Energized Read Free Page B

shop?” Gabe was just making conversation. Skimming the pitch-black rock face in the near darkness was eerie.
    He felt a tap-tap on his calf and twisted around. Thad had only one hand on the guide cable, waggling his other hand. Two fingers were raised.
    â€œOscar, private channel two,” Gabe ordered. “Okay, Thad. What’s going on?”
    â€œPrivate channel two,” Thad repeated. Finally, he added, “You’ll keep this to yourself, right?”
    â€œIf that’s what you want.”
    Hand over hand, they went. A rim of sunshield reappeared just before the Earth returned as a new crescent. Gabe doused his helmet lights. On his HUD the red and green dots were converging. Another few minutes and they would veer from the guide cable.
    Eventually Gabe prompted, “Well?”
    â€œOkay. I put my life in your hands.” Thad sighed. “I have a thing for Tiny.”
    Tina Lundgren was big for an astronaut, even a male astronaut. The nickname was inevitable—and you used it within her earshot at your own peril. Gabe had to admit that, in an Amazonian kind of way, she was sexy. And she was one of only two women, and the only unmarried woman, on Phoebe. Gabe understood Thad wanting this conversation on a private channel.
    Having bared his soul, Thad went on and on about Tina’s womanly charms.
    â€œUh-huh,” Gabe finally interrupted. “And you were cutting pipe as an outlet for your unrequited love?”
    â€œNot exactly.” A rueful laugh. “I’m making a still. Whether or not homebrew appeals to her, I figure it won’t go to waste.”
    â€œDoes she know how you feel?” Gabe asked.
    â€œNot from me! Not yet. Frankly, the woman scares the crap out of me. Maybe that’s why I have to have her.”
    To their left, a ghostly plume: an ice pocket flashing to steam bursting from the ground.
    Behind its sunshield Phoebe should be colder than the night side of the moon: for two weeks out of four, every part of the moon but a few deep polar craters felt sunlight. But shield or no, some sunlight did reach Phoebe. No software was perfect, and occasionally the sunshield—tugged by Earth, moon, and Phoebe; pushed by the solar wind and by sunlight itself; balancing the many conflicting forces with its own feeble thrusters—drifted out of position. Whenever that happened, sunlight beat directly on the surface. Even when the shield balanced perfectly, the traces of sunlight penetrating the shield scattered in unpredictable ways. Earthlight and moonlight were, in the final analysis, echoes of sunlight. And heat leaked from the underground base and its nuclear power plant. All that energy mingled, meandered, and reradiated in unpredictable ways.
    And so, seemingly at random, little geysers. The vapor was too diffuse to do any harm. Most times. If you were unlucky, a geyser could sweep you right off Phoebe.
    â€œA still,” Gabe repeated, his thoughts divided between the plume, already trailing off, the topo map on his HUD, the landscape sliding by inches beneath his visor, and the conversation. Ethyl alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water, so alcohol fumes waft up a still coil before water vapor. You separated out the early condensate. But up comes of having gravity. “Will a still even work in Phoebe’s grav—”
    Too much happened at once, the sequence unclear:
    â€”A sharp tug on Gabe’s backpack.
    â€”Thad saying, “Wrong answer.”
    â€”A power alarm.
    â€”A second yank.
    â€”Helmet lights and HUD going dark.
    â€”A hard shove forward.
    Gabe twisted around. Earthlight showed Thad a good twenty feet away, receding. Just staring. And bulging from the mesh pouch of Thad’s tool belt: two battery packs.
    Without power for his suit’s heating elements, Gabe would freeze within minutes. Already the cold seeped into him, body and thoughts turning sluggish. He got his feet beneath him, even