by Ben Bova
More annoyed than afraid, Paul followed the standard practice and plugged his auxiliary oxygen line into the tractor’s standby tank. The shrilling in his earphones stopped.
What the hell happened to my backpack tank? he wondered. Or is it just a sensor crapped out?
He kept his real fear buried deep in the back of his mind. He knew it was there, knew what it was, but he didn’t want to face it, deal with it, admit that it even existed.
For nearly half an hour he continued riding along the bleak, pockmarked plain. The ringwall mountains were really looming before him now. He could see the notch where they had come across on their way out.
The tractor’s oxygen supply was okay, he saw with a glance at the control panel. He reached around with one hand to check the hose, from his backpack tank. Maybe it came loose, all the bangin’ around I did out there.
The plastic hose fell apart in his gloved hand. Paul felt it crumble, breaking into pieces at his touch.
He pulled his hand back as if it had been scalded. A ragged chunk of plastic was in the palm of his glove, part of the oxygen hose.
It can’t be the bugs, he told himself. I didn’t touch anything that was infected. Besides, we’re still in daylight; it’s too pissin’ hot for the bugs to work.
Yet his insides trembled and burned.
What else could make a hose fall apart like that? Gotta be the bugs. Desperately, Paul tried to remember if he touched Wojo or anything out there when Wojo was cussing over the infected tractor. What difference does it make? he raged at himself. You’re either infected with ’em or you’re not.
How to tell?
He reached back again and pulled off another chunk of the plastic hose, about the size of his palm. Keeping one hand on the steering lever, he placed this new chunk of hosing on his thigh, alongside the first piece. They were roughly the same size. Satisfied, Paul placed the new piece atop the dashboard, in full sunlight. The first piece he tossed to the floor of the cab, deep in shadow.
Now we’ll see.
Paul had to gear down the tractor as it began climbing the laborious winding trail that threaded through the ringwall mountains. The rounded, worn peaks averaged about ten thousand feet, but the trail notched through at least a thousand feet lower. Paul could see the tracks in the dust left by previous tractors. Like those old pidneer trails across the prairie, he thought. A hundred years later you could still see the ruts their wagons made in the ground.
Someday we’ll h|ve a monorail system to cross the ringwall, he told himself. Ormaybe we’ll tunnel right through the mountains. Connect the crater floor with Mare Nubium. Someday.
For now, he had to steer the tractor slowly, carefully, up the gentle mountain slope. His tracks of earlier trips faded at the higher elevation, where there was little dust to register them. The rock surface was bare and slick here, almost glassy. Paul geared down again to maintain traction.
It took more than an hour, but at last he reached the crest of the mountains. Peering over the front of his tractor, Paul could see the cluster of humps in the crater’s floor that marked the buried shelters of Moonbase.
Automatically he pressed down the accelerator. The tractor surged forward. But then Paul looked down on the floor at the piece of hosing lying in the cold shade.
He stomped on the brake. The tractor slewed slightly as it ground to a stop. With trembling hands Paul reached down and picked up the scrap of plastic. He placed it alongside the other piece, still in sunlight on the dashboard.
The piece from the floor was less than half its original size.
They’re here! In the tractor!
He leaned down and pawed at his dust-caked leggings. The outer fabric of his surface suit was already eaten through. His boots, too. Paul could see the metal mesh layer that underlay the fabric.
They can’t get through the metal if they’re designed to eat carbon molecules, he told himself. Yeah? They got through the metal in Wojo’s suit Must be different kinds. Different kinds.
He wanted to run. He felt unclean, infected, his skin crawling and his heart pounding so loud he could hear it in his helmet earphones.
And suddenly the enormity of it hit him. I’m going to die! Even if I get to Moonbase, I’ll just be carrying the damned bugs with me. They’ll infect the whole base, tear apart everything. Kill everybody.
That’s what Greg’s been after, all along! Not just me, but everything I stand for. He wants to wipe out Moonbase altogether!
Paul sat there inside his failing suit, blinking at the vision of Moonbase, everything he had worked for, everything he wanted, being utterly destroyed.
Strangely, the realization calmed him. He knew what he had to do now. There were no other options, no excuses, no escape clauses. It was finished.
At least I’m close enough to reach them with the suit radio, he thought.
Jinny Anson was at the communications desk when he called in.
“We’ll send a team up to get you!” she said when Paul told her where he was.
“No!” he snapped. “I’m infested with nanobugs and you can’t run the risk of bringing them into the base. They’ll kill all of you.”
“But what can we do? We can’t just leave you out there. “You’ll…’ Jinny’s normally chipper voice faltered, went silent.
“It’s too late to do anything for me. Call Kris Cardenas in the San Jose division and get her to come up here and personally lead a decontamination team to clean up this mess.”
“But what about you?”
Paul said, “Get my wife on the line for me. Private link. No eavesdropping.”
Paul could not see Joanna’s face, but he pictured it in his mind. She was beautiful. Whether she loved him or not didn’t matter now. Whether she placed Greg before her husband didn’t matter, either. Not any more.
“Where are you, Paul?” her voice asked. “Why can’t we establish a visual?”
“I’m out in a tractor, at the summit of the ringwall.”
He waited for her reply. “You’re on your way back to the base, then?”
“I was,” Paul answered. “BurI’m not going to make it”
The three seconds stretched, sketched. Then, “What do you mean? What are you talking about? How long can you stay outside?”
“For the rest of my life,” he said. “The nanobugs are in my suit. They stopped their activity while I was in sunshine, it was too hot for them. But they must’ve chomped away on my suit while I was in the tempo and I can’t bring them into the base; they’ll eat up everything.”
Joanna was already talking before he finished, “You can’t just stay out there until you run out of air! They’ve got to get you, save you!”
“There’s no way to do that,” Paul said. “If I go down to the base I’ll be killing everybody there.”
“No, Paul! No!”
“Listen to me. Be quiet and listen!” he shouted into his helmet microphone. “It’s all up to you, now. You’ve got to keep it all together. Don’t let them shut down Moonbase because of this. This isn’t an accident; we both know that. Don’t let Greg or anybody else use this as an excuse to shut down Moonbase.”
He waited for her response. “I understand,” Joanna said at last. From the sound of her voice, she was fighting for self-control. I’ll… take care of everything.”
“Good,” he said, feeling suddenly bone-weary, exhausted physically, emotionally.
“Paul, isn’t there anything…?”
“I wish there was. I didn’t want it to end like this.”
That long wait again. Then, “I love you, Paul. I love you.” Joanna broke into sobs.
“I love you too, Jo. I guess you’re the only woman I’ve ever really loved.”
Instead of waiting for more from her, Paul snapped off his radio. No sense dragging it out, he said to himself. We’ve said all we have to say. There’s nothing left for either of us now but pain.
He got up from the tractor seat and clambered down to the ground. Walking to the edge of the n
arrow trail he looked down once again at the pitiful heaps of rubble that marked Moonbase.
Like Moses on the pissin’ mountain, Paul thought. I can see the promised land but I’ll never get to live in it.
He thought again of what Moonbase could become, someday. He saw a future that beckoned, with humankind spreading across this new frontier and heading outward for new worlds. A future that would never happen if Moonbase was destroyed.
Paul sighed. “If it is to be,” he said softly, “it’s up to me.”
With a sudden, quick move he yanked open the visor of his helmet.
SAVANNAH
It had been two days since Joanna last slept. Most of that time she had spent on the videophone with Kris Cardenas in San Jose, making arrangements for a team to be sent to the Moon to deactivate the nanomachines that had killed her husband and the two other men.
And she made other arrangements, as well.
“I want to know who allowed those killer machines to be mixed in with the other nanobugs,” Joanna said, as implacable as an ocean tide.
Cardenas’ image in the phone screen nodded somberly. “I’ve already started an investigation. That kind of stupidity verges on the criminal.”
“It is criminal,” Joanna said. “But I don’t intend to press charges or bring the law into this. I just want to know who those people are.”
“You won’t press charges?” Cardenas brightened.
“No. I want them transferred to Moonbase, once we find out who they are.”
Cardenas blinked her cornflower blue eyes. “Why would you send mem to Moonbase?”
Grimly, Joanna replied, “So they can see the consequences of stupidity. So they can live in a place where one little mistake, one moment of stupidity, can kill you.”
“How long will they have to stay?”
Joanna shook her head. “Until my husband comes back to life.”
She still had not slept when she had her meeting with Greg.
Joanna had decided to meet her son at the house, rather than the office. She sent two hefty security guards to escort him to the meeting.
Greg looked subdued when he stepped into the living room, flanked by the two uniformed men. Joanna dismissed them and told her son to sit on the sofa, facing her.
“You killed Paul,” she said, once she was certain that they were alone.
Greg evaded her eyes. “Suppose I did. What of it? It’s over and done with. You can’t bring him back and that’s that.”
Joanna studied her son. He seemed tense, but the fury that had exploded in him now was gone, spent, dissipated.
“What do you intend to do now?” Joanna asked calmly.
Greg cocked an eyebrow. “Take my rightful place as president and CEO.”
“Really?”
He leaned forward intently, suddenly flushed with prospects for the future. “Don’t you see, Mom? Now it’s just you and me, the way it ought to be. We can run everything together, just the two of us. It’ll all work out, you’ll see.” He even smiled that same old boyish smile at her.
“But there’s not just the two of us,” Joanna said.
Greg pulled back from her slightly. “What do you mean?”
“I’m carrying Paul’s baby. Paul’s son.”
“Oh, that.” Greg flapped one hand in the air dismissively.
“You don’t care anymore?” Joanna asked, caught unprepared for his casual attitude. “A few days ago you wanted me to abort it.”
“I was foolish,” Greg said. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Really?”
“By the time he grows up enough to join the corporation I’ll be ready to retire,” Greg said.
Be careful, Joanna told herself. He knows how to play on your feelings.
“Greg, you’re a murderer.”
For an instant she saw fear in his eyes. But then his smile returned. “Are you going to turn me over to the police?”
“I’m getting the names of the people who allowed those killer machines to be sent off to’the Moon. They’ll implicate you to save themselves.”
“So you are going to hand me to the police, after all.”
Joanna shook her head. “I should,” she said. “But I can’t. I can’t hurt you more than you’ve already been hurt.”
“I knew it!” he said triumphantly. “It’s going to be just the two of us! I knew it would work out this way!”
“Greg…’ Joanna took in a deep breath. This is going to be painful, she knew. “Greg, I’m sending you to a place where they can help you.”
His brows knit. “Sending me? Where?”
“It’s like a hospital. Very private. Very discreet. They’ll be able to help you there.”
“I don’t need anyone’s help! I’m not sick!”
“I’m not asking for your opinion,” Joanna said firmly. “I’m telling you. You’re going there and that’s all there is to it”
“I want to be with you!”
Joanna felt her heart clutch within her. “I know, Greg. I know. I’ll come and visit you. Often.”
“I want to be with you all the time!”
“Later,” Joanna said. “When you’re better.”
He sat there, looking perplexed, for several moments. Then, sullenly, “You want to play with your new baby and forget about me.”
“No!” Joanna blurted. “I could never forget you. You’re my baby boy and I’ll love you forever, no matter what.”
“Then don’t send me away.” Greg fell to his knees in front of his mother and buried his face in her lap. “Please, Mom, don’t send me away.”
A wild thought raced through Joanna’s mind. “What if…’ She hesitated, searching for an answer. “Greg, what if you stayed here at the house, with me?”
“Yes!” he said fervently.
“And I can bring the doctors and their assistants here to stay with us.”
“Yes! Yes!”
“And we’ll be together while they help to make you well again.”
“Anything,” Greg sobbed, “as long as we can be together.”
Joanna stroked her son’s midnight dark hair, thinking, That will be the best way. Keep him here, where I can watch him. Bring the medical help to him.
She realized that Greg had fallen asleep with his head cradled in her lap. He probably hasn’t slept for the past couple of days, either, Joanna thought.
I can’t turn him over to the police. What good would that do? It won’t bring Paul back and it will destroy Greg completely. Not the police. No scandal. No one must know what he did.
She sighed. It’ll be difficult, especially when the new baby comes. Douglas. She already had his name picked out. Greg will be insanely jealous of the baby. But I can protect him. I can do it. I can take care of both my sons. I can. I will.
PART II: Hero Time
FILE: GREGORY MASTERSON III
The subject is a twenty-eight-year-old male in good physical health. He is deeply disturbed and potentially violent, although like many schizophrenics he can cloak his misapprehensions and delusions with extremely logical and plausible-sounding rationalizations. He is in private care at the home of his mother. Deep hypnotherapy is recommended, together with chemosuppressants to regulate his mood swings.
After two years of hypnotherapy the inescapable conclusion is that the primary focus for the subject’s neurosis is the morbid fear of losing his mother. Although the Freudian concept of an Oedipus Complex has long been discredited, the subject sees his mother as a symbol of safety and well-being, hence an object of intense desire. While this desire is primarily connected to his fear of loss of maternal protection, there is also decidedly a sexual component involved.
The subject is now thirty-five years old and freely able to admit that he has harbored murderous rages against the men with whom he was forced to share his mother’s affection: i.e., his father and his step-father, both of whom are now deceased. Even in deep hypnotherapy sessions he evades any mention of his seven-year-old half-b
rother who, quite obviously, has also taken a share of his mother’s attention and affection.
SAN JOSE
“I don’t like the looks of this,” said Kris Cardenas.
She was standing on the roof of the two-story nano-technology building, her chief of security beside her, watching the stream of picketers being whipped up into an angry mob.
At the security chiefs earnest suggestion, she had sent most of the working staff home when the mob began to gather outside the main gate. She hadn’t really believed him when he warned her there was going to be trouble; now, hours later, she realized that she hadn’t wanted to believe.
From up on the roof, with the warm wind at her back, she couldn’t hear what the woman with the bullhorn was telling the picketers, but by the way they surged around her and roared incoherently every few minutes Cardenas knew she was working them up into a frenzy.
And more demonstrators were arriving, cars and minivans and even busloads of them.
“This is organized as all hell,” Cardenas muttered.
Her security chief scanned the growing crowd with electronically-boosted binoculars, his mouth set in a grim line.
“Take a look,” he said, looping the strap of the binoculars around Cardenas’ neck. Then he fished a palm-sized phone out of his shirt pocket.
“Got those fire hoses ready?” he asked into the phone.
Cardenas searched through the placards that bobbed drunk-enly in the sea of bodies. Professionally printed, she saw.
NANOTECH IS THE DEVIL’S WORK
NANOBUGS TAKE JOBS FROM REAL PEOPLE
NANOTECH KILLS!
Jesus, she thought, this isn’t just one gang of nut cases. They’ve got organized labor, religious zealots — it’s a coalition of pressure groups.
“Look!” the security chief shouted.
Cardenas lowered the binoculars to see where he was pointing. A black pickup truck was speeding across the nearly empty parking lot, straight for the crowd. The people parted like the Red Sea, on cue she thought, and the truck raced straight up to the main gate of the wire security fence and crashed through. One of the uniformed guards was knocked down as the truck roared by without slowing, jounced over the circular plot of flowers in front of the building’s front entrance and smashed into the glass doors of the building’s lobby.
