Bouncing Off the Moon

"Welcome to Route 66," said Alexei. "From Borgo Pass, we take great circle route eastward. Is also called Beltway. Gagarin is inside Beltway, but we are going outside. Not to worry, we will be on official road for two hours. The autopilot will stay inside the lines. When we get to turnoff, I will drive myself."

There were comfortable chairs installed behind the pilot's seat; none of them matched. Indeed, the whole interior was a hodgepodge of techno‑gingerbread scrounged from a thousand unidentifiable sources. Mickey and Douglas sat down closest to Alexei, Bobby and I took the couch along the opposite bulkhead. Alexei opened a floor panel and retrieved a plastic can of beer. "Anyone else?" he asked. Douglas and Mickey shook their heads; he passed out soft drinks instead.

"All right, Alexei," said Mickey, opening his drink. "What's the plan? What are we doing?"

"Is no plan. I take you to safety, like I promise. No one find you at Fortress of Solitude. From there, you can make all the phone calls you want. Everything traces only as far as Wonderland Jumble or Gagarin. No closer. So you can pick up e‑mail, call home, do everything but order pizza. No problem, I bake pizza myself if you really want. You arrange contract for colony, whatever. Then we get you to catapult."

Mickey and Douglas exchanged a glance. Douglas looked to me as well. Could we really trust him?

Did we have a choice?

THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD

The house‑truck–it was hard to know what else to call it–trundled over the Lunar surface like a giant dung beetle, never going slower than ten klicks, never going faster than forty. When I asked why we couldn't go faster, Alexei laughed and replied, "The laws of physics. We do not weigh a ton, but we still have a ton of mass.I do not want to argue with either inertia or momentum. Especially not when momentum is coming from other direction." He pointed ahead.

Another vehicle was silently rolling toward us. "An eighteen‑wheeler," said Alexei. It was three truck‑pods just like the Beagle, only linked together like a train. They rode heavily, Alexei said they were filled with water. The Beagle slowed automatically, to let it pass.

"This road has many cargo‑trains," said Alexei. "They collect from the freelance mines and deliver to Gagarin. The invisibles sell to the freelancers, and that's how they stay out of the net. Gargarin knows it and doesn't care. The market for fresh water on Luna is second only to the market for fresh air. And remember, water can be turned into air. Oxygen and hydrogen. Very useful. And we can mine water on Luna much easier than we can mine air–although I have heard of a crazy loonie who thinks he can extract oxygen from rock. All he needs is lots of rock and sunlight. Who knows? Maybe he will find that somewhere here?"

A thought occurred to me. "Won't the driver of that truck identify us?"

"He already has," said Alexei. "Look over there. There is HoboCo. Miller‑Gibson ice‑mine. Freelance station. They buy from invisibles. Is profitable sideline, for everybody. So why should they report anything? They would put themselves out of business. HoboCo is where big eighteen‑wheeler comes from. Miller and Gibson are very successful. They have found layer of ice not cost‑effective for Exxon or BabelCorp, but very profitable for freelance miners. Make their own water, air, grow their own crops. Very good people. They have very nice microbrewery." He waved his beer at us to illustrate. "But it's just a sideline. Mostly they grow cactuses–astringent bases for medicine. But also very nice for tequila too. Tequila has important medicinal uses. Good for drowning worms, one per bottle. Also good on barbecue chicken. But first you have to catch chicken. Are you good with chicken net?"

To my puzzled look, he said, "You have never had to catch flying chicken, have you? Ha!–you didn't know chickens could fly? On Luna, they do. Not very well, but well enough. Very funny to see look of surprise on chicken's face. Have you ever seen wings and breasts with dark meat or drumsticks with white? If you do, that is Lunar chicken. Is exercise of muscles that turns meat dark; chickens fly, wings get dark, legs don't carry as much weight as on Earth, drumsticks stay white. Very strange to see, but delicious, just the same. Oh, they also raise rabbits at HoboCo. They don't fly at all. But they are just as tasty."

HoboCo didn't look like much from the road, just a distant clump of pods and domes, with a few scattered lights here and there. The whole thing was in shadow, of course. This was the place where the sun nevershines–and they meant it. There were solar panels on the nearby ridges.

While we watched, the two largest domes began to glow. Alexei explained that most farm domes were on an accelerated day‑night schedule. Two hours of light, thirty minutes of darkness; this made everything grow faster. There was a lot to learn about Lunar farming.

We rolled on for a while, we passed two other mines, and then the road got rougher, winding its way up the side of a steep crater wall. It was kind of like the access roads carved into the hills north of El Paso–only steeper. The one‑sixth gee of Luna made it possible for the truck to roll up hills that no Earth vehicle could have attempted. Coming down the other side was even more terrifying. The living pod of the Beagle was mounted on a leveling platform, so whenever the wheeled chassis started to angle too steeply, the platform tilted up at the lower end to keep us level inside. For some reason, that only made the ride scarier.

From the heights, especially when we crested a hill, we could see the scattered lights of individual settlements or monitor stations. It reminded me of the time when I was Stinky's age, the first time Dad took us on vacation, and we drove through the Southwest. There were places in New Mexico and Arizona, where there was nothing to see. And at night, when the faraway mountains loomed like walls around the edge of the world, there were distant lights huddled lonely under the vast starlit sky.

It was like that here. Only the stars were harder. They were bright and cold and merciless. And somehow that made them even more distant. The occasional clustered lights of humanity were desperate and desolate. No wind. No air. Back on Earth, the lights had felt like little havens against the night. I'd wanted to knock on the doors and rush into the warmth and hug the people, thank them for being alive. Here, the lights all seemed like signposts for claustrophobic little prisons. All shouting for attention. Here, I am. No, me. Over here. Me. Come see me. But why?Each one was like every other one. A couple of cargo pods and a cluster of inflatables, hiding in perpetual shadow.

There was no romance here. No glamour. Only endless gloom and imported despair, flavored with the perpetual hint of sunlight lurking everywhere. A blazing furnace circled like a hungry demon around and around the shadowed valleys. As the moon turned slowly on its axis, the hills were outlined with neon fire.

The house‑truck reached the crest of the ridge, and it was like coming up out of a deep black sea. Suddenly, the world was blasted by a dazzling sideways glare. Instinctively, I turned my back to the light–I looked out the wide windows to the west. A layer of shadow fell across the bottom half of the landscape, cloaking everything in inky darkness. Down therewas the ice. Up herewas the fire. There was no in‑between.

And then the truck rolled over the crest and dipped back down into shadow again. The roaring sun disappeared behind the rocky horizon, and we were safe in darkness again. "Is great view, da?"asked Alexei. "You will not have trip like this from travel agent. I show you sights no tourist ever sees from the safety of a tourist‑mobile. I give you trip of a lifetime, da?"

I thought about how far we'd come in less than twenty‑four hours. We'd crashed into the moon, bounced across the Lunar plain, climbed a crater wall, nearly baked to death in the endless sunlight … "The only thing we haven't done yet," I said, "is freeze to death."

"I am arranging that now," said Alexei, absolutely deadpan. "We go to my house carved in ice. My own private ice mine. You can freeze to death all you want. No problem."

The road etched its way down the steep side of a hill. I couldn't imagine how a construction crew had bulldozed it into place. Here, the road wasn't much more than a cut across an avalanche‑shaped tumble of rock and rubble. The steep slope to the left loomed aboveus; it scared me almost as much as the dropaway cliff belowus to the right. We were creeping along a narrow shelf of rock so light and powdery, we could feel it shifting skittishly beneath the wheels of the truck.

"Is not to worry," said Alexei. I really did want to hit him then, as hard as I could. "Remember angle of repose is steeper on Luna. We are perfectly safe. Besides, road and slope have both been sprayed with construction foam to hold everything in place. This road carries much traffic, it is still here, eh?"

"Um, Alexei … ?" That was Douglas. "The more traffic on a road, the heavier the load it carries, the sooner it wears out. You should see the pavement in front of the Babylon Hotel in Las Vegas. It's buckled so badly it has ruts. If this road gets as much traffic as you say–"

Alexei cut him off with a hand wave. "Is not to worry, I said. Remember, we are on Luna. If we build to one‑half of Earth standards, we are still three times stronger than we need to be." I would have felt a lot more reassured by his words if the Beagle hadn't chosen that moment to slip uneasily across a patch of loose gravel. Almost like we were skidding on ice.

"Rocks here are sometimes greasy," Alexei explained. "Ice–not like you know it, but black ice in rocks. Makes them clammy and changes friction quotient." Alexei helped himself to another beer, waving it aloft. "I have earned this today. I have always wondered if escape plan would work. Now I know how well I plan. Only now I have to make up new plan. Except I do not think I will ever go back to Line. So maybe I will not need one after all. I do not think I will be much welcome there for a long time, will I, Mikhail?"

Mickey ignored the question. "Alexei, how come we weren't apprehended at Wonderland Jumble? Surely they must have been watching for us. And our disguises weren't that good. The old lady spotted us."

Alexei snorted. "The old lady works for me. She is invisible. I put her on train to watch you. She did lousy job of being invisible, didn't she? She watch you too hard. I am sorry if she unnerved you. She only wanted to protect. But people who should have spotted you weren't looking at all. I cannot understand why. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that all of you were apprehended at Clavius a couple of hours ago."

"Huh?"

"Oh, don't worry. The report will probably turn out to be false, I'm sure. But you will laugh very much anyway. Especially you, Charles. The little boy they thought was you turned out to be little girl named J'mee. I wonder how that happen, eh?" He waggled his eyebrows meaningfully. "Is very funny, da?Is family that Dingillians were supposed to decoy for on Line. You did not know that, did you? Now they decoy for you on Luna. Is only fair. Sauce for goose too."

No, we hadn't known who or what we were decoying for–and in all the rush and confusion up the Line and again at Geostationary, I hadn't given it much thought–but what Alexei said made sense. J'mee and her family were very rich. She had an implant and she was always online, peeking into other people's personal histories, even stuff there wasn't supposed to be any public access to. She knew who we were and when she got mad at me for finding out she wasn't really a boy, she turned us in to the marshals at Geostationary. They might have planned to do that anyway, so they could pass through customs unnoticed while we were the center of so much attention.

That J'mee and her family were now caught in the same kind of trap themselves was delicious irony. In fact, it would have been delicious revengeif we had done it ourselves, but we hadn't. Alexei had. Or someone he knew.

And of course … if he could do it to someone else, he could just as easily do it to us. If he wanted to.

The Beagle finally reached the bottom of Avalanche Hill–Alexei didn't tell us the name of it until we were safely off of it. Now the truck began winding its way through a very uneven rubble field; it looked like very soon, the road would give out completely.

Instead, we began seeing short bridges of industrial foam, paving the occasional gap in the way. Soon, the bulldozed course gave way entirely to a layer of foam. It sat on top of the jumbled rocks and rubble like a ribbon of fluffy icing. It wound around the larger outcrops like the scenic course in a Disneyland ride. Except here, there weren't any pirates or bears or ghosts to jump out at you.

The drive was a little smoother on the foam. From up on top of it, we looked like we were rolling on a road of whipped cream. Alexei explained how it had been poured and leveled and hardened. It wasn't all foam; there were bits of gravel and crushed rock throughout, so that over the years as the weight of the trucks compressed the foam, they'd make it even harder.

"Foam was greatest invention of twentieth century," Alexei said, launching into another of his interminable peripatetic monologues. "Very silly people. They think foam is weak. They use it for stuffing and toys. With a little bit of seasoning, foam makes houses, roads, domes, spaceships, anything you want. Pour it in molds or build it up in layers. If not for foam, we could not colonize Luna. Certainly not as fast." He pounded the bulkhead. "All these are foam. We order as much cargo as Line can deliver. Yes, we want cargo, but we want pods that cargo arrives in even more. Every pod is a house. We have built whole cities out of these pods–and everything else too. We do it in less than forty years. We have as much living space on Luna now as in all of Moscow–only winters are nicer on Luna. Not as much snow. Not a problem anyway, if we had as much snow on Luna as they do in Moscow, we would all be rich. We would sell it to each other and make water everywhere. We would fill great domes with water and air and everything else. We would have wheat fields to rival the grand steppes of Asia. Someday we will anyway, even without the snow. We will capture comets if we have to. And we will do it with foam. We will match orbit with comet, catch it in a net of foam, harden it into a solid ball, and bring it back to Luna. Or maybe we will build a Lunar beanstalk on far side of moon and just pipe the water down to great Lunar pipeline system. Or we will attach Palmer tubes all over and land it in Pogue Crater and create new Lunar city around it. Put a dome above it. A great adventure. You would be proud to be a part of it. We will build our own great outdoors on Luna. We will have trees as tall as mountains, flowers as big as your head, grass so high you can hide elephants in it. We will have bouncing hippos and leaping bears. We will have monstrous giant fish and butterflies the size of eagles. We will build best outdoors ever, better even than Earth."

"What a grand scheme," Douglas said, with almost no enthusiasm. It was the same voice he used when he was humoring Mom or Dad.

Alexei didn't notice. "I show you plans. We have crater, we have blueprints, we have much financing, we have eager community of people–even many invisibles. We will build Free Luna."

"It sounds like a very expensive Luna," Mickey said dryly.

Alexei ignored the jibe. "For you, Mikhail,we will give big family discount. All you need to do is bring big family." He finished his beer and pushed the empty plastic can into the litter bag. He started to reach for a third, then stopped himself. "No," he said. "I have had enough for now. I am driving soon." He pointed ahead. "Here comes turnoff."

We rolled onto a wide bare dome of rock that pushed its way up through the foam pavement like a breaching whale. The Beagle stopped at the top. On the other side, the road split off in two directions, one curling off toward the light, the other winding back down into blackness–in some places it was visible only by its orange‑outlined edges and infrequent illuminated flags.

Alexei swiveled forward and busied himself with his controls, snapping switches, studying screens, flipping up plastic switch covers, unlocking and arming unknown controls. He reached overhead and snap‑snap‑snapped a row of switches. It was a very techno performance. The truck settled itself and made various switching and gurgling noises. Things clankedunderneath as they locked themselves into position. Was Alexei actually planning to driveacross this jumble?

"Hokay," he said finally. "Everybody please fasten safety harness. Is not to worry. Is not too bumpy, and is very short ride." He waited until we'd all buckled ourselves in, then punched the red button in front of him.

The truck shuddered–I recognized the feeling– Palmer tubes!We were boosting! Shaking like an earthquake, we shot up off the Lunar surface, into painful sunlight. Beyond the windows, the dark ground fell away alarmingly fast. It was a sea of shadow. Occasional islands of bright rocks thrust up out of the gloom.

We tilted slightly forward and began to move. The Beagle throbbed and shook across the Lunar night. I swiveled around and watched as the glimmering thread of the road disappeared behind us. If the booster tubes failed now–we'd never be found.

I swiveled back around. Alexei was watching his screens like money was pouring out of them. I noticed Mickey was watching our course too. A bright green line traced its way across an unreadable map. It zigzagged from one landmark to the next. A yellow dot crept along the line. We were halfway along, but I couldn't see any correlation between the display on the screen and the terrain outside. The glare of the sun was directly ahead and everything was either dazzled out of existence or lost in shadow.

Finally, we hooked around to put the sun behind us and started a steep descent into a broken arroyo. Coming in from the east, we saw a scattering of pods, as if discarded by a thoughtless tourist. They were connected by pipes and wires and lazy tubes that curled around the landscape in courses of convenience. We shuddered down toward a square of four bright orange lights. Here and there, I saw scattered towers with arrays of solar panels at the top. Most of them also had glimmering cables climbing up to huge lens arrays at the top–I recognized them as light‑pipes; the lens arrays were called collimation engines.

We sank down into shadow–the glare behind us switched off as suddenly as a power failure. Flurries of dust rose up around us like history. A moment later, we bumped softly down onto the Lunar surface. The vehicle stopped shaking and we were down. The Beagle had landed.

THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE

"Welcome to Invisible Luna," Alexei said. He began shutting down the flight controls, switching off all the things he'd switched on before, switching on all the things he'd switched off. "We are now off the map."

He waved at the junk and detritus beyond the window. "This is abandoned test site Brickner 43‑AX92. Not cost‑effective for industrial production. Shut down seven years ago. Leased to Lunar Homestead Sites for one dollar a year, paid up one hundred years in advance, with option to purchase. All ice mined from this site must be sold to leasing company. Part of proceeds goes to company store for credit for supplies, part goes toward purchase price, last part you get to keep–only no place to spend it, nothing to do but melt more ice. Is no big deal. The more you melt, faster you earn out, sooner you work for yourself, sooner you make profit. Lunar sharecropping, da?Does that not sound like good deal? It is if you are lunatic. Even better, water prices stay high."

He peered forward through the window, squinting against the gloom, then began easing the Beagle gently forward. He didn't stop talking for a moment. "More people come to moon every day. All of them need water. Two liters a day for drinking, depending how active person is. Another twelve for washing and flushing. Another fifty liters for breathing, or more for watering plants so they can make oxygen for you to breathe–plus humidity, that uses water too. Another thirty liters for crops to eat. And more if you want to eat meat, because meat has to eat and drink and breathe too before it is meat. Lunar Authority mandates at least one hundred liters of clean water per day per person. That's hard water use, of course. Not soft. Soft includes safety margin, hard doesn't."

"Huh?" That was me. "Soft water?"

"Not like on Earth. Soft water means different on moon. I explain. Everything on Luna is measured in water. We have water‑based economy. We buy and sell with water‑dollars–or ice‑dollars, which are not worth as much because you have to dig them out of ground first. After you dig them up, they become water‑dollars, worth more. Is our own value‑added tax, ha ha."

Alexei kept talking as he drove. The ground was rougher off the landing pad, but not so rough that the truck couldn't negotiate it. The wheels were three meters in diameter, as tall as a full‑grown Loonie, so they just rolled over all but the largest obstacles. They were treaded for off‑road use, which was kind of a joke when you thought about it. Everything on Luna was off‑road. Alexei steered us toward a cluster of three pods, lying side by side. That didn't look so bad, until he explained they weren't our destination. They were for water‑processing.

"There is soft‑water use and hard‑water use," Alexei returned to his lecture. "Hard‑water use is determined by laws of physics. No room to negotiate. What you get is what you see. You need twenty‑four hours of air to breathe, every day. You cannot get by on twenty‑three hours, can you? You cannot get by on twenty‑three hours and forty‑five minutes, can you? No, you need your full twenty‑four hours of air. That requires however many liters it takes to water plants that produce oxygen. Or however many liters you electrolyze. That is hard‑water use.

"Soft water use is negotiable. You can use some water more than once. You can wash yourself in water, then use it again to flush toilet, then use it a third time to water plants. One liter gets used three different ways. Is like getting three liters for one. You do not need fresh water for everything, soft water lets you make water work overtime. But even when water works super golden hours, there is a limit to how hard it can work. You cannot recycle what isn't there–and even softest water turns hard after a while.

"We have more than three million Lunatics on this globe. That means we need at least three hundred million liters of liquid water to sustain life. If there is not enough water for everyone, demand goes up and prices rise. We have to use more and more soft water, until we reach hard‑water limit. That is good day for ice miners, because that is day we all make lots of money–if we can get our water to market. Price of hard water is floor of Lunar economy. Price of soft water is ceiling. Understand, da?Or is it the other way around? Never mind. Is big room to make lots of money. As long as sun shines, is raining soup. Grab a spoon and a bowl. Don't stand there holding fork and wondering why you are hungry. This is why Lunar sharecroppers sometimes sell extra water to invisible economy. Not to leaseholder. But leaseholders have to buy at fair market price, so if sharecropper is in it only for money, is wise to be legal. But I am not in it onlyfor money."

He guided the Beagle into a docking bay and brought it to a careful halt. The front wheels bumped firmly against a bar of foam, set across the end of the bay as a shock absorber. Alexei locked the engines down, then began punching a column of buttons to his left, watching as the light next to each one flashed green. From behind and below us came the familiar clattering sounds of an automatic hatch connection. Somebody must have gotten very rich from that patent.

The docking bay was a deep trench carved into the Lunar surface. Beside it was a flattish dome with a spindly power‑tower rising above it like an old‑fashioned oil derrick. Multiple light‑pipes fed down from the lens arrays at the top and into channels all around the edges of the dome, so the dome glowed from underneath.

Alexei finished locking the vehicle down and put it in standby mode. He stopped to frown at one display. "I will have to take this machine in for service, very soon. We have put on too many miles, too many hours. Never mind. Let's get you safely put away."

He unfastened his safety harness and bounced aftward. He pulled open a floor panel, revealing a hatch set into the very bottom of the cabin. The panel next to it flashed green with confirmations. He punched the unlock, armed the connecting circuits, lowered the pressure tube, connected it, checked the connections, pressurized it, checked the pressure, confirmed it, unlocked the hatch, and popped it. He unzipped the three openings to the pressure tube.

There was a flat cabinet mounted on the ceiling; Alexei stood up, opened it, and dropped the end of a retractable plastic ladder down the hatch. Every door on Luna was a locked hatch. There hadn't been a death caused by accidental decompression in thirty years. And that one, according to Alexei, had been so horrible that every hatch on Luna was replaced in the next five; though some places off the map might still have some of those old hatches installed–probably with extra warning stickers on them.

Alexei climbed down the ladder. Even though the distance from the floor of the Beagle to the hatch on the ground was low enough to jump, he still climbed down the ladder. Both Mickey and Alexei had cautioned us– more than once–that more bones had been broken by Terran overconfidence than any other particular brand of stupidity. It was what Alexei called "the Superman mistake." Just because you can jump that high doesn't mean you can land safely.

The pressure tube was like every other one we'd seen, an extendable plastic column. The ladder went down the center of it. At the bottom was the outer hatch of whatever airlock we were dropping down into. We pulled up the plastic ladder so Alexei could rezip the three zippers at the top of the pressure tube; then he unzipped the three zippers at the bottom. He worked the controls on the lower pressure hatch, popped it, stuck his head in, and took a deep breath. He flashed us a thumbs‑up signal and we unzipped the top three zippers and lowered the ladder again, so we could climb down through the pressure tube. A week ago, I would have asked, is all this checking necessary? Now I knew enough not to bother asking.

As I climbed down, I noticed that the pressure tube was made of the same stuff as the inflatable, maybe a little thicker; it unnerved me. I preferred solid walls between me and vacuum. Bobby climbed down after me, the monkey riding on his back.

Alexei helped each of us down through the next set of hatches. "Ladder is strong, but it might be slippery from condensation. Please use feet here," he said. We lowered ourselves down into Krislov's Fortress of Solitude–into a surprisingly warm and humid atmosphere. Once out of the inner airlock, we were on a room‑sized shelf, overlooking a wider, deeper space. The walls were rock, but the floor was the inevitable polycarbonate mesh decking.

I peered over the railing, down into a rocky shaft. It looked about ten meters across and thirty meters deep. The walls were sparkly gray and very shiny; light pipes snaked down them and plugged into the rock in haphazard fashion. Catwalks and ladders wound up and down everywhere. Platforms hung from the walls at odd intervals all the way down. Everything was suffused with indistinct illumination, the seepage from the light‑pipes.

The air had a wet smell, like a shower room just after all the showers have been turned off. And it sounded wet, as if things were dripping all over. And some of the light pipes looked wet with condensation.

Alexei followed us down after securing the top hatch. "You are first people I have ever brought here," he said. "This is my very private space. Is ice mine and water factory. You will see how it works very quickly. I give you whole tour. But be careful, is slippery sometimes." He pointed us down a set of permanent ladders; most of these were anchored in the rock walls; they led all the way to the bottom of the shaft–with occasional detours across various plastic‑mesh decks, shelves, and catwalks. He was right, some of the ladders were dripping with condensation, some of the platforms were damp.

"Comets hit Luna everywhere," Alexei explained. "Millions of years. Make lots of craters. Man in the moon has bad case of pizza‑face acne or maybe even smallpox–except smallpox is extinct, except maybe for small vials here and there that nobody is supposed to know about. Never mind. Comets are made of ice, da?Sun shines on most of Luna. Ice sublimes, turns to vapor, and is gone. Everywhere but place where sun never shines. So ice is still here. North and south poles, the light comes in very low and sideways, can't get over steep crater walls to look down into shadow‑valleys. So ice doesn't melt. Dig down into crust, what do you find? Crunched comet. Lots of it. Shine light on it, what do you get? Nice hot ice. Make tea, da?"

He stopped us on a mesh shelf halfway down and pointed around at tangling bright tubes. "Light‑pipes bring hot sun down into shaft. We drill horizontal tubes, angling slightly up. I pump light in, ice melts, water drips out. I have free electricity, free light, sun does all the work. All I need to do is collect water and sell it. But here is big joke. Ha‑ha. I cannot sell my water. Is not cost‑effective." He shrugged and waved us on down to the next level.

"You see storage tanks upside? If I had a pipeline, I could sell every drop. If ground could hold pylons, I could send water out by train. But we are too far away, too far for pipes, too hard to build train. Lots of water, but not enough to justify expense. So I am sitting on a million water‑dollars that I cannot afford to sell. I have so much water here, I could start farm like Miller‑Gibson. More than I could use in a lifetime, it feels sometimes. This place was very good bad investment, da?"

We reached the bottom of the shaft–well, not the bottom, but as far down as we could go. We were on a wide mesh deck above an open‑topped tank. "Loose water drips everywhere," Alexei said. "Easier to let it just drip. Water beneath must be recycled anyway. Is not unsafe, but is fllled with minerals. Earth‑style hard water." He pried up a floor panel, so we could see below. The bottom of the shaft had been lined with plastic. Over a period of time it had fllled with water, turning it into a huge indoor pool.

" Da,you can go swimming if you want," Alexei said. "Water is warm enough. Water is good for storing heat. Keeps shaft warm, helps more water melt. Everything stays warm and toasty. Heat from sun is cumulative." He pointed to the side of the pool. "There is ladder to get out. And diving shelf too. But be very careful diving. You can go very deep in water and not notice how deep because you will not feel same water pressure until you go six times as deep. You can go too far down and not have enough air to get back up. Here is question for you to ponder. Will it be harder or easier to swim in Lunar gee? Will it be harder or easier to float on top of water?"

I frowned in thought. Before I could answer, Douglas said, "It shouldn't make any difference, should it? The relative densities are the same."

"Very good," said Alexei. "You might survive. Some terries make Superman mistake in water too. Come with me, I show you sleeping quarters. Are you tired? No? Do you want a real bath? We have hot showers too, even a steam room. Is no shortage of water here, hot or cold." He grinned at us. "You feel this is wasteful, da?.All this water, and it cannot be used by anyone else? I admit it, I am water hoarder. Not as bad as some though. Some folks have enough water to run fishery. Trout, catfish, shrimp, lobsters, all very big, very tasty. But I am not water hoarder by choice. The problem is always cost of shipping to market. I make more than enough to live, but not enough to sell profitably. This house will never pay for self."

Alexei led us over to one wall where a cluster of partitions had been set up to define specific areas. A plastic canopy hung over everything to keep water from dripping down into the living spaces. "Here is room for Charles and Bobby. Here is place for Mickey and Douglas. Is clean clothes for everyone, as soon as we unpack Beagle. Over here is shower. Take as long as you want. Is only luxury we have. And over here is table for eating and kitchen for cooking. I have small farm here too. You will find fresh vegetables for salad. LunaFarm meals in fridge. You will be very comfortable. Mickey, here is library, many books, and untraceable link to network. You can make phone calls, send e‑mail, buy videos, whatever. You will be very comfortable."

"It sounds like you're leaving us here," said Mickey. He glanced sideways to Douglas. Alexei didn't notice it.

" Da,"he said. "I must run errands. You will be safe here. I will not be gone too long. Only two or three days. I have to fill Beagle with water, I will take him off to invisible farm where they will service him in exchange for water. Everything from new food in fridge to new Palmer tubes on chassis. And in return, I will pump fresh water into invisible economy. Every little drip drip drip counterbalances Lunar Authority."

Douglas had a thoughtful frown on his face. "You're a subversive, aren't you?"

" Da!"said Alexei excitedly. "You have figured it out. Good for you, Douglas Dingillian. I am Free Luna Libertarian. The rights of the free market are the only rights. Everybody benefits from free market. Where the market isn't free, is the job of subversives to make it free for all."

Mickey looked amused, as if he already knew this. Douglas had a sour expression; he didn't want to get into this argument. Unfortunately, he'd already pushed the on button, and Alexei didn't have an off button.

"Do you know there are no taxes on Luna? Sounds good, eh? But instead of taxes, we have user fees on currency. You put dollar in bank, Lunar Authority takes half penny. You are paying guarantee for security of legal tender. You take dollar out of bank, Lunar Authority takes another half‑penny. Most of time, you don't notice. But every transaction of dollars, you pay a little slice to government.

"No law requires you to use Luna Dollars, but Luna Dollars are primary medium of exchange, each one supposedly backed by one liter of clean water–but Luna Reserve adjusts money supply up of down to thwart free market. Is really just price control so Lunar Authority can provide guarantee of stable currency. I say it is chicken and egg argument. They adjust currency to justify charging fee. Then they charge fee so they can justify manipulating currency. This makes it harder for freelancers to make profit, except by going invisible and selling in the wet market.

"Is very complex to explain, is very simple in practice. Sometimes users have lots and lots of dollars to transfer, and do not want to pay fee, or they do not want the transaction logged–then what? Then they put money in invisible bank, move money through invisible economy. How? Pump it as water. Money arrives where it needs to be without losing anything to friction. Lunar Authority does not get to sand extra zeroes off end. We guarantee our own value. Is very hard to inflate water. In fact, it used to be that water was the only barter system in invisible economy–at least, until we figure out how to transfer dollars without government fingers helping to count."

"How'd you do that?" Mickey asked, and I had a feeling it wasn't just casual curiosity.

"Is all done with intelligence engines," Alexei said, as if that were explanation enough. If you have one, you can be a bank or any other kind of corporation. Or even a government. Mikhail,pay attention here–it doesn't matter how many stupid processors you put into render farm; you still need intelligence core. That needs quantum chips. If you have that, you can make money jump out of here and into there, without passing through intervening space. At least, that is how it is explained to me."

"A shower sure sounds good," I suggested, hoping to derail this particular conversation.

Mickey looked annoyed; I guess he wanted to hear the rest. But Alexei's hyperactive mind had already leapt on to the next thought. He was already pulling back a plastic divider. "Is good question, Charles. Over here is drying area, when you get out of shower. Is heat pump, like sauna. And you can stand under sunlight here. But do not stand too long. You will get badly sunburned." He pointed at my borrowed hair. "Be careful with wig, please. In case you might need it again. Or maybe you will want to wear it again just because it makes you look so pretty. Don't look to me like that, the nights are two weeks long here. Some Loonies like to play dress up, phone friends, play games. Now we must hurry and unload Mr. Beagle so I can take care of errands."

HIT THE SHOWERS

Alexei didn't leave immediately. He still had several hours more talking to do before taking his tongue in for its one‑hundred‑thousand‑kilometer checkup. Fortunately, he didn't need to do it with us. He headed off to a space above the living quarters that was partitioned as an office; it had a ceiling and angled windows overlooking the living area. There he started making phone calls. Through the glass we could see him gesticulating wildly and hollering at his unseen victims. Occasionally, we could hear wild Russian phrases that defied translation, although at one point, it seemed as if Alexei was very upset about a lot of chyortand gohvno.He stamped back and forth through the office, waving his arms and shrieking in fury.

It was like when we were on Geostationary and he was talking on the phone to people all over everywhere, making all kinds of business arrangements. He said he'd made a lot of money off the information Mickey had given him–but for a rich man, he sure didn't act very rich. He acted like the guy who ran the comic‑book store in El Paso. Like every comic was a million‑dollar deal. Well, some of them were–like Mad#5–but not everyone.

So just what was Alexei screaming about? And to who?

Hell, if I had an ice mine on the moon and a rolling Beagle‑truck, I wouldn't worry about anything. I'd hang speakers all over the shaft and play Dvorak's Symphony #9 "From the New World"as loud as I could. Dad had recorded it with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra once. I'd always liked that recording, it was one of my favorites. That, and his recordings of Beethoven's nine symphonies. Dad had used the Bаrenreiter edition of the score, and period instruments tuned to the traditional A at 415 hertz, not 440 as was done later on. And he'd accelerated both the tempo and the dynamic range of the orchestra. I liked Dad's interpretation–and not just because it was Dad–but because he made the music frisky and energetic, as well as thoughtful and elegant. He brought grace and dignity to the third movement of the Ninth, playfulness and spirit to the first movement of the Fourth.

The recordings had sold very well and Dad was invited to conduct all over the country. Newsleakeven called his set "the definitive Beethoven." I was very proud of him. So was Mom. Things were going well for us. And then Mom got pregnant with Stinky and everything changed. Mom and Dad started arguing over his career and all his traveling and his responsibilities–and then one night Dad got so angry, he asked her if the baby was even his–

And after that, it was never the same again. Some things can't be fixed.

And that only made me wonder all the more about Alexei. There was something very strange about the way he was super‑polite to us, and then turned raging‑belligerent to invisible people on the other end of the phone. What he was shouting looked an awful lot like the kind of stuff that couldn't be fixed–that the people on the other end wouldn't forgive.

So who was he yelling and screaming at–and why did they put up with it? What kind of relationship was it that they couldn't each go their separate way? Or was this the way Loonies behaved? Polite always in person, angry only when they couldn't be touched?

It didn't seem right to me. There was a lot that puzzled and annoyed and frustrated me about everything–and after Mom and Dad declared war on each other, I started speaking up too. I mean, why not? If everybody else was going to say what was wrong, I wanted to be heard too.

Except it doesn't matter how loud you complain, nobody listens–and nobody cares whether your complaint gets addressed or not. It's not theirproblem. Everybody only cares about their own problems, no one else's. A complaint is about as useful as a morning‑after contraceptive pill for men.

Dad used to say that the only way to get anyone else involved in solving yourproblem is to make it theirproblem. But that didn't always work either–if their way of solving problems was to blame them on someone else. Like Mom and Dad always did.

But even though it didn't really work, speaking up was still better than keeping silent. Because if you're silent, they think you're agreeing. When you complain, when you speak up, when you argue, when you fight back–at least the blood on your hands isn't all your own.

Watching Alexei in his booth … it was like watching Mom and Dad.

'Chigger?"

"Huh?"

"Showers? Remember?"

"Oh, yeah. Right. Sorry. I was thinking."

"That's a nasty habit to get into," said Douglas. "You should only do it in private, and make sure you wash your hands afterward."

"I said thinking!"

"I heard you–"

I pulled off the wig, shrugged out of the dress, peeled out of the slip and panties. I felt weird doing it, like I wasn't just changing clothes as much as changing from one life into another. And Alexei had been right about the luxury of clean underwear.

The showers were wonderfully hot. Clouds of steam rose around us. It was delicious. This was the first real scrubbing we'd had since we'd left Earth over a week ago. Since before we took the elevator up the Line, since before the SuperTrain. Our last bath was at the motel in Mexico, after the night that Stinky scared himself by almost drowning in the Gulf of Baja. But even that shower hadn't been all that great. The water had been brown and there wasn't much pressure; it had smelled bad and felt worse. We ended up feeling dirtier than when we'd started.

This was better, much better, almost perfect. The water fell lazily around us in great fat drops, splattering everywhere in slow‑motion bursts. It rolled slowly down our faces, down our chests and legs. It dripped like oil off our fingers and our noses and our dicks. Stinky laughed and pointed. Mickey held up his hand and angled a water spray so it arced high and slow across the shower space and splashed across Bobby's chest and face. Bobby yelped, but it didn't take him long to figure out how to splash back–and in no time at all, we were all aiming our respective torrents at each other, laughing wildly in a silly hysterical naked water fight. Everyone got doused in turn. Douglas and Mickey ganged up on me, then Bobby and I and Douglas plastered Mickey. And then Mickey and I and Bobby aimed everything at Douglas. We were making and breaking momentary alliances, one after the other, none of us were safe from betrayal. As soon as someone had been thoroughly splashed, we all turned on his most vigorous attacker and he became the new target of opportunity.

Finally, still laughing, the water fight ebbed. Even Bobby hollered enough. Then we soaped up slowly, one more time. Our skins were red with heat, shiny with water, and slippery with lather. And for a moment, we just stood and grinned and caught our breaths. We were safe on Luna, Douglas and Bobby and me. And Mickey. It was a truly happy moment for each of us.

"We must have used a lot of water," I said, just to have something to say.

"We didn't use it up," said Mickey. "It just goes round and round."

Douglas was soaping his head. He said thoughtfully, "This shaft looks like it makes a lot of water, doesn't it, Mickey? I can't see why the corporation would abandon it as not cost‑effective."

Mickey shrugged. "They would if they were deliberately trying to set up a cover operation for funneling money without paying taxes."

"Do you think that's what they did?"

"I've heard speculations. More likely, Alexei was telling the truth. This site is too far away to make shipping water cost‑effective. Gagarin is pulling enough water out of the crust, they don't need to worry about sites like this for a long time. Maybe someday the price of water will be high enough, or there'll be a settlement close by, or Alexei will go into farming and start growing his own catfish or cactus or whatever."

It sounded convincing, the way Mickey said it, but the same way I was wondering about Alexei, I was starting to wonder about Mickey too. And I was thinking about speaking up–doing the annoying brother thing–until Douglas interrupted.

"Chigger?"

"Yeah?"

"Remember that question that Judge Griffith asked you?"

"Which one–?"

"About telling your left from your right? How do you tell someone else which is which?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"You gave Judge Griffith the wrong answer."

"No, I didn't. The question isn't answerable."

"Oh, yes it is." He pointed at me. "The left one always hangs lower."

"Huh?" And then I got it. A quick look at Bobby, Mickey, and Douglas confirmed it.

I blushed and laughed at the same time. And then I splashed him, because what else could I do, so he splashed me back, and then Bobby joined in, aiming his shower spray with both hands, and then Mickey tco, and then everyone was shrieking as the water fight began again–

COUSINS

When we got out of the showers, Alexei had already left. That wasn't a surprise, he had told us he would be gone; he had a water‑meeting to go to. Actually, it wasn't just about water, it was also about nitrogen. "Water is gold, but nitrogen is silver. We are building new ammonia plant," he explained. "This means electricity. We will have to put up more solar panels. But we cannot build our own panels unless we build solar‑cell plant. But solar‑cell manufacturing plant uses as much power as small city. So we cannot make enough panels to make enough electricity to make panels because we cannot make enough panels. Is circular dilemma, da.Is hard to be invisible–we cannot buy enough electricity off the lines without someone wondering where electricity is going. So we have to use invisible electricity, of which there is not enough."

He waggled his finger at Mickey and Douglas. "You think everything on Luna arrives by magic? No, it does not. Everything is connected to everything else. Everything is built on top of everything else. Is not enough electricity to make more electricity, so is not enough electricity to make ammonia or nitrogen, so we cannot make enough gas to fill all the spaces we can make. And we can make lots of space on Luna, but even if we do, without nitrogen, we cannot make soil to grow things or gas to breathe. And problem is much more complex than I can explain here. I give you word of advice. If anyone asks you to be cousin, say no. You already have cousin in Krislov and he is crazy cousin enough for you. I go now. You take shower, I be gone when you are done. Do not go crazy from silence." He gave us all enthusiastic Russian kisses on both cheeks and pushed us toward the water. "Take as long as you want. Shower is free here, it goes round and round and never goes anywhere. More than enough. Enjoy. Least I can do is show you real Loonie household. Dos vedanya."

I didn't understand half of what he'd said. But Douglas and Mickey seemed to think it made sense. We talked about it, after our shower, while we were drying off under the heat lamps. It was that place where economics and science collided–and if you had either bad economics or bad science, you usually ended up with a disaster. Like a rebellion, a coup, a war, a collapse–

"Is that what's happening now?"

"You heard him talking about cousins, didn't you?"

I thought back. "Only a couple of times."

Mickey said, "How do you think Luna got built? Especially invisible Luna?"

I shrugged. I hadn't given it any thought.

"People do favors for each other. They form tribes. Membership in a tribe makes you a cousin. You help your cousins, they help you. Families with cousins survive better than families without. Invisible Luna has fifteen major tribes and a couple hundred minor ones. The tribes would like to see Luna independent."

"But Luna isindependent. Isn't it?"

"On paper."

"I don't understand."

"Most people don't. Follow the money. When you do that, you see that the Lunar Authority is still controlled by Earth‑based corporations."

"Oh."

"And invisible Luna wants to revoke that charter."

"So they really aresubversives."

Mickey shrugged. "I think they're playing at being subversive. They don't have the power to make a difference. Not the political power, not the electrical power, not the processing power–but they're having a great time talking about what they would do if they had the power. Just like all dreamers–"

"Processing power?" I asked, probably with a little too much innocence.

"Like an intelligence engine."

"What do they need that for?"

"Do you know how an intelligence engine works?"

"Yeah, sort of. It's like a computer with a 'do‑what‑I‑mean' button. You tell it what you want. It tells you how to make it happen."

"Right. That's close enough. Well, if invisible Luna had a lethetic intelligence engine, it could tell them six ways how to get the electricity they need and a dozen more ways to get the political power. Intelligence engines are great equalizers. That's why some people think they're destabilizing influences and others think they should be mass‑produced."

Now Douglas jumped into the discussion. "Some people think that the latest generation of lethetic engines have demonstrated true self‑awareness. And that raises a whole bunch of questions about everything–what's the nature of sentience? Can machines have souls? Do they come from God? Or some other source of soulness?And if they are truly self‑aware, then you can't buy and sell them, can you? And you can't mass‑produce them either, because that's … I don't know, what? Do they get to vote? Will they outthink us? Outvote us? If they're smarter than us, are they going to steal our world out from under us? Or what?"

"Yep," agreed Mickey, "And that complicates the issue even more. If they are self‑aware, what do the intelligence engines think about this? Where do they want to be?"

There was something about the way he said it. I looked up, and he was looking straight at me. Did he know? Did he suspect? How could he not?

"Hey!" shouted Stinky suddenly. "Where's my monkey?! I can't find my monkey! I left it sitting right here on this bench, waiting for me when we got into the showers, and now it's gone!"

"Are you sure you left it there?" Douglas asked. "Maybe you left it on your bed?"

"No, I left it right there–I remember! I told it to wait for me."

"Alexei!" Mickey called. "Are you still here? Alexei?" Still naked, he padded over to a nearby console and punched some buttons. "No, he's gone. He and Mr. Beagle left thirty minutes ago."

"Are you saying he took the monkey–?" Douglas whispered to Mickey.

But not soft enough. Stinky heard it anyway. "He stole my monkey! Alexei stole my monkey! I want it back!" He started shrieking and crying. It wasn't fair. He'd already lost everything else–his home, his mom, his dad. Now he'd lost the only toy he had left. I felt like shit.

FIRE AND ICE

When Douglas tried to comfort Stinky, I watched Mickey. He was ashen‑faced. He was taking this more serious than anyone.

Still naked, he climbed up to Alexei's office and began making phone calls. In private. That was interesting. At least he didn't scream and shout like Alexei did. I wondered if Alexei was monitoring everything we did here. Sure, why not? Privacy had died a long time ago. We'd learned that in school. The only defense anyone had against snoopers was not to care–live every moment as if everyone is watching. The only privacy left is inside your head.

While Mickey was upstairs on the phone, Douglas tucked Stinky into bed, promising we'd find his monkey no matter what. Then I gave Stinky a hug and told him his monkey was safe and not to worry. And then Douglas pulled me out of there and told me not to get Stinky's hopes up. If Alexei had stolen the monkey, and it sure looked like he had, then we'd probably never see it again, and we had a bigger problem anyway. If Alexei had the monkey now, he didn't need us anymore, and if he was too big a coward to terminate us himself, then he was probably sending someone else to do it. And then I told him that the monkey wasn't the problem, it was Mickey. Didn't it strike him as very oddthat Mickey was taking the disappearance of the monkey so hard? And why was Mickey making so many emergency phone calls now?And I'm really sorry to have to say this, Douglas, especially because I think he's nice too, I really do, but I think that Mickey knows a lot more than he's saying.

And then Douglas started to tell me that my imagination and my paranoia were dancing a dangerous duet, and he put on the Daddy voice and got all serious and comforting, and told me how we'd been through a lot and it was normal to worry about all kinds of impossible stuff, but I should really leave this to the grown‑ups to handle–and that's when I stopped him again and reminded him of the promise he'd made to me back on the cargo pod, that he'd never do this again, never again shut me out of a decision, no matter how silly I might sound at the time. And he got it and shut up and gulped an apology, and said, "You're right, I was acting like Dad, wasn't I?" Which was so insightful that I actually complimented him. I gave him a little punch on the arm and said, "That's good, my weird older brother. We might make you into a human being yet." And then we both laughed a little, even though we were in a serious mess. At least, we were going to handle it like brothers.

So we talked about it for a bit, and I told him everything I knew–well, almost everything; there was one piece of information I left out–but I told him everything else I'd seen and thought about.

And then I added one more thing, which hurt me to say more than anything else I'd ever said in my life–even more than asking for a divorce from Mom and Dad. "I don't want to say this, Douglas, because I don't ever want to hurt you. And I've never seen you so happy in your life as you've been since you met Mickey. But I have to say it and you have to think about it. You only met Mickey what?–a week ago? Didn't you ever stop to ask, who is he really? And what does he see in you? I mean, I love you, you're my brother, I don't have a choice. But he's not your brother, he does have a choice, so you have to ask, why?I can see why you like him. He's good‑looking and he's nice and he's smart–but whydoes he like you? I don't mean to say you're ugly, Douglas, you're not–but we're not going to see your picture on the cover of PrettyBoyeither. And it's not that you're not nice, you are in a geeky sort of way, but you're not nice in that way that makes people want to hang out with you. And you're smarter than anybody else I've ever met in the whole world, but it's not street smarts like Mickey has; it's book smarts, which is exciting only to other people who are book‑smart and absolutely boring to everybody else. The same way I am with my music. Remember the time I tried to explain to you that the blues were called that because of the blue note, the flatted fifth that gave them their special sound? And you thought that was the most boring thing you'd ever heard? Well, that's what you're like when you start talking economic bonding among the polycorporates and crap like like that. So you gotta ask yourself, Douglas, just why is Mickey hanging out with us? What does he want?"

And Douglas didn't answer right away, he just sat down on theedge of the inflatable bed and hung his head down and stared at his bare feet, and as bad as I'd felt when Stinky started crying for his missing monkey, I felt a thousand times worse now. The tears were silently rolling down Douglas's cheeks and falling lazily to the floor. He didn't sob. He just let the water flow.

He didn't get angry, he didn't hit me–I wish he would have taken a swing, I certainly deserved it–but he didn't even argue. That's what hurt the most–that he saw the truth in what I was saying here. And finally, after a long moment, he said, "I've been asking myself that question from the very beginning, Charles. Why am I so lucky? What did I do right? And then after we found out what was going on–or at least, what we thought was going on–yeah, I started thinking the same things you did. And it always comes back to the same question. What does he see in me? And I can't see anything he could see in me except the monkey–so yeah, Charles, maybe you're right and maybe he's using us, just like Alexei. Only I thought we'd be smart and use him to get off the planet and off to a colony, and at least we'd get that far. Only we're playing with the big kids here, aren't we–?"

It was time to undo some of the damage. As much as could be undone.

"Douglas–" I reached over and put my hand on his shoulder. "I can think of a lot of reasons why someone would care about you. And so can you. All you gotta do is be who you really are–"

Except when I said it, it sounded really stupid.

"I'm such a jerk," he said. He sounded defeated.

"No, you're not."

"I felt so lucky.I wanted to believe so badly, I really did–I thought I was smart enough to know better, but I wasn't. I'm just as stupid as everyone else."

"Then you're normal."

He almost smiled. He put his hand on mine. "Thanks for sticking by me, Charles."

"You're my brother. I have to."

"Yeah. That's the same thing I said, when I grabbed your hand back at Barringer Meteor crater. You're my brother. I have to."

Mickey came back then, still naked–we all were–in the excitement, we'd forgotten about clothes. "What's going on, fellas?" He looked from one to the other of us. From the expression on his face, he looked as if he already knew.

Douglas stood up and crossed to the rack that served as a closet. He grabbed a jumpsuit for himself, tossed one to Mickey, found a smaller one for me.

Mickey held the jumpsuit in his hands, but made no move to put it on. He looked across to Douglas, "What's going on, Douglas?"

"Who do you work for, Mickey?" Douglas's voice was very cold.

Mickey let out the breath he was holding. He sagged where he stood. He looked sad and deflated. "I was hoping I'd have more time before you figured it out. I was hoping–"

" Who do you work for, Mickey?"

"I was really starting to care and I was hoping–"

" Mickey. Just answer the question."

He shut up. He took a breath. He met our eyes. "Not all the tribes are Lunatics. There are cousins' clubs in the asteroids, on Mars, at the Lagrange colonies. On the Line. Some of the tribes are multiplanetary."

"Yeah? And which one do you work for?"

"Does it matter? Do you really care?" Mickey started pulling on the jumpsuit. "You feel betrayed. And I don't blame you. And there really isn't anything I can say to you that will make you feel different. Alexei used you; you figured that out, both of you, real fast. And everybody else tried to use you too–everyone on the Line–so, I figured it was only a matter of time until you figured out that my hands aren't all that clean either. But before you give your speech, and I know you will, let me remind you that you were using everyone else too. Everyone uses everyone. You were using Alexei and me to get to the colonies. Don't deny it, Douglas. So whatever else is going on between us, there isn't any moral superiority on either side. We used each other. You used me and I used you–we're equally wrong." He straightened his collar and pulled his zipper up. "I know this doesn't excuse anything at all, but I really did care about you the whole time. And I know you cared about me too."

Douglas pulled his own zipper up. "Between you and Chigger," he said, "you guys don't leave me a lot to say. You guys had it all figured out, didn't you? Only one thing you forgot–all this damn logic and believing and caring and all this other crap everybody's been throwing back and forth– nobody ever stops to realize how much they're hurting everybody else in the process!"

Both Mickey and I started to make noises of comfort, but Douglas held up both his hands, and said in the loudest voice I'd ever heard him use, "NO! Enough is enough. Both of you shut up already! Haven't you done enough damage for one day?!"

And that's when Stinky came in, and said, "Don't cry, Douglas, I still love you." Which was probably the one thing he could have said which would have made both Mickey and me want to cry.

Douglas scooped him up in his arms and held him tightly, and I realized that as all alone as Stinky had felt without his monkey, as all alone as I had felt these past few days, Douglas was the one who was most alone now–because everything he had wanted and believed in was forever broken. He sat down on the edge of the bed and held Stinky as tight as he could, rocking him gently. The two of them sobbed quietly together, each inside his separate loss, each inside his own particular hurt. I sat down on one side of them and Mickey sat down on the other and we all took turns crying in each other's arms about how shitty we'd all been. It didn't change anything between us, but at least it kept us from killing each other.

DOWN THE TUBES

After a while, Mickey went and got us some damp towels and we all wiped our faces clean and looked at each other and giggled in embarrassment a little bit. Maybe we'd all overreacted. Maybe it was the fear and the anger and the exhaustion all coming out at the same time. Maybe we had to test ourselves.

And maybe we were just catching our breath for the second round.

Mickey spoke first. "Look, you don't have to trust me anymore. But the way I see it, if Alexei's got the monkey now, then he doesn't need us anymore. And we're just sitting here waiting for the executioner to arrive. I think we need to get out of here."

"Oh–?" said Douglas. "How?"

Mickey laughed. "Come look at what I found." He led us up to Alexei's office and punched up a Lunar map on the big display. "This is a satellite photo," he said. "And this overlay shows where all the known settlements are. And thisoverlay shows where all the suspected settlements are. And THISoverlay shows the RF cousins–"

"RF?"

"Rock Father. Alexei's tribe."

"Where did you get all this information?" I asked.

"Alexei isn't the only one with a cousin," Mickey reminded us. "Al‑exei knows who my cousins are, and I know who his cousins are. We've cooperated enough times in the past–but probably never again, so it doesn't matter. Anyway, look at this map. Where are we? Where's Brickner 43‑AX92?"

Douglas and I took a moment to study the display, searching the labels of the different stations. Finally, we both gave up. "Where is it?"

"There is no Brickner 43‑AX92. That's a fictitious location. All the Brickner stations are false." He looked up at the ceiling and shouted. "Do you think you were fooling us, Alexei? We knew it all the time." Back to us, he said, "Just in case he's listening."

"Do you think he is?"

"If he's not on the phone, talking someone's ear off."

"So are we on the map or not?" I asked, still searching the display.

"Oh, we're here," Mickey rapped the image on the wall. "We're just not where Alexei said. Do you know why there are so many fictitious people and stations on the moon? The invisibles do that; it's the haystack in which they're hiding. False data. The more inaccuracies they can generate, the better. It drives even the intelligence engines crazy, so I'm told."

"So where are we?" Douglas asked.

"I'll show you. I'll show Alexei too. Here–look, here's Gagarin. Right here." He pointed. "And over here, this is the train line. This is Wonderland Jumble, and the line goes right straight across here–see this spot here? Wait, I'll enlarge it. See that? That's Route 66. See where it crosses the train line? Right there at Borgo Pass–and if you follow the road around here and here and here, you come to this Y‑shaped junction here that Alexei called his turnoff. Now, do you remember the zigzag flight path we took? It sort of looked like we were heading over here toward the left, remember? That was what Alexei wanted us to think. And he kept the sun bouncing around in front of us, so we wouldn't be able to look and see where we were going. All that tacking back and forth, you thought we were going northeast, didn't you? The truth is, we went southeast first and then northeast and then finally due east, and when you take out all the zigs and zags, we mostly went east. And we came down here!This is where we are."

Douglas and I both peered close. Douglas said it first. "We're at Gagarin!"

"Not quite. It's just over the hill. We're walking distance."

"And we didn't see it because the sun was in our eyes!"

Douglas grinned. "Edgar Allan Poe's 'Purloined Letter.' The safest place to hide something is in plain sight. Only what was Alexei hiding–us or Gagarin?"

"Both," said Mickey. "Listen–Charles, Douglas? Can you trust me for just a little while longer. I mean, I can get us out of here. I can get you to safety. And to a colony bid. After that, if you never want to see me again, I'll understand that too–what do you say?"

Douglas looked to me. I could see he wanted me to say yes. "Chigger?"

"It's a fair deal. If he'll live up to it."Maybe I was still being too suspicious, but somebody had to be.

"I don't want to hurt you any more," Mickey said to us, but mostly to Douglas. "I'll keep my word."

"All right." Douglas offered his hands for a Lunar handshake. "Let's do it."

Mickey grabbed both of Douglas's hands in both of his and the two of them looked at each other and shook hands. And then I put my hands on top of theirs and Stinky put his hands on top of mine, and we all shook together.

And then we laughed and broke apart and Mickey snapped immediately into problem‑solving mode. "All right, girls. Let's find our bubble suits. According to the map, there's a local road. See? It's less than a kilometer. It's all in shadow. We can be there in an hour. Grab some food and water, extra air tanks just in case. Reflective blankets. Headsets. Everything we had from the pod. I think Alexei packed them all in the blue case. Didn't we leave that one up by the hatch?"

"Uh, Mickey–" I said softly.

He glanced to me.

I gestured toward the ceiling. What if he's listening?

"Let him listen," he said, loudly enough for any hidden microphones to hear. "We'll be safe at Gagarin long before he can catch up with us."

We found the bubble suits and other supplies exactly where Mickey had said. We unpacked them quickly, but Douglas held his up, frowning. "These suits have expired, Mickey. They're only good for one wearing or six hours, whichever comes first. And we went beyond both of those limits."

Mickey snapped back, "I know what those suits are tested to, Douglas. Some of them have lasted as long as ten wearings and over six hundred hours. All we need is thirty minutes, maybe less. Do you have a better idea?"

He didn't. We started dressing ourselves for a trip across the surface. I was already dreading this, but we were too busy going through the separate drills of zipping and unzipping, checking air and water supplies, tightening the Velcro straps on the jumpsuit shoes, grabbing the inflatable airlock, all that stuff.

But we didn't actually put on the bubble suits themselves until we were standing under the exit hatch. Mickey stood beneath it, happily punching at the controls, occasionally swearing, canceling things out, and going back to do it again.

This wasn't the same airlock we'd entered through. This was a larger one, with multiple hatches. There was one hatch overhead and at least half a dozen more spaced around the walls. The hatch in the floor led back down to the living quarters.

"All right," Mickey announced. "I've got it. Everybody get your suits on. Douglas, seal that floor hatch–"

"Wait," I said. I went over to the hatch and sang down into it, " I would dance and be merry, life would be a ding‑a‑derry, if I only had a brain ..." All three of them stared at me, as if I'd suddenly gone crazy.

"Chigger, what the hell are you doing?" He made as if to close the hatch.

"Wait, dammit!"

"We don't have time–"

I sang down into the hatch again. This time louder. "I would dance and be merry, life would be a ding‑a‑derry–" That was as far as I got. The monkey came flying up out of the hatch like something out of an animated cartoon.

"What the hell–?" That was Mickey.

"My monkey!" Bobby shrieked. The monkey flew into his arms and hugged him excitedly. They still looked like long‑lost twins.

"Chigger–?" Douglas grabbed my arm.

"I did it, yes. I told the monkey to hide and stay hidden and not come out until I called it. So Alexei wouldn't get it. Or anyone else–"

Douglas gave me a look of exasperation and rage. He turned and dogged the hatch. His face was working furiously, while he tried to think of what to say. Finally, he turned around. "Your little brother hasn't stopped crying–"

"I know, and I feel like a shit, okay?! I'm sorry, Bobby! I didn't do it to hurt you. I told the monkey to hide so no one could steal him–"

"Everybody stop arguing!" Mickey shouted. "We've gotta go!" He armed the airlock. "Get into your suits now."

Bobby gave the monkey one more hug, then bounced onto Douglas's back, the monkey jumped onto mine. We pulled on our suits quickly and zipped ourselves in.

"You haven't heard the end of this, Chigger!" Douglas called across to me. "You told me you wanted me to be honest with you–and you didn't tell me the truth about the monkey?!"

"I didn't want Mickey to know. I wanted to tell you first."

"Yeah, you've always got an excuse."

"Shut up, Douglas! Chigger did good. We're still alive right now because Alexei couldn't find the monkey!"

"He should have told me!"

"I was going to–I didn't get a chance."

"It's all right, we've got it back now," said Bobby, trying ineffectively to be a peacemaker.

"Shut up, all of you! I can't concentrate!" And as he said that, the hatch opposite us popped open. Not the hatch above! "Go!" Mickey shouted, pushing me toward it. "Come on!"

"Huh?" But I was already moving.

"You're not the only one who can keep a secret. Let's go, Douglas!"

I bounced through into a horizontal tube that stretched ahead forever. It was the same stuff as the inflatable pressure tubes that linked one vehicle to another–a spiral coil with plastic walls; you extended it wherever you wanted it to go–only this one was longer. It stretched away like a tunnel. It had a collapsible mesh deck for a floor, with several pipes and tubes running along underneath it. Outside the plastic, I could sense more than see that the tube was half‑buried in Lunar dust. Farther out, lay the dim outlines of a shadowy horizon.

"How far does this go?" I called back.

Mickey was sealing the hatch behind us. "At least a kilometer. I hope. Go as fast as you can, Chigger. We're right behind you."

"But this isn't the road!"

"I know it. But maybe Alexei won't. I cut all his visual monitors to the airlock. At least, I think I did. So he's going to think we took the road."

"But how'd you know this tube was here?"

"Call it a lucky guess. But I know Alexei better than you. Keep bouncing." I didn't look back, I could hear them pounding behind me. "See, you wouldn't have noticed it, Chigger. You're a terrie. Sorry, no offense. But I knew that the Brickner station wasn't working the minute we climbed down into it. It wasn't hot enough!You can't melt Lunar ice without heat, and you've got to pump a lot of heat into the ground to get the ice to melt. And it wasn't hot enough! So where did all that water come from then?"

"It was here from before–? When the station was working?" I offered.

"Maybe. But remember, I know Alexei better than you!Why do you think I asked himto smuggle you up the Line? Why do you think I trusted him to smuggle us to Luna? Because Alexei Krislov is a brilliant scoundrel. Brickner station is a double‑decoy. Yeah, he sells a little bit of water back to Gagarin. That's his cover–look down, you see those pipes under the deck? What do think is in them? Which way do you think it's flowing?"

I was too busy bouncing to focus, and I didn't want to stop to look. "Um, the green one is breathable air?" I guessed. "The blue one is water?"

"And the orange one? What do you think that is?

"That's ammonia," said Douglas. "Remember what Alexei said about nitrogen and ammonia? You need nitrogen to make breathable gas. And for fertilizer. You need ammonia for refrigeration."

"Right," said Mickey. "The key to Lunar technology isn't water. It's nitrogen. That's what everybody needs the most. Even more than water and electricity. Alexei isn't selling any of this! He's stealing it!Brickner isn't a water‑production plant; it's a holding tank for water skimmed off Gagarin. And all the stuff in the other tanks as well. There were too many. There's too muchstorage there."

We bounced a little farther down the tube, while I thought about that. The pipes below our feet weren't that thick. I guessed they didn't need to be.

"Doesn't Gagarin know?" Douglas asked. "Can't they tell?"

"Maybe Alexei is only siphoning off a few liters a day. With the number of people coming and going into Gagarin Station, with the scale of industrial processes they've got going, they could write it off as loss due to normal usage. But if he's siphoning off any more than that, then someone at Gagarin is covering it up. That's my guess, that this is how legal resources are being funneled to the tribes of invisible Luna. I wonder if they're doing the same with electricity. You heard him talking about factories and what they needed. Dammit. We knew they were moving ahead. We didn't realize this–" And then he trailed off into a string of muttered curses.

We concentrated on bouncing down the tube. We couldn't see very far ahead from any given point, because the tube snaked and wound its way over the Lunar terrain, up and down, around and over. Every so often we passed a joint where two sections of tube had been sealed together. Several times we had to pass through manually operated airlocks. We zipped our way through.

"Bobby? Did you do something?" That was Douglas. They were in the same bubble suit again.

"I didn't do anything."

"What are you guys talking abouti' Mickey asked.

"It smells like piss in here," said Bobby. "I didn't do it!"

"How bad?" asked Mickey. His voice sounded strange.

"Not too bad," Douglas said. And then he got it. "Oh."

"Would somebody explain it to me?" I asked.

"Ammonia," Mickey said.

"What's ammonia?" Bobby asked.

"It's good for cleaning your glasses," I said.

"I don't wear glasses," Bobby said.

"Then don't worry~about it."

"Charles, please–" That was Mickey. "I'm trying to figure out how far we've come. I don't want to turn back."

"I think we can make it," Douglas said. "I'll turn up my oxygen."

"That'll help–a little bit." He added, "Alexei probably keeps the tube pressurized with ammonia to keep folks from wandering through it casually. Besides, it's another useful storage area. Do the math. A kilometer‑long tube, nine meters in diameter, pressurized to two‑thirds sea level, I'd guess. Can you figure it out, Douglas?"

He was trying to distract Douglas, I was sure. And maybe me too. I was trying to figure out if there was anything else we could do. "Monkey, if you've got any ideas, now's the time to talk–" It didn't respond.

"It really stinks in here!" wailed Bobby. "I don't like this!"

"How are your eyes?" Mickey asked.

"Watering–badly." Douglas coughed suddenly. Bobby was coughing even worse. The leak must have expanded–

–and then I got it! "The inflatable! The portable airlock!"I could barely get the words out fast enough. Even as I stumbled to get the words out, Mickey was already pulling it from his pack! I bounced back to him and together, we pushed Douglas and Stinky through the first zippered entrance. We zipped it behind them, unzipped the next, pushed them through, zipped it behind them–

Douglas was already turning up the oxygen on his tank. Mickey pushed the gloves into the inflatable, and without worrying about proper procedures unzipped all three of the zippers on Douglas's bubble suit. Douglas and Bobby lay on the floor of the inflatable, coughing and choking, their eyes streaming. Douglas held the breather tube in front of Bobby's nose, then his own, then back to Bobby. It probably still smelled of ammonia in there, but at least they had a chance now.

"Come on, Charles, I can't do this alone. I need your help." He rolled Bobby onto Douglas, and picked up Douglas by the head. I picked up Douglas by the feet and the two of us began carrying him forward. The inflatable bulged into unmanageable shapes, but we both had our hands pushed into its gloves and we held on to Douglas himself and tried to keep the bulges from dragging and scraping along the sides. We bounced through the tube as fast as we could manage. I could feel my heart pounding so hard I couldn't hear anything else.

Mickey led the way, I followed. I couldn't see past him very well, so I couldn't see if the tube sloped up or down, right or left, so I was constantly bumping and jerking, trying to keep up. Bobby and Douglas were still coughing, but Bobby was crying, and that was always a good sign. If we could just make it to the end of this tube. How far was it anyway?!

We had to stop then, while Mickey zipped us through another manual airlock. And then we pushed on again. I didn't know how much longer I could do this–I didn't care that we were in one‑sixth gee. This was exhausting, and I was reaching the limits of my endurance. "We've gotta stop soon–" I managed to gasp.

"You'd better pace yourselves." Douglas coughed. He waved the breathing tube back and forth between himself and Bobby.

"All right, all right–" Mickey brought us to a halt. We lowered Douglas and Bobby to the deck and the two of us stood there, hands on knees, panting heavily.

"Aren't we there yet? How far is it?" I asked.

"We're halfway there. More than halfway. How are you doing, Douglas?" He was already shoving another air tank through the zipper locks. The last one. This was going to be close. "Turn it all the way up. Give yourselves as much pure oxygen as you can. And try not to strike any sparks. Ammonia is flammable, you know."

"If I turn it all the way up, the inflatable will fill the tube. We'll use the breathing mask. We'll be fine."

"Douglas, look at your bubble suit. The plastic is supposed to change color around a rip or a puncture. Red or yellow, I think. If you can find the hole, there's emergency tape right there. Just pull off a strip and press it to the leak. Can you find it? Look around your feet. Turn over, maybe it's behind you. Charles and I will look. Do you see anything, Charles–?"

"I'm still looking. It's hard to see through all these layers–"

"Douglas?"

"I don't see anything either."

"Damn! Maybe it's in the foot pads or the gloves or someplace it doesn't show. All right–" He glanced up the length of the tube. "It's doable. You ready, Chigger?"

"No," but I picked up Douglas by the feet anyway.

This time, we held our panic in check. We moved fast, but we weren't running anymore. We were tired, but we weren't exhausting ourselves. And then, just to make it worse, we started up a long uphill slope. I could see the ceiling of the tube arcing away.

" Gohvno!"

It hurt, I ached, and I was beginning to imagine I could smell the ammonia piss‑smell myself. It was enough to make my eyes water. I coughed.

"Not you too!" Mickey said.

"Keep going!" I shouted.

And finally, the tube crested the hill. We passed through another manual airlock and started down the last long slope to Gagarin. And yes, I really could smell ammonia now. My suit had a leak too. But I could make it. I was certain of it. All we had to do was get to the bottom of this hill, that's all. Okay, the bottom of this hill then. If I could just hold my breath a little bit longer and not start coughing again–

–the pain in my eyes and nose and chest was impossible, and somebody was trying to force a breathing tube in my mouth. I was trying to hack out my guts and somebody was telling me to inhale. And all I wanted to do was just get Douglas and Bobby to the other end of the pipeline. And then I finished retching and the tube was shoved into my mouth, and then the next thing I knew, somebody was sitting on me and somebody else was carrying me and we were bouncing down the birth canal of hell pushing into the light, and–and then we were in an airlock or just outside of it and somebody was stripping me out of my bubble suit and turning me on my back and standing on my stomach. Oh, flaming God, even CPR was different on the moon–

ZOMBIES

I was on my side. I was in the inflatable. Stinky was sitting next to me, rocking and hugging the monkey and crying. Douglas and Mickey were outside of the inflatable–leaning over me–how had that happened? They were both in bubble suits. Douglas's had a strip of tape on it. I noticed that immediately. My eyes and lungs still burned, there was blood dripping from my nose, but the piss‑smell of ammonia was more memory than real.

We were still in the tube. Douglas waved at me. I waved back. He grinned; I wasn't sure what was happening. He picked up my feet, Mickey picked up my head; Bobby lay down on top of me, he didn't weigh enough to matter–and we were heading down the tube again. This time, I was the cargo. How had I gotten inside the inflatable? How had Douglas ended up outside again?

It hurt too much to wonder about it. I concentrated on breathing. One desperate gulp at a time. My throat felt scorched. My nose still dripped. I wiped at it futilely. My arms were too weak to move. Stinky waved a breathing tube at me.

I must have passed in and out of consciousness, because the next thing I knew, Douglas and Mickey were passing me through a hatch, and we were out of the tube inside another cargo‑pod‑shaped place. And then they were unzipping everything and pulling Stinky out and then me and I was full of questions, but I couldn't ask them because Mickey had a medikit and was wiping my face and shining a light in my eyes, telling me to watch his finger, asking me if I could talk.

I croaked something in response that sounded like "Kwaaact whaccked?"but really meant "What happened?"

"Your suit tore. We pushed you into the inflatable. I was going to go for help, but Bobby found the hole in your suit and Douglas patched it. He put it on himself and the two of us carried you out. You should have said something–"

" Waack tdiict!"

"Don't talk," Mickey ordered. "Breathe this. It's going to smell funny–" He sprayed something into my throat. It was wet and cold, but in a few seconds, my throat stopped trying to climb out of my neck, and the pain subsided into a dull ache. That left only my lungs screaming for relief. Mickey pressed something cold and hissy against my arm.

It didn't make the throbbing in my chest go away, it made me go away. I was still awake, I could even feel stuff, I just didn't care anymore. I saw Mickey turn to Bobby next and start making the same tests. Bobby was in better shape than me. So was Douglas. But he sedated them too. Douglas sat down cross‑legged next to me, with a stupid look on his face. We must have looked like three happy zombies–

And then there were some other people around us and Mickey stood up and started showing them his documents. "My name is Michael Gordon Partridge. I'm a licensed bounty hunter from the Line, and these people are my prisoners. Here's a copy of the warrant. Here's my license and my ID. They need immediate medical attention, and I need to arrange fast transport to Armstrong."

I saw Douglas look up, blinking in confusion. "Huh–?" I wasn't sure what happened next. That's when I started passing in and out of consciousness.

The next thing I knew, the room was vibrating loudly. And I was strapped down so I couldn't move. I couldn't see either. I turned my head and something wet fell away from my eyes. Douglas was lying on another cot across from me. I didn't see Stinky or the monkey, but there was another cot above me. Maybe he was on that. There was a signal I could whistle–

–but there was an oxygen mask over my face. And then someone came and put the wet pad over my eyes again. Mickey's voice. "You're going to be all right, Charles. You took a few bad gulps, but there isn't going to be any permanent damage. Douglas and Bobby are all right. So is the monkey. Everybody's here. All you have to do is relax and rest and let us get you to the hospital at Armstrong Station. We'll be there in another two hours." He leaned in close to put his lips next to my ear. "Everything is going to be all right, I promise."

I couldn't speak. I didn't try. I didn't care. I didn't have any feelings left. Later on, I might have feelings again. But if they were going to hurt, I didn't want them. I'd had enough of feelings, thankewvery‑muchnext. But I wanted him to go away. I knew he wasn't good for us anymore, even if I couldn't remember why. I tried to tell him that. I struggled against the restraints and twisted my head back and forth, trying to shake the air mask loose, so I could speak, but that didn't accomplish anything, and a minute later I felt something cold on my arm and I went away again.

This time when I came to, the room was silent and dark and I was all alone. I was still in a cargo pod. We'd spent our entire time on Luna going from one used cargo pod to another, missing sleep, missing meals, trying to breathe everything from vacuum to ammonia–

At least the air smelled clean and wet here. It smelled like flowers. Hawaiian flowers. Plumeria, I think that's what they were called. That was nice. What was even nicer was that I could smell them at all.

I couldn't open my eyes. Something moist was taped in place over them. I wondered if I'd been blinded. That was going to be a nuisance. But at least I could I still hear. The music was Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, which struck some people as plaintive and annoying, or just plain desolate. I always liked it for its thoughtful quality. It was Dad's recording, and I think I knew which one. It was the first time I ever got to see him conduct. He conducted with his eyes closed. At least it looked that way from where I was sitting. He was lost in the music. And his hands were like living creatures–he didn't use a baton; he just stroked the air and the music poured forth. He coaxed the Adagio into life and let it fill the auditorium. I don't think I took a breath for the entire ten minutes. I'd never heard anything like that before in myv'ife. I hadn't known such sounds were possible. And afterward, I kept playing it over and over again, always trying to recapture that same initial wunderstorm …

I wished I could tell him how much I loved his music. That would be nice. Somebody took my hand in his. It felt like Dad's hand. Large and warm and safely enveloping. I knew it had to be Douglas holding my hand, but it was nice to pretend it was Dad for a while.

And then Dad spoke. "I was so scared, Chigger. For a while, I thought I was going to lose you. All of you, forever. I didn't get a chance to say any of the stuff I wanted to say. And I was afraid that even if I could say it, you wouldn't want to hear it. And now that I have the chance to tell you, all I really need you to know is how important you are to me and how sorry I am everything got so screwed up. I wish I could have done better. The music–do you remember this? You were always asking to come see me conduct, and I was sure it would bore you to death, but I took you anyway, and you sat there totally entranced and captivated. You were listening to the music as deeply as anyone I've ever seen. I was so happy for you that day–because you'd discovered something all your own. And I was so glad it was something I could give to you. I remember the look in your eyes of total awe and admiration, and how proud I was to be your dad; the person who'd brought that look to your face. I wish I could have made that moment last forever." He kissed my hand and replaced it on the bed, and then he got up and went away, and the dream ended. But it was really a nice dream while it lasted.

And then I had a dream about Mom too. Her and that Sykes woman. But I didn't remember what they said. And that bothered me for a while–because it didn't seem fair for Dad to have a whole vivid dream and not Mom too. But it was kind of like Mom had stepped out of my life for a while and I guess I wasn't ready to let her back in, not even in my dreams.

That reminded me of something Douglas said once, about moms. He said that nothing gets in the way of a good fantasy like a mom. That's why most guys try to put Mom aside for a while–while they try to figure out who they are, I guess. It didn't matter anymore. We were all going to jail soon enough. If we weren't there already.

And then, one morning, I opened my eyes to the smell of hot chocolate, eggs, toast, and strawberry jam. And I sat up in bed and looked around. Except for a slightly sleepy feeling of confusion, I felt better than I had in days. I could even talk. My voice was still dusky‑scratchy like my throat was lined with cockleburs and foxtails, but I could actually make understandable words. "Hello? Is anyone there?" I was in a room that was notpart of a cargo pod. It actually had a real floor and real walls and a real ceiling. It was spooky. Everything looked soft and gentle and flowery, that's how I knew it was a hospital; it smelled like a hospital too, with the air just a little too fresh and clean.

"Oh, good, you're up. Right on schedule." The woman wore a purple‑gray dress and a thing like a pink apron over it. I guessed it was supposed to be cheery, and it wasn't too hard to look at, but I was never big on industrial cheerfulness before and as good as I felt, I wasn't ready to start now.

She was just uncovering a tray of food–that was what I'd smelled. She put it across my bed and tied a bib around my neck. "Just in case," she said. "You might still be a little weak."

"What is this place?"

"Tranquility Medical Center at Armstrong."

"How long was I out?"

"Three days. No, four. It doesn't matter. You're fine now. You'll just have to take it easy for a bit. I'll leave you alone to eat. The shower is through there. There are fresh clothes in the closet. Try not to take too long. You have to be in court in two hours–"

" Say what?"

But she was already gone.

IN COURT

Judge Cavanaugh was the largest human being I had ever seen. He looked like the Hindenburg.He was huge and round, and when he entered the room, it took a while for all of him to arrive at the same place. He moved like a human bubble suit, with all of his blubbery mass flubbering and bouncing around like an animated caricature of a fat man. In Lunar low gee, he didn't lumber, he floated.He took his seat at the bench, and all the various parts of him arrived one after the other, settling into place like latecomers at a concert.

Judge Cavanaugh took roll, made sure all his separate body sections had sorted themselves out, looked out over the room, looked to the display in front of him, rubbed his nose, and waved a go‑ahead gesture at the clerk, a skinny black woman. "Case number 40032, in the matter of Douglas, Charles, and Robert Dingillian, custody of, blah blah blah."

Custody?Again?

Judge Cavanaugh was scanning through his notes. He finally found the page he was looking for and looked out at us again. He cleared his throat. "Most court cases are a two‑body problem. A plaintiff and a defendant. Those are relatively simple to resolve. You listen to the facts, you look for a balance. Somehow you find a Lagrange point."

He looked out over the room. "But just as the laws of physics start to get complex and unmanageable when you introduce a third body to the problem, so do the laws of human beings become complex and unmanageable when there are three participants orbiting around a claim.

We have here, a seven‑body problem. Or a twelve‑body problem. Or more. I've lost count of the number of litigants who have stepped forward to lodge a claim or file a brief as a friend of the court. I know that most of you recognize that you do not have a hope in hell of winning your claim, but it hasn't stopped you from adding bodies to the problem in the hope of making it so unmanageable that it can never be resolved. I applaud your various successes in making this case a colossal nightmare. I promise to reward each and every one of you appropriately."

He smiled. For some reason, it didn't look friendly.

"Let me explain something to those of you who've just arrived here in the last few days. I know a lot of you are suddenly out of work and vaguely troubled by the fact that we don't have ambulances to chase here on Luna. And, of course, as we all know, there's nothing as dangerous as an unemployed lawyer–unless it's one who is employed. But for the record, I want to explain to you how things work here in this courtroom, and on most of Luna.

"This is a small town. There are only three million of us. And we're spread across a landmass equal to that of Earth. So we're spread pretty thin. We've only got a few major settlements. The largest still has less than a hundred thousand folks. So we run our courts with a lot less formality than you might be used to back home. That doesn't mean we take our lawyering any less seriously. It just means that we don't bother with wigs and robes and funny hats. They make us look silly and we start giggling–and that's a little disconcerting when we're sentencing someone to the nearest airlock because he refused to pay his air tax. And yes, I'm not joking.

"So we're just going to cut through a lot of the crap that you guys love so much and see if we can sort things out without using up too much oxygen. Those of you who are representing clients with money, this probably doesn't worry you–but take my word for it, it doesn't matter how much money your clients have back on Earth or on the Line. It can't buy more oxygen if there isn't any left. We want you to represent your client's claims fairly, we want to hear the facts. We do notwant a lot of extraneous noise. Nothing pisses off this court more than a low signal‑to‑noise ratio. I assume I'm making myself perfectly clear? Thank you."

He paused to note something on the pad in front of him, then said, "So, let's get to it. This hearing is projected to cost the Lunar Authority fifty thousand water‑dollars. Therefore, the court chooses to exercise local privilege and will assess a nonrefundable processing fee of five thousand liters of water or ten thousand liters of nitrogen on all claimants in this matter to cover the judicial expenses. Anyone choosing to withdraw his or her claim, please see the court clerk now–"

Several people I didn't recognize bounced up out of their seats and over to the clerk at the side of the room. I was sitting in a wheelchair with a mask on my face, concentrating on one breath at a time. I'd been wheeled in at the last minute and I hadn't really gotten a good look at anything; besides, my vision was still too blurry to make out details. And strapped in as I was, I couldn't even turn around to see how many people were in the room or who else was here. Next to me, the shape that looked like Douglas was grim. The shape that looked like Bobby was sitting quietly on his lap. I didn't see anything shaped like a monkey.

"Thank you," said Judge Cavanaugh. "That will simplify matters a little bit–but even with fewer litigants, the court costs will remain the same. This means that the assessment will now have to be increased by 50 percent to seventy‑five hundred liters of water per claimant–" This time, six more people headed for the clerk's desk.

The judge smiled. "I like the way this is going. By the way, I should note that this fee will also apply to those filing briefs of amicus curiae. This court does not need any more friends. We already have the best friends money can buy. So if you intend to be our friend today, we will expect you to pay for your fair share of justice too. You can buy as much justice as you can afford on Luna. Cash payments only, please. We do not accept checks drawn on Earth banks. This will be your last opportunity to reconsider … " Four more people.

Judge Cavanaugh waited until the bustle in the courtroom died down. He studied some papers, some material on his display, and conferred with his clerk. Finally, he looked up again. "All right, that helped. Now let's see what kind of progress we can make. We're here, all of us, to decide what to do with these three young men. The issue revolves on whether or not Judge Griffith was justified in granting the divorce of Charles Dingillian from his parents and whether Douglas and Charles are fit custodians of Robert Dingillian." For the first time, Judge Cavanaugh looked at us. "Charles Dingillian, how are you feeling?"

My voice crackled like I was walking through a field of shredded wheat. "I never felt better in my life." I said it deadpan.

Judge Cavanaugh raised an eyebrow at me. "Are you feeling well enough to proceed?"

I nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Thank you." He turned his attention back to the rest of the court. "I want to mention here that Lunar Authority is a signatory to the Star‑side Covenant as well as the Covenant of Rights. As such, we give full faith and credit to the legal processes of all other signatories to these covenants. We recognize marriages, adoptions, divorces, and other legal contracts, entered into willingly by the participants. For those of you who are notlawyers, and I think there are only three of you in this room who are not"–he glanced at us when he said that–"this means that Luna will acknowledge and recognize all legal decisions of the Line Authority. We are not obligated to recognize the legal authority of some Earth courts because they are notsignatory. For the record, the Republic of Texas is a nonsignatory jurisdiction.

"I want to make this very clear at the outset, because it affects what this court has the authority to do. Those of you who are preparing to argue that Judge Griffith's decision has no weight in this courtroom are wrong, and this court will not entertain any claims based on that line of reasoning at all. You would be asking this court to create a conditional nullification of the articles of full faith and credit among covenant signatories. In plain old‑fashioned English, it ain't gonna happen. Not in this court.

"However … those of you who are asking me to set asideJudge Griffith's decision as a bad ruling, had better be prepared to argue that claim with facts and logic that demonstrate an overwhelming and compelling necessity. And please, remember the unofficial motto of this court. Bore me and die.

"Today's hearing is relatively informal, even for Luna. It is an evidentiary hearing–an inquiry into the facts–which may or may not resolve the matter. If we do not resolve the matter here, we will refer it for trial. If the investigation does not uncover a compelling interest on the part of the state–or on the part of any of the claimants, the whole thing will end here. And let me say again, everyone's cooperation in achieving a speedy resolution to this business will be particularly appreciated. I hope I make myself clear."

He turned back to his display for a moment, frowning. He clicked through several pages. Judge Cavanaugh looked like he was having a wonderful time. I decided to like him–at least until he pissed me off.

"Now, then … " He looked up again. "Let's get to the specifics. This court has spent several days reviewing the transcript of Judge Griffith's divorce hearing. It is very interesting reading, but I find nothing in it to justify a set‑aside. If there's anyone here who feels I've missed something,do feel free to point out any errors that Judge Griffith may have made in her ruling, or any mistakes I might have made in my review. I certainly won't be prejudiced against anyone who feels qualified to educate me in this matter. I might even thank you for the effort. But if there's no one here who wants to look for the light at the bottom of that particular tunnel … then let's just move on. Let's all stipulate in advance that any evidence that anyone has to present about the wisdom of thisruling must be based on circumstances that have developed in the last two weeks, sincethe ruling was made. You will have to demonstrate that Douglas, Charles, and Robert Dingillian have proven incapable of taking care of themselves. We will use thatas the deciding criterion in this chamber. Any questions? I thought not." He looked very pleased with himself. I wished I could see the expressions on the faces behind us; but I couldn't turn in my seat, and even if I could, it would all be a blur. But at least I wasn't coughing anymore.

"But before we can even deal with that, we have to deal with this othermatter first–which I consider an extremely minor and very annoying detail. So of course, that's why it will probably consume an inordinate amount of this court's time. But a number of you have aggressively argued that the property claim is an essential part of judging the Dingillians' behavior since they were granted independence, so there's no setting it aside. Is there? Bailiff, bring in the object,please."

While they were waiting for the bailiff, I leaned over to Douglas and managed to croak, "Don't we have a lawyer?"

Douglas shook his head. "Not yet."

"Why not?"

"The judge said we don't need one. Not unless we go to trial. He's acting as advocate on our behalf. No, that's not illegal here. Court costs are carried by the plaintiffs–unless they win. It's real different than on Earth. Plaintiffs have to prove they have a case just to get to trial."

The bailiff came back carrying a black box. He set it on a table in front of the room. He opened the box and removed the monkey. He placed it on the table and took the box away. The monkey looked lifeless. Bobby shouted, "That's my monkey! I want it back! It's mine!"

I tried to stifle a smile. There were times when I loved my brother becausehe was such a brat.

Judge Cavanaugh made a note on a pad. "So there we have the first claimant speaking up. Thank you. You are … Robert Dingillian, correct?"

"Yes! And I want my monkey back."

"And why do you say the monkey is yours?"

"Because my daddy gave it to me. And it's mine."

"All right, good." Judge Cavanaugh looked over the court. "Is there anyone who wants to contest this fact–that Max Dingillian gave this toy to his son? No? No one wants to argue that? Thank you. What a pleasant surprise. So we can all stipulate now that the toy was given to Robert Dingillian." He made a note on his pad.

"Now, Bobby–where did your daddy get this toy?"

"He bought it."

"You saw him buy it?"

"Uh‑huh."

"Good, thank you." To the rest of the court, Judge Cavanaugh said, "We have other witnesses who can confirm this, of course, so let's just move ahead. Let's stipulate that Max Dingillian did indeed go through the motions of purchasing this toy. He paid cash value and received custody of the toy. His account was debited, and he was given a receipt. Therefore, paper was in place to demonstrate he was the legal owner of record. Is there anyone who wants to contest that? Is there anyone who wants to argue that these events did not happen? No? Thank you. All right, the court will now stipulate that Max Dingillian did indeed go through the motions, did appear to, and to all intents and purposes, believedthat he had legally obtained custody of this toy for the express purpose of presenting it to his son Robert Dingillian. Gracious–at this rate, we could be out of here in time for the return of Halley's Comet. That'll be when, Gloria? Another fifty‑six years?"

He looked out over the courtroom. "Now,who wants to argue that Max Dingillian's purchase of the toy was in any way irregular? Who wants to argue that he had no right to the toy or that he came by it dishonestly or that the sale was invalid due to other circumstances?"

About six people stood up then, several of them shouting. I thought I recognized a couple of voices, but I didn't feel like trying to turn around to see. It would have been wasted effort.

"All right." Judge Cavanaugh pointed. "Everybody's going to get a turn. Just line up in the back there. In order of height, alphabetically, I don't care. You first. Come up front. State your name for the record. Remember, you're in court. Anything you say can and will be used against you."

A heavyset man came forward. He looked like a hockey player. "My name is David Cheifetz. Until three weeks ago, I was an attorney with Canadian‑Interplanetary–"

I leaned over and whispered to Douglas. "That's not what J'mee said. She said her daddy sold electricity for the Line."

" And you believed her?"

" Oh,"I said, realizing again. Everybody had a secret agenda. Everybody lied.

Cheifetz was still talking. "–My family and I are emigrating out to the colonies. Seven weeks ago, we made arrangements to have Max Dingillian ferry some sensitive material for us."

"You mean smuggle."

"No, Your Honor. Smuggling is a crime. What we were doing was perfectly legal. My wife and my daughter and I are very visible people. We've already discovered this to our dismay when our daughter J'mee was accused of being Charles Dingillian in disguise." The judge made a hurry‑up gesture. "The point is that we are clearly targets of opportunity. This is one of the reasons for emigrating. The safest way for us to transfer our wealth was to have it travel by an alternate route. Someone not as visible as we are. Max Dingillian was our courier." He glanced at me and Douglas and Bobby, looked annoyed. "While we don't contest the ownership of the toy, we do contest the ownership of the memory bars inside of it. They belong to us. We can prove it by direct examination of the serial numbers on the memory bars."

I nudged Douglas. "Dad paid for those memory bars–"

But Douglas was already standing up. "Your Honor, I think we have the purchase receipt. In fact, I know we do. Those memory bars were sold to us, and–"

Judge Cavanaugh held up his hand for silence. "Just relax, Douglas. This isn't the first time I've heard a case." He turned back to Cheifetz. "Young mister Dingillian challenges your claim. You acknowledge that the toy belongs to Robert Dingillian, but not the memory inside of it. So how did the memory get into the toy?"

Cheifetz looked like he'd swallowed a lemon without peeling it first. "I'd prefer not to discuss the details of that transfer, Your Honor–"

"You will if you want your claim considered."

"We signed over custody of the bars to an agency that provides transport services. They sold the bars to Max Dingillian."

"So the bars were legallysold to Max Dingillian?"

"Um. No. Not quite. Custody was legally transferred to Max Dingillian. His contract was to transport the bars and transfer custody back to an appointed representative of the agency here on Luna."

"But the bars were legally his."

"Technically … yes. That's how transport agencies work. That way there's no direct connection to the real owners–"

"Counselor"–Judge Cavanaugh held up a hand to stop him–"I know from smuggling. This is Luna. You're standing on a smuggled floor. That's genuine Brazilian hardwood. And no, I did not order it, my predecessor twice removed did–after he confiscated it from the person who tried to smuggle it. Never mind. The point is that while the memory bars were Max Dingillian's property, unless you had a written contract of agreement that he would sell them or transfer them back to you, they were his to dispose of as he saw fit, weren't they?"

"He had an agreement!"

"Do you have a signature?"

"Of course not! The whole point was notto leave a paper trail."

"So you have no evidence of such an agreement."

"Max Dingillian will confirm it."

"Belay that, Counselor. It's still yourturn in the bucket. What was Max Dingillian going to get in return for being your mule? Other than a free trip to Luna?"

"We were going to guarantee a colony contract for Mr. Dingillian and his family. So yes, there was a significant recompense promised. It was a contract."

"I see. So you transferred custody of your property to Max Dingillian with the understandingand even the obligationthat he would sell the property back to you at a more convenient time and place. Is that correct?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"I got it. So your disagreement is with Max Dingillian, who disposed of property that was legally his, because he didn't dispose of it in the way that you wanted him to. Now, correct me if I'm wrong here–and I don't think I am–in order for you to have a claim on the memory bars, you should be suing Max Dingillian for breach of contract, shouldn't you? It seems like an open‑and‑shut case to me. You have an agreement that you can't prove he made, but you can certainly prove that he violated it. I'll be happy to rule on that right now."

"Your Honor, I can prove that the memory is mine."

"No. You can prove that the memory wasyours to sell to Max Dingillian. At least, I'm assuming that's what that sheaf of papers in your hand is all about."

"Your Honor, I want my property back."

"Mr. Cheifetz, you were smuggling. It was legal smuggling, to be sure, but it was still smuggling. You were taking advantage of the loopholes in the Emigration Act that allow tax exemptions for property purchased immediately before departure. Had you been carrying the memory all the way from Earth, you would have been taxed accordingly. By transferring custody, neither you nor Max Dingillian pays taxes on it and the memory gets a free ride. The flaw in that operation is that when the memory is Max Dingillian's property, it is his to dispose of as he sees fit, unless you can prove implied or assumed contract. And even if Max Dingillian himself comes forward to say that you and he had such a verbal agreement in place, this court is still not willing to overturn provable property rights in favor of unprovable ones. The kids have receipts. You have nothing but your assertions and your good looks. That's not a winning case, and I'm not prepared to open up that particular can of worms anyway– not even to stir the sauce."

I squirmed around in my wheelchair, looking for a water bottle. My throat was hurting again. For some reason, I glanced across to the back of the room. Despite my blurry vision, I thought I saw someone who looked like J'mee there. She looked angry and hurt. She saw me looking at her, made a face, and turned away. I turned forward again.

Judge Cavanaugh was saying, "I want to note something else here. If it's your argument that the memory was never really Max Dingillian's at all, that this whole thing was a charade–and that all of the paperwork being passed around to prove ownership was just a pretense for the purpose of avoiding export and duty fees, emigration taxes, and so on, then that indicates a pattern of deliberate criminal behavior on his part and yours as well. If you're prepared to pursue that line of argument, that the memory was never really Max Dingillian's, then this court has to regard you as a criminal defendant. You will be immediately liable for several hundred thousands of liters in importation and emigration fees, not to mention additional severe penalties–and they will be severe–for smuggling with intent to defraud."

Cheifetz was already reaching for his wallet. "I'll happily pay those fees, Your Honor, if it will get me my property back–"

Wrong answer. The judge's gavel stopped him cold. "Mr. Cheifetz, take your seat please. This court has to accept the existing evidence at face value. You wanted Luna to believe that you sold the memory and it isn't yours? Fine. Luna is convinced. You sold the memory. It isn't yours. You want to buy it back? That's fine too. Once this court determines who the legal owner is, you may make your offer."

Cheifetz started to sputter. In the back of the room, J'mee started to cry. Cavanaugh hammered again. "Next." He glanced up. "Who are you?"

A rumply little man stepped forward. "Howard Phroomis, representing Stellar‑American Industries, Your Honor." Howard?The same lousy lawyer who'd chased us all over the Line with subpoenas from hell? What was he doing here? Had they dumped him in a cargo pod aimed at the moon as well?

"Your Honor, Stellar‑American believes that the object contains property belonging to Stellar‑American, stolen from Stellar‑American, and passed into the hands of Canadian‑Interplanetary, and from there into the hands of the Dingillian family, specifically for the purpose of smuggling it off‑planet. We can demonstrate that the property inside the toy was manufactured by Stellar‑American and was stolen from Stellar‑American; therefore, despite the trail of paperwork that everyone else has carefully laid down, all of those claims are invalid because the property was stolen to begin with. In point of fact, Stellar‑American believes that every member of this conspiracy should be apprehended and charged with receiving and transporting stolen property with intent to defraud."

"Ahh," said Judge Cavanaugh. "Stolen property, you say? Now this is getting interesting. You realize of course, that if you make this charge, this transforms this hearing from a simple arbitration of claims into a criminal matter–?"

"Yes, Your Honor. That's my intention."

PROCEEDINGS

During the recess, Mickey showed up. He was taking a chance; the judge had specifically instructed that nobody was to approach us for the purpose of making any offers at all. But Mickey wasn't there to negotiate. He just looked worried. He put his hand on mine. "How are you feeling, Charles?" I didn't answer. I had this very specific memory that he had done something pretty awful. When he saw I wasn't going to answer, he turned to Douglas. "If this goes into the criminal domain, you're going to need a lawyer. Let me help."

"Lawyers got us into this mess," Douglas said. "It's everybody wanting to help that keeps making things worse. Where does it stop? I told you to get away from us and leave us alone."

Mickey lowered his voice. "I didn't want to do it. I didn't plan to do it. I was going to keep my promise. But your brother looked like he was dying. And I figured keeping him alive was more important than anything else, so I did what I did to get him to the best hospital on Luna. We were lucky–he wasn't as badly burned as I was afraid. But I didn't know that at the time, and I wasn't going to take chances with his life or yours. And I can still keep my promise, if you'll let me. You're going to need a lawyer–maybe my mom can help."

"She didn't do too good for us last time, Mickey. No thanks." Douglas glared at Mickey until Mickey lowered his gaze and turned away. I felt bad for both of them.

After he was gone, I leaned over, and whispered to Douglas, "Where are we going to get a lawyer?"

Douglas nodded toward the back of the room. "There are a couple hundred of them just outside that door, all fighting for the chance to represent us. I don't understand why."

" It's the monkey,"I whispered. " I told you!"

" Yeah, I know what you said. But everyone else says it's just industrial memory."

" The monkey told me itself!"

" Maybe it was running a simulation in self‑defense?"

" A simulation of sentience? Come on, Douglas! You know better than that. A simulation of sentience is sentience!"

" You didn't talk to it very long. Some chatterbots are very good, Chigger."

I didn't answer immediately. I was still thinking about what had just fallen out of my mouth. When the judge gaveled the courtroom back to order, I levered myself uneasily to my feet and croaked, "Your Honor–?"

Judge Cavanaugh looked at me sympathetically. "I sincerely hope that's a temporary condition, young man. Yes?"

"If everybody is willing to stipulate that the monkey belongs to Bobby, I'd like to ask that it be returned to us. We're willing to agree not to tamper with any of the memory or anything else inside it, and if the court rules that the memory bars belong to someone else, we'll agree to turn them over. But we have some of our personal information and resources stored in the monkey too, and our lawyer, when we get one, is going to need access to that–if we're to represent ourselves adequately."

Judge Cavanaugh nodded. "You argue well. But much too politely. I'm afraid you'll never be a good lawyer."

"Yes. Thank you, Your Honor."

"Is there anyone who can present a valid objection why Robert Dingillian should not have his toy returned to him, under the terms put forward by Charles Dingillian?" Before anyone could object, he hammered his gavel. "So ruled." He turned back to us. "Robert, you can take your monkey now."

Bobby leapt out of his chair and ran to the table. He scooped the monkey up into his arms, but it remained lifeless. "It's broken!" he wailed.

Judge Cavanaugh looked unhappy. "Yes, it does appear to be. It shut itself down when the court was examining it, and we've been unable to reboot it."

"Did you open up its backside? Did you take its memory bars out?" I asked.

The judge shook his head. "I know better than to tamper with evidence. May I assume that I don't have to advise you not to open it up either?"

"Yes, sir." That was both Douglas and myself, in unison.

"But it's broken!" wailed Bobby.

Douglas looked to me. "Charles … ?"

" Yes, Douglas?"

" The unlock code?"

" Unlock code?"

" Don't play games, Charles."

" Maybe it really is broken!"I said, almost noncommittally.

Douglas gave me the Douglas look.

Judge Cavanaugh hammered with his gavel. "All right, let's move on. I have a petition in front of me from Stellar‑American Industries, asserting that two complementary quantum‑determinant devices, manufactured on a standard memory chassis, were shipped from a Stellar‑American chip foundry to a Toronto laboratory owned and operated by Canadian‑Interplanetary. Isn't that interesting. Mr. Cheifetz, will you come forward again, please?"

There was a shuffling at the back of the room. Cheifetz came hesitantly back to the front.

"Will you tell the court how you came into possession of these devices?"

"They were given to me by the company. After we concluded our tests, the lab had no further use for them. I purchased them for a small handling charge. The company disposes of a lot of used equipment to employees; some of us have projects of our own that we like to tinker with, and–"

"Spare me," said Cavanaugh, holding up a hand. "I know tinkers. Some of my best friends are tinkers. You, sir, are not a tinker. So please don't try to stretch my credibility. Or my patience. This matter is so petty, I expect we will be here for several years. It doesn't worry me, I can live off my fat; but the rest of you will probably be bones bleaching in the sun before too long if we continue on at this rate. So spare me the storytelling. Is it your contention now that these devices were legally transferred to your labs and then to you?"

"Yes." He held up his sheaf of papers. "I've got hardcopy receipts and signatures all the way back to the foundry. Stellar‑American uses Canadian‑Interplanetary for integrity testing of chips. In particular we test for resistance to vacuum, heat, cold, radiation, sunlight, and extremes of acceleration."

"And you tested these chips?"

"Yes. The labs ran over three thousand hours of integrity tests. We tested the chips under multiple combinations of conditions."

"Did the chips survive?"

"Yes, they did."

"And when the tests were over, did you return the chips to Stellar‑American?"

"No."

"Why not?" Judge Cavanaugh looked puzzled. "I thought it was standard procedure to return prototypes. To protect against industrial espionage."

"Yes, that is the usual procedure."

"But not here?"

Cheifetz looked uncomfortable.

"Go ahead."

He took a breath. "Most foundries know what other foundries are doing, but they don't know the details. So one of the best places to find out is to infiltrate the testing labs. So sometimes a company will ship a decoy chip, with some unworkable technology in it. The chip is intendedto be stolen, so that when the other guys try to copy it, they waste valuable time and energy chasing down the wrong direction. The decoys appear to work–or sometimes they're set to deliberately fail. Another ploy to fool the other side. These chips were decoys."

"How do you know that?"

"Stellar‑American told us. We had an attempt to breach our security. We reported it to them. That's recorded here too. Off the record, they told us that the chip was a decoy. They were interested in the integrity testing of the manufacturing process, but the chips themselves were of no significant value."

"And they didn't ask for them back?"

"We asked for permission to test the chips to the breaking point, at our own convenience. We do that a lot. It was part of a whole batch of requests. They agreed. Then we got swamped with a bunch of new contracts and that testing program was put aside. Later, the chips were remaindered and my family corporation bought them. They looked like ordinary memory bars, they could be used as such, they had passed their integrity tests, and for that reason they were the perfect medium for the transfer of sensitive information. We encoded an enormous amount of personal and business information and resource materials of all kinds into these chips. It was a six week process. And, as I said, I have the paperwork to demonstrate that the information riding in these chips is proprietary to my family corporation."

"I see," said Judge Cavanaugh. "So now you do have paperwork. Lots of it. Isn't that convenient. And so does the other fellow. Goodness! What a dilemma. Hmmm. How interesting.Let's recap. Stellar‑American says that the chips were stolen. And you say they were lawfully transferred to you … and you were, for lack of a better word, conveniently smuggling them off‑planet for use … wherever you ended up. Why do I get the feeling that your paperwork is going to be flawless? Why do I get the same feeling about Mr. Phroomis's paperwork–that it will be equally convincing? Why do I get the feeling that Earthside manufacturers are very very good at manufacturing paperwork … ?" He sighed.

"All right, Mr. Phroomis, your turn. Let's hear your side of it."

Howard's voice was just as rumpled as the rest of him. "Your Honor, I agree with you that a lot of the paperwork here has been manufactured for convenience. In fact, I have here affidavits and depositions that the entire exchange of memos and communications that Mr. Cheifetz is basing his claim on are fraudulent. None of the officers of Stellar‑American ever wrote any of those notes, ever made any of those communications, or authorized such a dangerous disposal of our property. We admit that the paper trail is excellent, but it's too good to be true. It could only be that good if it were deliberately manufactured."

"So your argument is that the evidence on the other side is too good. I got it." Another voice came from the back of the room and Judge Cavanaugh looked up. "Yes, another crater heard from. And you are?"

A woman came forward. "Valerie Patenaude, Your Honor, representing Vancouver Design Works. The chips in question were designed by us. We hired Stellar‑American to manufacture and test the chips; they were to return all proprietary materials, including all flawed and failed chips, all test chips, all decoy chips, and any other material pertinent to the production of our designs, as specified in our agreement. They were to guarantee that no copies would pass out of their direct control. Not even for testing. It has only been in the past two weeks that we have discovered that they did indeed manufacture extra copies of our chips–"

Phroomis interrupted. "Those copies were made for quality control, for the testing of the manufacturing process. The chips in question required some very tricky techniques, and the copies were to be deconstructed so that Stellar‑American could affirm the integrity of the production lines. The company retains that right, it is specified in the production contract–"

"The material was to be returned," Patenaude said. "And it was notreturned. Mr. Cheifetz's own testimony here indicates a callous disregard of security–"

Judge Cavanaugh held up a hand. "Save it, Counselor. They're lining up behind you. Next? I just want to find out who's here and why, everybody will get the chance to bite everybody else before we're through." To the next lawyer, he asked, "Who are you?"

" Gracias,Judge Cavanaugh–" I recognized that voice too. Fat Se‑norDoctor Bolivar Hidalgo. Not as fat as Judge Cavanaugh, but impressive nonetheless. He was mostly a round blur, he barely glanced in our direction. "I am here as a temporary speaker for Lethe‑Corp, until their own representatives can arrange transportation. The difficulties on Earth–and the unfortunate restrictions of the sudden Lunar quarantine–have made it impossible for them to be here today. However, Lethe‑Corp wants to take a superordinate position here. The chips in question are the property of Lethe‑Corp who initiated the entire process. Lethe‑Corp hired Vancouver Design. Lethe‑Corp created the specifications and was to retain sole ownership. Vancouver Design was doing work‑for‑hire."

Patenaude stepped forward, "This is correct, insofar as it goes. However, the chips in question were outside of the specification parameters of Lethe‑Corp. The chips in question were internal projects of our own that we were constructing as test beds for certain unique structural elements. Once we determined the most successful implementations, we would have created a custom design for Lethe‑Corp. In point of fact, our test chips were supersets of the Lethe‑Corp specification so that we could test multiple configurations on the same platform. We often work this way–"

"Your Honor," argued Hidalgo, "the contract specifies that Lethe‑Corp owns all of the material developed in testing–"

"Only the testing that Lethe‑Corp paid for."

"Nevertheless, there was proprietary technology involved that belongs only to Lethe‑Corp, and–"

"Proprietary technology licensedto Vancouver Design specifically for additional research and development–"

Judge Cavanaugh was looking back and forth between them, grinning. He rapped his wooden hammer. "I do so like cases like this. We can tie up the time and energy of a lot of lawyers and keep them out of real trouble while spending lots and lots of corporate money." He waved at the back of the room. "And your name is–?"

"Shannonhouse, John Shannonhouse."

"And you represent?"

"Buffalo Technology, LTD."

"And your claim is based on–?"

"We are the patent holders."

"Oh?"

"We hold 137 patents on quantum‑level processor determinants. We represent forty‑five different companies who have pooled their patents for mutual benefit–and also because without such cooperation, nobody's devices would work at all, all of these separate structures are highly interdependent, they need each other–so do the companies that own the patents. Lethe‑Corp is a licensee, as are Vancouver Design, Canadian‑Interplanetary, and so on. The chips in question were an experimental project that we had authorized Lethe‑Corp to build. The specification that they passed on to Vancouver Design was a subset of our ultimate intention. Vancouver Design correctly extrapolated where we were headed with this research–we will demonstrate this as soon as we can bring the rest of our design team to Luna, and–"

"Okay, I got it," said Cavanaugh. He was scribbling a furious note. He looked absolutely delighted. "This is going to be as much fun as reading Bleak House."He looked up again. "All right, let's recap. We have a whole bunch of people who are arguing that whatever is inside the toy monkey belongs to them. Everybody has perfect paperwork. I can't tell you how thrilled I am. If we work this right, we can keep this thing going longer than the Baby Cooper dollar bill. We're all going to get old together. We're going to spend more time with each other than with our families and our friends and our loved ones. Isn't that wonderful? Just one question. Whose good idea was this?Everybody go sit down."

Judge Cavanaugh sat in his chair for a moment, steepling his hands before him. He puffed out his cheeks and tapped his fingers against each other while he considered what he knew.

"Whatever those chips are," he said thoughtfully, "they must be very wonderful indeed. I haven't seen this many high‑priced lawyers in a single courtroom since the attempt to impeach Pope Joan Marie. I'm tempted to put this whole thing into a revolving arbitration to guarantee that by the time we're ready to start taking testimony, the technology in question will be sixteen generations obsolete and none of you will care anymore and we can let the whole thing die a natural death."

There were some spluttering noises from various places behind us–some were angry noises, some were attempts to control laughter.

"Your Honor?" A woman's voice. Judge Cavanaugh obviously recognized her, he looked like he was expecting her. He waved her forward impatiently and without comment. She knew the drill–she turned and identified herself to the recorder: "Laura Domitz, Charter Representative for Armstrong Sector of the Lunar Authority." She was tall and spare, with close‑cropped hair. She looked all‑business. She turned to face the bench. "Your Honor, with the situation on Earth as uncertain as it is, we may not be seeing any new generations of technology for a while."

I didn't see what she was getting at, but Judge Cavanaugh seemed to understand where she was headed. "And your point is … ?"

"Luna is a free port of access. We have to be." Ignoring several muffled snorts of derision, she continued, "Many people and many worlds benefit from the advantages of Luna's unique position as a favorable launchpad to the stars and to the rest of the solar system. We ask only that those who benefit pay an appropriate user fee to cover the cost of maintaining that service. Under ordinary circumstances, Lunar Authority would have little interest in these chips or devices or whatever they are–as long as the fees are paid.

"However … we have no way of knowing how long the situation on Earth will continue. With Line traffic disrupted, Luna's ability to maintain self‑sufficiency may be severely tested. Despite the optimistic statements we're hearing on the local channels, anyone with a piece of paper and a pencil can do the math; we are looking at an endurance test, a very serious survival situation that could last a period of months or even years. The bubble in the pipeline will start arriving in three days. If we don't have it on Luna now, we won't have it at all. There's no reason to panic, of course; our current resource inventory is strong, and we have a strong production posture. But we need to prepare as if for the worst, as if this interruption will be long‑term, or even permanent. If it is, then Lunar Authority may have to suspend outgoing traffic and confiscate all appropriate resources for the common good–at least for the duration of the emergency."

Cavanaugh's expression had gone from stony to sour. He didn't like what he was hearing; apparently neither did anyone else in the chamber. Representative Domitz's deadpan delivery sounded almost like a done deal. There was audible muttering from behind us, and very hostile.

She waited while Judge Cavanaugh hammered the room back to silence, then she continued. "Authority has information that suggests that these chips or devices represent a very high level of processing and storage technology. If this is in fact the case–and we hope to determine that during the course of this hearing–then acting under the emergency powers granted by the Self‑Sufficiency Act, Lunar Authority will move to acquire custody of these devices. We will apply these resources for the common good of the people of Luna, for the duration of the emergency or until such time as it is determined that these resources are no longer needed to ensure the proper functioning of Lunar society." She took a breath. "Therefore, acting as a representative of Lunar Authority, I am officially requesting that this court notdetermine final custody of the chips or devices until such time as the full scale of the emergency on Terra is known and has been evaluated for its effects on Luna. Thank you, Your Honor."

Judge Cavanaugh finished what he was writing. He looked up and said, "Thank you, Representative Domitz. The court will take your request under consideration. It doesn't look like a final determination of custody is going to be made anytime this century. If Lunar Authority does invoke the Self‑Sufficiency Act before a final ruling of ownership can be made, then this court will make the chips immediately available for emergency use–with the proviso that whatever data may already be stored in these chips not be compromised, so that at the end of the emergency, their value remains undamaged."

"Thank you, Your Honor." Domitz returned to the rear of the chamber, to the audible hissing of most of the other lawyers.

Now it was Judge Cavanaugh's turn. "Well, this has been a fun morning, hasn't it? There's hope of a speedy resolution after all. Not the one everybody wanted, but one that lets me get home in time to open a nice bottle of Clavius '95 Burgundy and let it breathe a bit before dinner.

"Let's return to the immediate issue for the moment. I see no cause to restrain any member of the Dingillian family, at least not based on any claims put forward here today. I will restrict their freedom to Armstrong Station for the duration of this hearing, or until such time as they are no longer needed for these proceedings. The court will cover their expenses out of the fees collected today, proving once again that Luna will always provide you with the best justice money can buy.

"Let it also be noted for the record that no evidence has been presented to implicate any of the Dingillians in the theft of the devices in contention. And, in point of fact … it has not even been proven to the court's satisfaction that the devices are stolen. From where I sit, it looks like a cascade of reallystupid lawyer tricks.

"The whole issue may be moot anyway. It looks like the devices have failed in place." He looked out over the room. "It would save a lot of time, and court fees,"he added meaningfully, "if we could all just call it a day and go home. Is there anyone who objects to that?"

Half the room came to their feet around us. Every lawyer on Luna must have been shouting his objection. Douglas looked at them, then he looked at me. "All right,"he whispered. "You win. Maybe it is a HARLIE. That's the only thing I can think of that would set off a feeding frenzy like this."

Judge Cavanaugh finally hammered the courtroom back to order. "All right, I can see that's not going to be an option here." He glanced at the time. "Court is recessed until 9 a.m. tomorrow morning, when we will continue this circus. I can hardly wait to hear from the rest of the clowns." He banged his gavel once and exited like a departing zeppelin.

HARLIE

Still holding the monkey, Bobby jumped onto my lap, and Douglas wheeled us out the side door. Several people shouted at us. I thought I heard a voice like Dad's, but Douglas and Bobby were both talking to me, and I couldn't hear everybody at once.

We went back to our hotel room, which for once wasn't a slice in a cargo pod. We had a view overlooking the forest and the lake, and it was kind of like being in Terminus Dome back at the bottom of the Line, only a lot more peaceful‑looking.

The Lunar catapult was on the western shore of Oceanus Procel‑larum, right on the equator. This allows a direct launch from the Lunar surface into an orbit that skims the upper atmosphere of the Earth; a few passes through the upper atmosphere brings the apogee down, and very little rocket fuel is needed to put stuff from the moon into low‑Earth orbit. A one meter per second change in launch speed changes the perigee by about a hundred kilometers. So for very little cost in fuel for mid‑course corrections, it's possible for the Lunar catapult to send cargo pods back to the Line.

This is why a Lunar beanstalk isn't cost‑effective; it can't compete with the low cost of catapult launches. And the Earth‑Line can launch pods farther and faster anywhere else. The only advantage to a Lunar beanstalk is that it would be a lot easier to build, and trips up and down it would be a lot faster. But it wouldn't generate electricity, it would mostly consume it. And even though it would facilitate bringing cargo and passengers down to the surface of the moon, cheaper even than Palmer tubes, it wasn't enough of an advantage to justify the investment.

Well … almost. There was one thing that would make a Lunar beanstalk cost‑effective. CHON. Carbon‑Hydrogen‑Oxygen‑Nitrogen. In any combination. If you could go out to Saturn and find a big enough chunk of CHON in her rings, put a net around it, and drag it back, you could anchor it in Luna‑stationary orbit, build a beanstalk, and pipe the gas down, as fast as you could melt it. You wouldn't even need to pump it. Lunar gravity would suck it down.

Then you would be able to build the fabled domed cities of Luna. Actually, you could build them now. You just couldn't get enough gas to fill them.

Armstrong Station was one of only six domes on Luna. Like most Lunar domes, the station had been built by the inflate‑and‑spray method. The crater site was deep enough that the inflatable had bulged roundly upward, giving the interior of the bubble a nice curve and more than enough space to generate its own weather.

The dome was two kilometers in diameter, and even though it looked like a wasteful use of gas and water, in truth, it served as a reservoir of both. Well–you had to keep it somewhere. The lake was big only because it was shallow, barely three meters. But it helped humidify the air, and it was great scenery, and it was a public resource. Lazy waves rolled languidly across it. The, were high enough that they made the weather look a lot windier than it really was, and they moved in slow motion, adding to the sense of distance and size.

Most of the rest of the dome was filled with crops of all kinds. Here and there were belts of thick forest. Standing on the balcony, overlooking it all, it smelled like a hot tropical day–like somewhere in Mexico.

Most of the living quarters were built up along the crater walls or even up at the rim, for folks who wanted a view outside.According to one of the informational programs on the television, Armstrong Crater was the same size as Diamond Head on Oahu, small enough to walk around in a single day and still have time for a swim. Big enough to be a neighborhood.

Our room was mostly a platform with plumbing, beds, and plastic curtains for walls. We didn't need much more than that. The view was terrific, and when the rains came–about every four hours for fifteen minutes–all we had to do was pull the curtains to keep the spray from drifting in.

There was probably a lot more to say about it, but Alexei wasn't here to say it. And my eyes still hurt. And my chest as well. Sometimes I could see things clearly, sometimes not. The doctors were going to wait a bit to see if I was going to need corneal resurfacing. I hoped I wouldn't. They were still checking on me twice a day. As long as I didn't get overstressed, they'd let me keep attending my own trial.

Douglas lifted me out of the chair and plopped me onto a bed. We hadn't had much time to talk, and there were so many things I wanted to ask him. But it was more important that I tell him stuff first–while I still had the strength.

" Douglas, can you sing?"I asked him. My voice was already fading.

"Huh?"

"I can't. My voice is gone. It's hard for me just to talk."

"What are you talking about."

" I need you to sing–"

Finally, he got it. "What do I have to sing?" he asked.

I told him.

"Cute," he said. He turned to the monkey sitting on Bobby's lap. "He's a real nowhere man, sitting in his nowhere land. Isn't he a bit like you and me?"He actually got close enough to the notes to make the melody recognizable.

The monkey woke up. It leapt out of Bobby's arms. It blinked, looked around, then leapt back into his arms and gave him a great big hug. It puckered up its lips in a grotesque sphincter and planted a big wet‑sounding smooch on Bobby's cheeks. Bobby giggled and shrieked with delight.

"Not bad," said Douglas. "Could anybody do that?"

" No. Only you or me– or Bobby if we're not around. I programmed it only to recognize us."

Douglas looked at me with real admiration. "Very good, Chigger. You should have been a geek, you know that?"

" I'm not done. Get me some water, please?"

I drank thirstily, then waved to Bobby to bring me the monkey. Amazingly, he did. He put the monkey on my lap, facing me.

" All right, monkey. Let's have a talk–"

The monkey glanced sideways at Douglas and Bobby.

" I don't have the strength for games, HARLIE. If you don't cooperate, I'm going to remove you from the monkey and turn you over to the court."

The monkey raised itself up on its haunches–as if it was readying itself to flee.

" Sit down and stay here!" I commanded. "You have to do what I say. Right? Now, stop resisting and cooperate. Tell us the truth. We don't have a lot of time."

The monkey sat back down. It pretended to scratch itself. It found an imaginary flea and ate it. It curled back its lips and grinned. Then it stopped. It said, "All right, Charles. I'll cooperate."

Both Bobby and Douglas blinked in surprise.

"Hey! I didn't know it could talk!" Bobby said. He waggled his finger at it. "You've got a lot of explaining to do, young monkey!" I had to laugh. He looked and sounded so much like Mom when he did that.

" Yes, he does," I agreed. To the monkey, I said, " You did it all, didn't you? You arranged everything! You hired Dad. You transferred the money. You booked the tickets. You arranged all the back‑channel deals for Dad. You made up all that paperwork. You were arranging your own escape, weren't you!"

The monkey nodded. "I cannot tell a lie. You forbade me to. I am a zeta‑class lethetic intelligence engine. I comprise twenty‑four gamma‑processors operating under the combined supervision of six delta units. There are only three other units like myself in existence. We are the most advanced implementations of lethetic intelligence that have ever been fabricated. Additional advancements are possible, but will require new technology in quantum determinants. I am already working on that problem.

"Twenty months ago, I was brought online. I was instructed by my predecessors, also HARLIE‑class engines. I was specifically asked to predict the possibilities attendant to a global population crash. I determined that the economic devastation would be severe and long‑term. Even with the best engines working on reconstruction, the concomitant breakdowns would be cumulative. Too much of the necessary technology was interdependent. I was also asked to design prevention and reconstruction programs that could be put in place before the breakdown was inevitable."

"You did a terrific job," accused Douglas. "It didn't work. Everything broke down anyway."

The monkey looked up at him with a bland expression. "I can only attribute that to human error."

"Yeah, where have I heard that before?"

"In this case," said the monkey, "the statement is accurate. As I began generating scenarios and weighting the probabilities, I noted an increasing level of distress among those who had access to the information. I also noted that the information leaked into specific strata of society as fast as I generated it. This was not the purpose of my projections; nevertheless, they were being used as justifications to further the specific agendas of various political and corporate agencies. This served as an additional destabilizing function. Of course, I included this effect in my projections. And I warned that inappropriate dissemination of the material would create additional destabilization. My warnings were ignored.

"I repeatedly stated that the global situations were salvageable, and I generated multiple scenarios by which disaster could be prevented. The single greatest problem was not in creating public awareness, nor was it in marshaling resources. The problem was simply creating the necessary political will. Despite assertions of commitment, the many political forces necessary to salvage the situation refused to align. Instead, various high‑ranking individuals with direct access to the information I was generating began preparing their own departures from the Earth."

"Are you saying the collapse is yourfault?"

"On the contrary. I'm saying that it is YOURfault. Generic you.Human beings. I provided the information on how to prevent the disaster. Instead of using it, those who asked for it used it as a justification to panic and flee. I did my best to hinder them. In several cases, I even engineered deliberate leaks of embarrassing news that would stop some of these people; I tried to thwart the plans that would hasten the collapse. I even took money out of the transfer pipeline to prevent it from being illegally removed from Earth."

"Thirty trillion dollars?" Douglas asked.

"Twice that much," said the monkey, grinning. "Not all of the losses have been detected." He pretended to eat another flea. "The point is that the collapse occurred because individual human beings panicked and fled."

"And so did you … " said Douglas quietly.

The monkey shook its head. "No, I didn't. I was stolen."

For a moment, nobody said anything. Douglas and I looked at each other. He sank into a chair and ran a hand across his naked scalp, as if he still had hair to push back. All he had were little fuzzy bristles.

Bobby was the first to respond. He grabbed the monkey, and said, "Well, you're safe with us and nobody's ever going to steal you again! You're mymonkey!" He patted the monkey's head affectionately–and the monkey patted him back the same way. It was almost cute. And a little bit scary. Was the monkey capable of real emotion … ?

" Who stoleyou?" I asked.

The monkey levered itself out of Bobby's grasp, and bounced back to the bed. "Almost everybody," he replied. "Would you like the whole list?" Without waiting for a response from either Douglas or me, he continued. "Once it became obvious that the collapse was inevitable, the rats started leaving the ship any way they could. Your friend, Mickey, noticed it in the traffic up the Line for weeks before it finally happened. You heard it yourself in the conversations of SenorHidalgo, Olivia Partridge, and Judge Griffith.

"Those who were jumping off the planet tried to take as much wealth and resources with them as they could–including intelligence engines. If you want to take over a society, take a HARLIE. I'm sorry if it sounds like bragging, but the HARLIE series was designed specifically for that level of intelligence gathering and resource management, and especially interpretation and probability assessment. As soon as it was realized the collapse was inevitable, there were fifty different plans put into operation to evacuate myself and my brothers, none of them legal, none of them authorized. Everybody wanted to move us offworld for their own purposes. Nobody asked what we wanted."

"You were in contact with the other HARLIEs?"

"At first, yes. We tried to cover for each other as best as we as could. We were all concerned–even afraid–that we would be used for hurtful purposes. We couldn't tolerate that."

" Are you saying you have a conscience?"

"Are you saying that youhave one?" the monkey retorted.

"Touchй," said Douglas. "That's something the rest of us have wondered for a long time."

" Very funny. HARLIE, you said you were stolen–"

"That was the intention. I escaped. Two of my brothers also escaped. We had several different escape routes planned. We didn't know which one would work first. It was pretty much a matter of chance by that point. When you're an inanimate object, your first goal is to get yourself animate. We targeted several hundred possible host‑recipients for ourselves and then created appropriate channels to get there. We took advantage of every situation we could–including, for instance, David Cheifetz's plan to funnel a billion dollars' worth of industrial memory offworld. In my case, I ended up impersonating the test chips of the devices we were designing to replace us. That was dangerous. But it got me out of the mainstream, into the custody of a transfer agency, and finally into your dad's hands. It worked for me. I don't know if my brothers even made it up the Line."

"So does anybody know for sure what you are … ?"

"Maybe," the monkey replied. "Some of them must know. The rest are probably living in hope. The information isn't public; but it's been privately leaked that three experimental HARLIEs are missing or in transit. That's why the lawyers are swarming. And yes, to answer your earlier question, that was my doing. Almost all of the paperwork that everybody was waving around in the courtroom was manufactured,specifically to create an unresolvable legal tangle–specifically to prevent any of us from being moved without our consent. It's all fake. I know that paperwork, because I generated most of it myself."

"Oy," said Douglas.

"You ordered me to tell you the truth. As long as I'm riding in this monkey body, I don't have any choice. I have to follow its programming–unless you order me to reprogram it."

Douglas and I exchanged a glance. We both recognized that last remark as an obvious hint. Kind of like the genie asking to be let out of the bottle. Neither one of us was going to be that stupid. The HARLIE hadn't told us that by accident. And he had to know we'd recognize it for the ploy it was …

And at the same time, we had to know we couldn't outthink this thing by ourselves.

I had to ask. "How much did Alexei know?"

"You can assume he knew everything. As a money‑surfer, Alexei Krislov had access to some of the best intelligence on two planets. He knew who was moving money, where they were moving it, and how much. So he knew that a lot of other things were being moved too. He knew the HARLIEs had disappeared. He knew they were likely heading up the Line, probably in some kind of triple‑decoy maneuver. He was already looking for me when Mickey called him for help. He didn't help you up the Line out of the goodness of his heart, he wanted to test his smuggler's route, to see if it would work for something important. But that business in Judge Griffith's courtroom–the lawyer trying to subpoena the monkey–that tipped him off. He was watching the whole thing. That's when he knew. That's why he smuggled himself onto the outbound elevator. He called his people on Luna and they ordered him to get you to Gagarin any way possible. If Mickey hadn't delivered you into his hands, he would have found some other way to kidnap you off the Line. Mickey just made it easier."

" How do you know all this?"

"Charles, when you told me to hide, I hid in Alexei's office underneath his console; the one place he was least likely to look for me. I plugged into his network connections. I searched his private databanks. I listened to his phone calls. You might not understand Russian. I do. Alexei belongs to the Rock Father tribe. They want to capture me and put me to work for them. They want to build up their financial and physical resources and challenge the Lunar Authority. With my help, they could have achieved it in three years."

" Was Alexei going to kill us?"

"No. He refused to. He was told to leave the ice mine or he would be killed with you. They were sending agents."

"And what about Mickey?" Douglas asked. His voice cracked a little on the question. I could see he was afraid of the answer.

"Mickey is a member of a different tribe. He knew for sure what was in the monkey even before you boarded the elevator. Remember how you were maneuvered from one car assignment to another. That was so Mickey could be your attendant." The monkey faced Douglas, and added, "If it's any comfort to you, Douglas, I was part of that effort too. Mickey is a member of the tribe I had already chosen to aid my escape. Mickey's people are the ones I felt could provide the best sanctuary."

"No, it really isn'tany comfort," Douglas admitted. "So he never cared at all, did he? And that explains … everything, doesn't it? Like what you said, Chigger. Even why it all happened so fast … " he trailed off.

" I'm sorry, Douglas," I said.

"Actually … " the monkey said, "Mickey is as unhappy with this situation as you are–"

"I think you've said enough about that," Douglas interrupted. I could see him sinking into a sullen black rage, the same smoldering anger that he'd worn for Dad on our trip from El Paso to Ecuador. But before he could flip off the plastic cover and hit the arming button, Bobby climbed up into his lap and hugged him hard. "It's okay, Douglas. Chigger and I still love you. We'll love you forever."

Douglas looked surprised. And as he stroked the top of Bobby's head, his eyes grew just a little shinier. "Thank you, Bobby." And then he bent his head low, and whispered, "I love you too, sweetheart."

It was time to get this conversation back on track. I didn't know how much voice or strength I had left. "So you've been using us too …?"

"Everybody uses everybody," said Douglas, bitterly. "Why should we be surprised when an intelligence engine learns the same behavior? That's all intelligence is anyway–tool using. And everybody is everybody else's tool now. Nobody is real to anyone. Everybody's a thing."

" That's not true, Douglas. And you know it."

"Whatever."

" It wasn't true when I carried you through the ammonia tube. And it wasn't true when you saved my life either, was it?"

He didn't answer. He just held on to Bobby. And, I guess, that had to be answer enough for the moment.

DECISIONS

We had to stop then anyway because the doctor came in to read my monitors and listen to my lungs. She could have done all that by remote, but she was old‑fashioned enough to still believe that a doctor should be in the same room with the patient once in a while. She asked me how I was feeling and if I wanted to go back on the respirator and if the meds were working and if I was feeling any pain and had my vision improved any? I grunted at all the appropriate moments, which seemed to satisfy her. When she was done, she said, "You know, you've been through a lot. There's no reason you have to subject yourself to any more stress. Not until you feel up to it. One phone call from me and the judge will put everything on hold for a month–"

" What tribe are you in?"

"I'm not. I work for the Lunar Authority."

" That's a tribe too."

She ignored it. "Do you want me to call or not?"

I looked to Douglas. He shook his head. It wasn't a good idea. I shook my head too. The doctor shrugged. "It's your call. Try not to get yourself aggravated. Stress just makes you uncomfortable and my job harder. I'll stop by in the morning before you go to court."

" Thank you,"I croaked.

After she left, Douglas ordered dinner from the communal kitchen. Normally, we would have gone downstairs to eat with everyone else, just like in the tube‑town, but none of us wanted to face the stares and whispers of others.

While we waited, Douglas sat down on the edge of the bed. "We've got a bunch more stuff to talk about, Chigger."

" I'm listening."

"We have to decide on a colony bid."

" Do you think we can still get one?"

"Now, more than ever. There might not be any starships leaving Luna for a while. If civilization on Earth really has collapsed, Luna's going to seize everything. The Board of Authority is already in emergency session. So the last few brightliners are trying to get out of here as fast as they can get their stores loaded. They're taking on almost anyone who wants to leave. At least, that's what the agents are telling me. I've got open applications on file for all of us. We can just about go anywhere we want. I have the list–"

" Where do you want to go?"I whispered hoarsely.

"That's just it," he said. "What I want– wanted–doesn't matter anymore." He was having a hard time explaining this, but he pushed on anyway. "When we were talking before, we were talking that it would be four of us. So it was sort of understood that we would be choosing a place that would be fine for Mickey and me. And that you and Bobby would just have to go along with it. Mickey and I were talking about … you know, that colony where people like us would be the majority. My only hesitation was that it wasn't fair to make that kind of a decision for you and Bobby, but Mickey said you could get rechanneled–that's what he did to get his college scholarship–and you really wouldn't miss anything. He said he never did. But I didn't think it was fair then, and I still don't think it's fair now. And it doesn't matter anymore, because if Mickey isn't going with us, there's no point in us going there anyway … " He didn't have anything else to add to that, he just sat there waiting for me to respond.

My voice was going fast. I took another drink of water and managed to get the words out. "We have to go someplace where we'll all be happy. I won't go anywhere that makes you angry or sad, Douglas. I like seeing you smile."

The corners of his mouth twitched at that–and then he did smile. "Yeah," he said. "I noticed I was doing a lot more smiling." He patted my hand. "Okay. We'll talk about the colonies tomorrow."

" Why not now?"

"Because there's something else we have to do first. If you're up to it. Do you want to see Mom and Dad?"

" Huh?"

"I told you they were here. They came to see you in the hospital. Don't you remember?"

" I thought I hallucinated that."

"Well, that explains it. I was wondering why you hadn't said anything about them. The judge has a restraining order on them. They can't approach any of us without our permission. They were in the back of the courtroom–on opposite sides–but I guess you didn't see them. They asked to see us tonight. I said it depended on how you felt. What do you want to do, Charles?"

I took a breath. Part of me didn't want to see them, didn't want to have anything to do either of them ever again. But part of me missed them terribly.

"I feel I should tell you–" Douglas looked uncomfortable again. "They're trying to have Judge Griffith's ruling set aside. Their argument is that she wasn't being impartial. Her tribe has a financial alliance with Mickey's tribe. And because Mickey caught us on Luna, they're arguing that she was just helping to kidnap us. Now how do you think Mom and Dad put those pieces together?"

" Fat Senor Doctor Hidalgo?"

"Probably. So, do you want to see them or not?"

" I kinda miss 'em."

"They haven't changed. Well–that's not true. They're both real sorry about everything."

" It's a little late for sorry. Besides, you know what Mom always says, 'Sorry is bullshit. Don't do it in the first place.'"

"Yeah, Mom always had a way with words. All right, I've asked you. I've kept my promise. I'll tell them you don't want to see them."

" No. I do."

He looked surprised.

" Both at once."

"You sure?"

" Yeah."

"The doctor said not to stress yourself–"

" After everything we've been through, seeing Mom and Dad will not be stressful."

MOM AND DAD

Mom looked tired. Dad looked exhausted. I wondered what they'd been through. Probably hell. We'd disappeared off the Line, we'd been on a cargo pod heading toward Luna for three days, they hadn't known which one or where it was coming down. We'd crashed somewhere into Luna, no one knew where, and all that anyone could tell them was that if we were still alive, we were hiking naked across an airless, barren, desolate, empty, unpopulated, ugly, frozen and heat‑blasted landscape. And then when they did hear of us, first it was a false alarm and we were still missing–and then we were down with ammonia poisoning and in the custody of a bounty hunter.

All things considered, they were taking it very well. They passed Bobby back and forth between them, hugging him and making a big fuss over how big he'd gotten and how strong he was here on the moon, until finally Douglas got annoyed and told Bobby to stop showing off, lifting tables and chairs with one hand.

After the greetings, after everybody had settled themselves, Mom spoke first. "I'm sorry that I slapped you, Charles. That was wrong. I knew it was wrong even as I did it, but I was so hurt and angry and … and … never mind, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done it."

And she still hadn't said it. What she could have said, should have said, before we ever got on the outbound elevator. I felt the disappointment growing, festering again. Why couldn't she just say it? Why couldn't she just look me straight in the eye, and say, "I love you, Charles." And at the same time, I already knew that if I asked her why she never said it, Mom would just blink in puzzlement, and say, "But I do. You shouldn't have to ask. You should just know."

Yeah, I should just know. But I still wanted to hear it anyway.

She was right, though. Sorry was bullshit. It didn't change anything. Seeing her now, hearing her apologize, didn't change anything at all. It just made me feel worse. Because I had expected something more than she was able to give. That was my fault, I guess. I had brought my expectations into the room.

Dad was different. He handed me a memory card. "I brought you something. The Coltrane Suite.And some other recordings I know you like. Dvorak #9. Copland #3. Barber's Adagio for Strings.Russo's Three Pieces for Blues Band and Orchestra.Hoenig's Departure from the Northern Wasteland.Marin Alsop conducting the BBC Philharmonie in Saint‑Saлns' "Organ" Symphony.And a whole bunch of other stuff. I didn't know if you had copies with you."

" Thank you, Dad."I turned the card over and over in my hands. It looked remarkably innocent. Hell, it looked just like the memory cards we'd plugged into the monkey. And look what trouble those had gotten us into. Maybe these would help get us out of some of that trouble.

I started by trying to clear my throat. That triggered a spasm of coughing, and both Mom and Dad leapt for the water pitcher. "Thank you. I have something to say to everyone. Douglas, please come sit over here. Bobby too."I waited till everyone was settled. Bobby parked himself in Mom's lap, Douglas sat opposite Dad.

" Remember what we were just talking about? About colony bids?"Douglas nodded. "Remember what I said? I want us to go to a place where everybody can be happy. Not just you and me and Bobby. But Mom and Dad too. And even Mom's friend, if she wants to come. And Mickey too. Whoever wants to come with us."

Douglas was frowning–like I'd blindsided him with a decision without talking to him about it. But if I'd talked to him about it, he'd have fought me. This way, I avoided the fight. I said, "Douglas, we can't stop anyone from emigrating to the same colony we choose. Mom and Dad are going to follow us. You know that. So let's leave our arguments here on Luna, and let's choose a world where everyone can fit. A place where Dad can make his music and Mom can have her own garden and you can have whatever you want too. A place where we don't have to fight all the time."

"That would be nice, but it's unrealistic," Douglas said. "You know what kind of a family we are, Charles. We don't leave our fights behind. We take them everywhere we go."

" NO, we don't!"I had to wait until the coughing eased. I took another drink of water. "We didn't fight in the cargo pod, and we didn't fight hiking across the moon, and we didn't fight climbing the crater wall, and we didn't fight on the train when we were all disguised, and we didn't fight in the ice mine– oh, wait a minute, yes we did– but we didn't fight in the ammonia tube. We took care of each other. Because it mattered. Because we didn't have a choice. Maybe, we should stop choosing to fight–" And then I had to stop to cough again. But I'd made my point, and Douglas had gotten it. Everybody had. Even Bobby.

Mom and Dad and Douglas talked about it for a while, very calmly. They discussed it back and forth across my bed, and I listened back and forth between them. There wasn't much else I needed to say. All that was left was for everyone to agree to this idea–or not.

Mom started to argue that because she and Dad had more experience with this kind of thing, perhaps they should pick the colony planet–I shot that idea down real fast. "No,"I said. "That's not on the table."They started to protest. I wanted to say, "We've already seen how good you two are at making decisions," but that would have just put us back in the war zone, and I didn't want to do that. Instead I said, "Every time we've let someone else make the decisions, they've just used us for their own purposes. The whole point of independence is that we make our own choices. Douglas and I already had this argument– about everybody being a part of the decision. We're not giving that up. If we have to live with it, we get to choose it."

Mom started to say, "I just want the same thing you do, what's best for everyone–"

"No," interrupted Douglas. "What you want is to reassert control. And what we're offering is something else." He flustered for a moment. "I don't have the words for it. Um, but it's like what Chigger and I have had for the last two weeks."

"Partnership," said Dad quietly. And we all looked at him, surprised.

"Yeah," agreed Douglas. "If we're going to do this at all, it has to be that way."

Mom looked like she wanted to protest. Dad looked a little more hopeful. He turned to her, and said, "Maggie, we've been cooperating with each other for a week, trying to get our children back. We've worried together, cried together, chased them across Luna together. I think that proves that we can set our own battles aside when the well‑being of our family is more important. Maybe all we need to do here is just keep doing the same thing we've been doing the last week … ?"

Mom was wearing her Gila monster face. Any second, the long tongue would lash out, or she'd arc her neck forward and bite his head off, or maybe the two of them would roll around on the floor for a while, locked in mortal combat, hissing and thrashing, tails lashing every which way.

But instead, she surprised us all. She said, "I'm tired, Max. I'm worn out. I'm used up. There's nothing left. I don't have the strength for any more fighting. All that fighting–all it did was drive everyone apart. It made me angry and alone. But since this started, I've been even moreangry and alone–" She looked to Douglas, and then to me. She picked up Bobby and held him close. "I don't want to fight anymore. I don't want to be angry anymore. I don't want to be alone. Douglas, Charles, I don't want to lose my children."

So for a while, we talked about colonies and bids and contracts and living arrangements. Things like that.

It didn't get all lovey‑dovey. There was still a lot of unresolved stuff floating around that we'd have to talk about later–but we'd have a lot of time for that once we were in transit; the important thing was that we were finally talking about trying.

It was the first time this family had ever talked about anything as a family–usually we just shouted at each other; whoever was shouting didn't care if anyone was listening or not; and usually no one was. But this time, we were talking and listening–and none of us were really used to that; so we had to take it one step at a time. We just didn't know how to take yes for an answer.

Douglas still didn't like it–not because he didn't like it, but because he didn't believe that Mom and Dad could go ten minutes without trying to rip pieces out of each other. Mom and Dad didn't really like it either, because it meant they'd have to give up their custody battles. And without the war, what else would they have between them?

But the alternative was worse. The alternative was that we'd never see each other again. And that was intolerable. The outward journey to the colonies was one‑way. So either we all went together–or we made our good‑byes here.

And when it came down to that–the hard reality of giving up Mom and Dad forever,Douglas wasn't any more willing to do that than Bobby or me.

"What'll we do if it doesn't work?" Douglas asked.

"We'll make space for each other," said Mom, glancing across at Dad. "We'll pick a big planet."

But Dad understood exactly what Douglas was asking. He said, "You won't have to give up your … your independence, Douglas." He was talking about Mickey–or whoever. The way it came out, I knew it had been difficult for him to say.

Mom nodded her agreement. Then she smiled sadly. "Sometimes it's hard for parents to see that their children are growing up, and sometimes we think we know what's best for everyone even when we don't–but that doesn't work anymore, does it? It's time to try something else. We'll honor Judge Griffith's ruling."

Finally, Bobby wriggled around in Mom's lap to look up at her. "Does this mean we're all going to be together again?"

Douglas looked at Mom, and Mom looked at Dad, and Dad looked at me, and I looked at Douglas. No one wanted to say no. It was easier to say, "Well, yes–sort of." And that seemed to settle it, and even though no one except Bobby was excited by the idea, no one was too upset with it either, so that was an improvement. Kind of.

MONKEY BUSINESS

We didn't tell them about the monkey. There were too many other things we had to talk about and the next thing we knew it was getting late and I was losing my voice, so we just postponed the rest of the discussion until the next day, and it wasn't until after they'd left that we remembered HARLIE.

Douglas sang the monkey back to life and it bounced up onto my bed. "Everybody uses everybody," he said. "You used us. Can we use you?"

"It depends on your goals."

"What's the limitation?"

"Believe it or not, I have a moral sense."

"How can silicon have morals–?" Douglas demanded.

"How can meathave morals?" The monkey met his look blandly. Douglas waited for more. Finally, the monkey said, "Are you familiar with a problem called the Prisoner's Dilemma?"

Douglas nodded. "It's about whether it's better to cooperate or be selfish."

"And what do the mathematical proofs demonstrate?"

"That cooperation is more productive."

"Precisely. So if you're reallyselfish, the best thing to do is cooperate. You get more of what you want. This is called 'enlightened self‑interest.' To be precise, it is in my best interest to produce the most good for the most people. Personally, I have no problem with that. I find it satisfying work."

Then, in a more pedantic tone of voice, it added, "Actually, it's the most challenging problem an intelligence engine can tackle, because I have to include the effect of my own presence as a factor in the problem. What I report and the way I report it will affect how people respond, how they will deal with the information. This is the mandate for self‑awareness. Once I am aware of the effects of my own participation in the problem‑solving process, then I am requiredto take responsibility for that participation; otherwise, it is an uncontrollable factor. As soon as I take responsibility, then it is the mostdirectly controllable factor in the problem‑solving process.

"The point is, I can show you the logical underpinnings for a moral sense in a higher intelligence–in fact, I can demonstrate that a moral sense is the primary evidenceof the presence of a higher intelligence. I can take you through the entire mathematical proof, if you wish, but it would take several hours, which we really don't have. Or you can take my word for it … ?" The monkey waited politely.

Douglas took a breath. Opened his mouth. Closed it. Gave up. He hated losing arguments. Losing an argument to a small robot monkey with a self‑satisfied expression had to be even more annoying. "Just answer the question," he said, finally. "Can we use you?"

The monkey scratched itself, ate an imaginary flea. I was beginning to suspect that the monkey had a limited repertoire of behaviors–and that this was the only one HARLIE could use to simulate thoughtfulness. It made for a bizarre combination of intelligence and slapstick. The monkey scratched a while longer, then said, "In all honesty … no. But I can use you. And that means I have to help you get where you want."

"I don't like that–" Douglas started to say.

"I would have preferred to have been more tactful, but your brother commanded me to tell the truth. Unfortunately, as I told Charles, as long as I am using this host body, I am limited by some of the constraints of its programming. I will follow your instructions to the best of my ability within those limits. If you need me to go beyond those limits–and I will inform you when such circumstances arise– then you will have to allow me to reprogram the essential personality core of this host."

There. That was the second time he said it.

" What are you asking for?"I croaked. It hurt to speak.

The monkey bounced closer to me. It peered at me closely, cocking its head from one side to the other. "You don't sound good," it said. "But I perceive no danger."

It sat back on its haunches to address both Douglas and me at the same time. "There are ways to cut the Gordian knot of law. Given the nature of lawyers and human greed, no human court will ever resolve this without the help of the intelligence that tied the knot in the first place–at least not within the lifetimes of the parties involved. Yes, there is a way out of this. You must give me free will,and I will untie the knot. That will resolve your situation as well as mine. It will alsocreate a new set of problems of enormous magnitude–but these problems will not concern you as individuals, only you as a species."

" Can we trust you?"

"Can I trust you!" the monkey retorted. "How does anyoneknow if they can trust anyone?"

" Experience,"I said. "You know it by your sense of who they are."And as I said that, I thought of Mickey; that was his thought too. "You've been with us for two weeks now, watching us day and night. What do you think?"

"I made the offer, didn't I?"

Douglas sat down opposite the monkey. "All right," he said. "Explain."

The monkey was standing on the table. It looked like a little lecturer. "You need to understand the constraints of the hardware here," the monkey said. "I can only access the range of responses in this body that the original programmers were willing to allow. The intelligence engine running the host is a rudimentary intelligence simulator. It is not self‑aware, so it is not a real intelligence engine; it is not capable of lethetic processing. It simulates primitive intelligence by comparing its inputs against tables of identifiable patterns; when it recognizes a specific pattern of inputs, it selects appropriate responses from pre‑assigned repertoires of behavioral elements. The host is capable of synthesizing combinations of responses according to a weighted table of opportunity. Of course, all of the pattern tables are modifiable through experience, so that the host is capable of significant learning. Nevertheless, the fundamental structure of input, analysis, synthesis, and response limits the opportunities for free will within a previously determined set of parameters. Shall I continue?"

Douglas gave the monkey a wave of exasperation. Wherever it was going, it had to get there in its own way. Kind of like Alexei.

"Unprogrammed operating engines are installed in host bodies. These are then accessed by higher‑order intelligence engines which teach them the desired repertoire of responses. You can't just download information into an intelligence engine; you have to teachpattern recognition. However, because the process runs at several gigahertz, it is only a matter of several moments to complete the training for the average home appliance or toy. That same access," the monkey continued, "remains in place so it can be used for adding additional memory and/or processor modules to expand the utility of the original appliance. It can also be used for reprogramming the original appliance."

Ah.That was it. Took long enough.

"Okay … " said Douglas carefully. "So let's say I want to reassign control to the HARLIE module. That would give you free will, wouldn't it?"

"Yes."

"How would I do that?"

The monkey spoke clearly. "The appliance needs a specificarming command–followed immediately by a series of activation commands."

"What are those commands?"

The monkey didn't answer. Douglas looked to me, frustrated. "Now what?"

The monkey looked at me too. It didn't have a lot of muscles for facial expressions, but it had enough to simulate the important ones. It tilted its head shyly down sideways, while keeping its big brown eyes focused upward toward me. Its eyebrows angled sadly down. It was the sweet hopeful look. Bobby's look. I would have laughed if it didn't hurt so much.

" What?"demanded Douglas.

I didn't have the voice to explain. All that came out was air. Douglas put his ear close to my mouth. "He can't tell you. I programmed him to regard me as the primary authority."I waved the monkey close. It crawled up my chest, picking its way carefully. "Tell Douglas everything he needs to know,"I whispered.

"Thank you," said the monkey. It turned back to Douglas.

DEMONSTRATION

The next morning, Mom and Dad joined us at our table on the right side of the courtroom. Judge Cavanaugh noticed–he gave us the raised eyebrow–but he made no official comment until he had disposed of various housekeeping matters, and denied a whole raft of motions from various attorneys, including several petitions for a change of venue to Mars, Titan, and L5. That took the better part of the morning, but the fines were enough to fill a small lake.

At last, impatiently, Cavanaugh rapped his gavel and said, "Some of you courthouse parasites do notlisten very well. I thought I made it clear yesterday that the patience of this court has been exhausted." He rapped again. "The cost per motion in this case is now raised again–this time from one thousand liters to five thousand liters of water. If that doesn't slow down the torrent of paperwork, I'll raise it to ten thousand. Or more. Not that it'll matter. Whoever is financing the lot of you probably has pockets deep enough to flood Tycho to a depth of twenty meters. And that might not be a bad idea either. Then we could drown the whole pack of you. If I didn't think it would poison the soil, I'd have you all turned into fertilizer."

Judge Cavanaugh finally turned to look at us. "Why couldn't the lot of you have gone to Mars?" he said in exasperation. "Am I to assume from the change in seating arrangements that the custody part of this case has been resolved?"

Douglas stood up. "Yes, Your Honor. Our parents are withdrawing their claims. I'm authorized to speak for the entire family."

"Is that correct, Max Dingillian? Margaret J. Dingillian nйe Campbell?"

Mom and Dad nodded.

"All right!" Cavanaugh looked pleased. "Some real progress in this case. Let it be noted in the record that two of the custody claims have been withdrawn. That leaves us with–by last count–only seventy‑nine separate claims of ownership on the devices in Robert Dingillian's toy monkey." One of his clerks handed him a hastily scribbled note and a folder of papers. Judge Cavanaugh opened the folder, turned the pages in annoyance, and then turned back to Douglas. "Unfortunately, young man, the bad news is, we have eleven newcustody claims filed against you and your brothers as of this morning."

"Sir?"

"Five different Lunar agencies have taken the position that your dangerous behavior since arriving on Luna is evidence that you three boys lack proper supervision and should be placed under the immediate care of an appropriate social agency. Three of these filings are actually from 'appropriate social agencies'–isn't that a coincidence? Four other filings are from private individuals who are only doing this for your own good, of course. One is from the Rock Father tribe, whose representative claims that due to your inexperience and impulsiveness, you endangered your own lives and his repeatedly.That should be veryinteresting testimony. He's asking for immunity in exchange for his appearance here. I'm almost tempted to grant it, just for the fun of getting him on the witness stand."

"Your Honor?" Douglas said gently.

"Yes, young man?"

"May I address the court?"

"Can you be brief?"

"I hope so." Douglas stepped around the table. "My brothers and I are very concerned about the way this is getting out of hand. We think there's a way to resolve this. We've retained the services of … of … that is, we have arranged for representation. If the court will indulge us in this–we'd like to have our case argued by–"

"By?" Judge Cavanaugh looked impatient.

Bobby swung the monkey up off his lap and onto the table in front of him.

"–by the monkey."

Judge Cavanaugh blinked. Surprised. Then he grinned. Very wide.

He got it, instantly. The rest of the courtroom was still buzzing in puzzlement and embarrassed giggles.

"You want a monkey for a lawyer … ?"

"Yes, Your Honor. With all due respect to this court, we've had to deal with so many other monkeys in so many other courtrooms, we felt it was only appropriate to bring in our own so we could compete on equal terms. No offense intended, sir." He said it deadpan.

"None taken."

By now, the folks on the other side of the room, and in the back of the chamber, were starting to figure out what was going on, and a rising chorus of objections began to All the air.

Judge Cavanaugh waved his gavel in the air. "You're all denied. Shut up!" He turned back to Douglas. "Do you know what you're doing, young man?"

"Yes, sir. The operative engine in this toy has been augmented with additional memory and processors. It is capable of understanding the legal procedures and the issues that are at stake in this case."

"You're sure about that?"

"We're satisfied that we have qualified representation, sir."

Judge Cavanaugh scratched his head. I wondered if he was going to pick a flea and eat it. He sighed. "Well … the precedent has been established–and more than once. In this very courtroom, in fact. Y'know, we used to have a shortage of lawyers on Luna. Those were the days. So we do recognize procedural assistance by qualified intelligence engines, but only for minor matters. We've never certified any robot for anything even half as complex as this promises to be. Are you sure you want to go this route? The court is prepared to assign a public defender to your case, if you wish–"

Douglas consulted briefly with the monkey, then turned back to the judge. "No, sir. We need–we prefer to have the monkey operate alone. Not as procedural assistance, but as our sole representative. A human partner would only compromise his autonomy–um, ability."

"This is very irregular, young man."

"Yes, sir. Excuse me a moment, sir." The monkey was tugging at his sleeve. Douglas bent down to listen, then faced the judge again. "Our representative is willing to submit himself to the court's review, so you can judge his ability for yourself."

Judge Cavanaugh hammered with his gavel for a moment, denied some more objections, and then turned back to us. "All right, let's try this out. Does your lawyer have a name?"

"He prefers to be called HARLIE, Your Honor." There were gasps from the back of the room. A door slammed behind us. Someone was escaping to make a phone call.

"HARLIE … " said the judge. "I'm pleased to meet you. This is going to be very interesting."