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.