by Ben Bova
“I’m glad you decided to come into Moonbase,” Doug said, “although your presence here is a little awkward for us.”
“Awkward?”
He made a gesture with both hands. “You don’t have any clothes except what you’re wearing. And I’m not quite certain what to do with you, now that you’re here.”
“Do with me? I want to interview you and the others here. I want to beam your story back to the news media on Earth.”
“The media haven’t paid any attention to us,” Doug said. “They even ignored our declaration of independence.”
“Declaration…? You’ve declared independence?”
“Five days ago, when Faure told us he was sending Peacekeepers here to take over the base.”
“I didn’t hear a word about it!” Edith seemed genuinely shocked.
“You see what I mean?” he said. “The media have smothered us.”
“Well, they won’t now,” she said. “Not with Global News’ top personality on the scene.”
Doug almost laughed. She seemed serious, and not at all embarrassed at describing herself that way.
“There’s more to it, though,” he said, sobering at the thought.
“More? What?”
“Well…” he hesitated, then decided he might as well let her know. “You might be a spy.”
“A spy?” Edith’s emerald eyes went wide. Then she burst into full-throated laughter.
“You find that funny?” Doug asked, feeling a little disconcerted.
“Man, I’ve never kept a secret in my life! Some spy.”
Doug found himself grinning back at her. But he heard himself saying, “Look at it from my point of view. The Peacekeepers just happen to bring a news reporter along with them. Once it becomes obvious that they can’t muscle their way into Moonbase, this reporter talks her way into the base—”
“By risking her neck,” Edith pointed out.
“By depending on the good graces of the Moonbase people,” Doug countered.
“And now this reporter is in your midst, and she’s going to stay with you while the Peacekeepers are leaving.”
Doug nodded.
“That doesn’t make me a spy.”
“Probably not, but the thought has crossed my mind.”
Edith stared at him. He was pleasant and charming and very careful. He took his responsibilities seriously.
“For one thing,” Edith said, “how would I get information back to Earth, if I’m a spy?”
“In your news broadcasts.”
“Really?”
“In code, I guess.”
She could feel her brows knitting. “Are you serious or are you just pulling my leg?”
“I’m serious,” Doug said, “although I’ve got to admit that the more I think about it, the less likely it all seems.”
“Good. I’m not a spy.”
“I hope not.”
“In fact, I can do you some good. I can get your story out. The media can’t ignore me.”
Doug nodded and decided that, whether she was a spy or not, she might be useful at that. And it’s going to be fun showing her around Moonbase, he thought.
TOUCHDOWN PLUS 8 HOURS 3 MINUTES
Georges Faure took Rashid’s call in his office atop the U.K. secretariat building because his comfortable, luxurious apartment was a wreck.
The secretary-general had spent long, agonized hours speaking with the timid lieutenant who had taken command of the Moonbase mission. Faure had felt his blood pressure rising, his innards burning with rage and frustration as the Peacekeeper officer reluctantly admitted his failure to capture the base.
Struggling to keep his temper under control, Faure had left his office and had his chauffeur drive him the three blocks through Manhattan’s noise and filth to his penthouse apartment on the East River. He had given the driver the rest of the evening off, smiled his usual condescending smile at the heavily armed doorman, and gone straight to the private elevator that rose directly to his penthouse apartment.
Once safely inside, with the door locked and the phone’s answering machine on, Faure took off his pearl gray homburg and flung it across the room. He stripped off his suit jacket and slammed it to the carpet, then stamped on it. He grabbed the vase by the doorway and smashed it against the wall. He went through the apartment like a one-man band of vandals, smashing, tearing, breaking everything he could lay his hands on.
He spoke not a word, made no sound except for the gasping of his labored breath. Paintings came down from the walls and were torn to shreds. Chairs were overturned, kicked, pummelled. The coffee table was splintered, the bedclothes ripped.
Only his clothes closets were spared his ravages. And the bathroom. When at last he was too weak to continue, sweating and gasping for breath, Faure tore off his sodden clothes, showered, then slowly dressed in an immaculate suit of dove gray. Dressing always soothed him. He found his homburg in the litter of the living room, picked it up, dusted it off, and set it carefully on his head. Feeling almost relaxed, he rode the elevator down to the lobby and asked the concierge to call another limo for him. He had a dinner engagement with six delegates from Latin America.
“By the way,” he told the concierge, “please send a team of people to clean up my apartment. It has been wrecked.”
And he left the astounded young man sitting at his little desk in the marble-floored lobby, open-mouthed.
After dinner, he went to the secretariat building instead of the apartment. He would sleep in the suite adjoining his office, and give the cleaning team the whole night to put his apartment back in order.
A telephone message from Ibrahim al-Rashid, chairman of the board of Masterson Aerospace Corporation, awaited him. Faure toyed with the idea of waiting until the morning to return Rashid’s call. Then he decided not to; I will interrupt his evening, instead.
Now he looked across his office at the image of Rashid’s somber, darkly bearded face on the flat screen wall display. It certainly looked as if Rashid were in a house or apartment, not an office. Faure smiled inwardly, pleased with himself.
“I am sure that I don’t have to remind you,” Rashid was saying,’that Mrs Brudnoy is not only a leading citizen of the United States, but a very important member of the board of directors of Masterson Aerospace Corporation.”
“If you do not have to remind me,” Faure said testily, “then why are you reminding me?”
“Believe me,” Rashid replied, “I don’t enjoy this any more than you do. But it is my duty to make certain you understand that Mrs Brudnoy is be treated with every respect.”
Faure felt his blood pressure rising again. He opened his right-hand desk drawer slightly and reached for the weighted silver balls that he kept there. They were supposed to help calm him. Fondling them in his hand, he felt no relief from the frustrated anger building inside him all over again.
“I assure you, Monsieur Rashid, that Madame Brudnoy is not being brought back to Earth as a prisoner. She will be brought to New York to discuss the Moonbase situation with me, personally. She will be accorded every courtesy.”
Rashid nodded once, barely. His eyes looked bleak. “My board of directors has instructed me to tell you that we expect Mrs Brudnoy to have full freedom of movement and association. She will want to go to her home in Savannah, of course—”
“Of course,” said Faure, trying to smile.
“And she will not want to have Peacekeeper or United Nations personnel escorting her.”
Faure did not reply.
“Mrs Brudnoy is quite capable of getting herself to New York for her meeting with you. She is in no way a prisoner or a hostage.”
Studying Rashid’s face as the man spoke, Faure realized that the chairman of Masterson Corporation’s board was no more pleased with this situation than he was.
“Monsieur Rashid,” Faure said, relaxing slightly as he jiggled the silver spheres in his right hand, “let us be candid with one another.”
“By all m
eans.”
“Madame Brudnoy represents the illegal and immoral rebels of Moonbase who are defying international law. A Peacekeeper officer has been killed by them, you know.”
“I was told he was killed in an accident he himself caused,” Rashid replied warily.
“I am sure that is what you were told,” said Faure. “However, the inescapable fact is that he was killed because Moonbase is resisting international law.”
Rashid nodded gravely.
Faure resumed, “I am perfectly willing to treat Madame Brudnoy as an ambassador plenipotentiary, and accord her diplomatic immunity.”
“Good,” said Rashid, tonelessly.
“But technically, she is a criminal. Just as all the leaders of Moonbase are.”
Rashid hesitated, passed a hand across his neatly trimmed beard. Then he asked, “If that is your attitude, then to what avail are the negotiations going to be?”
“None,” Faure said, feeling cheerful for the first time since Lieutenant Hansen had reported the failure of the Peacekeepers’ mission. “None whatsoever.”
“I see,” said Rashid slowly. It seemed to Faure that he did not look displeased at all.
TOUCHDOWN PLUS 12 HOURS 26 MINUTES
In the old days, when he’d been just a teenager, Doug had liked to come out to the rocket port and watch the ships arriving or departing in the eerie silence of the Moon. He would climb up the narrow ladder to the observation bubble, a tiny dome of clear plastic, and get a worm’s eye view of landings and liftoffs.
The old rocket port was a set of storage chambers now. The new port was not much bigger, and had been dug into the floor of Alphonsus more than a kilometer from the flank of Mount Yeager, where the main plaza was going to be built.
Doug drove on the spring-wheeled crawler down the long tunnel to the port, his mother and Lev Brudnoy seated behind him, the reporter at his side.
“Does the head of the base work as a taxi driver very often?” Edith asked, grinning at him.
The tunnel was long and straight and bare. Strips of fluorescent lamps lined its unfinished rock ceiling, their light making everyone’s skin look sickly, almost green.
“I’m not the head of the base anymore,” Doug answered lightly. “And around Moonbase, everybody pitches in and does what needs doing.”
“I thought you were Moonbase’s director,” Edith said, her grin replaced by a puzzled frown.
“I was, but I gave it up for the duration of this crisis.”
“Then what’s your title? How do I identify you for your interview?”
Doug lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Damned if I know. Titles don’t mean all that much around here.”
“Call him the chief administrator of Moonbase,” Joanna said, leaning forward slightly in her seat.
“Generalissimo,” Brudnoy joked.
Edith was serious. “Chief administrator. That sounds good. And who’s the director of the base? Or is there one now?”
“Jinny Anson,” Doug said. “You’ll want to interview her, too.”
“And my wife’s title is ambassador plenipotentiary,” Brudnoy said, “while my own title is luggage handler.”
Edith fingered the minicam in her lap. “I want to squeeze in an interview with you before you take off, Mrs Brudnoy.”
“It’ll have to be a quick one,” Doug said, glancing at his wristwatch. “Liftoff’s scheduled for twenty-six minutes from now.”
With a laugh, Edith said, “Twenty-six minutes is an eternity in video news, Doug.”
But she got down to business immediately and began questioning Joanna about what she hoped to accomplish in negotiations with Faure.
“It’s very simple,” Joanna said. “I’m going to New York to get the U.N. to recognize Moonbase’s independence.”
“And if they refuse to recognize it?” Edith prompted.
Joanna shook her head. “We are independent. Physically, we are self-sustaining. All we’re asking is for the United Nations to recognize reality.”
“And if they don’t?”
For a heartbeat, Joanna did not reply. Then she said, “Then we’ll have to prove to Faure and the rest of the U.N. that we won’t be intimidated.”
“Do you think the U.N. will send more Peacekeeper troops to try to take over Moonbase?”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Joanna said.
“But it will,” Doug added, realizing the truth of it as he spoke the words. “We’ve won the opening skirmish, but this war won’t be over for a long time.”
TOUCHDOWN PLUS 12 HOURS 52 MINUTES
Jack Killifer stood in the open hatch to the cockpit, trying not to sound as if he were pleading with the two pilots.
“You gotta let me ride up here with you,” he said. “On the jumpseat.”
The copilot’s eyes were fixed on the control panel’s gauges. He and the command pilot had lifted the Clippership from its landing spot on the regolith to one of Moonbase’s rocket port pads, where the spacecraft was being refueled for the flight back to Earth.
The command pilot looked up at Killifer. “We’re not supposed to take passengers up here. We got work to do.”
Killifer wheedled, “Come on, guys. You’re making a high-energy burn, aren’t you? Friggin’ flight’s only gonna take nineteen hours, right?”
“Why d’you want to ride up here, instead of in a nice comfy seat with the rest of the passengers?”
“You’re bringing two extra people along, right? Mr and Mrs Brudnoy, right?”
“That’s Lev Brudnoy, isn’t it?” asked the copilot, without taking his eyes off the control panel. “He used to be a cosmonaut back in the old days, didn’t he?”
It was Brudnoy’s wife that bothered Killifer. Joanna. She’ll recognize me, he knew. Haven’t seen her in damned near eight years, but she’ll recognize me if she sees me. Especially if we’re locked up in this sardine can for nineteen hours. She’ll see me. She’ll remember who I am.
“And you got the captain’s body, too,” Killifer said.
“He goes in the cargo bay.”
“Yeah, but you need two extra seats for the Brudnoys. Mine and the reporter’s. Makes it all come out even.”
The pilot glanced at his copilot, then looked up again at Killifer. “Okay, I guess it’ll be all right. Just don’t chatter at us while we’re taking off.”
“Okay!” said Killifer, a surge of gratitude gusting through him.
“Or re-entry,” said the copilot.
“Or landing,” the pilot added.
“Okay, okay.” Killifer laughed shakily. I can sit here for nineteen hours and never go out into the passenger compartment, he told himself. They got a relief tube here in the cockpit. I can go nineteen hours without taking a crap.
He had never acknowledged it before, but he was deeply afraid of Joanna Brudnoy. It was irrational, but he feared her. That realization made him feel shame. And a burning, relentless hate.
The mercenary lay slouched in his bunk and watched his wall screen display of the Peacekeeper ship taking off. He was startled by the suddenness of it. One instant the big Clippership was sitting out on the floor of the crater, sunlight glinting off its curved diamond body. The next, it was gone in a puff of hot exhaust gases and blown dust and pebbles. When the dust cleared the crater floor was empty. The ship was on its way.
Got to hand it to the kid, the mercenary thought. He faked them out and got them to turn tail. Peacekeeper troops ought to be tougher than that; letting the threat of nanobugs panic them.
He lifted his feet off the floor and wormed off his softboots, then swung his legs onto the bunk. Get some rest, he told himself. The next few days are going to be tough.
He considered his options. There was no way out of it, Doug Stavenger was going to die. The only questions were when and how. Can I do it without getting caught? Maybe make it look like an accident. Or will it be more effective if they all know that he’s been assassinated?
Even if they catch me at it,
about all they’ll do is ship me back Earthside. Or will they? That Jinny Anson’s a pretty feisty broad. Would she have guts enough to execute me? Yeah, maybe so, if she’s pissed enough at my killing Stavenger.
Maybe I ought to get her first, he thought. But then he shook his head. No way. Knock off Stavenger first. He’s the key, especially with his mother back Earthside. Knock him off, and then afterward get Anson and anybody else you can reach.
So they kill me, he told himself. I’ve been running toward death all my life. I’ll take a lot of them with me.
PART II: Siege
These are the times that try men’s souls… Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered…
Thomas Paine
DAY FIVE
It was hot, unbearably hot. Georges Faure hated to wear black, but for this occasion it was necessary. The steaming tropical heal was boiling the vast crowd standing in the sunshine like patient cattle, yet inside his suit of mourning Faure felt comfortable, almost cool. He wore an astronaut’s undergarment, threaded with plastic capillaries that circulated cooling water over his body.
As he sat on the dais listening to the interminable eulogies, Faure’s only worry was that perspiration was beginning to gather on his forehead. The Sri Lankan government had put up an awning of colorful silk to shade the VIPs from the blazing sun, of course, yet even with the cooling undergarment the broiling heat was making his unprotected head perspire.
As surreptitiously as possible, he mopped his sweating brow, hoping he would not look like a sodden mess when he got up to speak.
He kept his face an impassive mask, although he could feel rivulets of sweat running down his cheeks. It will appear ridiculous if I drip perspiration from my nose while I am speaking, he told himself. Again he pulled out his capacious handkerchief and wiped his face.
At last he heard the Sri Lankan prime minister say, “I present to you the secretary-general of the United Nations, Monsieur Georges Faure.”
