Joker Moon Read online

  She gives a disgusted snort and spins around. “Constantin, I told you—” She then stops, confronted by a vaguely familiar stranger more ghost than man. “Who? How?”

  Yuri replies over the earphones she is wearing. He moves his lips in sync with the image. “Das Vedanya, little Many Toes. It is your Mattress Man, Yuri.”

  “No, impossible. Yuri is dead. I was just looking for his body.” She takes a breath, then asks, “Are you a ghost?” She swings her arm out, intersecting his image in the close space, bracing herself on the Earth camera with a practiced move to keep from spinning. She squeals when her arm passes through the image without stopping. “You don’t look like Yuri.”

  He doesn’t, of course. For some reason his body image in energy form looks like what Yuri might look like if he had not received the Star Gift. He is still essentially hairless—but many cosmonauts remove most of their body hair. Yuri thinks for a moment. After all, the energy form is an image, and images can be manipulated. Anya watches in wonder as the image before her widens out, turns in place to show a diminished cross section, and comes back to a flattened image with an all-too-familiar smile. “Do you recognize Mattress Man now, little caterpillar?”

  It is probably the use of an endearment known only to the two of them, rather than Yuri’s attempt to simulate his material body in light image, that convinces her. “But Yuri, we found your space suit.…”

  “Without me in it, yes? And if you have been looking for my drifting body outside the station, you have not had any success, yes?” As she nods, he continues, “Apparently my Star Gift was not fully realized on Earth. Here, I find that I can be matter, or energy, as I wish.”

  “So you can be your old self?” she asks winsomely.

  “I’ve done so, briefly. Unlike you and Constantin, I am not immune to the deadly effects of the radiation filling the station.” He pauses, then decides he might as well go for his primary goal. “Besides the chance to be with you again, my dear, I have a problem that you can solve for me.” She cocks her head, and he can see that she has added an additional ear behind the one she had been born with. “Whatever energy form or material I assume, I cannot help but emit energy. I must replenish myself. But I do not think that Constantin should know of my presence. The only way I know I can replenish my energy is by eating in my material form. I must eat, but his meal schedule is mostly notable for being irregular. I don’t want to be caught with my head in the food locker.”

  “And what do I get for my trouble playing lookout, and perhaps interceptor, while you raid our delicious food tubes?”

  “Is there still no evidence of anyone having sex in space?” Yuri asks with a sly grin that Anya recognizes from times in Star City.

  “As far as I know. Unless some Star Gift had an independent experiment.”

  “Well, then, we owe it to science.”

  “I live to serve Soviet science.”

  Yuri’s best ally in keeping his presence from Constantin is Constantin himself. Rampant speculation back at Star City is that he had a lot of lead in his system already from tainted water in the collective he had been raised in, so the Star Gift had just followed the line of least resistance to turn him into Lead Man. There were a number of other, less flattering, code names the man had earned during the time Yuri and he had both been in Star City. Yuri had not been part of the name-creation process, but has used the fruits of the process on many occasions.

  In the station, Constantin does as little as possible. He knows he is virtually irreplaceable—Star Gifted who can ignore radiation are few and far between. He spends most of his spare time practicing with the 20 mm cannon, mostly dry firing with the laser sight against trash he evacuates from the air locks. Occasionally he manages to persuade someone on the ground to put more ammunition in the Progress resupply capsules.

  “Take that, Imperialist star pigs,” he shouts when he succeeds in hitting the targets, while the station shudders with the recoil.

  Avoiding Constantin is fairly simple, especially with Anya standing lookout to warn if the massive ex-soldier is suddenly feeling peckish. And when Constantin wraps himself in his sleep cocoon to take one of his frequent naps, she has other plans for Yuri.

  As far as anyone knows, sex in space has not yet been attempted. Cosmonauts and astronauts alike sleep in cocoons that resemble the venerable “mummy bag” familiar to outdoorsy folks all over the world. These are hung from secure points and bind the occupant tightly to make sure a flailing limb doesn’t suddenly evacuate all the air out of the station.

  Telemetry on the cocoons lets ground control know that the sleeping bag has been occupied and sealed. Because Anya’s Star Gift can mean she needs a new bag at unscheduled moments, her bag is a bit larger than normal, and she is under strict instructions to keep the bag away from easily jostled equipment. Once sealed the bag telemetry turns off until the bag is unsealed again.

  Smiling slyly, Anya seals the cocoon. Altering his form to infrared, Yuri insinuates himself into the bag. Initially all Anya feels is warmth, then a strange itching sensation as the warmth turns into a warm living creature. The bag is large, but Yuri’s Flat Man form bows it out. Careful placement puts his hands in the right places as they materialize, made easier because Anya’s erogenous zones increase with her extra organs and protrusions.

  “Oh, Yuri, it has been so long.”

  “For you? At least you had some company.”

  “The Lead Head? I can barely get a word out of him, much less a friendly regard.” She giggles. “They used to say everything on him turned to lead except his pencil, and I think there is more truth than humor in that.”

  “I remember similar speculation in Star City when I arrived,” says Yuri. “There was a pool about whether my ‘pencil’ was too two-dimensional to do the job.”

  “I think we proved them wrong,” Anya says as she confirms that Yuri’s pencil is ready. Yuri smiles and kisses her and licks behind both left ears. No sense remarking that Anya is not the only lady of Star City who discovered the rumors were wrong.

  Have Spaceship, Will Travel

  by Michael Cassutt

  IT WASN’T MUCH OF a fair, as fairs go.

  Maybe it was the time of year—mid-May, too early for summer fun even in the South—or the weather, which was rainy, or the crowd, which was dispirited, but Morehead, Kentucky, was an unpleasant event.

  And after the past eight years of appearances at such events up, down, and all across this great land of ours, I have become an expert on the subject.

  The big state fairs are predictably worthwhile, but I’ve also appeared at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which is not to be missed even if you don’t know a steer from a cow, and the Big Duchess in New York, the Florida Strawberry Festival, and the York Fair in Pennsylvania.

  What makes a good fair? You want food, of course, music, thrilling rides, amusing feats of skill and strength, intriguing sideshows, and girls girls girls of both nat and sexy joker blend.

  Also unique and theoretically informative presentations. Some deal with the wild card, of course, others with various aspects of human behavior and accomplishment.

  Which is where I came in: Cash Mitchell, with the one and only, can’t-be-seen-anywhere-else, check-out-my-posters-proclaiming:

  THIS WAY TO THE MOON SPACESHIP!

  FIRST FLIGHT TO THE MOON!

  I was winding up my spiel. “So there we were, stuck on the Moon in this very vehicle.” I pointed at the big teardrop-shaped craft looming behind me.

  The hoochie dancers were clicking their heels on the stage not far away and some god-awful music was playing as I told the story of our daring liftoff and clandestine return to Earth, all in December 1968, over a dozen years ago.

  There was some applause, but people were drifting away before I got the spaceship Quicksilver, my two fellow travelers, Eva-Lynne Roderick and Mike Sampson, and me halfway back to Earth.

  My associate Ridley Hough walked over from the milk-bottle break.
He was ten years older than me, past fifty, though given his weathered look—think a chunk of beef jerky in human form, and no, not a joker—it was hard to tell. At the moment he was carrying a stuffed Takisian.

  “Seriously? How many times have I told you, we’re here to make money, not spend it.”

  You’d think I slapped him. “It only cost a dollar.”

  “Did you tell them you used to pitch semipro?”

  “They didn’t ask.”

  Well, why would they? “Time to close down the operation.” Ridley nodded and headed into the darkness toward our truck and RV.

  Even though it had rained most of the weekend, the clouds had just begun to part, leaving Morehead with a lovely evening in late spring. With the end of the awful fair music, you could hear birds and some kind of cricket chirping.

  There was also a full moon on the rise.

  I’m a sucker for a full moon.

  Which may be why I lingered in the midway as late fairgoers headed for their vehicles, making myself a big fat target.

  I had no warning, just found myself with a light in my face. All I could make out was one squat individual who cast a toad-like shadow. And spoke, “Cash Mitchell! How can you claim to have flown to the Moon?”

  I shaded my eyes so that I could see that this toad held a camera with a microphone. “Say what?” Okay, I’m not reflexively witty.

  “You’ve been making money off this claim for a dozen years. How do you justify it?”

  “The truth is my best defense. I did indeed fly to the Moon in 1968.”

  “But there’s no proof.”

  “Are you intelligent? No proof of that, either.” This was not the first time my story had been challenged.

  I put my hand on the camera and shoved it aside. So yes, officer, I did that much. And then this squat creature shoved me. Yes, hand on my chest.

  So I balled up a fist and swung at him, connecting somewhere near his right ear, I think. It was about chest high for me. I felt the usual glancing contact, heard a slappy kind of thud, and had the satisfaction of seeing the creature recoil, performing a cute little stagger, grubby hand to his face as he screamed, “You attacked me! Now I’ve got it on film!”

  I kept walking, but this pest followed me with his camera, saying, “You saw it all, ladies and gentlemen—when confronted with the truth, Cash Mitchell, who has been traveling the country for years claiming he was first on the Moon—”

  I stopped. “Not true. One of the first. There were three of us. You could look it up, if you had any sense.”

  This joker, four foot five, squat, green where I could tell, and wearing some kind of goddamn coverall as if he should be changing oil at a filling station, kept hopping up and down. “There’s no proof! Space Command has never confirmed it!”

  “Because they’re embarrassed. We borrowed one of their vehicles and made it do things they hadn’t thought of.”

  “You never bothered to take pictures, collect samples—”

  “No time. We were lucky to get back alive.”

  “How convenient.”

  “There are a few lunar dust samples floating around. But you’re not interested in the truth.”

  “Oh, I am. And you’ve been selling lies.”

  “You’d think I’d be better at it. I’m working county fairs and living in an RV. Does that look like some master con man?”

  I kept walking, but the troll dogged me. “What’s your name, anyway?” I said.

  “Bertram Neal.”

  “And you work for…”

  “I’m freelance.”

  “So no better off than me.”

  “A lot better off when I sell the footage of your attack on me.”

  Now I had to face him. And I couldn’t help smiling. “Oh, you silly shit. No one cared about humans going to the Moon in 1968. The planet had been attacked by space aliens twenty-two years earlier!

  “And no one cares now. Every time I show people the ship and start telling my story, it might as well be some Wild West story about fighting Indians.”

  I could see my RV fifty yards off. Safety.

  Neal seemed to be considering his situation. He surely thought he could get me on an assault charge, but he wasn’t the first doubter who had confronted me—or I’d punched—in ten years of fairs and school events. I could prove aggravation and justification … if he used his film as evidence it might actually work against him.

  I thought I was free when behind me, he said, “Whatever happened to Eva-Lynne?”

  I tried to get away, but this made me turn back. “She is none of your business.”

  “Word is she’s a junkie whore in California. If she’d really gone to the Moon, would she be blowing truck drivers—”

  He never finished the question because I grabbed him by the throat. My deuce ability, aka heavy lifting, works by contact and pressure; I was restrained enough to simply lift Neal high and fast and, okay, a bit roughly—then let him fly.

  Momentum carried him into a magnolia tree, where he was embraced by branches and leaves with a satisfying crunching rustle. I left him hanging there and put many yards between us as fast as I could.

  I had barely started up the RV when a flatbed roared up, its headlights blinding me. As the big beast idled roughly, making me think it was overdue for service, Ridley dropped out of the cab. “We’re supposed to be halfway to Memphis by now,” I said. Which was an exaggeration, but Ridley was definitely supposed to be well out of Morehead.

  “One of the guys said a reporter was after you. Thought you might need help.”

  “Well, the reporter did.”

  Ridley turned to follow my eyeline toward the magnolia tree across the parking lot, where Neal’s form cast a shadow against the evening sky. “We better make tracks.”

  “I think Memphis is the wrong way to go.”

  “I’ll follow you east,” he said. He had made two steps toward the flatbed when he turned back. “What do we do about the date in Memphis?”

  “I’ll call and postpone when we get across the state line.”

  I’m a deuce. I’ve always believed I should use my ability for good, or rather practical reasons. Especially when it might get me into legal trouble.

  But launching that squat little fucker into the distance was worth it.

  You see, I had this spaceship.

  You may know the story if you have any interest in what steps humans took in space independent of the Takisians. How for one week in December 1968, all of America was united in pride and wonder as three of its citizens rode a modified Quicksilver orbital space fighter to the surface of the Ocean of Storms, and then back again.

  Well, it didn’t happen like that. The Quicksilver flight by Major Mike Sampson, Eva-Lynne Roderick, and me did take place—we did indeed reach the Moon. Two of us even walked on it.

  But we returned to silence. Several members of our ground crew knew, of course, but they operated under harsh if informal nondisclosure agreements. (The whole Quicksilver endeavor had its origins in the shady activities of a former associate of mine, a Mr. Tuominbang, who sadly died under mysterious circumstances right around the time of our flight. How that happened is a tale I have written up; you might be able to find a paperback in some used bookstore.)

  But if you take the not-invented-here aspect of our mission, the fact that a deuce (me) was involved, and throw in those ties to Asian criminal jokers—well, the important parties were happy to see the Moon story remain undiscussed.

  And let Quicksilver turn brown in the harsh Mojave sunlight in its final resting place in the Tomlin salvage yard.

  The Air Force museum in Ohio sure didn’t want it.

  It was my fault. Up to the Quicksilver flight I had been employed by a Mr. Warren Skalko of Lancaster/Los Angeles/Las Vegas, best known as the Mojave Mob Boss. I can say this now: Mr. Skalko was indeed at the heart of several nefarious enterprises, from narcotics, gambling, and protection down to automobile thefts (with chop shops). I had been in
volved in the latter. With the fame—short-lived and sad as it was—that came my way, however, Mr. Skalko gently terminated our association. I may have been the first person to have left his employ alive, in fact.

  Sampson transferred to the Pentagon in 1973, but before he did, he hit on this notion: “You can make Quicksilver fly.”

  “Sure,” I said, “I have and could again. But no one wants me to.”

  “Kids might. Schools do all kinds of show-and-tell programs.”

  What he had in mind was for me to take Quicksilver on the road, setting up in various locations and telling my tale.

  And by God, Sampson delivered, arranging for me to “lease” the Quicksilver vehicle for one dollar per year indefinitely. He even got me a grant large enough to buy an RV and a flatbed to haul the spaceship.

  It was my purchase of the flatbed that led to a partnership with Ridley Hough. I had known of him prior to Quicksilver as one of Mr. Skalko’s wheelmen, drivers, loaders. His story, and you never heard it from him, was that he had a joker family he was supporting back in Wisconsin.

  I do know that Ridley was tight with money and sent a portion of his income elsewhere.

  For the last eight years, then, Ridley and I have traveled this great land of ours, forty weeks or more each year, showing yokel audiences, largely children, more at county fairs than at schools.

  It was a tough life in most ways. Never much money, and long hours of open road. On the other hand, there were the occasional joys of seeing young people and even some middle-aged and elderly people, nats, aces, and jokers, brighten to the tale of this happy moment in their history. I doubt that any of them ever again looked at a full moon the same way.…

  Sampson arranged for me to wear a nifty blue Air Force Space Command jumpsuit, too, complete with mission patches, and a unique Quicksilver patch that a student in Amarillo designed for me in 1978.