Текст книги "Bouncing Off the Moon"

Автор книги: David Gerrold

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I shuddered. It turned into a shiver. A whole bunch of shivers. I was cold. I could see my breath. "Uh—Alexei?"

"Yes, yes, I know. We are just waiting for Douglas to chill. Ha-ha, I make joke there. Old-fashioned slang. Never mind. Douglas and Robert mass more than everyone else. They generate more body heat. It will take longer for them to chill out. We want temperature in bubble suit to be almost freezing. Below would be better, but we do not want to risk frostbite either. We are almost there. Please be patient. Douglas? Are you ready? Mikhail?Charles? Hokay. There is no more time for chattering—except teeth, perhaps. When I say we go, everyone follow me. Don't fall down. Just keep going, no matter what. Remember to pace yourself. We are not racing. We are bouncing like before, only faster. Everybody ready? Get set? Go!"

And with that, he was off—a black stick figure racing into the light, carrying his bubble suit over his shoulder. Douglas followed immediately after. I hesitated for half a heartbeat—then plunged ahead. Mickey called, "I'm right behind you!"

We bounced into the light and it was like coming out of a tunnel. The sun slammed sideways into us like a wall of radiance. It was blinding. It dazzled and glared and my eyes started watering almost immediately. But I knew that part of it was just that my eyes hadn't adjusted yet. I found my rhythm and kept going. Hop with the left foot, hop with the right—I skipped steadily after Alexei and Douglas, bouncing high with every step.

We would have been floating through the air—if there had been air, but there wasn't; so we bumbled gracefully through space—bouncing across the land like gossamer hippopotami.

Everything was still too bright, the sideways glare etched every rock and boulder in sandpaper detail, the plains looked painful—but I wasn't hot in the bubble suit. Not yet. I was still shivering from the prolonged cold of the long Lunar shadows. I was almost impatient for the suit to start warming up. So far, this wasn't too bad. But we had a long way to go, and the sun's heat would be cumulative.

Behind me, I could hear Mickey counting off checkpoints. We passed the first one and I realized I wasn't shivering anymore, but the bubble suit still felt cold. Maybe it was just the exertion that was warming me up. I glanced back. The line of shadow had receded into the distance. A little farther and it would be over the horizon. That would be the worst—when we were out of sight of shadow.

Despite the long shadows, there was little refuge out here. The boulders were too small, their shadows were stretched out thin and insignificant. The light came in at us from the side, like the flame of a giant torch. All around us, the surreal landscape glowed; we pushed headlong into a world of dazzling glare. The inside of the bubble flashed and sparkled with rogue reflections. I was getting comfortably warm.

I maintained my pace, occasionally glancing back to see if Mickey was keeping up. He was close behind me. Ahead, Douglas was maintaining a steady pace, even burdened as he was with Stinky. Even farther ahead, I could see the flashing black figure of Alexei bounding through the sunlight. He wasn't having a problem with this, he'd already done it twice—once across, then back again when he'd heard us following him. His Scuba suit was refrigerated. He could go farther than any of us.

We passed the second checkpoint, still pounding across the silvery white dust, and I began to feel optimistic about making it. Maybe this wasn't going to be as bad as I feared. All I had to do was keep Alexei and Douglas in sight. Just keep bouncing. Watch out for the boulders. Pay intention. And try not to notice the cold drop of sweat running down my side—

It was getting warmer out here. It was getting warmer inhere. Inside the bubble. Not uncomfortable yet, but …

I glanced back. Mickey was still close behind me. "Pay intention, Chigger!"

It wasn't Mickey I was worried about. It was the distance to shadow. Every bounce forward was also a bounce farther from darkness. And I had no idea how far we still had to go to get to the shadows on the other side. We were heading deeper into the heart of brightness. I began to worry. I wasn't hot yet, but—I was thinking about hot.The cumulative heat was building up.

I began to worry that Alexei had miscalculated. He had the refrigerated suit. We didn't. What if we were like the swimmer who swims too far out and has no strength left for getting back. What if the heat in our bubbles became intolerable before we got to the other side? What if we were getting too far out into the light to reach anyshade safely? What if we could only get mostof the way across, but not the last half klick? What if we couldn't make the last hundred meters? What if we couldn't make the last tenmeters—?

Ohell. What if we couldn't even get halfwayto safety? What if we had already passed the point of safe return? What if we were already doomed? What if we were already burning up and didn't know it?

" Shut up!"

"Huh?" said Mickey, right behind me. "I didn't say anything."

"I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to the little voices. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

"Chigger, are you all right?"

Oh great. Now he was thinking I was going crazy—

I looked at my numbers. "I'm fine."

These bubble suits weren't designed for this. They were meant for emergencies. All this stuff, it was supposed to be used for keeping folks alive until the rescue boat could get to them—nobody ever intended these things for Lunar exploration. Not for long-distance hikes across the Lunar surface. Not like this. Alexei had told us not to worry, it was part of the design specification because who knew what might be needed in an emergency, but just because a bubble suit candoesn't mean it should.And besides … what if Alexei was lying about the suits? Then what?

But why would he lie to us? What was the point in that? Did he want to kill us? How would he benefit from that? Well, there was a thought …

We passed the next checkpoint. I'd lost count. I had no idea what Alexei and Mickey were using as checkpoints. I couldn't tell one rock from another anymore. I wasn't warm anymore. I was hot, the sweat was running down my body. I'd skip into space—lifting up high to see the glowing landscape ahead of us, then each time as I'd float back down, the droplets would go coursing down my underarms in warm sluggish trails that made me think of snails—and then I'd bounce down onto the silvery floor of sparkling light and the droplets would splatter off, into my already-clammy jumpsuit. With each hop and skip, the damp material plastered itself against me like a used towel. Everything was wet and smelly with sweat.

I'd been in the sauna a few times, at school. I didn't like it. It was too hot. This was almost as hot. Not quite. But getting there. I thought about cold orange juice– realorange juice—not the orange-colored stuff that Mom always bought. I thought about ice. I thought about ice water. I thought about swimming in ice water.

Another checkpoint. And I still didn't see any shadows on the horizon. We were in the middle of a dazzling plate of fire. We were under a magnifying glass. The hard black sky was overruled by the scorching blaze of light in the east. The sweat poured off me. So did the tears.

"You're doing fine, Chigger. Just keep on. Only a little farther." That was Mickey's voice.

I couldn't see anyone clearly anymore. There was a dark figure bouncing in front of me. And a blurry bubble too. Mickey's occasional comments came from behind me. Were they suffering as much as I was? I couldn't imagine it—

Maybe Alexei really did want us dead, so he could skip off into the darkness with the monkey …

Sure, that was it. That's why he'd left us up on the rim of the crater. He wasn't going for help. He was just going. And going. And then what—? It was too hot to think of the next step. But if he knew where the monkey was and nobody else did, then he could sell it to whoever would pay the most and nobody else could get to it if we were dead—and the moon was the perfect place to lose anything. Or anyone.

How much more of this could my bubble suit take before it popped? Was it already bigger because the air was heating up and expanding? And why didn't we float up into the air like the hot-air balloons in Albuquerque? Weren't we hot enough? Oh, we were hot enough, but there wasn't any air to float up into—

Another checkpoint. Mickey's voice sounded bad. Somewhere ahead, Stinky was crying—or screaming. I bounced up, floated down, bounced up, floated down—watched the landscape drop away, peered into the distance, floated down—everything was brightness in all directions.

Ice water, ice water, ice water, swimming in ice water, diving in ice water. Dying in ice water. It didn't work anymore. It was too hot. It was burning. It was hotter than the sauna. I wasn't going to make it. I didn't see how I could make it. I bounced up, floated down, I couldn't see anything but solar glare. We had come too far to get back and there was no shadow anywhere. We'd bounced and skipped into sunlight and we were going to die here—

I kept going anyway. I wanted to lie down, but I didn't. I didn't have any more sweat. It had all been boiled out of me. I went to take a sip of water but it was too hot to drink. And as fast as I sipped, it just dripped right out of me. There were droplets bouncing around the inside of the bubble now. There were little puddles splashing lazily around the bottom in a graceful slow-motion ballet.

Another checkpoint—

If I fell down, I wouldn't be able to get up. I had to pay intention. This was the hard part. I wasn't going to be the first to fall—

Just before we had started across the frying pan, while Alexei was checking Mickey's air, Douglas had pulled me aside, had talked to me like an adult. "I'm responsible for Bobby. You're responsible for Charles. I can't be responsible for both of you. If you fall down, Charles, I can'tsave you. I can't come back for you. Neither can Mickey. If it gets so bad out there that you can't get up, no one else can pick you up either. Don't fall down. If you fall down, and I try to save you, we alldie. Don't fall down."

"I won't." It had been easy to reassure him at the time. Because I didn't know. Not then. Now I knew.And I wasn't sure I could keep the promise. I could barely see anymore. I followed the bouncing blur.

One more bounce. Take the next bounce. Just one more bounce. Keep going. It won't get better if you stop. Another bounce. And another. Keep on bouncing. Bouncing. Keep on, Charles—keep your promise. Don't fall. Pay intention.

And then—"There it is!" Mickey's voice.

I didn't see it. I saw bright scorching solar blur. I saw purple splotches floating in front of my eyes. I saw noise and dazzle. I didn't see any shadow.He was lying. He was just saying that to keep me going—

"Straight ahead, Chigger! Almost there!"

"Almost where?" But I didn't have any voice. Just croak. Not even loud enough to be heard.

I bounced, I floated, I looked. Painful brightess. Something angled. Maybe. Bounced, floated, looked—something flat and rectangular, angled toward the sun. But not darkness. It still didn't resolve. Bounced, floated, looked—it didn't make sense, but it wasn't sunlight and I bounced and floated toward it.

Alexei was already there, in the shade of it. Shade!Something dark was humped into the ground. He was opening a hatch, standing and waving, beckoning. Douglas was just bouncing into the shadow of something—it was real!

And then I tripped. And bounced and rolled, ass over elbow, every which way– had I punctured my bubble? Was I dead and didn't know it yet?—I was still rolling. I heard voices.

"Let him go, Mikhail—get out of the sun! We can't lose both of you—" That was Alexei! And then, "I am get him."

I was trying to get up, but my arms weren't working. My feet kept kicking uselessly at the bottom of the bubble. I didn't have the air to scream. I felt like a frog in a frying pan. I probably looked like one too. Just add butter—never mind, I'll lie here and boil in my own juices. A fat lot of help you are, you stupid monkey—

And then, someone was rolling me around, I wasn't doing it, something black blurred around my vision, and then I was vaguely upright—"Can you move, or do I carry you?" Without waiting for an answer, Alexei grabbed my bubble suit by one of the plastic handles on the outside; he held me high, and began bouncing toward the blackness ahead—

The light went out abruptly—not the heat, I was still baking like a clam in my own shell. But at least the light was gone. Hands pushed at me, pushed me into a dark tube, pushed me farther. Pushed. Through a series of horizontal hatches that opened in front of me and closed behind me. I felt helpless to resist—I couldn't see anything but splotches of purple dazzle. I bounced off something—I heard hissing. I heard a hatch slam. I heard voices, not in my earphones, but from farther away. I heard sounds I couldn't identify. A voice swearing in Russian. An argument. Douglas calling out—"Is Charles all right?"

"Is not dead yet," said Alexei. And that would have been reassuring to hear if I didn't have more accurate information than he did. And then the hissing got louder, and louder—someone was unzipping my bubble suit—I tried to slap them away, but I didn't have strength to resist, so I just lay on the floor and waited to die. I took hungry deep breaths, filled myself with hot air, that was a mistake, the vacuum would rip it out of my lungs like a scream—and then the hissing stopped and—cooler air rolled around me, surprising me like a wet slap in the face, and I youchedaloud and tried to sit up, but I still couldn't, and then the hands were pulling wet plastic up and off me, and suddenly I was out of the bubbleand the air wasn't baking around me. I rolled sideways and blinked at the darkness, there were people moving in the purple dazzle. Douglas and Bobby and Mickey and someone still in black. КРИСЛОВ.

"We made it!" Mickey cracked in a voice like old dust.

" Da!"said Alexei, pulling off his hood. "We made it. I did not think you would, but you do pretty good for terries. I only had to drag one of you into the shade. Welcome to Prospector's Station." He glanced at his watch. "You make very good time too. For terries."

"You didn't think we'd make it—?" That was Douglas. Weakly.

" Da.But if I tell you that, you wouldn't try."

"If you didn't think we'd make it … " Douglas began slowly, " … then why did you let us try?"

"Because I assume—rightly—that like all terries, you are too stupid to lie down and die. You keep going anyway. Yell at me later, Douglas. You have prove me right again. Save voice for now. You are all dehydrated. Here, drink water." He started passing out plastic water bags. He popped the nipple of mine and held it to my face. "Drink slowly—little gulps. You have been through much. Give body time to recover. We have plenty time before train arrives. Over an hour."

THE DARK SIDE OF THE LOON

Prospector's Station was three cargo pods, laid end to end, half-buried in the Lunar dust. They were sheltered by three near-vertical sails of solar panels. The pods were linked together on a north-south orientation, and the solar panels were mounted on gimbals so they could swing down on either side to block the sun's rays at dawn and dusk and all the positions in between. The habitability of the shelter depended solely on the maintenance of the motors.

The pods were divided into two levels; the bottom level of each pod was storage, the top was function. The pod at the north end was a hydroponics farm, the pod at the south was a machine shop, the center pod was the living area. Nobody lived here permanently, it was a communal site. Everybody who used it had to replace what they used and make sure that the station was in working order for whoever might stay here next.

Crosshatch decking had been laid along the bottom of the pod to provide a level floor. Underneath the floor, several plastic bags served as impromptu water tanks—another use for inflatable airlocks; waste not, want not. Above us, identical mesh decking provided the ceiling to this level and the floor to the next; we could see up through the crosshatch to the level above. It was just like being in a tube-town again, only this time with lighter gravity.

I sprawled on my back, with my eyes closed, watching the purple glares fade into mottling blue-and-gray fractalizations, watching the fabric of unreality unravel in my imagination, occasionally sipping at the water bag that Alexei was holding for me. Every so often, he'd tip it to my lips, let me suck a few swallows, then pull it away before I could start gulping greedily.

It didn't make sense. Why was he being so nice to me now if he wanted to kill us? Maybe because he needed our deaths to look natural?

Sure. That was it. Because he knew the monkey would be a witness to whatever he did. The testimony of robots had been used before in court cases, especially when they had stored audio and video records pertinent to the legal matter at hand. Most robots above Class 6—and that included the monkey—were continually sorting and storing their records. Cheap memory made it possible for a robot to retain a lot of information; it turned out to be useful for a lot of things—family albums, long-term health records, behavioral records, insurance tracking, consumer tracking, the census, stuff like that. Anyone who wanted to track "lifestyle information" could poll the international robot database for specifically correlated information.

It was rumored that robots were also good for amateur pornography, because they also tracked human sexual behavior. Which is why Mom had always said, "Don't do anything in front of a robot that you wouldn't want God to see you doing." Which meant never do anythingin front of a robot, if you didn't want to get caught. There were so many robots in some neighborhoods that getting away with a crime was impossible.

This didn't mean that crime didn't happen. It just meant that enforcement was more about finding wherethe criminal was than whohe was.

So, if Alexei were planning to kill us, he had to make it look like an accident. Because the monkey was watching everything.That would explain leaving us on the rim and taking us into the sunlight to get to Prospector's Station.

Alexei couldn't just take the monkey from us, because he knew I'd programmed it to be loyal to me first, then Douglas, and finally Stinky. It was emotionallylinked. It wouldn't go with anyone else unless we told it to—or unless we were dead. If we were dead, its loyalty programming would store all pertinent information about us and our deaths in unerasable files—and without further instructions of who it should report to, it would shut down and wait for the next person to open it up and assign ownership to himself. Alexei? Probably. Most certainly.

Unless I had been out in the sun too long and was still making up crazy paranoid fantasies … I had to consider that too. Alexei put the water bag to my lips again. I took another sip. Around me, I could hear everyone else breathing softly, catching their breaths, sucking at water bags. I could smell their sweat in the air. It smelled like a locker room in here. We all stank. I didn't care. It was cool. Blessedly cool. Almost too cold. I was evaporating excess heat as rapidly as my body could carry my overheated blood to my skin.

What was in the monkey that was so valuable it was worth killing for?

I was pretty sure it wasn't information. Whatever data was packed into the memory bars would have already been piped to its recipient some other way by now. Probably the moment we were served with our first subpoena at Geostationary somebody somewhere was saying "Oh, merde!" and then, "All right. Switch to Plan B. Code it in the least significant bit of each pixel of the local news and let them download it off the web." Or whatever. There were just too many ways to smuggle bits from here to there. So it wasn't the information. It had to be something physical.

Money? No. Codes for money? No, that was more information. They'd have found another way to send it by now. Physical ID keys that unlocked money? Maybe. But if that's what it was, they wouldn't have trusted Dad with it. It had to be something so unique that this was the only way to move it from here to there. Wherever therewas.

So it wasn't information. And it wasn't money. What else was there?

Power.

I took another sip of water. I was feeling better, but I wasn't ready to open my eyes yet.

Power was a good answer. People would kill for power, wouldn't they? Of course they would. If they wanted it badly enough.

But what kind of power?

Processing power.

If you had processing power, you had everykind of power. It all depended how you applied the processing power.

Quantum processing?

Could you pack a quantum CPU into a memory bar?

I'd have to ask Douglas that.

He'd probably tell me I was crazy.

It wasan outrageous idea.

Alexei trying to kill us—then saving us—then holding the water bag for me. Yeah, sure. The monkey wasn't sentient. It hadn't done anything at all to help us survive.

No. There had to be a simpler explanation.

I laughed at my own paranoia and opened my eyes, blinking and squinting. I could almost see again. I lifted up on my elbow to thank Alexei for saving me—and almost choked in horror.

It wasn't Alexei holding the water bag.

It was the monkey. It curled back both its lips to show its teeth and gave me its goofiest smile.

CHANGES

We had to get away from Alexei.

I had to convince Douglas and Mickey that we had to get away from Alexei.

I had to get them in a room awayfrom Alexei so I could tell them why we had to get away from Alexei. I doubted that they would believe me. Heck, even I didn't believe me.

Alexei had stripped off his Scuba suit, finally, and was giving himself a "space-bath." A space-bath is where you strip naked and wipe yourself all over with alcohol pads and moisturizer sponges. It stings a lot, but it gets you mostly clean. He tossed bath bags at everyone else and told us to do the same. "Worst thing on Luna is nose crime. Don't make big stink on Luna. Very bad manners. Wash every six hours. When you wake up and when you go to bed. Before you put on space suit, after you take it off. Before sex, after sex. Use moisturizers on skin so you don't dry out and flake and make dust. Shave body hair regularly, same reason. Use deodorants. Others should not have to breathe your effluvia. Also slows down disease germs."

So I opened the bag and took a bath. I stripped out of my jumpsuit and sat skinny and apart and wiped as much of myself as I could reach. Mickey and Douglas and Stinky were all washing each other, scrubbing each other's backsides and behind the knees and backs of the ears and places like that. The places I couldn't reach, I handed the cloth to the monkey and let him do it. Alexei offered, but I didn't want him touching me anymore.

The thing was, the cleaner I got, the better I felt, and the sillier the whole thing began to feel. It was just me listening too much to my own thoughts again—like Mom always said. She said that too much silence wasn't good for a person. "Your mind goes go off into never-never land and never comes back. Just like your father. He went off, did too much thinking for his own good, and he never came back either." Yeah, right, Mom.

But Mom didn't say all that stuff just because she believed it. She said it because she thought it was true and she didn't want us to make the same stupid mistakes that she and Dad had made. So she figured if she told us the punch lines, we wouldn't have to live through the jokes. Ha ha. We saw how that worked out. I had the fastest divorce in the family.

I finished wiping myself—even in places that most people don't talk about—and pushed the soiled cloth back into its bag. I tucked it into a larger bag for waste, hanging from the inevitable wall webbing. I was beginning to suspect that everything on Luna was made from cargo pods, and there would be wall webbing everywhere.

Alexei glanced over to me and said, "Hokay, girls—let's go upstairs. Are you ready for your disguises?"

"Huh?"

"You do not think you can ride the train as the Dingillian family, do you? Ah, from the looks on your faces, I can see you have not thought about this at all. You are lucky I am so foresighted. Come upstairs. Follow me, all of you. Hurry now."

We shrugged and followed him up the ladder to the top level of the station—we went hand over hand, feet were redundant. His endless monologue continued. "Douglas, you will be Samm Brengle-Tucker, famous hermit prospector. Everybody knows Brengle-Tucker, he is very famous because nobody knows him. You ask, if no one has ever met him, what proof do you have that nobody knows him? There is none, of course, because you cannot prove a negative. We had that in logic class at Lunatic U. Prove that you cannot prove a negative. Very confusing, very clever—Loonies like word games, logic puzzles. But you understand the problem, da?.How can everyone know him if nobody knows him? That is because he never comes in from the cold. Or the hot. He only sends e-mail. He orders supplies, he pays in cash. He picks up supplies when he gets around to it. He lives in self-sufficient tunnels. He has ice claim registered somewhere in Superstition Crater. Sometimes he sells water and soil with earthworms, only here they are Luna worms, because they can't be earthworms on moon, can they? Never mind. We are all Lunatics here. But Brengle-Tucker keeps to himself. Why? Because Brengle-Tucker does not exist. Not at all. He is made-up person, one of many. He is 'imaginary companion,' one of the unborn-again. Very convenient to have fictitious friends. They can do many things you can't. And they are always not-there for you, da!But today Samm Brengle-Tucker and his new wife and daughter will be there for us. Samm Brengle-Tucker has married mail-order bride from"—Alexei took my chin in his hand and tilted my face upward—"Nunovit Province in Canada. She does not speak much English. What shall his new wife be named, eh? I think Maura Lore-Fields. Da.And lovely daughter?" He turned to Stinky. "What is good name for cute little Luna girl?"

"Excuse me?" I said.

Alexei turned back to me, very serious. "Marshals are looking for two young men, a teener-boy and a boy-child. And a monkey. Marshals are notlooking for an old hermit prospector, his young wife, and her daughter by a previous marriage. You'll have to leave the monkey behind, you know. Is instant giveaway."

" No,we won't.And I'm not putting on a dress either." Although part of me was thinking that the disguises were a pretty smart idea, another part was muttering darkly that I shouldn't agree too easily no matter what I thought. I had to give a performance of saying no, so they wouldn't think I was—like Douglas and Mickey. And why did that matter anymore, anyway? It didn't seem to matter to anybody else, so why should it matter to me? This whole business was very confusing.

"Listen, Charles Dingillian," Alexei said, almost angrily. "You told me, didn't you, how J'mee, the boy, was really J'mee, the girl? The one with the implant who turned you in at Geostationary? If cross-dressing worked for her, why not you?"

"Except it didn't work for her," I pointed out.

"Of course not. She opened her big mouth. You are too smart for that, da? Come with me; I have just the dress for you." He led the way aft.

I followed, still complaining. "I'll look silly."

"You'll look pretty. You'll feel pretty. You have lovely tenor voice. Everyone will believe. You will have fun."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

There was a row of lockers along one wall of the machine-shop pod. One of them had the name BRENGLE-TUCKER on it. There were also several interesting-looking crates stacked against the wall, stenciled for delivery to BRENGLE-TUCKER. Alexei counted them off and pulled one out, setting it aside for the moment, then turned back to the lockers.

He showed his card to the door of the BRENGLE-TUCKER locker, and it clicked and swung open; he pulled out a roll of labels with Russian and English lettering and began pasting new destination labels over all of the BRENGLE-TUCKER labels on the crates. When he finished, he pushed the boxes into a transfer tube connected to the aft hatch. "Outgoing mail," he explained. "Incoming is delivered at other end."

He unlocked the one remaining crate to reveal a rack of clothing, all kinds, some very ugly wigs, and a makeup kit. "I order this special from Luna City." He held up an ugly-looking dress. "Just for you, Charles. While floating in ballast tank, I am thinking Dingillians might need disguises on Luna, so my lifelong friend Samm Brengle-Tucker sends in order before we jump off Line. Or do you like this one better? I did not know your size, I had to guess."

I didn't say anything in response. I just scowled at the oversized dress and the awful wigs. Alexei's story didn't make sense. Not if you thought about it. He'd said he'd been listening to the channel chatter. As soon as he'd heard about the marshals waiting at Whirlaway, he came to get us. When would he have had time to phone ahead to Luna? He wouldn't. We launched off the Line almost immediately after we'd climbed into the pod. He couldn't have made the call afterwe were en route, so he'd have had to have made this plan and ordered these disguises beforewe left Geostationary—or at least before he came to get us. In which case … his story about the channel chatter and the marshals might be false.

Alexei was chattering too much to notice my silence. He tossed the makeup kit to Mickey. "Here, you get started. You and Douglas, use suntan number nine, da?You are Lunar prospectors. Douglas, you are here longer; use a lot, get very dark. Not to worry. Is permanent color. Takes at least a month to fade. Face and neck only. Mickey, you will not need as much. You have only been here a year. You do not work outside so much. Only some."