Artemis

I stood at one harvester and looked to the other twenty meters away. This would be tricky. A long-forgotten rational part of my brain piped up. Was this really a good idea? (One million slugs.) Yup! I’m fine!

I shorted out one battery, ran to the other harvester, and shorted it too. I almost made it back to the shelter before the first one blew.

Almost.

The landscape ahead flashed bright with the blast. Tufts of dust burst around me as harvester bits diligently obeyed the laws of physics. No time to go around the boulder. I half climbed, half leapt over it. I tried for a graceful tuck-and-roll, but ended up with more of a flail-and-flop.

“Did you see that?!” came a voice over the radio.

“You’re broadcasting on Main,” said Bob.

“Shit.”

The posse had been talking on some other channel to keep me from hearing them. That one guy screwed up. So now I knew they’d seen the explosion. They were close.

I waited for the second explosion, but it never came. When I got brave enough, I peeked around my rock to see one harvester still unharmed.

“What the fu—” I began. But then I saw it: The survivor was pocked with superficial damage from the other harvester’s explosion. My jumper had been severed cleanly in half by a piece of shrapnel. The two ends hung from their poles. The battery wasn’t shorted anymore, and it hadn’t had time to get hot enough to touch off the explosion.

I spotted a glint of light across the harvesting zone. The EVA masters had come. I looked back at the remaining harvester. Fifteen meters of ground to cross to get back to it, plus however long it would take me to fix the jumper. Then I looked at the glint again—now identifiable as a rover, just a hundred meters away, and coming at me fast.

I wouldn’t make it. They’d be on me in a shot. I had to leave the one harvester behind.

“Shit!” I said. I knew it was the right decision, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. I fled the crime scene.

Minor problem with running away from people on the moon: Your footprints are very obvious. I beelined out of the collection zone and left a blatant trail any idiot could follow. No way around that. The whole area had long since been cleared of everything but dust.

Once I got into natural terrain I had options—the highlands are riddled with everything from pebbles to boulders.

I stepped onto a rock and jumped to the next rock over. Then I jumped to the next one and so on. I continued my high-stakes game of The Floor Is Lava for the next twenty minutes. I never had to touch the dusty ground at all. Try following that trail, Bob.

The next bit was equal parts boring and stressful. I had several kilometers to cover, all the while looking over my shoulder. It wouldn’t take the posse long to figure out I was headed home. Then they’d hop in their rover and catch up to me.

They’d drive along the shortest route home (I hoped), so I took a roundabout path. Nothing resembling a straight line. Artemis was only three kilometers away from the collection zone, but I walked five kilometers on my crazy circuitous route. The rocky landscape of the foothills provided lots of boulders and berms to block any direct line of sight to me.

It worked. I don’t know what route the posse took, but they never got eyes on me.

I finally reached the base of the Moltke Foothills. The Sea of Tranquility stretched all the way to the horizon. Artemis shined in the extreme distance, probably a good two kilometers away. I suppressed the queasy feelings that came with realizing how isolated I was. No time for that shit right now.

I needed a new strategy. I couldn’t hopscotch my way any farther. A vast field of gray powder separated me from home. Not only would I leave a trail, I’d be visible for kilometers around.

Time for a rest. For the moment, at least, I wasn’t out in the open. I found a suitable boulder and sat in the shade. I turned off all my LEDs, even the ones in the helmet, and covered my arm readouts with tape.

Shadows on the moon are stark and black. No air means no light diffusion. But I wasn’t in total darkness. Sunlight reflected off nearby rocks, dirt, hills, and so on, and some of that snuck around to hit me. Still, I was functionally invisible compared to the shine of the landscape.

I turned my head to the water nipple and slurped down a good half liter. EVAs are a sweaty business.

Good thing I’d taken a break. Five minutes into my rest I spotted the posse driving back to town. They were a fair distance away from me—on the straight-line course to the city.

The rover, designed for four passengers, had seven EVA masters piled on it. It looked like a clown car speeding across the flatlands. Judging by the rooster tail of dust it kicked up, they were moving as fast as they could. At that speed on the bumpy terrain they’d have no chance of spotting me. What the hell were they thinking?

“Aww, fuck,” I said.

They didn’t need to find me. They just needed to beat me back to town. Then they could guard every airlock. Eventually I’d run out of air and have to surrender.

“Shit! Damn! Crap! Ass! Son of a bitch!” It’s important to vary your profanities. If you use the same one too often it loses strength. I fumed in my suit for a minute more, then calmed down and got to scheming.

Okay, this sucked but it came with advantages. They would beat me to town. Fine. But that meant they wouldn’t be patrolling for me in Tranquility. I’d been stressing out about how to sneak across the flatlands but now that wasn’t a problem.