One console was alight, one screen glowing in the shadows of the control center. Nobu bent over the Nairobi flight controller seated at that console. He saw Pancho’s lanky figure slowly climbing the ladder of the green-anodized hopper.
The Yamagata engineer standing at his side gasped. “She’s not wearing a space suit!”
“Yes she is,” Nobu replied. “A new type, made of nanomachines.”
To the flight controller he asked, “Can you prevent her from taking off?”
Looking up briefly, the controller shook his head. “No, sir. She can control the vehicle autonomously. Of course, without a flight plan or navigational data, she won’t be able to find her destination. And the vehicle’s propellant levels are too low for anything but a very short flight.”
“We could send a team out to stop her,” suggested the Yamagata engineer.
Nobuhiko took a breath, then replied, “No. Why send good men out into that radiation storm?”
“The storm is abating, sir.”
“No,” he repeated. “Let her take off. If she is to die, let it be a flight accident. I’ll have the Nairobi public relations people make up a plausible story that keeps Yamagata Corporation out of it.”
Nobuhiko straightened up and watched the little lunar hopper take off in a sudden spurt of stark white gas and gritty dust, all in total silence.
He almost wished Pancho good fortune. An extraordinary woman, he thought. A worthy opponent. Too bad she’s going to die.
As soon as the hopper jerked off the ground Pancho turned on its radio, sliding her finger along the frequency control to search for Malapert’s beacon. She knew roughly which direction the Astro base lay in. The hopper had only limited maneuverability, however; it flew mainly on a ballistic trajectory, like an odd-looking cannon shell.
“Pancho Lane calling,” she spoke into her helmet microphone. She wanted to yell, to bellow, but she didn’t have the strength. “I’m in a hopper, coming up from the Nairobi Industries base at Shackleton crater. I need a navigation fix, pronto.”
No reply.
She looked down at the bleak lunar landscape sliding by, trying to remember landmarks from her flight in to Shackleton. Nothing stood out. It all looked the same: bare rock pitted by innumerable craters ranging from little dimples to holes big enough to swallow a city. Rugged hills, all barren and rounded by eons of meteors sandpapering them to worn, tired smoothness. And rocks and boulders strewn everywhere like toys left behind by a careless child.
Pancho felt worn and tired, too. Her mind was going fuzzy. It would be so good to just fold up and go to sleep. Even the hard metal deck of the hopper looked inviting to her.
Stop it! she commanded herself. Stay awake. Find the base’s radio beacon. Use it to guide you in.
She played the hopper’s radio receiver up and down the frequency scale, seeking the automated homing beacon from the Malapert base. Nothing. Feeling something like panic simmering in her guts, Pancho thought, Maybe I’m heading in a completely wrong direction. Maybe I’m so way off that—
A steady warm tone suddenly issued from her helmet earphones. Pancho couldn’t have been more thrilled if the world’s finest singer had begun to serenade her.
“This is Pancho Lane,” she said, her voice rough, her throat dry. “I need a navigational fix, pronto.”
A heartbeat’s hesitation. Then a calm tenor voice said to her, “Malapert base here, Ms. Lane. We have you on our radar. You’re heading seventeen degrees west of us. I’m feeding correction data to your nav computer.”
Pancho felt the hopper’s tiny maneuvering thruster push the ungainly bird sideways a bit. Her legs felt weak, rubbery. Bird’s on automatic now, she thought. I can relax. I can lay down and—
A red light on the control console glared at her like an evil eye and the hopper’s computer announced, “Propellant cutoff. Main engine shutdown.”
Pancho’s reply was a heartfelt, “Shit!”
BRUSHFIRE
Fuchs backed slowly along the brick path, a nearly spent laser pistol in each hand, his eyes reflecting the lurid flames spreading across the wide garden that filled the grotto. Burn! he exulted. Let everything burn. His garden. His house. And Humphries himself. Let the fire burn him to death, let him roast in his own hell.