Asteroid Al, a longtime resident of the Dust Palace, came over and sat beside Q-Bess. He was famous on Earth for being the first human to walk on the asteroid Ceres. After his return, Al, unhappy with the government that ran his country, made his way to the moon, and thence to Moontown and finally the Dust Palace. “You boys keep the scragline picked up today?” he asked.
“I guess we did,” Crater said, surprised that Asteroid Al hadn't heard about what he and Petro had done. The gossips in Moontown were slipping.
“I guess we could save the whole moon and this bunch wouldn't care,” Petro grumbled.
“What did you say, Petro?” Q-Bess asked.
Petro stared at his plate. “Nothing, Mum.”
Doom and Headsplitter, both refugees from the Indian subcontinent, walked by, nodding to the boys. The pair had taught Crater and Petro their version of the martial arts, which meant they'd taught them to fight dirty and with the utmost of violence.
“What's wrong, noogie?” someone called from one of the back tables. “You gonna start crying now?”
“Uh-oh,” Q-Bess said, “here we go. I thought it was too quiet.”
Crater looked up from his meal and saw a fellow at one of the back tables lumber to his feet. He was a big man, blond hair braided into pigtails, an elk sticker taken up from the holster on his leg. A lot of the combat vets carried the vicious knife, which was a favorite of commandos. “Don't call me noogie again!” he raged at the miner sitting across from him, a fellow with heavy, bored eyes and a thick moustache. He was marked by a diagonal scar from his forehead to his chin.
“Blood's gonna flow,” Asteroid Al said, although he didn't look particularly perturbed.
Elk stickers began appearing all over the cafeteria and were slapped down on the tables. The miners who owned them started screaming at each other, taking sides.
Crater was surprised that Q-Bess and Asteroid Al were just sitting there doing nothing to stop the coming mayhem.
“Maybe you should say something,” he suggested.
Q-Bess waved a hand, jangling with bracelets, and said, “Do it for me, Crater. I'm kind of tired.”
Crater didn't think it was his place to tell anybody anything. He sat there, embarrassed. Petro, however, stood up and banged on the table with a spoon, shouting, “Now, look here, fellows. My mother has a clear rule about this kind of thing.
No fighting in the cafeteria!”
Grim faces turned toward Petro. Q-Bess and Asteroid Al got up and moved. “What did you say, boy?” a miner called.
He was a big fellow, a veteran of some Earthian war, no doubt, muscles bulging on top of muscles and scars etched across his ugly face.
Crater slowly got to his feet. He had to back up Petro whether he liked it or not. “No fighting in the cafeteria!” he squeaked.
“No fighting in the cafeteria?” the angry miner asked. “Is that the best you can do?”
Crater's heart was racing, and he felt his face getting hot.
He wished Doom and Headsplitter would come back and make everybody sit down and eat their food, but a quick glance around showed no sign of either one.
The pig-tailed miner reached below the table and came up with a pie. “Here's what I think about no fighting in the cafeteria!” he yelled and flung the pie at Crater and Petro. Before they could react, everyone in the room did the same with their own pies. As the boys were struck while dodging and weaving, a big banner was unfurled:
OUR HEROESâPETRO AND CRATER!
Crater and Petro were covered with pie crust and cream, but they started laughing as all the men and women in the cafeteria surged to congratulate them. Q-Bess kissed them both. “I am so proud of my boys!” she roared, and the applause surged over them as she smeared more cream in their hair.
A party ensued in which nearly every miner took the opportunity to insult Crater and Petro, calling them stupid scragline pickers who couldn't be trusted on a scrape, and who probably caused those rollers to come out in any case, and were sure to catch it from the Colonel for driving shuttles without a permit.
Petro took most of the credit for the rescue, saying, “So there I was, beneath that scraper that was about ready to fall on my head while Crater was just sitting there, trying to figure out what to do . . .”
Viking Val hooted at that one. “Thumper Tom owed you money, Petro. That's the only reason you went out there. Tell us what really happened, Crater!”
Crater, looking uncomfortable, replied, “Well, if that's the way Petro said it happened, I guess that's the way it did.”
This earned Crater more derision and a few more thrown pies, which he successfully ducked so they hit Petro instead. In a corner, unseen, the sheriff of Moontown observed all the fun and, after enjoying it at first, began to think. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that fate and circumstance had solved for him a vexing problem. He'd found the kind of man the Colonel wanted him to find, although it wasn't a man.
It was a boy.
:::
FIVE
T
he annual fastbug race at the Moontown Raceway ran along a track that wound through a series of obstacles, some natural, some man-made, and all treacherous. Crater had cobbled together sufficient parts from worn-out and wrecked company fastbugs to bolt together a machine he called Comet. Crater was certain Comet would win, because not only was it fast but Petro, the best fastbug driver on the moon, would be at its wheel. But there was a slight problem. The race was supposed to start in fifteen minutes and Petro had not shown up. Crater, who was working on Comet's gearbox, asked the gillie to call Petro again. It did and reported,
Petro has his do4u turned off
.
Crater felt his stomach sink. If Petro had his do4u turned off, then maybe he was not going to show. A fanfare of trumpets blared through the gillie and all the do4us in the crowd. It was a recording, of course, there being a serious lack of trumpeteers in Moontown. Everyone in the stands and in the racing pits turned to look toward the Colonel's box, a rectangle of mooncrete with a thick glass viewing pane. Another viewing pane, this one much larger, fronted the stands for everyone else.
The Colonel was wearing a formal tunic with only a few of his more important medals attached. There was a woman standing beside him who also wore a tunic, hers scarlet with a golden sash. She was an imposing woman, her gaze straight ahead, steady and stern. Asteroid Al, who'd put on a suit to see how Crater was doing, said with some awe, “That's Czarina Zorna.”
Czarina Zorna was the leader of the family that presided over the Russian territories that included most of the Sea of Serenity. “She's glorious,” Asteroid Al added. “Beautiful, brilliant, a natural leader.”
On the other side of Colonel Medaris stood a man. He was short and had very black hairâan obvious hairpieceâand a thin moustache and a goatee. He was dressed in a plain gray tunic, buttoned up to the neck. “General Caesar Augustus Nero himself,” Asteroid Al said, all but hissing. “A villain, Crater, of the worst stripe. He is not above theft or even murder to gain an advantage over anyone who might oppose him.”
“He looks nice,” Crater said.
Asteroid Al chuckled. “Only you, Crater, would think General Nero looked anything other than the rascal that he is. Your heart is too big.”
Crater looked down, ashamed of his heart. He supposed it was true. He always looked for the best in everybody.
Asteroid Al said, “Chin up, boy. You've also got the courage of a dozen lions. You proved it on the scrapes yesterday.”
Crater thought Asteroid Al was wrong. He had no courage at all. That was the real reason he didn't want to ever leave Moontown. He feared what lay beyond. What he'd done saving Thumper Tom and then the fellows in the maintenance shed had just been instinct. After he thought over what had happened, he'd discovered himself barely able to breathe.
The Colonel addressed the crowd. “People of Moontown and our esteemed guests,” he said, “I invite you to welcome Czarina Zorna and members of the royal party from New St.
Petersburg. We are honored by their presence.” He made a slight nod to General Nero. “And we also have the esteemed presence of General Caesar Augustus Nero with us today.”
“Here to celebrate our victory in the fastbug race,” Nero interrupted in a reedy voice.
“We will see about that,” the Colonel replied in a cold, measured tone.
“We will, indeed,” Nero snapped.
Asteroid Al noticed Comet's empty seat. “Where's Petro?”
“I don't know,” Crater answered miserably. “If he doesn't show soon, we're going to have to default.”
“You can't default,” Asteroid Al said. “Nearly every manjack and womanjill in the Dust Palace has a wager on the Comet.”
“I should go look for him,” Crater worried. “He could be sick.”
“Petro isn't sick,” Asteroid Al replied with confidence. “He may be playing cards at the Earthrise, or gorging himself on Q-Bess's carrot cake, but that boy's not sick. Anyway, Crater, you're going to have to drive.”
Crater reacted with a shudder. “I can't!”
Asteroid Al gripped Crater's shoulder. “Look, Crater, Colonel
Medaris is depending on you! None of these other schlubs can beat Neroburg. General Nero wants to embarrass the Colonel in front of Czarina Zorna. You can't let him get away with that!”
It was then the Colonel announced, “Drivers, you may start your engines.”
Crater felt as if he might throw up. “I don't know what to do,” he said, as much to himself as to Asteroid Al. Still, he climbed into the Comet, and the gillie jumped off his shoulder and positioned itself on the fastbug console.
Gillie will help
, it said. Crater cast a doubtful glance at the thing. “I can't do this,” he moaned.
“You have to try, Crater.” Asteroid Al said.
Crater took a deep breath and when he let it out, he knew Asteroid Al was right. He was going to have to race, but he also knew he was surely going to lose and also wreck the Comet, strewing pieces of itâand probably himselfâall over the track. Still, with his heart thudding in his ears, he reached over and flicked the switch for the fuel cell stirrers that, after a few seconds of chugging, purred to life.
Asteroid Al patted Crater's back encouragingly. “Watch that Neroburg car. You see that big knobby rear end it's got?”
Crater had seen it but he didn't know what it was for, although he supposed it had some function having to do with the fuel cells. Asteroid Al soon rid him of that idea. “It's to whack you, Crater. That rear end is a hammer as sure as I'm standing here. Watch out for it.”
“But that would be cheating,” Crater said.
“No rule I know against it,” Asteroid Al replied.
“But it's not right.”
Asteroid Al smiled a sad smile. “Son, doing right to fellows like those Neroburg louts just means what they can get away with.” When Crater looked confused, he added, “Not all people are as kind and honest as you are. Very few, in fact. I'm sorry about that but it doesn't change anything. Put that goodness and kindness away for just a little while and win this race!”
Crater nodded uncertainly, then drove into position. By the draw, he was on the outside of the second line, each line consisting of four fastbugs. There were ten fastbugs in all, the third line containing two racers. Six of them came from Moontown, three from the Russian territories, and Neroburg's entry named Flashinpan. Besides the odd tail, Crater had observed Flashinpan had twin fuel cells and a beefed-up lunasteel alloy transmission. It was sure to be not only fast but rugged. Flashinpan's driver, Trace Farley, also had the reputation of being a hotshot driver, a cocky win-or-burn type.
Crater gripped the steering wheel and waited for the signal for the race to begin. The Czarina counted backward from ten. The gillie, picking up her transmission, mimicked her perfectly. When she reached zero, Crater waited a split second for the fastbug in front of him to move, then jammed the accelerator to the floor, swerved through a small gap just barely large enough for him to slip through, and swept into the front rank. It was a move Petro liked to use in a crowded field, and Crater had copied it perfectly.
Racing in the moon's light gravity, and on the special courses with their ramps and turns designed to send the fastbugs into the airâor to be more accurate, the vacuumâ demanded a set of skills and knowledge no Earthian race driver had ever needed to learn. One of them was a working knowledge of the physics of rotational vectors, which described how a rotating wheel created a force at right angles to the plane of the wheel. This meant by selecting a wheel on a fastbug and spinning it up during flight, drivers could cause the car to rotate while flying. Since ramps were often set up just before a turn, novice drivers often oversteered upon landing and flipped over. An experienced driver, however, could rotate his bug in the direction of the track and land in the right direction with all wheels spinning for maximum traction. It was a tricky maneuver and it didn't always work, but Crater had at least practiced it. The puters aboard the fastbugs were designed to tell drivers when and how to spin up. That would be the gillie's job for Crater.