How Rabbit Reached The Moon

When the world was young, and the moon shone at night as a pure silver disc, without blemish, Rabbit walked the earth without cares. He had not yet gathered his thousand enemies, and he was not yet afraid for his life every moment of every day. No, Rabbit in those days was as free as the wind, and he did as he wanted. And what Rabbit was fond of doing in those days was dancing. Of all the creatures, Rabbit was the most accomplished dancer, and could leap higher, spin faster, and last longer than any other, and all the time he danced, Rabbit would laugh.

But days changed, as they will, and we all know the story of how Rabbit gained his thousand enemies. Rabbit became timid, and in fear for his life, and ran when frightened. And when Rabbit was very badly frightened, Rabbit would become frozen in fear, and would not be able to run at all. But when Rabbit thought he was safe, and when Rabbit thought he was alone, with no enemies near, then Rabbit would still dance, and Rabbit would laugh. The thousand enemies knew this, but they could never catch Rabbit dancing, and couldn’t stop his laughing. They would hear him, nearby perhaps, but he was always too fast, and although they hunted for Rabbit, they could not catch him.

Now, Coyote finally figured out where and when Rabbit liked to do his dancing, and lay in wait there one night. When Rabbit came, he stayed still, waiting for him to lose his caution. He watched closely as Rabbit sniffed around the clearing. The full moon shone down, and every blade of grass was as sharp as a knife. But Coyote was in deep shadows, and Coyote was upwind, and Rabbit did not know he was there.

And so Rabbit began to dance. First a small hop. Then another. Then a hop, and a spin. Then all his people joined in, and the clearing was filled with dancing rabbits, laughing, jumping over each other in a woven web. Rabbit leapt higher than all of them, spinning in the moonlight.

Coyote sprung out of the shadows. He pounced at Rabbit, who was just starting to rise in his highest leap of the night. Coyote’s paw hit Rabbit on his backside – so hard he knocked all the color out of his fur, and so hard that he sent him spinning, spinning higher than his highest leap could have carried him, and Rabbit crashed into the moon. He landed upside down, and was a bit dizzy, but he shook himself off and jumped back down to earth, making sure to land far from Coyote. But not too far – Coyote could still hear him, laughing.

You can see where Rabbit landed on the moon, and you can see where on his backside Coyote swiped at him. And if you are very careful, and very quiet, and very lucky, you might even see rabbit dancing in the moonlight, or you might hear, someday, the sound of the very quiet laughter of a rabbit.

Chapter One.

Last moon.

The last time Aran had seen earth’s moon, had been the night before he had shipped out to SSI, Far Star Supply Inc. He and his three best friends from the spacefleet had taken one last camping and fishing trip together, canoeing out deep into the north woods and spending their last few nights on earth deep in one of her last wild places, fly-fishing. When they returned, Steve would be heading back into Space Fleet, having signed on for another three years, Heck would be leaving for the Peace Corps, of all things, and heading to Newanol 5. Tal was going back to school, and was heading for a slip physics program, hoping to get into slipdrive engineering.

Aran had chosen the safe path, general maintenance in a long run supply business. Boring, but safe.

Despite traveling light (Aran had chosen a campsite that required 4 portages), Steve had still managed to bring enough booze to get them all drunk – he’d gone straight for scotch in leiu of their usual beer, and it didn’t take long. They had a nice campfire going, and the pine wood cracked and popped as they sat around and talked about the days in the fleet, the days ahead. By the flickering light of the fire, Aran watched Heck tell the story about the time they all got lost at Hembert settlement, and he laughed uncontrollably with the others, although they’d all been there, and they’d all heard it a couple dozen times. Tal followed with the story about the time Aran had tricked that group of marines out of what would have been a certain fight, six against four, and Aran laughed and nodded.

“Two years later and I still can’t believe I did that,” he said, grinning.

“Shit – you can’t believe it? We can’t believe it.”

“I could believe it,” said Steve. “Aran’s got a tricksy streak – so tricksy he doesn’t let anyone know about it. We saw it in action that night though.” He nodded. “Remember the time he got Benoit out of duty so he could go home that one time? Very tricksy.”

“Shit, that was nothing. Just had to talk to Munroe,” said Aran.

“See?” Steve held a hand out at Aran. “Proves my point. None of us had figured out how to talk to that bastard, or get him to do anything other than cuss us out of his office. Aran equals tricksy.”

They all laughed. Aran stood up and stretched, and caught himself as he wobbled a little. “Aran equals falling asleep on my face. I’m calling it a night, guys.” He neglected to admit that he was more afraid of passing out then falling asleep. He wasn’t used to scotch at all.

Tal and Steve stood while Heck bent forward to poke the remains of the fire. Tal looked up at the moon, suddenly clear as they stood, shining through the boughs of the pine trees. “Full moon,” he said. “Damn, it seems bright out after last night.” The night before had been cloudy.

Steve glanced up. “Man in the moon’s out.”

Aran looked up too, standing shoulder to shoulder with him. “Bullshit, that’s no man. That’s a rabbit.” He said it before he even thought about it, and regreted it immediately.

“Rabbit??” laughed Steve. “What?”

Aran shrugged. “Nothing.”

“No, what’d you mean, rabbit?”

Aran shrugged again. “Some people see the man in the moon. I’ve never been able to; I always see a rabbit.”

Steve laughed, stared at Aran, then stared back up at the moon. “Aran… you been sucking on shrooms or something? Sneakin’ a little peyote, there? I don’t see a bunny. It’s a face, everyone sees a face.”

“Ah, shut your hole, Steve. Not everyone sees a face. And peyote is Navajo or something, I’m not Navajo, for Chrissakes. You know that.”

Tal joined them, staring up at the moon. “… I don’t see a rabbit, Aran…” he muttered after a few seconds.

“Hey, forget it. It’s just…” he let his words drift off. It’s just what his grandmother had told him, all those stories about Rabbit and Coyote. He didn’t want to bring up childhood stories with his buddies. He turned to his tent, feeling foolish, and a bit embarrassed. Stupid rabbit. “I’m going to bed.”

“I don’t see a rabbit either, Aran,” said Heck, speaking up from the other side of the campfire. “I see a dragon.”

Aran stopped. “A dragon?” he asked doubtfully, curious in spite of himself.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, and he crossed over to where the others stood. Tal and Steve were whispering together, laughing, but Heck ignored them. He pointed up at the bright moon. “See, over on the side, there – that’s its mouth, open, then its body comes back that way and curls around. I can see the man, you know, the face too,” he admitted, “but usually I see the dragon if I just glance up at it.”

“Yeah,” said Aran, after a few moments. “Ok, yeah, I guess I can see that. Cool.”

“Ok, that’s it,” said Steve, in a voice of mock authority. “I think you two have had enough to drink now, move along. Nothing to see here.” They turned and headed into the tents, Aran with Heck and Steve with Tal. Aran could hear Steve and Tal laughing and whispering, and he frowned as he tried to hear them, while he shucked his boots and crawled into bed.

“Rabbit, dragon, whatever,” said Heck quietly. “It’s like the stars, everyone makes different pictures for their constellations.” Aran didn’t reply. “Hey, Aran, can I ask you a question?” Heck asked when Aran was silent.

“Mm. Shoot.” Aran tried to get himself comfortable, but the world was spinning a little. He tried to ignore it, and closed his eyes.

“We know you’re not Hopi – but what are you? You’ve never said. Ho-chunk, or what?”

Aran opened his eyes. After a few seconds, he said, “Aw, nothing special. Wisconsin garbage. Indian stew, my mom called it. No Ho-chunk, though. Some other crap, Danish and Japanese in there, somehow.”

“All American mutt,” chuckled Heck. “Like me, but more so. My family, they took eastern Europe, shook well, and poured me out.”

“Shaken, not stirred,” muttered Aran. and Heck, who was also not used to scotch, found this for some reason so funny his laughter woke up Steve, who yelled at them from across the campsite. Aran fell asleep, holding one hand lightly to the ground, holding the world in place, while his friends muttered old familiar insults to one another. In his dreams was the moon, spinning and whirling, and he couldn’t tell what it showed.


Chapter Two

Aran had been working for SSI for only four months when he started the supply run to the Farreach outpost stations. There were seven of them, each perched in a lonely, dangerous area of space, along one of the major trade routes. The supply ship he was on made the run to these stations once a year; there was another ship that filled in at the half-year mark if needed. Some stations needed that second one, some didn’t.

The run took about three months. After they were done, they got a month off, then they’d do a three month run along the next sector, and that’s how the whole year would go. Farreach run would be Aran’s first long run; during training he took a couple short runs.

The ship, the Martelle, was a class M deep space sliprunner, built for reasonable speed, carrying capacity, and long periods out of port. There was a crew of twelve, which to Aran seemed a bit excessive, but they were fairly good sized ships. Like Aran, all the crew were veterans of one sort or another, space fleet or marines. The captain, Bennett, had been special forces for seventeen years before retiring, and he’d been doing the Farreach run for six. All the men were trained in all aspects of running the ship, but they all had their areas of expertise. Aran’s was biologic support systems, since he’d had the training in space fleet. He didn’t really care one way or another; he would have been willing to run communications, slip drive, navigation, whatever. But he’d been in biologics in fleet, so that’s where he stayed. By the time they were headed to the last stop, Calla Station, Aran had been rotated through all positions, and at one time or another shared shifts with all the crew. They’d found him to be a tight-lipped companion during the shifts. The captain had been able to draw him out a bit, and Thompson had managed to get him to relax a bit when it was just the two of them on shift, but the others knew about as much about Aran at the end of the run as they did at the beginning.

That was the way Aran preferred it. He was there to work. Socializing was inevitable, stuck in the cramped confines of a ship for three months, but he wasn’t there to make friends. His buddies from the fleet had befriended him in spite of himself, but they were the notable exceptions to the rule. The other men on the crew had picked up on this and had stopped trying early on; it was just taken as a matter of course that if you were on with Aran, it was all business. They all accepted it; none of them had signed on for deep space work with the thought that they’d meet and befriend a lot of people. The type of men that deep space work attracted could appreciate the need for solitude.

But not necessarily the need for silence. They had two days to go to get to Calla Station when Aran drew duty with Shaw, and when Bennett caught him in the corridor that ran from the bridge to quarters, to tell him the new schedule, Aran couldn’t help but roll his eyes and groan. He glanced behind to make sure no one else was near; the narrow corridor was empty. “Aw, c’mon, Cap,” he said quietly. “I had double duty with Shaw two days ago. He talked my ears off. He’s nice enough, but the guy can’t shut up.”

Bennet wasn’t in the mood. “I don’t care. That’s the schedule. You don’t like it, you get out and walk home.” Fourteen, thought Aran. Fourteenth time he’s told me that. Wish I could get out and walk, some days. There was a little more irritation in Bennett’s voice than usual, though.

“Hey, all right,” said Aran. “It’s not that big a deal, I just thought… I don’t know, you’ve been putting me on with him more than others, lately, it seems. I hate to say it, Cap, but I’m getting kind of sick of him.”

Bennett lowered his voice. “Yeah, and you’re not the only one. But you’re one of the few I’ve got right now that’s not going to pop him in the mouth about 6 hours into a shift. At this point, I’m pretty sure most of the rest of the guys could be counted on to do just that.” Bennett briefly gripped and patted Aran’s shoulder as he passed by him. “You, I know you’ll keep your cool, you always do. Grin and bear it, Aran.”

Aran sighed and rolled his eyes again as Bennett pulled himself down the corridor.

Shaw was in rare form. The ship had just gotten the results of the Madball All World Cup season, and Shaw, being a rabid fan of the Black Hornets, was full of opinions on the play-offs. Aran managed to get through most of the shift with a combination of non-commital grunts, shrugs, and ‘mm-hm’s. The members of the crew that were off duty but awake studiously avoided them, and they made their way on their rounds through the ship.

Thompson and Wu were the other two on duty, but they were up in the bridge; Shaw and Aran were on maintenance and routine procedures duty. All four active crew wore microheadsets for easy communication; Wu had curtly announced ten minutes into the shift that they were shutting off the feed from Shaw and Aran and please restrict communication to vital contact. Thompson had occasionally re-established contact with Aran to give him updates, but Aran didn’t dare respond, wary of letting Shaw know all contact hadn’t been cut off. Thompson didn’t keep the feed on all the time though; he didn’t want to listen to Aran’s mm-hms. Aran had to be careful; every once in a while Thompson would cut in without warning to crack a joke or try to bait Aran with a trick question, hoping he’d catch him before one of his ‘mm-hm’s with a quick, “Wu says you like to wear ladies’ underwear, Aran, is this true?” Aran covered several snorts of laughter with a cough, and managed to suppress the rest. But by the time for mid-shift break, Shaw was worried Aran had caught a rhinovirus at their last stop and was coming down with a cold.

At break, Wu told them they would enter the Gabriel nebula portion of their route in about two hours. They were all in the bridge; when Aran said he was going to eat in the bridge with Wu and Thompson, Shaw had decided to join them rather than go to the mess. It was cramped with all of them in there, and Aran had to stand, but Aran was ready to hear someone else talk for once. Shaw didn’t give them a chance to cooperate until they were done eating. “We’re a little ahead of schedule,” said Wu. “But we’ll probably slow down a bit once we get in there; Gabriel’s tricky.”

“Gabriel’s the only reason we’ve got this last stop,” said Shaw. “If the Farreach route went straight through without hitting a nebula, they wouldn’t need it and we could be home by now.” Aran shrugged; the others didn’t bother to answer. Calla Station wasn’t a port; it was a lighthouse station, placed near a dangerous area of the route in order to help guide ships through, and to keep track of the constant changes in the nebula and how they would affect the route. To help monitor the nebula, they had contact with a network of unmanned ministations, recording devices scattered throughout Gabriel. Lighthouse stations were manned by people who lived there all the time. In the case of Calla Station, like many of the lighthouse stations, it was staffed and ran by a couple, and their whole family lived there with them. They all knew this, they’d all been briefed. Of the crew, only Captain Bennett and Wu had been to Calla Station before and met the Rydell family.

“I’ll call ahead to Calla and see what the route looks like,” said Wu. “If it doesn’t look too bad we might stay ahead of schedule.”

“What’s the family like at this one?” asked Thompson.

“They’re nice,” said Wu. They’ve always been real good to us when we’ve been there before. Three kids, and Stan and Elise. The oldest boy, Tursten, he’s getting old enough to start thinking about getting out of there in another year or two, and the youngest, their girl Sarah… shit, she’s got to be five by now. I swear,” he said, shaking his head, “every time I go there I think they’ve hidden the kids I saw the year before and replaced them with somebody else, they change so much in a year.” He turned to the comm panel. “If you guys want, I’ll call them right now and see if I can reach them. Stick around if you like, to hear what they say.” Aran nodded.

As Wu fiddled with trying to send their signal to Calla, Thompson called the captain in, knowing he’d want to either talk to Calla or at least hear what they had to say. Aran shut Shaw up for a while by making him come up with a list of what else they needed to get done on their shift.

Wu finally got the signal through, and they waited for Calla to answer. It took several minutes, and Aran was ready to leave the bridge and get on with their list when Calla finally responded.

It was a woman’s voice, the kind of woman’s voice that sounded a little hoarse and all the better for it; a friendly voice. “Calla station, reading your signal Martelle, fixing your position. Hang on a sec. Is this Wu?”

“Hi there Elise,” said Wu, smiling. “Get your welcome mat out, we’re just on the other side of Gabriel. Thinking we should be there in a couple days and wanted to make sure the route was clear.”

“Well, we’ll all be glad to see you, hun. Let me start to run the latest data we’ve got from the outliers and I should be able to give you a better idea. Did Bennett come back this year?”

“Right here, Elise,” he said.

“Oh, good! How are you, hun? It’ll sure be good to see you again. The kids have been talking about you coming here for weeks now. Tursten wants to talk to you; I think you made an impression on him last year.”

“Oh? Is he human again?” Aside, he whispered to the others, “Their oldest is sixteen, last year he was such a teenager.”

They chatted for a little while, and after a minute a man’s voice came on. “Welcome, Martelle. We’ll have the Gabriel route mapped for you in about an hour. How many crew do you have this year, Bennett?”

“Eleven, same as last year. Wu’s the only one you’ve met; I’ve got a lot of transfers and a couple rookies this year.” He winked at Aran, who smiled back in spite of himself.

“Well they’ll all be very welcome. Elise and I will get your data together. Do you want to talk to any of the kids while you wait? Bunny’s right here.”

Aran raised an eyebrow. Bunny? he mouthed to Wu. Wu smiled and tabbed off his mic. “Her name’s Sarah, they call her Bunny. She adores bunnies,” he whispered. Aran nodded, still not understanding why anyone would call their daughter Bunny.

A young girl’s voice came on, excited and happy. Within the space of half a minute she breathlessly told them about the special dinner they planned for the crew, the new dress her mom had made for her, and her new rabbit named Fuzzbun. “And-that’s-all-I-have-to-say-for-now-and-I-have-to-go-but-here’s-Turdsten.”

“Knock it off, squirrel,” said a young man’s voice. “Hi Mr. Wu, hi Captain Bennet. This is TURsten,” he said, and his name was punctuated by a squeal of indignation in the background, followed by a fading, “Moooooom! He thumped me!” Tursten continued in a voice that was obviously an attempt to sound mature and dignified. “Welcome to Calla Station and Gabriel nebula. Do you know when you’ll be arriving here at the station?”

“Not yet, Tursten,” said Wu, chuckling. “We need the route data before we know for sure. If the route’s fairly clear then maybe a couple days.”

“Mom and Dad are working on it. Were you able to bring all the supplies we requested?” He could not totally suppress the excitement in his voice.

“Yes, yes, everything you asked for, and some extras.”

“Extras? Like what?”

“Ah,” laughed Wu, “You’ll have to wait and see. Surprises, you know.”

“Aw…” The abject disappointment in his voice made Aran smile, picturing the excited teen slumping dejectedly at Wu’s words. “Well, hopefully we can get you a nice quick route through. Gabe’s been pretty quiet lately, so maybe a day or two?”

Stan and Elise Rydell were just starting to realize it would not take a day or two for the Martelle to make it through the Gabriel nebula. In fact, it was starting to look like it might take much longer, or they might even need to bypass much of it and take a longer path around. The data from the outliers showed that a large solid body, comet probably, had blazed through part of Gabriel and crashed through one of the more dense areas, scattering debris in all directions. The outlier readers were still trying to track it all, but it looked like there wasn’t going to be anything even close to a safe easy path through the nebula for a while.

“Better let them know,” said Elise. “This is going to take a while to figure out; we’d better have them stop outside Gabe.” She shook her head. “What a nightmare. The kids will be disappointed; they’ve been looking forward to this like it’s all the holidays rolled up into one.”

“It is,” said Stan. “Nothing we can do about that; let’s just make sure they get here safely.” He opened the channel to the Martelle again, cutting through Tursten’s restrained efforts to wheedle some information out of Wu on their cargo. “Calla to Martelle, sending preliminary data on Gabriel. It’s not looking good, guys, unacceptably high number of random variables. Advise you stop outside Gabriel at least 5 clicks while we try and get this figured out.”

Wu and Bennett stared at each other, while Thompson muttered a heartfelt curse. Aran and Shaw hadn’t been watching navigation, and didn’t know their exact position. Bennett motioned Thompson out of his seat and took the comm while watching the data summaries start to come over the display.

“Negative, Calla Station,” he said. He gave their position, which was already 3 to 5 clicks inside Gabriel, depending on when you marked its boundary. “Direct your analysis to our current sector. Sending you our current velocity and our readings out here, please advise.”

His request was followed by silence, then a curt comment from Elise, “Tursten, you get off your channel right now.”

“But Mom…”

“Now, mister.” A pause, then a soft click. The others were watching the data scroll by on Bennett’s display; only Aran noticed that the indicator for Tursten’s channel did not fade with the click. It made Aran smile, faintly, but right then he was far more concerned about Elise and Stan’s analysis to point out their son was still listening.

The silence continued. “Stand by, Martelle,” said Stan, his voice tense. More silence.

“Crap,” muttered Bennett. “This hasn’t happened before. Last time through here was a breeze.” There was an edge in Bennett’s voice that made Aran glance up at him. His face was neutral, but… if Cap was nervous, then Aran was nervous.

“Upgrade alert status, Cap?” he asked. Bennett reached over and tapped in the command that increased the alert status of the ship. The alert, three claxon blares, sounded through the ship, repeating every tens seconds for three rounds, until everyone on the ship was awake and annoyed. Wu and Bennett strapped themselves into their seats. Thompson and Shaw took the adjunct seats and strapped in. Aran was left with a fold down seat in the bulkhead, which he struggled with. “Damn thing’s stuck,” he said.

Wu waved him impatiently to the nearer of the two aft lifepod doors. “Strap up in there for now.”

“Oh, for… I’ll just stand and hook in.” He began to pull out the straps on his suit that would allow him to hook up to the bulkhead, a procedure meant for a much lower alert status.

“Either get in there and strap up or go back to quarters, Aran,” snapped Bennett.

“Ok, ok,” Aran said, and went to the nearer pod. From there, at least, he’d still be able to hear the others and tune into the channel they had with Calla. The pod was set to the side of the bridge, through the low entry of the thick door, with a small inner chamber, six vertical slots for men to strap in, and a small command station. Aran reluctantly strapped himself into the first slot and tried to listen to what was going on. He didn’t think they were in any real danger. They had barely entered the nebula. They had reached this level of alert no less than thirty-some times in this trip, and nothing had ever happened. In the ten years the Martelle had been active, the ship had never had even a minimally significant meteor collision.

Aran couldn’t hear anything from the others, but didn’t want to speak up to prod them to keep him updated. He sighed. His list with Shaw wasn’t going to get done, and this whole thing would give Shaw something to natter on about for the rest of the shift, that was certain.

“Martelle, Martelle,” came Stan’s voice, sounding strained. “You need to get all your sensors up and get out of there; our data can’t keep up with it – too much time lag sending it back and forth. Can you get enough of a reading in your sector?”

“Calla, clarify?” snapped Bennett.

“Incoming,” said Wu, “Evasi-“

Wu was cut off by what was by far the most violent event Aran had ever experienced or even witnessed in his entire life. The comet that had passed into Gabriel had set off a series of ricochets of debris, some of the resulting fragments many hundreds of times larger than the relatively tiny Martelle. The shard that obliterated the stern half of the Martelle was far smaller than much of the debris, but more than large enough, and moving fast enough, to swipe away forty percent of the ship in less than a second. The quarters and stern, where seven of the twelve crew were at that moment, was disintegrated. The mid section of the ship broke in half, twisted, and fragmented. The rest of the Martelle was snapped around, collided with some of fragments from the rear, and tumbled into a rapid, crooked spiral that deviated it far off its previous trajectory.

Aran knew none of this. The first impact had jolted him so sharply that he was knocked instantly into unconsciousness. Of all the crew that had been aft, however, he was the best protected, strapped securely into one of the lifepod slots. At the first microsecond of impact, the many protective devices set into his slot had activated, and he was cushioned and held securely. He was still, while held in place, spun wildly along with the rest of the ship, and just the simple shear forces of his organs inside his body was enough to tear fine vessels, damage axons. The straps that held him in had just enough give to minimize this, but with a collision of that violence, there was no way around at least some injuries.

The men in the bridge were not as lucky, if what happened to Aran could be called luck. The chairs, although they allowed them to be secured, did not activate as thoroughly or hold them as safely as the lifepod, which was built to withstand direct attacks or meteor strikes. Shaw’s chair held him, but the chair itself snapped off and he was thrown sideways against Wu’s chair, then careened off into the bulkhead. Bennett and Thompson’s chairs held, but the men were whipped around violently in the crash. Their bodies were held, but their arms and legs weren’t. Thompson had been sitting back properly, and his head was automatically secured when the collision hit, but Bennett had been sitting forward a little, and his head had been unsecured. Wu’s chair broke partly loose when Shaw’s chair hit it, but it tore sideways and didn’t detach completely. One of his straps was ripped free, throwing him partly out of his chair.

In only a few seconds, it was all over. The ship continued to tumble and spin. Some automatic ship functions were still working, and the ship was able to restabilize itself in one axis but not the others, but it was able to control the tumble and slow itself to a looping spin. The bridge was silent, save for some faint grinding, creaking sounds from the remains of the ship settling. The alarm system had been disabled. Communications were, for the moment at least, out. The only movement in the cabin was from Wu’s left arm and hand; released by the broken straps, it floated limply above him, in slow circles with the spinning of the ship, as if he was gesturing: look at this, look at this, oh my god, would you look at all this.