Free Ice Cream and Venom by Kevin Long Page B

fit very well," she said, struggling to get into it.
    "Nobody's suits fit very well," Lee said.
    "Why is that?" she asked.
    "Because we stole them, my lovely," Steve said.
    "What?"
    "Space suits are tailor made, custom built, high tech, and expensive, like a million or more dollars a pop," Lee explained without looking at her. We just figured out which astronauts were slightly bigger than us, and then stole their suits from a museum. Yours probably fits worse than ours because you're kind of a late addition to the team."
    "And I'm a girl," she added.
    "Yes." He said.
    "Oh, you noticed that, did ya, Lee?" Steve joked.
    * * *
    They couldn't find the Apollo 11 landing site.
    They climbed hills, they shuffled around, they used the top of the Internal Bleeder as a lookout spot, but they couldn't find it. Lee eventually theorized that it was because the Eagle's initial landing site turned out to be unsuitable on final approach, they had drifted downrange several miles, landing with only a hatful of fuel left. Since they landed off course, and because Armstrong and Aldrin didn't venture far from the landing site—only a hundred feet or so—they decided it might simply be too small a needle to find in this particular haystack.
    They decided to just move on to the Apollo 12 site the next day. When they got back to the ship, the door wouldn't open. Susan kind of freaked out, and Steve had to ultimately break the lock with a bayonet he'd been carrying for some eccentric reason. When they got in, they found that Grapeape had somehow managed to futz the locking mechanism. Steve set about to fix it, while Lee gave Susan the Betamax and had her film him planting the Nebraska state flag in the lunar soil.
    She slept in his cabin that night, Lee slept on the floor in the lounge because Grapeape was already hogging the couch. In the low gravity, however, the floor was surprisingly comfortable.
    * * *
    He awoke to find Grapeape staring at him.
    "There are two kinds of history-changing moments, Mister Austin," he said rather absently.
    "Yeah?"
    "Yeah. Those that everyone talks about, and those that change the future of the world, but no one notices."
    "I'm going to make some eggs. You want some eggs?"
    "Which one is this, Mister Austin? Which one are we?"
    * * *
    They couldn't find the Apollo 12 landing site. Nor the sites for 14, 15, 16, or 17. The inability to find the final landing site was particularly damning: they'd gone miles away from the lander in the rover, there should have been tracks all over the place, but there couldn't see anything. There was nothing to be seen.
    Susan said, "Well, now we know why Nixon killed the space program and why Carter is so loony about keeping it dead: nobody's ever been on the moon before us!"
    * * *
    That night, aboard the internal bleeder, Steve found clear evidence of sabotage. Someone had taken a fire axe to the engine. The damage was insubstantial, but the conclusion was unavoidable: Someone in their midst was a traitor. They met in the lounge deck to discuss it among the four of them.
    "I'm just going to come right out and say it. I think it's you, Grapeape," Steve said.
    "What? No! Why?" the fat kid spluttered.
    "Everything that's gone wrong since we left earth was your fault—the fire, dumping fuel, dumping cargo which prevented us from contacting Earth directly..." Steve accused.
    "I'm clumsy! Those were just accidents!" Grapeape began to sweat nervously.
    "Added to which, none of us ever met you before, and suddenly an army of Feds show up..." Lee said.
    "What? You think I'm a federal agent? I'm just nineteen! What kind of FBI guy could I be if I'm just that old?"
    "He's got a point," Susan said.
    "He could just look young. Feds'll do that sometimes." Steve said.
    "I've got a driver's license!" Grapeape said.
    "It could be faked. Easiest thing in the world for a Fed." Steve answered.
    "And I could swear I saw you give some kind of hand-sign to the feds back at the farm. I didn't think