Farside Read online

Then he grabbed his own bag and started up the aisle toward the passenger compartment’s airlock hatch without another glance at her. Trudy shuffled along after him, walking carefully in the light lunar gravity.

  She was ordinary in every way, she knew. Average height for a Canadian woman, with a slim build and dull brown hair. No beauty, although she thought her light green eyes were kind of nice. Men rarely noticed her, especially tall, handsome guys like McClintock. He’s got no interest in me, Trudy thought glumly. He made conversation with me during the flight, that’s all.

  * * *

  The trouble with living on the Moon, Trudy quickly decided, was that you never saw the Moon. You were indoors all the time. Trudy stepped from the lobber rocket’s passenger compartment into an access tube that was sealed to its hatch, then along the spongy-floored, rib-walled tube into a reception area where a young man in a slightly ridiculous-looking pumpkin orange jumpsuit took her travelbag from her and handed it to a gleaming white robot that already had a half-dozen other pieces of luggage draped on its many arms. Then the young man led her through a maze of corridors lined with closed doors.

  “Your luggage is being sent to your assigned living quarters,” he assured Trudy. “But Professor Uhlrich wanted to see you the instant you arrived.”

  The kid was kind of cute, she thought. Curly blond hair, light eyes, kind of chubby, but his round face was smiling pleasantly at her. Probably a freshman, drafted from the university to work for the Farside Observatory. Students made a handy pool of slave labor, Trudy remembered from her own undergraduate days.

  She glanced at the name tag pinned to his chest: WINSTON.

  The observatory’s living and working areas were underground, of course, like all the human communities on the Moon, built into the side of the ringwall mountains that surrounded Mare Moscoviense. The lunar surface was airless, and subject to temperature swings from nearly three hundred degrees in sunlight to more than two hundred below zero in shadow. Hard radiation from the Sun and stars drenched the ground, together with a constant infall of dust-mote-sized micrometeorites. It was safer underground. Much safer.

  But dismally drab, dreary. The corridors were tunnels, really, narrow, their low ceilings lined with pipes and electrical conduits. Trudy wondered if they would turn her into a claustrophobe.

  “Be careful how you walk,” her young guide warned. “In one-sixth gravity it’s easy to go staggering around like a drunk rabbit.”

  Trudy had paid strict attention to the orientation lectures back in the space station before she’d headed out to the Moon. She very deliberately scuffed the weighted boots she had bought during her brief stopover at Selene along the corridor’s plastic-tiled floor in a bent-kneed shuffle. It reminded her of videos she’d seen of chimpanzees trying to walk on their hind legs.

  Her guide stopped at a door marked:

  J. UHLRICH

  DIRECTOR

  ANGEL OBSERVATORY

  “Angel Observatory?” she asked.

  “That’s the observatory’s official name,” the guide explained. “Named after Roger Angel, an astronomer who built the largest telescopes on Earth, more’n half a century ago. The name makes for a lot of jokes, you know, about angels and all. We just call it Farside.”

  He rapped on the door, very gently.

  “Enter,” a voice called from the other side of the door.

  Her guide slid it open and gestured Trudy through.

  It was a small office, its ceiling of smoothed rock depressingly low, its four walls blank but glowing slightly. Wall-sized smart screens, Trudy recognized. A desk painted to look like wood stood across from the door, with a conference table joined to it like the stem of a T. Behind the desk sat Jason Uhlrich, director of Farside Observatory.

  Professor Uhlrich rose to his feet as Trudy entered, his head cocked slightly. With a hesitant smile he gestured toward one of the conference table’s chairs.

  “Welcome, Dr. Yost,” he said in a nasal, reedy voice. “Please to make yourself comfortable.”

  Uhlrich was a small man, a bit shorter than Trudy and very slight in build. His face had the prominent cheekbones and high forehead of an ascetic, although his skin looked waxy, almost artificial. His hair was cropped short, as was his trim beard. Both were a soft gray, almost silver. Narrow shoulders, tiny delicate hands. He was wearing a dark blue cardigan jacket over a white turtleneck, neat and precise. Trudy felt shabby in her dull old shirt and baggy jeans.

  It was Uhlrich’s eyes that caught Trudy’s attention. They were as dark as two chips of obsidian. But they seemed blank, unfocused.

  She stuck out her hand. “I’m very pleased to meet you, sir.”

  Uhlrich’s smile turned slightly warmer, yet he ignored her proffered hand. “Thank you. I hope we can work well together.”

  He gestured toward the chair again and sat down behind his desk. Trudy took the chair; it swiveled so that it was easy for her to face Professor Uhlrich.

  He turned to the computer screen on his desk and brushed his fingertips across it, frowning slightly. “We should be joined by Mr. McClintock … He should be here by now.”

  Trudy’s pulse thumped. He’ll be here! I’ll see him again. Great!

  With a disappointed little sigh, Uhlrich said, “Well, I might as well begin. No sense waiting until—”

  A rap on the door stopped him. It slid open and Carter McClintock stepped in, all smiles.

  “Professor,” said McClintock as he strode toward the desk. Pulling out the chair across the table from Trudy, he added, “It’s good to see you again, Trudy.”

  “I expected you five minutes ago,” Uhlrich said. He neither rose from his desk chair nor offered McClintock his hand.

  Looking just the tiniest bit embarrassed, McClintock said, “I, uh, I had to answer a call of nature on the way here. Sorry, but it couldn’t be helped.”

  “I see.” Uhlrich’s tone was frosty. The director swung his gaze from McClintock to Trudy, then said in a resigned tone, “Very well, then, let me describe our observatory and its goals to you, Dr. Yost. Mr. McClintock will fill you in on the observatory’s organization and management.”

  The walls lit up with views of four different lunar craters. Trudy recognized the Cyclops radio telescope assembly, under construction up above them on the surface of the Sea of Moscow.

  Uhlrich began, “We are building three one-hundred-meter telescopes at Crater Mendeleev, Crater Korolev, and Crater Gagarin.” The frame around each screen lit briefly as the professor mentioned it.

  Trudy saw that construction was under way at each crater.

  “The hundred-meter main mirrors for each of these sites are being built here, at Moscow. The first of them has been completed, and is now being transported to Mendeleev, where it will be installed—”

  The buzz of a phone interrupted him. Frowning at his desktop console annoyedly, Uhlrich said, “Pardon me. That is the emergency line.”

  He called out, “Answer,” and the wall screen in front of Trudy showed the face of a young man, looking grim, troubled. His hair was a thick dark mop, so was his ragged dark beard. He had the saddest eyes Trudy had ever seen, dark and downcast. He looked as if he were carrying the troubles of the world on his shoulders. She saw that he was in a space suit, but he had removed its helmet.

  “Professor,” he began, then his voice broke.

  “What is the emergency? What is it?” Uhlrich demanded.

  “The mirror,” said the harried-looking man. “Halfway up the ringwall … it … it slid off the carrier and cracked.”

  THE LARGE AND THE SMALL

  Uhlrich shot to his feet. “Cracked?” he shrieked.

  The man on the screen looked as if he’d rather be roasting on a spit. “Yessir. Halfway up the slope the rig slewed off the road and … and the mirror slid off and cracked. Too much torsional strain, even in the frame that was holding it.”

  For an instant Trudy thought that Professor Uhlrich was going to have a stroke. His face went red,
then chalk white. His fists clenched at his sides.

  “How could it slip off the road?” he demanded. “How could you allow such a stupid, criminal thing to happen? You’ve ruined everything!”

  The man on the screen looked weary, spent. His bearded face was sheened with perspiration, his dark hair matted, plastered over his forehead. But his expression hardened as Uhlrich berated him.

  “Look, Professor, I tried to warn you about the risks. You try lugging a hundred-meter-wide chunk of glass across those mountains. I told you it’d be chancy.”

  “Don’t you understand that we’re in a race? A race against time! And you’ve ruined two years’ work! Two years’ work!”

  In a race? Trudy asked herself. Then she remembered that the IAA was building a humongous interferometer in space. Professor Uhlrich wants to beat them, she realized. He wants to get the Farside Observatory running before the IAA can complete its project. Holy spit, no wonder he’s blazing.

  Uhlrich slumped back into his chair, then stared at the screen with undisguised contempt. “You built that road, Mr. Simpson. You vouched for it, you told me the mirror could be transported across the ringwall safely. You—”

  “Professor, I built the road to the specifications that Nate Oberman set out and you okayed. I told Oberman that we ought to make the grading easier, all those switchbacks were a risk. But you ordered Nate to push it through as fast as possible. You told us you were willing to take the risks. So now you’re paying the price.”

  “Oberman assured me that the road would be perfectly safe!”

  “Professor, I warned you it would be a crapshoot.”

  “I don’t remember such a warning,” Uhlrich said stubbornly.

  “Transporting that mirror isn’t like taking a walk in the frigging park, what with those switchbacks and all. If we’d had more time to build the road better—”

  “Oberman assured me!”

  “And I tried to tell you both we needed more time to make the road better. But neither of you listened to me.”

  With a shake of his head, Uhlrich moaned, “We’ll have to start all over again.”

  “For what it’s worth,” said the man on the screen, his voice more conciliatory, “I’m sorry about it.”

  “Bring it back,” Uhlrich told him. “We’ll have to remelt the glass and spin it all over again.”

  The face on the screen nodded tightly.

  “And report to me the instant you get back here,” Uhlrich added. “I want you and Oberman in my office as soon as you return. The very instant!”

  “Yessir,” the younger man said. Then his image winked off.

  “Two years’ work,” Uhlrich muttered again, shaking his head in misery.

  McClintock spoke up. “Maybe we can repair the mirror.”

  Uhlrich gave him a withering look. “Repair? The telescope’s main mirror? It’s ruined! Ruined!”

  Smiling easily at the professor, McClintock said, “I understand that the mirror’s got to have very exact tolerances, but mightn’t it be possible to repair it using nanotechnology?”

  “Nanomachines?” Uhlrich gasped.

  McClintock replied patiently, “I know nanotech is banned on Earth. But here on the Moon it’s used every day. The world’s leading nanotechnology expert, Dr. Kristine Cardenas, is over at Selene.”

  “Nanomachines,” Uhlrich repeated. From the dark tone of his voice, Trudy half expected the professor to cross himself or pull out a silver crucifix.

  “I could at least meet with Dr. Cardenas and see what she thinks of the possibilities,” McClintock urged.

  “Nanomachines can be dangerous,” Uhlrich murmured. “They have been used to assassinate people.”

  “That’s why they’re banned on Earth, of course,” McClintock said easily. “But here on the Moon you don’t have ten or twelve billion crackpots running loose. Everybody here has been tested, examined for mental stability and technical talent, haven’t they? The population of Selene is selected for intelligence and social compatibility. There are no murderers on the Moon, no fanatics or terrorists.”

  Trudy wondered if that was true. She certainly hoped so.

  Uhlrich stared at McClintock in grim silence.

  “I really think we should at least look at the possibilities,” McClintock repeated.

  “Do you?” Uhlrich muttered.

  “Yes, I do. I strongly recommend it.”

  Trudy felt puzzled. There was something going on between the two of them, something more than the words they were uttering.

  At last Uhlrich sighed and said, “Very well, Mr. McClintock, go ahead and see what Dr. Cardenas has to say about this problem. I don’t suppose it would hurt anything to talk to her.”

  McClintock rose to his feet, all smiles. “Good. I’ll call her right away.”

  The professor turned back to Trudy. She could see that he was sizzling, angry. But his eyes were strange; he was looking in her direction, but not directly at her. He made a bitter smile.

  “Dr. Yost, I’m afraid I don’t feel up to giving you the orientation presentation I had planned.”

  “I understand, sir,” said Trudy. “Maybe somebody else could do it?”

  “No. I’ll meet with you first thing tomorrow morning. Make it eight A.M. No—seven thirty.”

  “Seven thirty sharp. Here in your office?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Right.”

  “In the meantime,” Uhlrich said, “I’ll get someone from the staff to show you around this facility. So that your day won’t be totally wasted.”

  “That’ll be fine,” Trudy replied.

  She rose and headed for the door, which McClintock was already sliding open.

  Turning, Trudy saw Uhlrich sink his head in his hands. He looked as if he were going to cry.

  DOSSIER: TRUDY JOCELYN YOST

  Her father was a lawyer and a successful politician in Canada’s capital city who married late in life and was already well past fifty when his only daughter was born. He expected Trudy to be a lawyer, too, since he was certain that she had a fine mind and a strong personality. Like himself, he thought.

  Her mother died when Trudy was five years old, leaving her feeling lost and alone in a world of loud, uncaring adults who loomed over her and often made her feel small and frightened. But she remembered her mother’s oft-repeated advice: “A sunny smile and a positive attitude will carry you far in this world.”

  Her father, on the other hand, always told her sternly, “Face your challenges, never run away from them. Never back down from your challenges.”

  So she learned to face her anxieties and by the time she started grammar school she had overcome her fear of her father’s overbearing friends. She faced them with a sunny smile and they thought she was precocious, and very clever.

  By then, her father had retired from politics and had accepted the chairmanship of the board of Ottawa’s Museum of Science and Technology, a board composed mostly of fellow well-heeled citizens.

  When Trudy got the best marks in her first-grade class, her father rewarded her by taking her to the museum, grandly explaining the exhibits in words she could not fully understand. He quickly grew tired of her questions.

  “Now you’re in for a treat,” he said as they walked past a big round ball that Trudy recognized as the Earth.

  “Where’s Canada, Daddy?” she asked.

  He paused and turned toward the globe. “Right here, honey. All this region here, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. The third largest nation on Earth. See? There’s the Great Lakes and—”

  “Where’s Ottawa, Daddy? Where’s our house?”

  Frowning slightly, her father said, “Never mind that. I’m taking you to a very special place.”

  Her hand in his, Trudy dutifully went with her father past a long line of people who were standing and waiting for something. They looked impatient and unhappy.

  Her father marched right up to a closed door where a young woman in a smart uni
form recognized him immediately.

  “Your seats are on the wall, Counselor Yost, right beneath the sign that says North,” the attendant whispered as she opened the door for them.

  It was a round room with thick carpeting and a big gray dome overhead that glowed faintly. The rows of chairs were arranged in a big circle, and it was very quiet, as if the walls absorbed sound. Trudy and her father were the only people in the place. He led her to their seats, which were marked RESERVED. The chairs were comfortably padded and even tilted backwards a little. Trudy leaned as far back as she could, giggling, until her father silenced her with a dour look.

  “This is a planetarium, young lady, not a playground.”

  Just then all the doors opened and the other people started to stream in and fill every seat. Soft music began to play. Then slowly, slowly the room got darker and darker and darker. Trudy couldn’t see the dome, or even her father sitting next to her. She felt a little afraid, but she reached for her father’s warm hand and that made her feel better. After a few moments, though, her father pulled his hand away.

  Then the music stopped, and a man’s deep, powerful voice intoned:

  “When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers,

  “The moon and the stars which Thou set in place,

  “What is man that Thou should be mindful of him?

  “And the son of man, that Thou should care for him?”

  At that moment, the darkness was suddenly pierced by stars, thousands of stars, millions of stars. The audience gasped. Trudy felt as if she were falling up, up into that cold, remorseless infinite wilderness. She groped for her father’s hand but in the darkness she couldn’t find it. The stars were like a million million unblinking eyes staring at her, probing into her, making her very, very frightened.

  She burst into loud, bawling tears. Her father, embarrassed beyond words, had to take his squalling seven-year-old daughter out of her seat and stumble his way out of the planetarium.

  Trudy never forgot that moment, the instant when she first saw the stars as they truly were. Not the soft skies of summer, with clouds drifting by on warm winds. Not the sharp, crystalline dark skies of winter. Even then the stars twinkled at you, distant but friendly. Even then the Moon was generally up there, smiling lopsidedly at her.