Part 36 (1/2)

Even within the thick padding of my gloves, my knuckles hurt like h.e.l.l. ”Something that should have been done a long time ago,” I murmured.

Cute line. I used up the last of my luck that way. I scrambled at the helm console for several more minutes before I submitted to the inevitable. Like the navigation controls, the engineering subsystem wouldn't obey my commands without the proper pa.s.swords. It was possible that they were written down somewhere, but I didn't have the time or inclination to go searching through the operations manuals, especially since most of them were strewn across the bridge like so much garbage.

We weren't out of options yet. There was still a final alternative, one which McKinnon himself had given us.

It was then that I knew that Captain Future had to die.

”Captain Future is dead!”

The rumbling voice of the big green Jovian s.p.a.ce-sailor rose above the laughter and chatter and clink of goblets, in this crowded Venusopolis s.p.a.cemen's cafe. He eyed his little knot of companions at the bar, as though challenging them to dispute him.

One of the hard-bitten s.p.a.cemen, a swarthy little Mercurian, shook his head thoughtfully.

”I'm not so sure. It's true that the Futuremen have been missing for months. But they'd be a hard bunch to kill.”

-HAMILTON, Outlaws of the Moon (1942)

As I write, I'm back on the Moon, occupying a corner table in Sloppy Joe's. It's almost closing time; the crowds have thinned out and the bartender has rung the bell for last call. He'll let me stay after he shuts the doors, though. Heroes never get booted out with the riffraff, and there's been no shortage of free drinks ever since I returned from Ceres.

After all, I'm the last person to see Captain Future alive.

The news media helped us maintain our alibi. It was a story that had everything. Adventure, romance, blood and guts, countless lives at stake. Best of all, a n.o.ble act of self-sacrifice. It'll make a great vid. I sold the rights yesterday.

Because it's been so widely told, you already know how the story ends. Realizing that he had been fatally infected with t.i.tan Plague, Bo McKinnon-excuse me, Captain Future-issued his final instructions as commanding officer of the TBSA Comet .

He told me to return to the s.h.i.+p, and once I was safely aboard, he ordered Jeri to cast off and get the Comet as far away as possible.

Realizing what he intended to do, we tried to talk him out of it. Oh, and how we argued and pleaded with him, telling him that we could place him in biostasis until we returned to Earth, where doctors could attempt to save his life.

In the end, though, McKinnon simply cut off his comlink so that he could meet his end with dignity and grace.

Once the Comet was gone and safely out of range, Captain Future managed to instruct the ma.s.s-driver's main computer to overload the vessel reactors. While he sat alone in the abandoned bridge, waiting for the countdown, there was just enough time for him to transmit one final message of courage....

Don't make me repeat it, please. It's bad enough that the Queen read it aloud during the memorial service, but now I understand that it's going to be inscribed upon the base of the twice-life-size statue of McKinnon that's going to be erected at Arsia Station. Jeri did her best when she wrote it, but between you and me, I still think it's a complete crock.

Anyway, the thermonuclear blast not only obliterated the Fool's Gold, but it also sufficiently altered the trajectory of 2046. The asteroid came within five thousand kilometers of Mars; its close pa.s.sage was recorded by the observatory on Phobos, and the settlements in the Central Meridian reported the largest meteor shower in the history of the colonies.

And now Bo McKinnon is remembered as Captain Future, one of the greatest heroes in the history of humankind.

It was the least Jeri could have done for him.

Considering what a jerk Bo had been all the way to the end, I could have tried to claim the credit, but her strong will persevered. I suppose she's right; it would look bad if it was known that McKinnon had gone out as a raving lunatic who had to be coldc.o.c.ked by his second officer.

Likewise, no one has to know that four missiles launched from the Comet destroyed the ma.s.s-driver's main reactor, thus causing the explosion that averted 2046-Barr from its doomsday course. The empty weapon pod was jettisoned before the Comet reached Ceres, and the small bribe paid to a minor Pax bureaucrat insured that all records of it ever having been installed on the freighter were completely erased.

It hardly matters. In the end, everyone got what they wanted.

As first officer of the Comet, Jeri became its new commander. She offered me her old job, and since the Jove Commerce deal was down the tubes, I gratefully accepted. It wasn't long after that before she also offered to show me the rest of her tattoos, an invitation that I also accepted. Her clan still won't speak to her, especially since she now plans to marry a Primary, but at least her fellow Superiors have been forced to claim her as one of their own.

For now, life is good. There's money in the bank, we've shucked our black sheep status, and there's no shortage of companies who want to hire the legendary Futuremen of the TBSA Comet. Who knows? Once we get tired of working the belt, maybe we'll settle down and take a shot at beating the odds on this whole cross-breeding thing.

And Bo got what he wanted, even though he didn't live long enough to enjoy it. In doing so, perhaps humankind got what it needed.

There's only one thing that still bothers me.

When McKinnon went nuts aboard the Fool's Gold and tried to attack me, I a.s.sumed that he had come down with the Plague. This was a correct a.s.sumption; he had been infected the moment he had come through the airlock.

However, I later learned that it takes at least six hours for t.i.tan Plague to fully incubate within a human being, and neither of us had been aboard the Fool's Gold for nearly half that long.

If McKinnon was crazy at the end, it wasn't because of the Plague. To this day, I have no idea what made him snap... unless he believed that I was trying to run off with his s.h.i.+p, his girl, and his G.o.dd.a.m.n glory.

h.e.l.l, maybe I was.

Last night, some nervous kid-a cargo grunt off some LEO freighter, his union card probably still uncreased-sidled up to me at the bar and asked for my autograph.

While I was signing the inside cover of his logbook, he told me a strange rumor he had recently heard: Captain Future managed to escape from the Fool's Gold just before it blew. According to him, prospectors in the inner belt report spotting a gig on their screens, one whose pilot answers their calls as Curt Newton before transmissions are lost.

I bought the youngster a drink and told him the truth. Naturally, he refused to believe me, nor can I blame him.

Heroes are hard to find. We need to welcome them whenever they appear in our midst. You've just got to be careful to pick the right guy, because it's easy for someone to pretend to be what they're not.

Captain Future is dead.

Long live Captain Future.

BRAD LINAWEAVER.

”Moon of Ice,” Brad Linaweaver's contribution to this volume, was a Nebula finalist story in 1982, and was later expanded into the successful novel of the same name. He has worked almost exclusively in the alternate history subgenre, producing stories such as ”Destination: Indies,” an alternate telling of Christopher Columbus's journey across the Atlantic, and ”Unmerited Favor,” which takes a more militant approach to the story of Jesus Christ's life. He is also the author of the novels Clownface, The Land Beyond Summer, and Sliders: The Novel. Winner of the Prometheus Award in 1989, he lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

MOON OF ICE.

Brad Linaweaver

If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.