Luna Escapade, H. B. Fyfe [manga ereader TXT] 📗

according to the boast of its staff, where one could actually dine under the stars.

"Sometimes I wish that dome wasn't so transparent," said Fisher. "Sit down, the girls will be back in a minute."

Dudley eyed him affectionately. Fisher was head of the settlement's small police force, but managed to look more like the proprietor of one of the several bars that flourished in the levels of the city just under the restaurant. He was heavy enough to look less than his six feet, and his face was as square as the rest of him. Dark hair retreated reluctantly from his forehead, and the blue eyes set peering above his pudgy cheeks were shrewd.

"Girls?" asked Dudley.

"We brought along a new arrival to keep you company," said Fisher. "She works in one of the film libraries or something like that."

Which means that's as good an excuse as any for having her at Ericsson, thought Dudley. Anyway, I'm glad Jack is the sort to be realistic about things like bars and other ... recreation. There'd be more guys turning a little variable from too much time in space without some outlet.

"Here she comes with Myra," said his host. "Name's Eileen."

Dudley smiled at Mrs. Fisher and was introduced to the red-haired girl with her. Eileen eyed him speculatively, then donned her best air of friendliness. The evening passed rapidly.

For the next few days, besides seeing the Fishers and looking up the men who were to be his crew, Dudley spent a lot of time with Eileen. There seemed to be little difficulty about her getting time off from whatever her official duties were. She showed him all the bars and movie theatres and other amusements that the underground city could boast, and Dudley made the most of them in spite of his recent visit to Terra. On the Mars-bound rocket, they would be lucky, if allowed one deck of cards and half a dozen books for the entertainment of the four of them.

It was on the "evening" of his third day that the specter haunting the back of his mind pushed forward to confront him. He had listened for gossip, but there had been no word of the discovery of an unauthorized arrival. Then, as he was taking Eileen to her underground apartment, he heard his name called.

There she was, with an escort of three young men he guessed to be operators of the machinery that still drilled out new corridors in the rock around the city. Somehow she had exchanged the black slack suit for a bright red dress that was even more daring than Eileen's. In the regulated temperature, clothing was generally light, but Dudley's first thought was that this was overdoing a good thing.

"May I have a word with you, Dudley?" Kathi asked, coming across the corridor while her young men waited with shifting feet and displeased looks.

Dudley glanced helplessly at Eileen, wondering about an introduction. He had never bothered to learn her last name, and he had no idea of what name Kathi was using. The redhead had pity on him.

"My door's only a few yards down," she said. "I'll wait."

She swept Kathi with a glance of amused confidence and walked away. It seemed to Dudley that she made sure the three young men followed her with their eyes; but then he was kicking off for Mars within twenty-four hours, so he could hardly object to that.

"Have you changed your mind?" demanded Kathi with a fierce eagerness.

"Not so loud!" hushed Dudley. "About what? And how did you get that rig?"

Had he been less dismayed at her presence, he might have remarked that the tight dress only emphasized her immaturity, but she gave him no time to say more.

"About Mars, Dudley. Can't you take me? I'm afraid those illegitimate blood-suckers are going to send after me. They could sniff out which way a nickel rolled in a coal-bin."

"Aren't you just a shade young for that kind of talk?"

"I guess I'm a little frightened," she admitted.

"You frighten me, too," he retorted. "How are you ... I mean, what do you—?"

She tossed her blonde hair.

"There are ways to get along here, I found out. I didn't get arrested this time, did I? So why can't you take a chance with me to Mars?"

"Take an eclipse on that," said Dudley with a flat sweep of his hand. "It's just out of the question. For one thing, there are four of us going, and you can't hide for the whole trip without somebody catching on."

"All right," she said quietly. "Why not?"

"What do you mean, 'Why not?'"

"I'm willing to earn my passage. What if there are four of you?"

For a long moment, Dudley discovered things about himself, with the sudden realization that the idea appealed to some suppressed part of his mind. He had never kidded himself about being a saint. The thing had possibilities. Maybe one of the others can be talked into restraint into her.

He snapped out of it. "Don't be a little fool!" he grated. "If you want my advice, you'll—."

"Well, I don't want your goddam advice! If you're too yellow to try it, I'll find somebody else. There'll be another rocket after yours, you know. Maybe they'll have a man on it!"

He felt his face go white and then flush as he stared at her. He did not know what to say. She looked like a child, but the outburst was more than a mere tantrum.

Sounds as if she's never been crossed before, he thought. I ought to haul off and slap a little self-restraint into her.

Instead, he beckoned to the three men, who had been edging closer with aggrieved expressions.

"How about taking your girl friend along?" he said flatly.

One of them took her by the elbow and tried to murmur something in her ear, but Kathi shook him off.

"If you are afraid for your license, Dudley, I'll say I hid without your knowing it. I'll say one of the others let me in. Please, Dudley. I'm sorry I talked to you like that."

She was making a fool of him, and of herself, he decided. And in another minute, she would spill the whole thing, the way she was sounding off. And her friends were beginning to look hostile as it was.

"What's the trouble?" asked one of them.

"Nothing that won't clear up if you pour a couple of drinks into her," said Dudley disgustedly.

He walked away, and they held her from following.

"Dudley!" she yelled after him. "They'll send me back! Please, Dudley. I won't go. You remember what I said about going back—."

Her voice was getting too shrill. Someone in the group must have put his hand over her mouth, for when Dudley looked back, they were rounding a corner of the corridor more or less silently.

Eileen waited in the half-open door, watching him quizzically. "Friend of yours?" she drawled.

"After a fashion," admitted Dudley, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead. "Spoiled brat!"

He fumbled in a pocket of his jacket, and withdrew a small package. "Here's the bracelet that matches that necklace," he said. "I knew I had it in my locker somewhere."

Her thanks were very adequate.

"Aren't you coming in?" Eileen asked after the pause.

"No ... I don't ... I have to get a good night's sleep, you know. We kick off tomorrow."

She pursed her lips in a small pout, but shrugged. "Then look me up when you get back, Pete."

"Yeah. Sure."

He kissed her quickly and walked away, drumming the fingers of his right hand against his thigh.

Except for the tenseness of blasting off and landing, the round trip to Mars was as boring as he expected. Campiglia won too many chess games at one move per watch, and the deck of cards wore out. For a few days, Wells had a slightly infected finger after cutting himself, but it was a small crisis. The layover on Mars was short, and the thrill was no longer new.

Dudley was glad to step out of the big rocket on Luna.

They had come in during the sleeping period at Ericsson, so the four of them had gone to their quarters for a few hours of sleep after the first babble of welcome from those on duty when they landed. Dudley was awakened by Jack Fisher.

"So early?" he grunted, squinting at his watch. "What brings you around?"

Fisher settled his bulk in the only chair of the bedroom that was to be Dudley's until his next Terra-bound rocket.

"Liable to be busy today," he said easily, "so I thought I'd have breakfast with you."

"Fine!" said Dudley. "Wait'll I shave and I'll be with you."

When he returned from the bathroom, he thought that he had perfect control of his features. There might not be anything wrong, but it seemed odd that Jack should be around so soon. He wondered if the Kathi Foster affair was in the background.

They went up a few levels to a minor eating place and had scrambled eggs that almost tasted natural. Over the coffee, Fisher opened up.

"Had a little excitement while you were gone," he said.

"Yeah? What?"

Fisher let him wait while he carefully unwrapped the half-smoked remains of a cigar. Tobacco in any form was strictly rationed in all Lunar settlements.

"Ever hear of old Robert Forgeron?" he asked.

"The one they used to call 'Robber' Forgeron?"

"That's right. He had so many patents on airlock mechanisms and space-suit gadgets and rocket control instruments that he made the goddamnedest fortune ever heard of out of space exploration. Died a few years ago."

Dudley maintained a puzzled silence.

"Seems the old man had strong ideas about that fortune," continued Fisher. "Left the bulk of it to his only granddaughter."

"That must have made headlines," Dudley commented.

"Sure did." Fisher had the cigar going, now, and he puffed economically upon it. "Especially when she ran away from home."

"Oh?" Dudley felt it coming. "Where to?"

"Here!"

Fisher held his cigar between thumb and forefinger and examined it fondly.

"Said her name was Kathi Foster instead of Kathi Forgeron. After they got around to guessing she was on Luna, and sent descriptions, we picked her up, of course. Shortly after you kicked off for Mars, in fact."

Dudley was silent. The other's shrewd little eyes glinted bluely at him through the cigar smoke.

"How about it, Pete? I've been trying to figure how she got here. If it was you, you needn't worry about the regulations. There was some sort of litigation going on, and all kinds of relatives came boiling up here to get her. All the hullabaloo is over by now."

Dudley took a deep breath, and told his side of the story. Fisher listened quietly, nodding occasionally with the satisfaction of one who had guessed the answer.

"So you see how it was, Jack. I didn't really believe the kid's story. And she was so wild about it!"

Fisher put out his cigar with loving care.

"Got to save the rest of this for dinner," he said. "Yes, she was wild, in a way. You should hear—well, that's in the files. Before we were sure who she was, Snowdon put her on as a secretary in his section."

"She didn't look to me like a typist," objected Dudley.

"Oh, she wasn't," said Fisher, without elaborating. "I suppose if she was a little nuts, she was just a victim of the times. If it hadn't been for the sudden plunge into space, old Forgeron wouldn't have made such a pile of quick money. Then his granddaughter might have grown up in a normal home, instead of feeling she was just a target. If she'd been born a generation earlier or later, she might have been okay."

Dudley thought of the girl's pleading, her frenzy to escape her environment.

"So I suppose they dragged her back," he said. "Which loving relative won custody of the money?"

"That's still going on," Fisher told him. "It's tougher than ever, I hear, because she didn't go down with them. She talked somebody into letting her have a space-suit and walked out to the other side of the ringwall. All the way to the foothills on the other side."

Dudley stared at him in mounting horror. Fisher seemed undisturbed, but the pilot knew his friend better than that. It could only mean that the other had had three months to become accustomed to the idea. He was tenderly tucking away the stub of his cigar.

"Wasn't so bad, I guess," he answered Dudley's unspoken question. "She took a pill and sat down. Couple of rock-tappers looking for ore found her. Frozen stiff, of course, when her batteries ran down."

Dudley planted his elbows on the table and leaned his head in his hands.

"I should have taken her to Mars!" he groaned.

"She tried that on you, too?" Fisher was unsurprised. "No, Pete, it wouldn't have done any good. Would've lost you your job, probably. Like I said, she was born the