That "refresher" was dreadful. It was an airiock leading to a hole in the rock, attached to the home of a settler who combined tunnel farming with ice mining. There may have been some oxygen in the pressure gas that greeted us, but the stench made it impossible to tell. It reminded me of the jakes in a castle I was once quartered in during the Three-Weeks War- on the Rhine it was, near Remagen; it had a deep stone privy which was alleged never to have been cleaned in over nine hundred years.
None of us was fined for being late, as our driver was even later. And so was Bill. Dr. Chan had resealed Tree-San with a roll-and-clamp arrangement to permit it to be watered more easily. Bill had solicited Aunt Lilybet's help. They had managed it together, but not quickly. I don't know whether Bill had time to pee or not. Auntie, of course, had time-the Hew Me couldn't roll until Auntie arrived.
We made a meal stop about half past nineteen at a small pressure, four families, called Rob Roy. After the last stop this one seemed like the acme of civilization. The place was clean, the air smelled right, and the people were friendly and hospitable. There was no choice in the menu-chicken and dumplings, and moonberry pie-and the price was high. But what do you expect out in the middle of nowhere on the face of the Moon? There was a souvenir stand of handmade items, presided over by a little boy. I bought an embroidered change purse that I had no use for, because those people were good to us. The decoration on it read: "Rob Roy City, Capital of the Sea of Serenity." I gave it to my bride.
Gwen helped the one-armed woman with the three children and learned that they were returning home to Kong, after having visited in Lucky Dragon the paternal grandparents of the youngsters. The mother's name was Ekaterina O'Toole; the kids were Patrick, Brigid, and Igor, aged eight, seven, and five. Our other three passengers turned out to be Lady Diana Kerr-Shapley and her husbands-wealthy and not inclined to fraternize with us plebs. Both her men carried side arms-inside their suits. What is the sense in that?
The ground was not as even from there on, and it seemed to me that Auntie stuck a little closer to the marked track. But she still drove fast and with dash, bouncing us around on those big, low-pressure doughnuts in a fashion that made me wonder about Bill's queasy stomach. At least he was not having to hold Tree-San; Auntie had helped him lash it down in the cargo compartment aft. I wished him luck; getting sick in one's helmet is dreadful-happened to me once, a generation ago. Ugh!
We made another rest stop just before midnight. Adequate. The Sun was now a few degrees higher and still rising. Auntie told us that we now had a hundred and fifteen klicks left to roll and should be in Kong about on time, with God's help.
God didn't give Auntie the help she deserved. We had been rolling about an hour when out of nowhere (from behind a rock outcropping?) came another rolligon, smaller and faster, cutting diagonally across our path.
I slapped Bill's arm, grabbed Gwen's shoulders, and down we went, below the driver's port and somewhat protected by the steel side of the bus. As I ducked for cover I saw a flash from the strange vehicle.
Our bus rolled to a stop with the other vehicle right in front of us. Auntie stood up.
They cut her down.
Gwen got the man who beamed Auntie, resting her Miyako on the sill of the port-she got him in the lens of his helmet, the best way to shoot a man in a p-suit if you are using bullets rather than laser. I got the driver, aiming carefully as my cane shoots only five times-and no more ammo closer than Golden Rule (in my duffel, damn it). Other suited figures came pouring out the sides of the attacking craft. Gwen raised up a little and went on shooting.
All this took place in the ghostly quiet of vacuum.
I started to add my fire to Gwen's, when still another vehicle showed up. Not a rolligon but related to one-but not any contraption I ever saw before. It had only one tire, a supergiant doughnut at least eight meters high. Maybe ten. The hole in the doughnut was crowded with what may have been (or had to be?) its power plant. Extending out from this hub on each side was a cantilevered platform. On the upper side of each platform, both port and starboard, a gunner was strapped into a saddle. Below the gunner was the pilot, or driver, or engineer-one on each side and don't ask me how they coordinated.
I won't swear to any details; I was busy. I had taken a bead on the gunner on the side toward me and was about to squeeze off one of my precious shots when I checked fire; his weapon was depressed, he was attacking our attackers. He was using an energy weapon-laser, particle beam, I don't know-as all I saw of each bolt was the parasitic flash... and the result.
The big doughnut spun around a quarter turn; I saw the other pair, driver and gunner, on the other side-and this gunner was trained on us. His projector flashed.
I got him in the face plate.
Then I tried for his driver, got him (I think) at the neck joint. Not as good as punching a hole in his face plate but, unless he was equipped to make a difficult patch fast, he was going to be breathing the thin stuff in seconds.
The doughnut spun all the way around. As it stopped I got the other gunner a nanosecond before he could get me. I tried to line up for a shot at the driver but could not get steady on target and had no ammo to waste. The doughnut started to roll, away from us, east-picked up speed, hit a boulder, bounced high, and disappeared over the horizon.
I looked back down at the other rolligon. In addition to the two we had killed in the first exchange, still sprawled in the car, there were five bodies on the ground, two to starboard, three to port. None looked as if he would ever move again. I pressed my helmet to Gwen's. "Is that all of them?"
She jabbed me hard in the side. I turned. A helmeted head was just appearing in the lefthand door. I lined up my cane and punched a starred hole in his face plate; he disappeared. I hopped on somebody's feet and looked out-no more on the left-turned, and here was another one climbing up through the righthand door. So I shot him-
Correction: I tried to shoot him. No more ammo. I fell toward him, jabbing with my cane. He grabbed the end of it and that was his mistake, as I pulled on it, exposing twenty centimeters of Sheffield steel, which I sank into his suit and between his ribs. I pulled it out, shoved it into him again. That stiletto, a mere half-centimeter width of triangular blade, blood-grooved three sides, does not necessarily kill quickly but my second jab would hold his attention while he died, keep him too busy to kill me.
He collapsed, half inside the door, and let go the scabbard part of my cane. I retrieved it, fitted it back on. Then I shoved him out, grabbed on to the seat nearest me, and pulled myself up onto my foot, took care of a minor annoyance, hopped back to my seat, and sat down. I was tired, although the whole fracas could not have lasted more than two or three minutes. It's the adrenaline-I always feel exhausted afterward.
That was the end of it, and a good thing, too, as both Gwen and I were out of ammo, utterly, and I can't use that concealed blade trick more than once-it works only if you can lure your opponent into grabbing the ferrule of your walking stick. There had been nine in that rolligon and all of them were dead. Gwen and I got five of them between us; the gunners of the giant doughnut killed the other four. The body count was certain because there is no mistaking a bullet hole for a bum.
I am not counting the two, or three, I shot of the super-doughnut's crew ... because they left no bodies to count; they were somewhere over the horizon.