Энди Вейр - Artemis

“Hey, did you try out the condom yet?” he asked.

“Goddammit, Svoboda!” I said.

“What? I’m waiting for feedback here.”

I threw my hands up and walked away.

The huge door to the freight airlock lumbered open and revealed the desolate lunar landscape beyond.

Dale checked a reading on the rover’s control panel. “Pressure is good, air mix A-okay, CO 2absorption on automatic.”

I looked over the screens in front of my seat. “Batteries at one hundred percent, wheel motor diagnostics are green, comms are five-by-five.”

He grabbed the control stick. “Port of Entry Airlock, request permission to disembark.”

“Granted,” came Bob’s voice over the intercom. “Take good care of my rover, Shapiro.”

“Will do.”

“Try not to screw it up, Bashara,” Bob said.

“Bite me,” I said.

Dale slapped the Mute button and shot me a look. “You know what, Jazz? We’re breaking every guild rule in the book. If we get caught, Bob and I will both get kicked out. Forever. We’re risking our livelihood here. Can you be a little more fucking considerate?!”

I unmuted the mike. “Uh… thanks, Bob. For… all this.”

“Copy,” came the clipped reply.

Dale piloted the rover out of the airlock and onto the regolith. I expected things to get bumpy but the suspension was very smooth. That, plus the area just outside had been flattened and smoothed over by years of frequent use.

Bob’s rover was, simply put, the best rover on the moon. This was no dune buggy with awkward seats for EVA-suited passengers. It was fully pressurized and had a spacious interior with supplies and power enough to last for days. Both of our EVA suits were stored neatly in racks along the walls. The rover even had a partitioned airlock in the rear, meaning the cabin never had to lose pressure, even if someone went outside.

Dale looked straight ahead while he drove. He refused to even cast me a sideways glance.

“You know what?” I said. “It’s the EVA Guild that’s a threat to your livelihood, not me. Maybe protectionist bullshit isn’t the best policy.”

“You’re probably right. We should let everyone play with the airlocks. I’m sure we can trust untrained people not to annihilate the city with the press of a button.”

“Oh, please. The guild could have members operate the airlocks and let people manage their EVAs themselves. They’re just greedy fucks running a labor cartel. Pimps went out of style a long time ago, you know.”

He snickered despite himself. “I’ve missed our political arguments.”

“Me too.”

I checked the time. We had a fairly tight schedule to keep. So far, so good.

We turned southeast and headed toward the Berm a kilometer away. Not a long drive, but it would have been a very long walk, especially dragging the modified air shelter with us.

The shelter clanked against the roof as we entered the rougher terrain. We both looked up at the source of the noise, then at each other.

“It’s strapped down tight, right?” he asked.

“You were there when we secured it,” I said.

Clang.

I winced. “If it falls off, we pick it up, I guess. It would cost us time we don’t have, but we could hustle.”

“And hope it didn’t break.”

“No way it breaks,” I said. “Dad did the welds. They’ll last until the sun goes cold.”

“Yeah, about that,” he said, “will you be able to handle the next set of welds?”

“Yes.”

“And what if you can’t?”

“I’ll die,” I said. “So I’m fairly motivated to get it right.”

He turned left slightly. “Hang on. We’re crossing over the pipe.”

The air pipeline that carried freshly minted oxygen from the smelter to Armstrong Bubble lay along the ground.

On Earth, no one would be insane enough to ship pressurized oxygen gas through a pipeline. But on the lunar surface, there’s nothing to burn. Also, on Earth, they usually bury pipelines to protect the system from weather, animals, and idiot humans. We don’t do that here. Why would we? We don’t have weather or animals and all the idiot humans are mostly confined to the city.

Dale managed the controls as the front end of the rover bucked up and down, then the rear did the same.

“Is that really safe?” I asked. “Driving over a high-pressure line like that?”

He adjusted one of the wheel motor controls. “That pipe’s walls are eight centimeters thick. We couldn’t hurt it if we tried.”

“I have welding equipment. I could hurt it.”

“You’re a pedantic little shit, you know that?”

“Yeah.”

I looked through the roof porthole. Earth hung in the sky—a half-Earth, just like Lene’s watch had said.

We’d strayed far enough from the city that the terrain became wholly natural. Dale navigated us around a boulder. “Tyler says hi.”

“Give him my best.”

“He really does care about—”

“Don’t.”

My Gizmo rang. I put it in a dashboard slot and it connected to the rover’s audio system. Of course the rover had an audio system. Bob traveled in style. “Yo.”

“Yo, Jazz,” came Svoboda’s voice. “Where you guys at now? I don’t have a camera feed.”

“Still en route. The suit cams are offline. Is Dad there?”

“Yup, right next to me. Say hi, Ammar!”

“Hello, Jasmine,” said Dad. “Your friend is… interesting.”

“You get used to him,” I said. “Say hi to Dale.”

“No.”

Dale snorted.

“Call me when you’re suited up,” said Svoboda.

“Will do. Later.” I hung up.

Dale shook his head. “Man, your dad really hates me. And it’s not about Tyler either. He hated me before all that.”

“Not for the reasons you think,” I said. “I still remember when I told him you were gay. I thought he’d be pissed off, but he was relieved. He actually smiled.”

“Huh?” Dale said.

“Once he found out you weren’t nailing me, he warmed up to you a lot. But then, you know, then came the whole stealing-my-boyfriend thing.”

“Right.”

We crested a small rise and saw the flatlands ahead of us. The Berm stood a hundred meters away. Just beyond it would be the reactor complex and Sanchez’s bubble.

“Fifteen minutes till we get there,” Dale said, apparently reading my thoughts. “Nervous?”

“Shitting myself.”

“Good,” he said. “I know you think you’re flawless on EVAs, but remember you flunked that test.”

“Thanks for the pep talk.”

“I’m just saying a little humility’s good on an EVA.”

I stared out the side window. “Believe me, this past week has been humiliating enough.”

I looked at the silver dome of the Sanchez smelter bubble. Again.

My previous visit had been just six days earlier, but it seemed like forever ago. Of course, things were a little different this time. There’d only be one harvester out there doing its thing. That’s okay, I wasn’t after the harvester, anyway. That was old news.

Dale brought us up to the edge of the bubble, did a three-point turn, and pointed the rear of the rover at the wall.

“Distance?” he asked.

I checked my screen. “Two point four meters.” Proximity readouts are a frilly feature for cars on Earth, but critically important for lunar rovers. Crashing your pressure vessel into things is bad. It can lead to unscheduled dying.

Satisfied, Dale engaged the physical brake. “All right. Ready to suit up?”

“Yup.”

We climbed out of our chairs and crawled to the rear of the vessel.