Algis Budrys: Rogue Moon

Claire smiled. “I’m a warrior’s woman, Ed.” Suddenly she moved her body, and Barker let his hand fall. “Or at least we like to think so.” Her nails ran down Barker’s torso. “It’s been seven years, and nobody’s taken me away yet.” She smiled fondly up at Barker for an instant, and then her expression became challenging again. “Why don’t you tell Al about this new job, Ed?”

“New job?” Barker smiled in a practiced way. “You mean Connie actually came up here on business?”

Hawks studied Claire and Barker for a moment. Then he made up his mind. “All right. I understand you have clearance, Mr. Barker?”

Barker nodded. “I do.” He smiled reminiscently. “I’ve worked for the government off and on before this.”

“I’d like to speak to you privately, in that case.”

Claire stood up lazily, smoothing her swim suit over her hips. “I’ll go stretch out on the diving board for a while. Of course, if I were an efficient Soviet spy, I’d have microphones buried all over the lawn.”

Hawks shook his head. “No. If you were a really efficient spy, you’d have one directional microphone-perhaps on the diving board. You wouldn’t need anything better. I’d be glad to show you how to set one up, sometime, if you’re interested.”

Claire laughed. “Nobody ever steals a march on Dr. Hawks. I’ll have to remember that.” She walked slowly away, her hips swaying.

Barker turned to follow her with his eyes until she had reached the far end of the pool and arranged herself on the board. Then he turned back to Hawks. “’She walks in beauty, like the night’ — even in blaze of day, Doctor.”

“I assume that’s to your taste,” Hawks said.

Barker nodded. “Oh, yes, Doctor — I meant what I said earlier. Don’t let anything she does or says let you forget. She’s mine. And not because I have money, or good manners, or charm. I do have money, but she’s mine by right of conquest.”

Hawks sighed. “Mr. Barker, I need you to do something very few men in the world seem to be qualified to do. That is, if there are any at all besides yourself. I have very little time in which to look for others. So would you mind just looking at these photographs?”

Hawks reached into his inside breast pocket and brought out the small manila envelope. He undid the clasp, turned back the flap, and pulled out a thin sheaf of photographs. He looked at them carefully, on edge so that only he could see what they showed, selected one, and passed it to Barker.

Barker looked at it curiously, frowned, and, after a moment, handed it back to Hawks. Hawks put it behind the other pictures. It showed a landscape that at first seemed to be heaped up of black obsidian blocks and clouds of silver. In the background there were other clouds of dust, and looming asymmetric shadows. New complexities continued to catch the eye, until the eye could not follow them all and had to begin again.

“What is it?” Barker asked. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s a place,” Hawks answered. “Or perhaps not. Perhaps it’s an artifact — or else a living thing. But it’s in a definite location, readily accessible. As for beauty, please bear in mind that this is a still photograph, taken at one five-hundredth of a second, and, furthermore, eight days ago.” He began handing more photographs to Barker. “I’d like you to look at these others. These are of men who have been there.”

Barker was looking oddly at his face. Hawks went on. “That first one is the first man who went in. At the time, we were taking no more precautions than any hazardous expedition would require. That is, he had the best special equipment we could provide.”

Barker looked in fascination at the photograph, now. His fingers jerked, and he almost dropped it. He tightened his grip until the edge of the paper was bent, and when he handed it back the damp imprint of his fingers was on it.

Hawks handed Barker the next. “Those are two men,” he said remorselessly. “We thought that perhaps a team might survive.” He took the picture back and handed over another. “Those are four.” He took it back and paused. “We changed our methods thereafter. We devised a piece of special equipment, and after that we didn’t lose a man. Here’s the most recent one.” He passed Barker the remaining photograph. “That’s a man named Rogan.” He waited.

Barker looked up from the photograph. His eyes were intent. “Have you a suicide guard over this man?”

Hawks shook his head. He watched Barker. “He’d rather do anything than die again.” He gathered up the photographs and put them back into his pocket. “I’m here to offer you the job he had.”

Barker nodded. “Of course.” He frowned. “I don’t know. Or, rather, I don’t know enough. Where is this place?”

Hawks stopped to think. “I can tell you that much, before you agree to take the assignment. But nothing further. It’s on the Moon.”

“Moon? So we do have man-carrying rockets, and all this Sputnik panic is a blind?”

Hawks said nothing, and after a moment Barker shrugged and said, “How long do I have to reach a decision?”

“As long as you like. But I’ll be asking Connington to put me in touch with any other prospects tomorrow.”

“So I have until tomorrow.”

Hawks shook his head. “I dn’t think he’ll be able to deliver. He wants it to be you. I don’t know why.”

Barker smiled. “Connie’s always making plans for people.”

“You don’t take him very seriously.”

“Do you? There are the people in this world who act, and the people who scheme. The ones who act get things done, and the ones who scheme try to take credit for it. You must know that as well as I do. A man doesn’t arrive at your position without delivering results.” He looked knowingly and, for a moment, warmly, at Hawks. “Does he?”

“Connington is also a vice president of Continental Electronics.”

Barker spat on the grass. “Personnel recruiting. An expert at bribing engineers away from your competitors. Something any other skulker could do.”

Hawks shrugged.

“What is he?” Barker demanded. “A sort of legitimate confidence man? A mumbo-jumbo spouter with a wad of psychological tests in his back pocket? I’ve been mumbled at by experts, Doctor, and they’re all the same. What they can’t do themselves, they label abnormal. What they’re ashamed of wanting to do, they condemn others for. They cover themselves with one of those fancy social science diplomas, and talk in educated phrases, and pretend they’re actually doing something of value. Well, I’ve got an education too, and I know what the world is like, and I can give Connington cards and spades, Doctor — cards and spades — and still beat him out. Where has he been? What has he seen? What has he done? He’s nothing, Hawks — nothing, compared to a real man.”

Barker’s lips were pulled back from his glistening teeth. The skin of his face was stretched by the taut muscles at the hinges of his jaws. “He thinks he’s entitled to make plans for me. He thinks to himself: ‘There’s another clod I can use wherever I need him, and get rid of when I’m done with him.’ But that’s not the way it is. Would you care to discuss art with me, Doctor? Western or Oriental. Or music? Pick your slice of civilized culture. I know ’em all. I’m a whole man, Hawks—” Barker got clumsily up to his feet. “A better man than anybody else I know. Now let’s go join the lady.”

He began walking away across the lawn, and Hawks slowly got to his feet and followed him.

Claire looked up from where she lay flat on the diving board, and leisurely turned her body until she was sitting upright. She extended her anns behind her, bracing her back, and said, “How did it work out?”