Harry teaches mechanical design at the university, from his wheelchair. He had the ideas for Walker’s Walkers and I did his legwork, so to speak. I’ve got to win this race and show everybody what Stomper can do. Harry can keep his professorship at the university even if we lose. But I’ll have to go back to Detroit, Michigan, USA, Earth. I’ve worked too long and too hard to go back to that cesspool.
I need to win this race!
Stomper’s lumbering along like some monster in a horror vid. Sitting five meters above the ground, I can see Zeke’s Dash-nine pulling farther ahead of us, kicking up a cloud of dust as it rolls across the crater floor on its big springy wheels. In the Moon’s low gravity the dust just hangs there like a lazy cloud.
«Come on, Stomper,» I mutter to myself as we galumph past the solar-cell farms spread out on the crater floor. «It’s now or never.» I nudge the throttle a notch higher.
Stomper’s six legs speed up, but not by much. It’s like sitting on top of a big mechanical turtle with six heavy metal feet. I have to be carefuclass="underline" if I push too hard I could burn out a bearing. Stomper’s slow enough on six legs; if we lose one we’ll be out of it altogether.
Zeke’s pulling farther ahead while ol’ Stomper’s six feet pound along the dusty bare ground. Lots of little pockmark craterlets scattered across the floor of Alphonsus, and plenty of rocks, some big as houses. Stomper’s automated guidance sensors walk us around the more dangerous ones, but I get a kick out of smashing the smaller stones into powder.
It’s a real hoot, sitting five meters tall with Stomper’s control panel spread out in front of me, feeling all that power, watching the rock-strewn ground go by. Harry would love to be up here, I bet, in control even though his own legs are useless.
Stomper has a lot of power, all right, but not enough speed to catch Dash-nine or even the slower vehicles. Like the turtle against a quintet of hares. But I have a plan. I’m going to take a shortcut.
The race’s official course from Selene’s main airlock to the Ranger 9 site is a dogleg shape, because the buggies have to detour around the hump of rugged hills in the center of Alphonsus. I figure that ol’ Stomper can climb those hills, thread through ’em and get to the Ranger 9 site ahead of everybody else. Then I’ll come back the same way and win the race!
That’s my plan.
For now I follow the trail of lighted poles that mark the race course. Dash-nine is so far ahead that all I can see of Browkowski is a cloud of dust near the short horizon. Three of the other vehicles are ahead of me, too, but I see that the fourth one of them is stopped dead, its two-man crew outside in their suits, bending over a busted track.
I flick to the suit-to-suit frequency and get a blast of choice language from the pair of ’em.
«You guys all right?» I call to them.
Moans and groans and elaborate profanity. But neither one of them is hurt and Selene’s already sending a repair tractor to pick them up.
I push on. I can see the tired old slumped hills of the crater’s central peak rising just over the horizon. I turn Stomper toward them.
Instantly my earphones sing out, «Taylor Reed, you’re veering off course.» Janine’s voice. She sounds upset.
«I’m taking a shortcut,» I say.
«That’s not allowed, Taylor.»
The race controller is Janine Al-Jabbar, as sweet and lovely a lady as you could find. But now she sounds uptight, almost fearful.
«I’ve studied the rules,» I tell her, keeping my voice calm, «and there’s nothing in ’em says you have to follow the course they’ve laid out.»
«It’s a safety regulation,» she answers, sounding even more worried. «You can’t go off on your own.»
«Janine, there’s no problem with safety. Ol’ Stomper can—»
A man’s voice breaks in. «Taylor Reed, get back on course or you’re disqualified!»
That’s Mance Brunner, the director of the race. He’s also chancellor of Selene University. Very important person, and he knows it.
«Disqualified?» My own voice comes out as a mouse squeak. «You can’t disqualify me just because—»
«Get back on course, Reed,» says Brunner, less excited but harder, colder. «Otherwise I’ll have no option except to disqualify you.»
I take a deep breath, then I reply as calmly as I can, «Sir, I am continuing on my own course. This is not a safety risk, nor is it grounds—»
He doesn’t even hear me out. «You’re disqualified, Reed!»
«But—»
«Attention all vehicles,» Brunner announces. «Taylor Reed in vehicle oh-four is hereby disqualified.»
None of the other racers says a word, except for Zeke Browkowski, who snickers, «Bye-bye, turtle guy.»
To say I am pissed off is putting it very mildly. Brunner never did like me, but what he’s just done is about as low and rotten as you can get. And there’s no way around it, he’s the race director. There’s no court of appeals. If he says I’m out, I’m out.
Stomper’s still clunking along, but I reach for the control yoke to turn us around and head back to Selene.
But I hesitate. Disqualify me, huh? Okay, so I’m disqualified. I’m not going to let that stop me. Brunner can yell all he wants to, I’m going to push through those hills and prove my point, even if it’s just to myself.
Janine’s voice comes back in my earphones, low and kind of sad. «I’m sorry, Tay. He was standing right over my shoulder. There was nothing I could do.»
«Not your fault, Janine,» I tell her. «You didn’t do anything to feel sorry about.»
But in the back of my mind I realize that if I have to go back Earthside I’ll never see her again.
Well, disqualified or not, I head out for the Ranger 9 site by the most direct route: across the central hills.
They look like dimples in the satellite imagery, but as ol’ Stomper gets closer to them, those rounded slumped hills rise up in front of me like a real barrier. They’re not steep, and not really all that high, but those slopes are worn almost as smooth as glass. There’s no air on the Moon, you know, and for eons micrometeorites the size of dust motes have been falling in from space and sandpapering the hills.
I start to wonder if Stomper can really climb across them. There aren’t any trails or passes, just a jumbled knot of rocks rising up from the plain of the crater floor. Sigurdsen tried going up them in a wheeled buggy back before Selene became an independent nation; he found the going too treacherous and turned back. Nobody’s bothered since then. There’s nothing in those bare knobby hills that’s worth the effort.
I throttle down and shift to a lower gear.
«Easy does it, Stomper,» I mutter. «You can do it. I know you can.»
One step at a time, like a turtle on tiptoes, we pick our way through the jumbled rocks. I’m pouring sweat by the time we get near the top. Inside the spacesuit you can boil in your own juices, you know.
«Are you singing?» Janine’s voice asks me.
«What?»
«Sounds like you were singing to yourself, Tay,» she says, sounding kind of concerned.
I realize I must have been humming to myself, sort of. An old folk song my grandfather used to sing, about a railroad worker named John Henry.
«I’m okay,» I tell her.
«Dr. Brunner’s really hacked at you,» Janine says. «He’s sore you haven’t turned back.»
«He’s gonna have to be sore a while longer,» I answer tightly.
Stomper clomps along up the worn old rocks and we get to the top. Off in the distance I can see the crumpled wreckage of Ranger 9. I have to be even more careful going downhill, making sure each one of Stomper’s six feet are solidly planted with each step. No slipping, no sliding.