you scan them into an electronic document and merge them with official repair manuals as soon as possible."

The old fashioned ring binder surprised Heather. What was even more surprising was they were in English as was the official manual on disk in a pocket on the front of the binder.

"I expected the documentation would be in Russian. Not that I'm complaining you understand, but why do you have these in English?"

"We probably have a dozen different languages or dialects to deal with at New Kirov and a lot of those people don't know Russian, but we all know English. What has been frustrating is we are specifically prohibited by bureaucratic stupidity from altering official electronic repair and service manuals. We had to keep a separate record of field fixes and errors. I would not destroy this paper copy however. If anything make a second copy so you have one to keep in each vehicle. I'd keep a paper maintenance log to supplement electronic one too. Use paper that is vacuum rated and if you have an extreme power breakdown or a computer system failure you can still read it with just a hand light.

Heather leafed through slowly getting a feel for what sort of entries were made. The first tabbed section said – Maintenance Variations:

02/13/2074  - Transmission lubrication interval must be decreased to 600 hours when usage is primarily during lunar day periods. ACEA Grade E-7 5/60 commercial lube substituted for mil-spec lube with nano-Moly additive. Trans otherwise will fail before official service period due to reduced heat exchange in full lunar. Units used in mostly dark conditions can follow official service specs.

She flipped a couple pages to –  Field Service Specs:

07/01/2078  - Airlock wiring harness failure. Abrasion of sensor and stepper motor harness at opening to frame rail must be repaired as follows. After sections with exposed metal core are replaced or overlaid with insulation each separate component feed group must be fiberglass tape wound for 150mm each side of the hatch to frame break. The separate feeds formed must be taped as a bundle. The bundle must be covered with a plastic conduit at the frame/hatch gap. A suitable sleeve may be fabricated by cutting the tapered portions off a 300ml Coca-Cola bottle and splitting the resultant ribbed cylinder. The sleeve shall be applied and compressed with two worm screw steel hose clamps and by over-wrapping in an overlapping helix with fiberglass tape from the ends of the sleeve to 50mm beyond the opposite ends.