Lunar Descent by Allen Steele Page A

Collins AOMV, no problem.”
    â€œNo problem.” Joe let out his breath, then balled his right fist in his left hand and cracked his knuckles. “No problem,” he repeated. “Okay.”
    He nodded his head lazily and turned to saunter toward the open hatch of the pressurized passageway leading back to the main building. He waited until he heard Casey’s relieved sigh; then he turned back. “But remember,” he added. “I want a clean launch at fifteen-hundred. Got it? No holds, no scrubs. And I want that main busline fixed. Everything copacetic, right?”
    â€œUh-huh. Yeah. Right. You got it, Joe.”
    â€œDelightful. I’m ever so fucking glad to hear it.” Mighty Joe bent low and turned his wide shoulders to squeeze through the hatch into the tunnel. Great, he thought. Nothing to do but sit around and beat off until launch-time.
    If he had ever doubted it before, he didn’t doubt it now. The new GM was going to be nothing but trouble.
    There was a portrait of Alfred E. Neuman, cut from the cover of an issue of Mad , taped to the door of the Lunar Resources lab. Below it was a handprinted sign: “The Usual Gang of Idiots,” with the names of the Descartes Station’s science staff listed underneath. Once there had been five names on the roster, but now there were only two: Susan Peterson, Ph.D., and Lewis Walker, M.D. The three other names had been crossed off the list.
    The string of brown prayer beads made a soft, rhythmic snapping noise, like tiny castanets, as they moved through Monk Walker’s fingers: click … click … click … click … click … Butch Peterson usually found it a soothing background sound, like the random music of wind chimes tinkling in a summer breeze. It was the sound of Monk’s mind at work. Now the prayer beads sounded disturbed, restless. Butch stared for a few more moments at the raw data from the most recent local geological survey before she finally gave up. She swiveled her chair away from her desk terminal and stared at Monk Walker.
    The chief physician was sitting on a stool next to the window, gazing out at the lunar plain. Windows in Subcomp A were rare; much of the base lay underground and most of the above-ground structures were buried by regolith, so space for windows had to be scalloped out from beneath the soil. They were lucky to have this one window in the science lab, and luckier still to have such a good view. The gentle slopes of Stone Mountain rose on the southeastern horizon, with the crescent Earth hanging overhead, but she sensed that he wasn’t really looking at the scenery. She looked at the small string of beads in his right hand and noted that they were moving outwards from his palm. In the Buddhist tradition it meant that the object of Monk’s meditation was external, outside of himself.
    Butch had learned not to interrupt Walker’s meditations; if he wanted to speak, he would interrupt himself. No one else on the Moon received this kind of courtesy from Butch Peterson. Indeed, she itched to make some sort of smartass remark— Playing with yourself again ? or Try chewing your nails, it’s quieter —but she deferentially kept her silence.
    Monk’s gaze presently moved from the window to her, and the clicking of the beads paused as he raised a questioning eyebrow. “Yes?” he asked.
    She smiled and shrugged slightly. “Penny for your thoughts?”
    â€œI’m driving you crazy again? Sorry.” He considered her remark. “They’re probably not worth even a penny.”
    â€œNaah. Your penny-ante thoughts are worth a nickel to anyone else’s.” Butch moved the mouse across the pad so that the cursor touched the SAVE function; then she tapped the button to close the file. Might as well, she thought. Can’t get a damn thing done today, anyway. “How about some tea?”
    She stood up from her chair and arched