He rooted around in drawers on the bridge, began to read about their destination in a paper manual he found in one. Oceanus Procellarum was a vast basalt plain, home to a higher-than-usual concentration of potassium and rare earths, so that it was called the KREEP zone. The right eye of the man in the moon. Many mines were located there, including the one they were headed for. Most of them were located between the Aristarchus Plateau and the Marius Hills.
All very interesting, or it would have been if he weren’t so distracted. He would have liked to learn more about the infrastructures in Procellarum—the mines, the support buildings, the transport systems—but he couldn’t, because he didn’t want to make contact with the lunar cloud. The paper manual seemed to have been written in the early years of the mining effort.
“You’re not in the cloud are you?” he said to Qi.
She shook her head. “Just listening to the radio. I wish I could check things out. I have questions, but I don’t think it’s safe.”
“Good. I don’t think we should put out any signals.”
She gave him a look. “I may have to.” She gestured at the device Valerie had given them as they departed. “I think I should maybe contact whoever’s at the other end of this.”
“Are you sure?” Fred said. “Everything that’s happening now will happen without you. And obviously there are people after you.”
“They’ll be after me whether I send more messages or not.”
“Yeah, but sending messages might help them find you.”
“Maybe.”
“It’s not worth the risk.”
She shrugged, as if to say Fred knew too little to have an opinion on this. Even though it was his risk too.
They went back into their separate realms, Fred reading the onboard material and Qi listening to the radio. When they reconvened over some frozen meals that they heated in a microwave, they shared what they had learned.
“Nothing,” Fred reported briefly.
“Things are getting weird down there,” Qi said.
“Getting weird?”
“Weirder. Someone called out the National Guard in Washington, DC, and now the crowds there are four or five times bigger. Your Congress finished nationalizing the banks, which means they’re now directly in charge of the crisis. And a couple of new cryptocurrencies have appeared to join that virtual dollar, including a virtual renminbi too. No one knows who started them, but they’re supposed to be exchangeable one-for-one with the real currencies.”
“What will that do?”
“No one knows. Some say they’re like free money, others that they’re the end of money. Some say they’re just scams.”
Fred thought about this, then shook his head, baffled. “It seems like things are falling apart.”
She gave him her you are stupid look. “Yes.”
They were silent for a while. Then Fred said hesitantly, “Which is better, the world controlled by China and the US, or by global finance?”
Qi thought about this for a while. “It’s not as clear as that, but I guess I’d say the former. Just to get some control of the economy.”
“So that’s what you’re trying in China? Putting people in charge who will resist the market?”
“Yes. Like I told you before.” Her quick glance lashed Fred like a whip, then she was looking at her pad again. “We have a problem in China, because a lot of Party members work only for the Party. Even these big mass actions might not change that.” Then she laughed. “Although who knows, maybe they will! Did you see what just showed up? There’s an anonymous statement now in the cloud, looks like it was processed and distributed through an AI system. It’s a statement of what the demonstrators want. A lot of big changes are in it.”
“Like what?”
“Return of the iron rice bowl, reform of the hukou system, end of the Great Firewall, rule of law.”
Fred said, “Those aren’t that different from what Americans want, are they?”
“Maybe not. Maybe it’s a global people’s revolt.”
“Or a G2 people’s revolt,” he pointed out.
“Right. But that’s enough to swing everything.”
“And you’re the leader of the Chinese side of it.”
“I’m not the leader. I’ve been involved, but there is no leader.”
“I’ve heard people say you’re the leader. The cloud thinks you’re the leader. Your cousin and Ah Q were saying that you’re the Maitreya, that you’re the next Dalai Lama.”
“I hate all that bourgeois shit.”
“The Dalai Lama would be feudal shit, right?”
“The Dalai Lama is Paleolithic shit. He was the last shaman. I wish we still had him with us, but we don’t. Those times are gone.”
“But people are saying. The cloud is saying.”
“The cloud is stupid. People always want to make it personal, even when it’s everybody. I’m just trying to do my part.”
“But people are saying it’s you.”
“People say all kinds of stupid stuff!”
“Yes, but after people say stupid stuff, they do stupid stuff. That’s how history happens. That’s why there are people in Beijing really after you.”
She scowled. “There’s a pushback, sure. All kinds of rightist reactionaries, especially in the military. Or maybe that’s not fair. The military usually does what the Party tells it to do. But for sure certain agencies are pushing back hard.”
“Like the censors.”
“Or state security. Or parts of the PLA. Yes.”
“And some of them must think that if they had you in their possession, that would help them.”
“Probably so.”
“Or if you were dead.”
“Probably so.”
Fred regarded her as she stared at her wrist. “So be sure to stay out of the cloud!” he said sharply, surprising both of them. “They can track you from there.”
“Shouldn’t you stay out also?”
“I am—”
The rover’s radio crackled.
“Qi and Fred, it’s Ta Shu here. Listen, you need to leave that rover now. We’re here in the free crater, and we’ve got a Chinese spy program here that has access to channels back home that show your rover has been located by a group that is trying to kill Qi. They’ve launched a missile at your rover, so you need to abandon it immediately!”
“But how?” Qi exclaimed. Then: “Who’s doing this?”
“Red Spear. They’ve got a cell at the moon’s south pole, and they’re sending missiles up from Earth. So listen, there’s a solar storm shelter about two or three kilometers from your current location, two hundred meters off the road you are on, to the left. Seek shelter there.”
“But how—”
“Let’s talk more later! For now, get out of that rover!”
“We need to go,” Fred said to Qi, who was sitting there looking stubborn. “We’re leaving!” he said to Ta Shu, and rose to his feet.
“Shit,” Qi said. Her mouth was pursed into a tight knot, and one hand was on her belly.
“Come on,” Fred said. “You’ll still fit into a spacesuit.”
“I guess.”
“When’s your due date again?”
“I don’t know, I’ve lost track what day it is.”
“It’s October twentieth, but when are you due?”
“October twenty-fourth.”
“Geez,” Fred said. “Well, even so. We have to get out of here.”
“Shit.”
They descended to the rover’s lock room and Fred pulled two spacesuits out of a closet. He gave the largest one he could find to Qi. She just barely got its midsection over her middle; he helped her pull it up to her shoulders. Then they got helmets on, checked each other’s seals, tested the air, and looked at the red heads-up displays on their helmet screens, which reminded Fred of his translation glasses. He kept those with him just in case, putting them in his spacesuit’s big thigh pocket, along with the quantum comms device that Valerie Tong had returned to Qi as she sent them on their way.