Free Dead Man on the Moon by Steven Harper Page A

on Wade unyielding. Finally Wade growled, "Clear."
    Noah instantly let go. Wade stormed back to the bedroom and slammed the door.
    "Wow," Jake breathed. "You really pissed him off."
    "One of us was going to lose," Noah said. "Better him than me. Would you do me a favor and toss my duffel bag out of the bedroom? I have the feeling I should take the couch tonight."
    "Yeah," Jake said with a certain amount of admiration. "Sure."
    Noah found a spare blanket and pillow in the hall closet, presumably left behind by the guy who used to live here. What was his name? Fred? Ted? Ned? Ned. The blanket smelled faintly of a stranger's cologne, but Noah was too tired to care if it had been recently washed. Jake had already disappeared into the bedroom. Noah undressed down to his underwear and lay down on the sofa. He had only a few moments to notice that he didn't sink very far into the cushions before black sleep fell upon him.
    "Attention! Attention! Urgent call from Linus Pavlik."
    Noah rolled over, his mind foggy. This wasn't his apartment. This wasn't his bed. What the hell was going on? Then memory snapped like a rubber band. He sat up and accidentally pushed himself several inches off the sofa before floating back down to the cushions. The living room was empty and looked exactly as it had last night, except the window was showing a rich red sunrise on the tropical ocean. The bedroom door was shut. Noah told the lights to come on and slid the monocle around from its usual place at his temple. The call notice flashed again, and the time readout told him it was barely six o'clock. Noah ran his fingers through tousled chestnut hair.
    "Take call," he said. "Audio only."
    "Noah, it's Linus," the chief said, as if Noah wouldn't know. "I need you to finish processing the outdoor crime scene this morning, and then we have a —"
    Uh oh. Noah could see it coming. Linus was one of those bosses who expected his people to be on-call twenty-four hours a day—or whatever the phrase would be up here. Except Noah wasn't on Luna to be a criminologist. He was here to be a grad student. If he didn't set the limits with Linus now, he'd end up in Security full-time and he'd never get his degree.
    "Linus," he said, "I can't really work for you today."
    "Excuse me?" His tone was surprised.
    Noah stifled a yawn. He should probably have felt nervous about facing down his boss, but he wasn't completely awake yet and couldn't summon the energy. "I have to meet with my advisor, register for classes, arrange access to the textbook and library databases, go food shopping, and do all the other new student stuff."
    "That's why I called now," Linus said. "It's not even six o'clock, so you'll have time to suit up and —"
    "No," Noah said.
    There was a pause.
    "I can't go out to the scene this morning," Noah continued, polite but firm. "Fm not going out in a vac suit on five hours' sleep."
    "This is a murder case," Linus said very slowly, as though he were speaking to a three-year-old.
    Noah winced and played his trump card. "Linus, according to the terms of my grant, I'm a student first and everything else second. If I work for you this morning, I'm violating the terms of my grant. And like I said—I can't go out in vacuum on five hours of sleep." He dug around in his memory, looking for a name. "Call Dr. Mayfield at the University. She's my advisor. If she says I should work this morning, I'll do it."
    Noah waited nervously, then silently rebuked himself for his worry. Sure, he needed this job, and up to the boss was no fun, but there was no way Linus was going to call anyone else at six in the morning. Noah knew it, and Linus knew he knew it. There was also the subtle rebuke about safety in a vac suit. It was dangerous to be out in full vacuum when your mind was fogged with fatigue.
    At last Linus said, "Fair enough. You're a student first. But the minute, and I mean the minute you get your errands done, you're calling me. Got it, Kid?"
    He signed off and Noah