by Ben Bova
“With my help?”
“I want you with us. I want you to be part of Moonbase.”
“Do you?”
“We’ve gone through a lot together, Bam. We’re bound together. Life or death, what affects one of us affects us both.”
Gordette was silent for several moments. Then he said grudgingly, “You got some grip, all right. Once you get your hands on a man you don’t let go, do you?”
“That’s up to you,” Doug answered.
“You’re crazy, you know that?”
“Maybe,” Doug admitted.
“And what about you, lady?” Gordette asked sullenly. “You as crazy as this man here?”
Edith almost snapped out her true feelings. But she realized that Doug had risked his life to save his would-be murderer. And now it all hung on what she had to say.
She swallowed her anger. “If Doug wants you to be with us, that’s good enough for me.”
“You’d trust me?”
Edith blurted, “Not very far. Not at first, anyway.”
For a moment there was silence, then Gordette laughed: a low, ironic chuckle. “Fair enough, I guess. Fair enough.”
Edith wished she could see the man’s face. Doug’s not crazy, she thought. He’s wiser than all of us put together. But I wish I could see Gordette’s face. I’d feel better about this if I could see his eyes.
PART III: Battle
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger…
Shakespeare Henry V
THE HAGUE
“Telephone for you, Senator. The White House.”
Jill Meyers looked up from her computer screen. Despite the fact that she had not been a member of the U.S. Senate for nearly six years now, her private secretary still called her ‘Senator’.
“Who is it?” she asked warily.
“The President,” he replied, in his usual near-whisper.
Jill grinned at her oldest assistant, “I guess I can make time for the President.”
Almost instantly the face of an intense young man appeared on her desktop screen. “Justice Meyers? One moment, please, for the President.”
His image disappeared and the screen showed the seal of the President of the United States on a royal blue background. The American eagle held a sheaf of arrows in one talon and an olive branch in the other: war or peace.
It took more than a moment for the President to come on, of course. The power trip. The President doesn’t get on the horn until she’s absolutely certain that the party she wants to talk to is already on the line. No flunkies.
Jill glanced up at her private secretary and realized with a pang that he’d been a fresh-faced kid just out of law school when he’d first come aboard as a senatorial aide. We’re all getting old, she thought, catching her own reflection in the phone screen. Her face was round and ordinary as a pie pan, she thought, with mousey brown hair as straight and limp as overcooked spaghetti. And still that scattering of freckles across her snub of a nose, like a tomboy version of Huck Finn.
“Jill,” said the President, “You’re looking very pensive today.”
The President looked elegant, as usual. Silver-gray hair swept back stylishly, bright blue eyes sparkling. Her latest facelift had tightened the sagging flesh beneath her chin and made her seem ten years younger.
“What can I do for you, Mrs President?” Jill asked, genuinely curious about the reason for this call. It had to be nearly 7.00 a.m. in Washington, early for her.
“It’s this request for extradition—”
“Oh. The Killifer business.”
“Yes. I don’t understand what you’ve got to do with it.”
“I’ve been asked to intercede, in my official capacity as a justice of the World Court.” Jill said.
“Asked? By whom?”
“Joanna Brudnoy.”
“I see.” The President’s tone went decidedly frosty.
“The Justice Department has apparently refused to extradite the man to Kiribati.”
“We have no treaty of extradition with that nation,” the President said.
“That’s why the World Court has been asked to intercede,” said Jill.
“I see.”
“Killifer was identified as the man who raped and murdered Tamara Bonai, yet the American government has refused to extradite him to Kiribati to stand trial. The victim was Kiribati’s head of state, for God’s sake.”
“That’s a very serious charge,” said the President.
“There’s an eye-witness.”
“Douglas Stavenger, I know. But he’s on the Moon and his so-called eye-witnessing was done through a virtual reality link. Any competent defense lawyer will make mincemeat of that.”
“I’m not so sure,” Jill said. In any event, I’d think you’d want the sonofabitch to be brought to justice.”
The President did not flinch at Jill’s deliberate profanity.
“Jill, this is all tied up with the Moonbase business.”
“Which means it’s all tied up with the New Morality people, right?”
“Those are my supporters, Jill.”
“And they’re protecting a murderer?”
The President’s face was a smooth, blank façade. She gave away nothing. “An alleged murderer,” she said coolly.
“I may not be a lawyer,” Jill countered, “but I do know a few points of law. You’re protecting Killifer. Why?”
“Jill, I thought you were one of my supporters, too. I know you don’t agree with everything the New Morality does, but you’ve always been on my side.”
“Why are you protecting this man?”
There’s much more here than you’re aware of, Jill.”
“Wait a minute,” Jill said. “I’ve served time at Moonbase. I was there with Paul Stavenger when it was nothing but a bunch of tin cans stuck in the ground.”
“You had an affair with Paul Stavenger,” the President murmured.
“Name me one woman who served at Moonbase in those days who didn’t,” Jill rejoined happily. “He was one helluva guy before he married Joanna.”
“Joanna,” the President said, with obvious distaste.
“If I were still in the Senate instead of stuck here in the World Court, I’d be fighting you on this Moonbase business. You’re making a bad mistake.”
With the ghost of a smile, the President said, “That’s the thanks I get for nominating you to the International Court of Justice?”
“Come off it, Luce.”
“You backed me on the nanotech treaty when you were in the Senate.”
“Because I didn’t want nanotechnology turned into a new arms race,” Jill said. “I never thought the treaty’d be used against Moonbase. They can’t exist without nanomachines and you know it.”
The President sighed. “So I suppose you’ll vote in favor of their independence if the question comes up before the World Court?”
“It’s on our docket for November. I’ve tried to get an emergency session to hear the matter, but I was voted down.”
“It doesn’t matter, Jill. By November the question will have been settled conclusively. In fact, it should be settled in about a week or so.”
“You’re going to do it, then? Attack Moonbase?”
“The United Nations is doing it, not me.”
“But you’re not raising a protest? If you hollered, Faure would have to listen.”
“I am not going to interfere with a U.N. operation,” said the President.
Jill fumed in silence for a moment, then grumbled, “Well, I hope you don’t expect to get re-elected.”
This time the President’s smile showed teeth. “The New Morality will re-elect me because I backed the enforcement of the nanotech treaty.”
“You think so?”
“All the polls show it conclusively.”
“So you’re not going to let Killifer be extradited?”
“Under no circumstances.”
“Damn! If I were Doug Stavenger I’d come down there and hang the man myself.”
“Vigilante justice? From a judge of the World Court?”
“Justice,” Jill snapped. “When your own government won’t give you justice, you’ve got the right to make your own move. Jefferson wrote that into the Declaration of Independence, remember?”
“But Jill dear, Stavenger and the rest of his Lunatics don’t regard us as their government anymore. Do they?”
Jill had no answer. Luce always was the better debater; she could score points off the devil himself whenever she chose to.
MOONBASE
Jinny Anson’s office was crowded. Doug sat at the foot of the table that butted against her desk, flanked by Zimmerman and Cardenas, the heads of Moonbase’s major departments, and the physicist Wicksen. There was no room at the little table for Edith, so she sat slightly behind Doug and to his right.
Bam Gordette sat alone on the couch by the door, separated from all the others by a meter of empty floor space and an uneasy distrust that was almost palpable. The others are treating Bam as if he’s a leper, Doug thought.
“You’re certain the Peacekeepers are gonna make their move so soon?” Jinny Anson was asking.
“We’ve got maybe a week, if we’re lucky,” Doug replied grimly. “What can we accomplish in that time?”
A gloomy silence filled the office. Even the normally perky Anson looked downcast.
“Wix?” Doug asked. “We need the beam gun up and working in a week.”
The physicist shook his head slowly, his big soulful eyes staring straight at Doug. “I told you it would take two lunar days… two months.”
“You’ve got seven Earth days,” Doug said. “Maybe less.”
Wicksen started to shake his head.
“Put every man you’ve got onto it,” urged Doug. “And every woman.”
“We’re already working flat out.”
“How close are you?”
The physicist shrugged uncomfortably, more like a writhing.
“The beam collimator is finished. The aiming circuitry is ready to be tested. Then we’ve got to bring the kloodges out to the mass driver and mate them. Then we need to test the complete system.”
“Kloodges?” Edith asked. “What are they?”
“Ramshackle collections of hardware,” Harry Clemens answered in his laconic twang before Wicksen could respond. “Clinking, clanking, caliginous collections of junk.”
“Oh.”
“Makeshift hardware,” Wicksen said, grimacing slightly at Clemens. “Slapped together quickly, without worrying about how it looks.”
“Kloodges,” Edith repeated.
Doug demanded, “Can you put it all together by the end of this week?”
“We have to test—”
“We don’t have time for testing!” Doug said sharply. “Get the hardware together, make it functional. You can test it after it’s completely assembled, if the Peacekeepers give us enough time.”
Wicksen’s big eyes widened even further. “You’d hang the survival of this base on untested equipment?”
“If it doesn’t work, we’re dead anyway,” Doug pointed out. “Right?”
The physicist thought it over for a moment, his big tarsier’s eyes staring at Doug. At last he admitted, “Right.”
“Wait a minute,” Anson said, from behind her desk. “Wix, will you have enough time to rig the control system so you can operate the beam gun from inside, here?”
“No. We’ll have to run it manually, out there at the mass driver.”
“In suits,” said Vince Falcone.
Wicksen nodded solemnly.
“With a nuclear warhead coming at you,” Falcone added.
Another grave nod.
Anson said, “So if the beam gun doesn’t work you and your people get fried by the nuke.”
“That’s right,” Wicksen said slowly. “We’ll be operating an untested apparatus, in the open, in surface suits, and if it doesn’t work the first time we’ll all be toast.”
All eyes turned to Doug.
“The alternative is to let the Peacekeepers nuke our solar farms,” he said. But he was thinking, I can’t force Wix and his people to go out there under the gun. I can’t order him to do it.
Wicksen smiled a strange, enigmatic smile. “Well… I can see that we’ll have to make the apparatus work the first time.” He pushed his chair back from the table. “I’d better get back to the workshop. We have a lot to do and not much time to do it.”
The others watched him walk out of the office and slide the door shut softly behind him.
Anson shook her head. “The Japs aren’t the only ones who’ve got kamikazes.”
Falcone, his swarthy face set in a scowl, said to Doug, “You’re gonna let him go out on a suicide job?”
“Do you see any alternatives?” Doug returned, forcing himself to sound much firmer than he felt.
Before Falcone could answer, Doug added, “Except surrender?”
“Okay, Wix has made his decision,” Anson said. “Let’s move on.”
Gratefully, Doug turned to Zimmerman. “Professor, what have you cooked up for us?”
“Nothing,” said Zimmerman flatly.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing that can be ready in a week.”
Doug turned to Cardenas. “Kris?”
“We’re ready to inject therapeutic nanomachines into anyone who’ll accept them. After your recent experience,” she glanced inadvertently at Gordette, “lots of people have come to realize that nanomachines can be extremely helpful to them, healthwise.”
“Good,” said Doug.
“But there’s a downside, too,” Cardenas added, raising a warning finger. “Most of the people here intend to return Earthside, sooner or later. They’re scared of trouble down there if they’re carrying nanomachines in them.”
Doug slumped back in his squeaking little plastic chair. “So what’s the bottom line, Kris?”
“Most of our people refuse to be injected. But we’re ready for emergency nanotherapy for people who’re hurt or wounded.”
The stupid fools, Doug thought. Then he realized his own fears of returning Earthside, where nanoluddite assassins waited. Like Killifer. Like the fanatics who murdered anyone who publicly espoused nanotechnology.
“Okay,” he said wearily. “I assume you’re working with the medical staff.”
Cardenas grinned. “All three of ’em.”
Neither Debbie Paine nor Harry Clemens had anything useful for Moonbase’s defense. By the time Doug reached Vince Falcone, though, the burly, swarthy engineer had a knowing glint in his eyes.
“I been thinking,” Falcone said.
“I thought I smelled wood burning,” quipped Clemens.
“They’ll be comin’ over Wodjo Pass, right?” Falcone asked rhetorically.
Doug looked over at Gordette, who nodded warily.
“Maybe we can block the pass,” said Falcone.
“Block it?”
“Sure. You know the foamgel we use for insulation and whatnot? Smart hydrogel is what it is. Expands or shrinks, depending on how you set it up.”
Doug remembered that foamgel had been used on his sabotaged spacesuit. He glanced over at Gordette again; Bam was staring at him with unwavering eyes.
Falcone was grinning now with self-satisfaction. “Suppose we spray a ton or so of the glop along Wodjo Pass, see? The Peacekeepers are coming across the pass in tractors, right? When they’re in the middle of the pass we radiate the gel with microwaves from the antennas on Mount Yeager.”
“And the gel swells up to a couple hundred times its original size!” Anson said eagerly.
“You got it,” said Falcone. “Their tractors are caught in the glop like flies in a spiderweb. Like trucks stuck in deep mud.”
“You can stop their tractors?” Doug asked. It was the first piece of good news he’d heard.
Still grinning, Falcone said,
“I think so.”
“But couldn’t the troopers get out and walk across the foam?” Debbie Paine asked. “It hardens like concrete, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Falcone admitted.
Doug turned to Gordette. “Bam, what do you think?”
The room fell utterly, uncomfortably silent.
Gordette spoke up, “Even if they can get out and walk to the crater floor, they’d have to leave most of their heavy equipment behind, in the tractors.”
“Heavy equipment?” Clemens asked.
“Missile launchers,” said Gordette. “Artillery. Ammunition cases. They could only bring what the troopers could carry. That’s a big advantage to us.”
“Can you produce that much foamgel in a few days?” Doug asked.
Falcone scratched at his stubbly chin. “We got some in inventory already… I’ll get the chem lab to turn out as much as they can.”
“But will it be enough?”
“Dunno,” Falcone answered. Then he brightened. “Wait a minute,” he said, looking excited. “It could get even better.”
“What?”
“If we can divert enough power from the solar farms to the microwave antennas on Yeager—”
“Assuming Wix’s beam gun works and the farms aren’t nuked,” Anson interjected.
“Yeah, yeah,” Falcone said impatiently. “Anyway, gimme enough power for the microwave transmitters and we can fry the Peacekeeper troops while they’re still up in the pass.”
Doug felt his brows knitting. “What’re you saying, Vince?”
“The troops’ll be in suits, right? Lotsa metal in their suits. A microwave beam of sufficient strength’ll heat up the metal, even penetrate the suits and cook the guys inside!”
Anson nearly came up out of her chair. “You can wipe ’em out up there in the pass before they ever get near us!”
“No!” shouted Edith.
Surprised, Doug turned toward her.
“No, you can’t do that,” Edith said, her face set with determination.
“Whattaya mean we can’t?” Falcone snapped. “I haven’t gone through the numbers but I’m willing to bet—”
“You mustn’t kill any of them,” Edith said.
