Moonwar gt-7

by Ben Bova

  “Maximum zoom,” Doug ordered, “and pan across the room.”

  The picture tracked across the studio, shadowy and dim in its spotty lighting. Cameras, monitors, racks of electronic equipment, the editing booth—empty—the sets where Zimmerman and Cardenas and others had given their lectures and demonstrations, also empty.

  The thought of Zimmerman sent a pang through Doug, but he swiftly suppressed it. Edith is in there with a crazy man, he reminded himself. That’s what important now.

  “Hold it there,” Gordette snapped.

  The camera stopped. Doug could see Zimmerman’s extra-wide couch had been pulled from the wall; Edith and the spacesuited suicide bomber were crouched behind it.

  “Well, he’s no fool,” Gordette muttered. “Dug himself in as far from the door as he could. Long as he stays behind the couch I won’t be able to snipe him. Have to spray the whole couch.”

  “And kill Edith?”

  “Maybe you can talk him into letting her—oh, oh!”

  “What?”

  “Is that the best magnification we can get?”

  “Yes,” Doug said. “What is it?”

  Squinting hard at the little screen, Gordette said, “Looks like he’s already got his thumb on the detonator button.”

  “So?”

  “That arms the detonator. When he takes his thumb off the button the bomb goes off.”

  Doug felt his insides sink. “So if you shoot him it explodes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What can we do?”

  “Talk him into disarming the detonator.”

  Doug knew how futile that was. “Or into letting Edith go.”

  Gordette inclined his head slightly in what might have been a nod. “There is that.”

  Anson peered at the screen showing the camera’s view of the crater floor just outside the main airlock. Spacesuited Peacekeeper troops were gathering around the three unmoving bodies sprawled on the ground.

  “Two hit the nanolabs,” she said, ticking off on her ringers, “one did the water factory. That’s three. One’s in the studio, that’s four. And those three make seven. That’s all of ’em.”

  “The water’s out of the factory,” said the technician next to her. “Maintenance crews are re-establishing electrical power in the areas that were shorted out.”

  Vince Falcone trudged into the control center, a bright grin slashing across his dark stubbly face.

  Anson got up from her chair, yanked off her headset, and threw her arms around Falcone’s neck. “We did it!” she said, then kissed him soundly.

  Despite his swarthy complexion, Falcone blushed visibly. “Yeah, okay, we flushed out the garbage,” he said. “But there’s still one of the bastards in the studio, isn’t there?”

  Colonel Giap was almost glad when he told Faure, “They have defeated us. There is nothing more we can do.”

  Faure’s image on the colonel’s laptop screen was nearly purple with rage. “But there must be something! Your second wave of troops! The solar farms! Something!”

  Resignedly, Giap said, “If I send more troops into those tunnels they will be blinded and neutralized just as the first wave was. If I try to destroy their solar energy farms they will engage us in a firefight that will cause unacceptable casualties.”

  Then he waited three seconds, watching Faure’s helpless frustration. Perhaps the little man will give himself a stroke, Giap thought.

  Faure’s reply was explosive. “Who are you to decide how many casualties are unacceptable! I am your superior! I make such decisions!”

  “Throwing away lives will be pointless,” Giap said. “I will not do it.”

  As he waited for Faure’s reply, Giap reflected that battles are won or lost on the moral level. One side loses the will to fight, and that’s what has happened to me. Why should I throw away my troopers’ lives for that pompous little politician in New York? To destroy Moonbase? To kill two thousand civilians?

  “Are you saying to me,” Faure replied at last, voice barely under control,’that you would refuse my direct order?”

  “I am saying that I will resign my commission before carrying out such an order,” Giap said, almost surprised to hear his own words.

  We could tear up their radiators, he thought. Or simply cut the pipes that connect the radiators to the inside of the base, and then leave. That would take only a few minutes and it would leave them to cook in their own waste heat. There would be no firefight, not if we left immediately afterward. But what good would that do? They would come out and repair the damage.

  No, he said to himself, best to leave now while the entire force is alive and unhurt. The Sacred Seven have killed themselves, that’s enough. No sense killing more.

  “It’s me he wants,” Doug said, reaching for the studio door again. “He’ll trade Edith for me.”

  “Maybe,” Gordette replied.

  “It’s the only chance we’ve got.”

  “What’s this ‘we’, white man? He wants to blow you away!”

  “I can’t stand out here and let him kill Edith.”

  Gazing at him with red-rimmed eyes, Gordette said softly, “I know.”

  Gordette seemed to relax. He let go of the assault rifle with one of his hands, holding it only by its barrel, letting its butt touch the floor.

  “You stay out here, Bam,” said Doug. “If he sees you with the gun he might touch himself off.”

  “Yeah,” Gordette said, with a resigned sigh. “Go ahead.”

  He watched Doug open the door and step inside the dimly-lit studio, thinking to himself, Doug wants to die. He’s ready for it. They’ve worn him down to the point where he’s willing to give them his life in exchange for hers. Then Gordette realized that it wasn’t merely in exchange for Edith. It’s for Moonbase, he understood at last. He’s willing to give his life for ours. All of us. For chrissakes, he’s willing to die for me.

  And what am I willing to do for him? Gordette asked himself. Then a new thought touched him: If he dies, what happens to me? The rest of the people around here don’t trust me. They hate me. They’ll even blame me for not protecting Doug. But what can I do? What do I want to do? Am I willing to get myself killed for him?

  Doug, meanwhile, had taken a few steps inside the dimly-lit studio. He called out, “Edith, are you all right?”

  She rose to her feet slowly. “I’m okay.” Her voice was shaky.

  The suicide bomber poked the top of his head above the couch’s back. Doug saw that he had taken off his spacesuit helmet, but couldn’t see where his hands were.

  “You are Douglas Stavenger?”

  “I am Douglas Stavenger.”

  The man hissed with satisfaction. “Kami wa subarashi! You will come here, to me. Now!”

  “First you’ve got to let her go,” Doug said.

  “When you are here beside me I will allow her to leave.”

  “No,” Doug said. “You release her first. Once she’s safely out of this room, I’ll come and stand beside you.”

  “You do not trust me?”

  Doug almost smiled. “I want to make sure that she’s safe. That there aren’t any… accidents.”

  “Why should I trust you? You are filled with the devil machines!”

  And you are filled with hate, Doug thought. Or is it fear? Can I work on his fear or will that just make things worse?

  “My nanomachines can’t harm you or anyone else,” he said.

  “It makes no difference,” the young man said. “Soon we will both be dead.”

  “Yes, that’s true. But let the woman go. She has nothing to do with what must happen between you and me. She’s a visitor here, trapped here by the war. Let her go.”

  “When you come to me, she can go.”

  Stalemate. Then Doug thought, “At least allow her to get a camera and make a video record of our last moments together. So the whole world can see what you did.”

  Even from across the half-lit studio Doug could see the young man’s
eyes brighten. He started to respond, then hesitated.

  Doug felt his pulse thundering in his ears.

  At last the suicide bomber said gruffly, “Very well, she can video our last moments.”

  If Edith minded that both the men were talking about her in the third person, she didn’t show it. Without another word being said, she walked purposefully from behind the couch to the rack of electronic equipment near the door.

  The suicide bomber remained almost totally hidden behind the couch. Is there enough of him showing for Bam to get a shot off? Doug wondered.

  “Now you come here!” the young man commanded.

  “No!” Gordette roared.

  Wheeling, Doug had just a split-second to see Gordette’s fist coming at his jaw. Then everything went blurry and he felt himself sagging to the floor.

  “Get out of here!” Gordette yelled to Edith. Take him with you!”

  “No! Stop!” the suicide bomber screamed. “I will kill us all!”

  Doug felt Edith’s arms clutch him, dragging him toward the door. It was only a few steps away but it seemed like miles.

  “Wha…” he heard himself mumble, still dazed, legs stumbling awkwardly. “Wait, don’t…”

  “Stop! Who are you?” the suicide bomber yelled, ducking behind the couch again.

  Walking deliberately toward the couch, assault rifle levelled at his hip, Gordette said, “I’m the angel of death, man. You want to die? Well, so do I.”

  Gordette smiled as he realized the beautiful, inevitable truth to it. I’m the one who’s been rushing toward death, he knew at last. I’m the one who needs to die. At least now my death will mean something, accomplish something.

  “I’ll kill us all!” the bomber screamed.

  “You go right ahead,” Gordette answered calmly.

  Doug was struggling to his feet out in the corridor while Edith was sliding the door shut. He heard the chatter of the assault rifle and then an explosion ripped the doors off their slides and flung Edith across the corridor.

  It took fully half an hour for Georges Faure to calm himself to the point where he could touch his intercom keypad with a trembling finger and say, his voice hardly shaking at all:

  “I see that several calls have accumulated while I was speaking with the Peacekeepers on the Moon. Tell them all that I am unavailable.”

  His aide replied from the outer office, “Mr Yamagata is most insistent, sir.”

  Faure saw that Yamagata’s name was at the top of the list on his desktop screen.

  “I am unavailable,” he repeated sternly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  For long moments Faure sat there in his desk chair, feeling cold sweat soaking him. I must look terrible, he thought. He pushed himself to his feet and tottered across the thick carpeting to his lavatory.

  In the mirror over the sink he saw the face of a defeated man. The Moonbase rebels have won the victory, he told himself.

  He splashed water on his face, mopped it dry, then carefully combed his hair. I must change the clothes, he thought. This suit is wrinkled and damp.

  As he reached for the cologne, the phone beside the sink chimed. He ignored it.

  Moonbase has won the battle, he said to himself, patting the musk-scented cologne on his cheeks, but not the war. Straightening his slumped spine, squaring his shoulders, he repeated to his image in the mirror, No, not the war.

  The phone chimed again. And again.

  Banging its keypad, Faure snarled, “I told you that I am unavailable!”

  His aide’s awed voice said, “But it’s the President of the United States, sir.”

  Faure’s shoulders sagged. Perhaps the war is lost after all, he thought.

  THE INFIRMARY

  Edith swam up out of the black depths and tried to open her eyes. They were gummy, as if she’d been asleep a long, long time. A figure was standing over her, its face a blur. Blinking, she brought it into focus.

  “Doug,” she croaked. Her voice sounded strange to her, as if she hadn’t really spoken at all but merely mouthed the word.

  He smiled down at her, and she noticed that he had a jagged red line running across one side of his forehead. He leaned down and kissed her lightly on the lips. His mouth moved but no sound came out of it.

  Still smiling, he reached toward her. She felt him pushing something into her ear.

  “Can you hear me now?” he asked. His voice sounded tinny, as if it were coming through a bad radio. And there was an annoying ringing sound in the background.

  She nodded.

  “The explosion deafened both of us,” he said, as if his voice were coming through a tunnel from Mars. “My nanomachines fixed me up in a couple of hours, but you’ll have to wear an earplug for a few days.”

  Edith realized that her vision was partially blocked by a large white lump, a bandage. She put her hands to her face; they were both heavily bandaged.

  “You got pretty badly banged up, saving my life,” Doug said. “You got me out into the corridor, but when the doors blew they knocked you into the opposite wall.”

  “My face?” she asked.

  “The best plastic surgeon in the States is on his way here.

  You’ll be good as new in a few weeks. Faster, if you’ll accept nanotherapy.”

  “Nano—” Suddenly what he was saying clicked in her mind. “A surgeon from the States? The blockade’s over?”

  “The war’s over,” Doug said. “We’ve won. Sort of.”

  Edith tried to push herself up to a sitting position, but a jagged bolt of pain made her sink back onto the pillows. Doug reached for her.

  “Take it easy,” he said. “You’re not ready to go dancing yet.”

  “You are.”

  “I get a little help from my friends,” Doug said.

  “You can put nanos in me? Help me recover?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Kris Cardenas will talk to you in a little while about it.”

  “What about the war? We won?”

  “The Peacekeepers have gone back to Nippon One, with the bodies of three of the suicide bombers. Japan and the United States have both demanded a Security Council review of Faure’s actions against Moonbase. The World Court has agreed to hear our petition for independence in November. They’ve ordered Faure to leave us alone until they make their decision.”

  “We’ve won,” Edith said. It seemed to take what little strength she had. “You’ve won, Doug.”

  “It’s cost us a lot. Zimmerman, the water factory, Bam Gordette.”

  She remembered those last moments in the studio. “When he hit you, I thought he’d turned traitor again. I thought he was on their side.”

  “He saved the two of us,” Doug said. “He gave his life for us.”

  “He wanted to die,” Edith remembered. “He said so. Just like the suicide bomber.”

  Doug shook his head sorrowfully. “Bam. Zimmerman. My stepfather, too: Lev. And Tamara.”

  “You’ve lost a lot.”

  “We can rebuild the water factory,” he said, his voice low, mournful. “But the people can’t be replaced.”

  “All because of Faure.”

  “No, it’s not just him. He couldn’t have gotten anywhere it he didn’t have the backing of so many people. You’re the real hero of this war, Edith. You turned public opinion onto our side and against Faure.”

  “All I did was blabber.”

  A faint smile tweaked his lips. “Damned good blabber.

  She pretended shock. “Profanity? Out of you?”

  Doug’s smile widened a bit. “It’s been a long, hard day. And then some.’.

  “That’s all right,” Edith said. “It’s been worth it. Despite everything, it’s been worth it.”

  He nodded. “Maybe you’re right. I hope so.”

  CHRISTMAS EVE

  Doug checked his wristwatch against the digital wall clock as he paced the empty lounge of the rocket port.

  It’s going to be close, he said to himself. Razor
close.

  As he waited impatiently, he thought back to the days when he’d sneak out to the old rocket port just to watch the lunar transfer vehicles land or take off. It was not even eight years ago, but it seemed lost back in the hazy mists of ancient history.

  Now he watched a wall-sized screen in the underground lounge of the rocket port as the LTV carrying his mother gracefully descended on invisible jets of rocket exhaust, kicking up a small storm of dust and pebbles around the concrete landing pad. The big ungainly spacecraft settled slowly on its strut-thin legs. With its bulbous plastiglass pods for the crew and passengers, it looked to Doug like a giant metallic insect squatting on the lunar surface.

  Okay, they’re down. Now get the access tube connected. We don’t have a minute to spare.

  The newly-decorated lounge was empty, except for him. His mother and the medical team were the only passengers on this LTV, except for the body of Lev Brudnoy.

  Doug had expected his life to simplify once the war was over, but it had become more hectic. While Joanna and Seigo Yamagata personally negotiated a merger between Masterson Aerospace Corporation and Yamagata Industries, Ltd., Doug was drawn into the whirl of establishing a government for the independent Moonbase and handling the delicate personnel problems of men and women who wanted to remain on the Moon without giving up their Earthside citizenships.

  Tomorrow Toshiro Takai was scheduled to arrive from Nippon One, his first visit to Moonbase in the flesh after years of virtual reality contacts. Doug was going to broach the extremely sensitive subject of inviting Nippon One to join Moonbase and declare its independence from Japan. He doubted that Takai would be able to carry that off, but he knew his VR friend would feel slighted if he didn’t at least ask.

  And there was so much to do before Takai arrived. Again Doug looked at the wall clock. Its digital numbers seemed to be leaping ahead.

  At last one of the port technicians entered the lounge, ambling too slowly to please Doug, and tapped at the wall pad by the access tunnel hatch. The gleaming metal door popped open a few centimeters, with a sigh of air blowing in from the slightly overpressurized tunnel.

  Feeling nervous, anxious, Doug watched as the LTV’s two pilots pushed the hatch fully open from the other side. The medical team was right behind them, four doctors, two men and two women. They looked self-assured, competent in their Earthside business clothes as the port technician led to them the tractor that was waiting to whisk them to the infirmary.