John Henry said to his Captain,

“A man ain’t nothin’ but a man,

And before I’ll let your steam drill beat me down

I’ll die with this hammer in my hand, Lord, Lord

I’ll die with this hammer in my hand.”

Usually, gazing out across the crater floor to the weary old ringwall mountains with the big, blue, beautiful Earth hanging in the black sky above—usually it fills my heart with peace and calm.

But not today.

My palms are sweaty while I wait for the “go” signal. There are six of us lined up in our lunar buggies, ready to race out to the old Ranger 9 site and back again to Selene’s main airlock. Two hundred and some kilometers, round trip. If I follow the path the race officials have laid out.

I’m sitting at the controls of a five-meter-tall, six-legged lunar vehicle that we’ve nicknamed Stomper. We designed it to haul freight and carry cargo over rough ground, not for racing. The five other racers are also converted from working lunar vehicles, but they’re either wheeled or tracked: they can zip along at speeds up to thirty klicks per hour, if you push them.

I’ve got to win this race or get sent back to dirty, dangerous, overcrowded Earth.

See, Harry Walker and I started this design company, Walker’s Walkers, while I was still his student at Selene University. Put every penny we had into it. Now we’ve built our prototype, Stomper, and we’ve got to prove to everybody that a legged vehicle can work out on the Moon’s surface as well or better than anything with wheels or tracks.

So we entered the race. Harry’s a paraplegic. If we win, he’ll be able to afford stem cell therapy to rebuild his legs. If we don’t win, Walker’s Walkers goes bust, he stays in his wheelchair, and I get sent back Earthside. It’s Selene’s one hard rule: if you don’t have a job, you get shipped out. You either contribute to Selene’s economy or you’re gone, man, gone. There’s no room for freeloaders. No charity. No mercy.

The light on my control board flashes green and I push Stomper’s throttle forward carefully. We’re off with a lurch and a bump.

Stomper’s six legs start thumping along as I edge the throttle higher. But Zeke Browkowski zips out ahead of the rest of the pack, just like I figured he would.

“So long, slowpokes,” he sings out as he pulls farther in front. “Hey, Taylor,” he calls to me, “why don’t you get out and push?” I can hear him laughing in my headphones.

Zeke’s in Dash-nine, the newest buggy in Selene, of course. His older brother runs the maintenance section and makes certain he does well by Zeke.

Even though Stomper’s cabin is pressurized, I’m suited up, helmet and all. It’s uncomfortable, but if I have to go outside for emergency maintenance during the race I won’t have to take the time to pull on the cumbersome suit.

Selene City is built into the base of Mount Yeager, the tallest mountain in the ringwall of the giant crater Alphonsus. Two-thirds of the way across the crater floor lie the remains of Ranger 9, one of the early unmanned probes from back in the days before Armstrong and Aldrin landed over in the Sea of Tranquility.

There’s been some talk about expanding Selene beyond Alphonsus’s ringwall, going out onto the Mare Nubium and even farther. But so far it’s only talk. Selene is restricted to Alphonsus, for now.

I figure the run out to the Ranger 9 site and back to Selene’s main airlock should take on the order of ten hours. Zeke Browkowski will try to make it faster, of course. Knowing him, I’ll bet he’s souped up Dash-nine with extra fuel cells, even though that’s against the race rules.

Harry teaches mechanical design at the university, from his wheelchair. He had the ideas for Walker’s Walkers and I did his legwork, so to speak. I’ve got to win this race and show everybody what Stomper can do. Harry can keep his professorship at the university even if we lose. But I’ll have to go back to Detroit, Michigan, USA, Earth. I’ve worked too long and too hard to go back to that cesspool.

I need to win this race!

Stomper’s lumbering along like some monster in a horror vid. Sitting five meters above the ground, I can see Zeke’s Dash-nine pulling farther ahead of us, kicking up a cloud of dust as it rolls across the crater floor on its big springy wheels. In the Moon’s low gravity the dust just hangs there like a lazy cloud.

“Come on, Stomper,” I mutter to myself as we galumph past the solar-cell farms spread out on the crater floor. “It’s now or never.” I nudge the throttle a notch higher.

Stomper’s six legs speed up, but not by much. It’s like sitting on top of a big mechanical turtle with six heavy metal feet. I have to be careful: if I push too hard I could burn out a bearing. Stomper’s slow enough on six legs; if we lose one we’ll be out of it altogether.

Zeke’s pulling farther ahead while ol’ Stomper’s six feet pound along the dusty bare ground. Lots of little pockmark craterlets scattered across the floor of Alphonsus, and plenty of rocks, some big as houses. Stomper’s automated guidance sensors walk us around the more dangerous ones, but I get a kick out of smashing the smaller stones into powder.

It’s a real hoot, sitting five meters tall with Stomper’s control panel spread out in front of me, feeling all that power, watching the rock-strewn ground go by. Harry would love to be up here, I bet, in control even though his own legs are useless.

Stomper has a lot of power, all right, but not enough speed to catch Dash-nine or even the slower vehicles. Like the turtle against a quintet of hares. But I have a plan. I’m going to take a shortcut.

The race’s official course from Selene’s main airlock to the Ranger 9 site is a dogleg shape, because the buggies have to detour around the hump of rugged hills in the center of Alphonsus. I figure that ol’ Stomper can climb those hills, thread through ’em and get to the Ranger 9 site ahead of everybody else. Then I’ll come back the same way and win the race!

That’s my plan.

For now I follow the trail of lighted poles that mark the race course. Dash-nine is so far ahead that all I can see of Browkowski is a cloud of dust near the short horizon. Three of the other vehicles are ahead of me, too, but I see that the fourth one of them is stopped dead, its two-man crew outside in their suits, bending over a busted track.

I flick to the suit-to-suit frequency and get a blast of choice language from the pair of ’em.

“You guys all right?” I call to them.

Moans and groans and elaborate profanity. But neither one of them is hurt and Selene’s already sending a repair tractor to pick them up.

I push on. I can see the tired old slumped hills of the crater’s central peak rising just over the horizon. I turn Stomper toward them.

Instantly my earphones sing out, “Taylor Reed, you’re veering off course.” Janine’s voice. She sounds upset.

“I’m taking a shortcut,” I say.

“That’s not allowed, Taylor.”

The race controller is Janine Al-Jabbar, as sweet and lovely a lady as you could find. But now she sounds uptight, almost fearful.

“I’ve studied the rules,” I tell her, keeping my voice calm, “and there’s nothing in ’em says you have to follow the course they’ve laid out.”

“It’s a safety regulation,” she answers, sounding even more worried. “You can’t go off on your own.”

“Janine, there’s no problem with safety. Ol’ Stomper can—”

A man’s voice breaks in. “Taylor Reed, get back on course or you’re disqualified!”

That’s Mance Brunner, the director of the race. He’s also chancellor of Selene University. Very important person, and he knows it.

“Disqualified?” My own voice comes out as a mouse squeak. “You can’t disqualify me just because—”

“Get back on course, Reed,” says Brunner, less excited but harder, colder. “Otherwise I’ll have no option except to disqualify you.”