No matter what his reasons, the corporate personnel chief knew a media star when she saw one. She interviewed lca extensively, often in bed, and then unleashed him as the new Russian icon: the space traveller, the lunar explorer, the man of the future.
In his way, Lev helped to raise billions for Lunagrad. He became an international television celebrity. When he went to Lunagrad he brought virtual reality equipment with him so he could ‘escort’ Earthbound visitors through the facility and show them the stark grandeur of the Moon’s harshly beautiful environment.
The Lunagrad that he showed was mostly a television studio’s carefully prepared set, a heavily cosmeticized version of the grubby reality of the cramped, stuffy, overheated and underfinanced underground shelters that composed the true Lunagrad.
Money flowed in for Lunagrad. Not enough to really expand the base, but enough to keep it staggering along. Scientists came to the Moon and departed. Geologists and metallurgists explored the wide expanses around Lunagrad. In Moscow the board of directors, chaired now by the woman who had been personnel director, published glowing full-color brochures of the glorious future of Lunagrad.
Like many tragedies, Brudnoy’s success came crashing down when he went one single step too far. He shuttled back and forth to Lunagrad so often that he became known world-wide as ‘The Moon Man.’ Inevitably, on a certain global television broadcast, he was asked the fateful question: When will tourists be allowed to visit Lunagrad?
“Why not now?” was his immediate, unthinking reply.
Within hours the offices of NPO Lunagrad were deluged with requests for visits to the base on the Moon. For the first time in ages, the Russians had scored a public relations triumph over the West. Tourists to the Moon! It was fantastic. But it promised to be profitable. Even at a cost of millions, there were wealthy individuals who — bored with the Great Wall of China and Antarctica and the space stations in low Earth orbit — simply had to see the Moon firsthand.
Brudnoy led the first contingent himself. Their complaints started even before the booster rocket took off from Baikanour. There were no hotels! They were expected to sleep in barracks, like… like… well, like cosmonauts or scientists. Lunagrad was small, crowded, smelled bad. The food was awful. There weren’t enough spacesuits for everyone to go out for a walk on the Moon’s surface at the same time; they had to take turns. And the suits stank!
On and on, a litany of complaints that went all the way back to Mother Russia and over the television networks to the rest of the world.
Lunar tourism was set back twenty years. Lunagrad was exposed as a dirty, dangerous, crowded and unwholesome frontier outpost. Lev Brudnoy was accused of fronting for a fraud. Lawsuits were actually started by several of the American tourists, although the Russian government quietly quashed them — with Washington’s even quieter acquiescence.
Lev Brudnoy became a pariah. He was no longer welcome in the Moscow offices of NPO Lunagrad, nor in the beds of women who had adored him only weeks earlier.
Then came the most tragic blow of all. Their finances ruined, NPO Lunagrad declared bankruptcy. Lunagrad would shut down. Permanently.
Lev was at Lunagrad when the terrible news came. Most of the skeleton crew of scientists and cosmonauts did not blame him, exactly, but they did not console him either.
Deep in his heart, Lev knew he had done nothing truly wrong. And he wanted to continue his life as a ‘lunik.’ So he commandeered one of the last rocket vehicles left at Lunagrad, reprogrammed its guidance computer with his own hands, and flew it in one long ballistic arc to Moonbase, where he asked for asylum.
The people at Moonbase had seen Lev on television, of course. They immediately took a liking to the big, lovable redheaded Russian. Besides, they had no way to get him back to Lunagrad; Lev’s rocket transport could be refueled of course, but somehow its guidance computer had broken down as soon as the craft had landed at Moonbase.
After somewhat frenzied discussions with Savannah, Moscov and Washington, it was decided that Lev could become a Masterson Corporation employee without losing his Russian citizenship. But it was all kept very quiet. Lev’s days as a television idol were over. He became a regular visitor to Moonbase, working there six months at a time, then spending a month Earthside.
He even returned to Moscow, but only briefly. Too many women were waiting for him there.
MARE NUBIUM
A part of his mind wanted to giggle. I must be going crazy, Paul thought. Yet it was slightly ludicrous, leaning against the massive boulder, alone on the desolate lunar plain, miles from shelter, running out of oxygen while the fingers of his right hand wiggled pitifully around the metal collar of his surface suit, trying to reach the water tube.
Suppose I die like this. When they finally find me they’ll think I strangled myself.
He wanted to laugh but his throat was too dry for it. Sweat stung his eyes, though. I’m not dehydrated. Not yet.
There! His thumb and forefinger grasped the slim plastic tube. It was just below his chin, out of his field of vision. Blinking the sweat away, Paul slowly, carefully slid his fingers along the tube. He could not feel a kink in it. The tube went into the metal collar ring, where it connected with the piping that ran inside the suit, across the left shoulder to the water tank in the life-support backpack.
Maybe when I fell I dislodged the connection in the collar, he guessed. Don’t feel any wetness. The tube’s not ruptured. He spent several precious minutes searching for kinks in the slim tube, finding none.
Must be the connection inside the collar ring, he told himself. No way to get to it.
He pushed himself up to a standing position and stared out at the sharp horizon, blazing in unfiltered sunlight. Must be at least another ten miles to go. Without water I won’t make it. He held up his forearm display panel. In the shade of the boulder the temperature was a hundred eighty below zero. But just a foot away, in the sunlight, it was over two hundred above, to knew. And still rising.
His mouth was parched. Can’t go ten more miles it the sunshine without drinking water. You’ll dehydrate and collapse.
Okay, he said to himself. If it is to be, it’s up to me. You know what you’ve got to do. Make it quick and do it right You won’t get two chances.
If the water tube was no longer properly connected insidi the collar ring, the only way to fix the problem was to re-seal the collar. Inside a shelter, or even in an airlock, Paul would have unlocked the collar seal, taken off his helmet, checked the connection to make certain it wasn’t blocked or broken then put the helmet back on and sealed it tight again.
Out here in the vacuum of the lunar surface he didn’t have that luxury. But I can do most of it, he told himself. If I’m quick enough.
Painfully he wormed his arm back into its sleeve and wriggled his fingers back into the glove. Then, still, breathing hard, swiftly going through the emergency procedure in his mind. It works in the procedures he told himself. Now let’s see if it works for real.
He took one long, last breath, then exhaled slowly. Holding: his breath, he clicked open the seal of the collar ring and slid the helmet half a turn, as if he were going to take it off. A slight hiss of air made every nerve in his body tighten. But he held the helmet for a moment that seemed years long, then twisted it back to the closed position and snapped the seal shut again.
The hissing stopped and Paul took a big, grateful gulp of oxygen.
Then he turned his head to the left and found the nipple of the water tube with his lips. Carefully he sipped.