"It was here from before–? When the station was working?" I offered.
"Maybe. But remember, I know Alexei better than you!Why do you think I asked himto smuggle you up the Line? Why do you think I trusted him to smuggle us to Luna? Because Alexei Krislov is a brilliant scoundrel. Brickner station is a double‑decoy. Yeah, he sells a little bit of water back to Gagarin. That's his cover–look down, you see those pipes under the deck? What do think is in them? Which way do you think it's flowing?"
I was too busy bouncing to focus, and I didn't want to stop to look. "Um, the green one is breathable air?" I guessed. "The blue one is water?"
"And the orange one? What do you think that is?
"That's ammonia," said Douglas. "Remember what Alexei said about nitrogen and ammonia? You need nitrogen to make breathable gas. And for fertilizer. You need ammonia for refrigeration."
"Right," said Mickey. "The key to Lunar technology isn't water. It's nitrogen. That's what everybody needs the most. Even more than water and electricity. Alexei isn't selling any of this! He's stealing it!Brickner isn't a water‑production plant; it's a holding tank for water skimmed off Gagarin. And all the stuff in the other tanks as well. There were too many. There's too muchstorage there."
We bounced a little farther down the tube, while I thought about that. The pipes below our feet weren't that thick. I guessed they didn't need to be.
"Doesn't Gagarin know?" Douglas asked. "Can't they tell?"
"Maybe Alexei is only siphoning off a few liters a day. With the number of people coming and going into Gagarin Station, with the scale of industrial processes they've got going, they could write it off as loss due to normal usage. But if he's siphoning off any more than that, then someone at Gagarin is covering it up. That's my guess, that this is how legal resources are being funneled to the tribes of invisible Luna. I wonder if they're doing the same with electricity. You heard him talking about factories and what they needed. Dammit. We knew they were moving ahead. We didn't realize this–" And then he trailed off into a string of muttered curses.
We concentrated on bouncing down the tube. We couldn't see very far ahead from any given point, because the tube snaked and wound its way over the Lunar terrain, up and down, around and over. Every so often we passed a joint where two sections of tube had been sealed together. Several times we had to pass through manually operated airlocks. We zipped our way through.
"Bobby? Did you do something?" That was Douglas. They were in the same bubble suit again.
"I didn't do anything."
"What are you guys talking abouti' Mickey asked.
"It smells like piss in here," said Bobby. "I didn't do it!"
"How bad?" asked Mickey. His voice sounded strange.
"Not too bad," Douglas said. And then he got it. "Oh."
"Would somebody explain it to me?" I asked.
"Ammonia," Mickey said.
"What's ammonia?" Bobby asked.
"It's good for cleaning your glasses," I said.
"I don't wear glasses," Bobby said.
"Then don't worry~about it."
"Charles, please–" That was Mickey. "I'm trying to figure out how far we've come. I don't want to turn back."
"I think we can make it," Douglas said. "I'll turn up my oxygen."
"That'll help–a little bit." He added, "Alexei probably keeps the tube pressurized with ammonia to keep folks from wandering through it casually. Besides, it's another useful storage area. Do the math. A kilometer‑long tube, nine meters in diameter, pressurized to two‑thirds sea level, I'd guess. Can you figure it out, Douglas?"
He was trying to distract Douglas, I was sure. And maybe me too. I was trying to figure out if there was anything else we could do. "Monkey, if you've got any ideas, now's the time to talk–" It didn't respond.
"It really stinks in here!" wailed Bobby. "I don't like this!"
"How are your eyes?" Mickey asked.
"Watering–badly." Douglas coughed suddenly. Bobby was coughing even worse. The leak must have expanded–
–and then I got it! "The inflatable! The portable airlock!"I could barely get the words out fast enough. Even as I stumbled to get the words out, Mickey was already pulling it from his pack! I bounced back to him and together, we pushed Douglas and Stinky through the first zippered entrance. We zipped it behind them, unzipped the next, pushed them through, zipped it behind them–
Douglas was already turning up the oxygen on his tank. Mickey pushed the gloves into the inflatable, and without worrying about proper procedures unzipped all three of the zippers on Douglas's bubble suit. Douglas and Bobby lay on the floor of the inflatable, coughing and choking, their eyes streaming. Douglas held the breather tube in front of Bobby's nose, then his own, then back to Bobby. It probably still smelled of ammonia in there, but at least they had a chance now.
"Come on, Charles, I can't do this alone. I need your help." He rolled Bobby onto Douglas, and picked up Douglas by the head. I picked up Douglas by the feet and the two of us began carrying him forward. The inflatable bulged into unmanageable shapes, but we both had our hands pushed into its gloves and we held on to Douglas himself and tried to keep the bulges from dragging and scraping along the sides. We bounced through the tube as fast as we could manage. I could feel my heart pounding so hard I couldn't hear anything else.
Mickey led the way, I followed. I couldn't see past him very well, so I couldn't see if the tube sloped up or down, right or left, so I was constantly bumping and jerking, trying to keep up. Bobby and Douglas were still coughing, but Bobby was crying, and that was always a good sign. If we could just make it to the end of this tube. How far was it anyway?!
We had to stop then, while Mickey zipped us through another manual airlock. And then we pushed on again. I didn't know how much longer I could do this–I didn't care that we were in one‑sixth gee. This was exhausting, and I was reaching the limits of my endurance. "We've gotta stop soon–" I managed to gasp.
"You'd better pace yourselves." Douglas coughed. He waved the breathing tube back and forth between himself and Bobby.
"All right, all right–" Mickey brought us to a halt. We lowered Douglas and Bobby to the deck and the two of us stood there, hands on knees, panting heavily.
"Aren't we there yet? How far is it?" I asked.
"We're halfway there. More than halfway. How are you doing, Douglas?" He was already shoving another air tank through the zipper locks. The last one. This was going to be close. "Turn it all the way up. Give yourselves as much pure oxygen as you can. And try not to strike any sparks. Ammonia is flammable, you know."
"If I turn it all the way up, the inflatable will fill the tube. We'll use the breathing mask. We'll be fine."
"Douglas, look at your bubble suit. The plastic is supposed to change color around a rip or a puncture. Red or yellow, I think. If you can find the hole, there's emergency tape right there. Just pull off a strip and press it to the leak. Can you find it? Look around your feet. Turn over, maybe it's behind you. Charles and I will look. Do you see anything, Charles–?"
"I'm still looking. It's hard to see through all these layers–"
"Douglas?"
"I don't see anything either."
"Damn! Maybe it's in the foot pads or the gloves or someplace it doesn't show. All right–" He glanced up the length of the tube. "It's doable. You ready, Chigger?"
"No," but I picked up Douglas by the feet anyway.
This time, we held our panic in check. We moved fast, but we weren't running anymore. We were tired, but we weren't exhausting ourselves. And then, just to make it worse, we started up a long uphill slope. I could see the ceiling of the tube arcing away.