Moonrise gt-5

by Ben Bova

  “By lifting ourselves up by our own bootstraps,” said Brudnoy.

  “Operation Bootstrap,” Doug said, breaking into a huge grin. “We do it without letting Savannah know what we’re up to.”

  “Can we get away with it?” Rhee asked.

  “Why not?” said Brudnoy.

  “We’ll need Greg’s help,” Doug said. “And my mother’s.”

  The other two fell silent.

  Doug pushed his chair back from the table. “They’ll help,” he said, with a confidence he did not truly feel. “I’m going to tell them about it right now.”

  JOANNA’S QUARTERS

  All employees were treated equally as far as their living space in Moonbase was concerned. Even the director, who had a two-room suite, received no more living space than anyone else: the director merely had an office that connected to the living quarters, which were no larger than any other one-room dwelling space within the tolerances of practical lunar architecture.

  It took energy and manpower to carve out new quarters with plasma torches that vaporized the lunar rock. No one was going to get a bigger living space than anyone else. Utilitarian rules prevailed. Besides, standard-sized quarters prevented jealous comparisons and arguments.

  However, Joanna Masterson Stavenger was not a Masterson employee. So while everyone was treated equally, Joanna was more equal than anyone else. Her quarters were a two-room suite; two ordinary living spaces that had been connected by a plasma-torched doorway.

  At her own expense, Joanna had brought up furniture from her home in Savannah and turned one of her cubicles into a crowded little sitting room, the other into the most luxurious bedroom in Moonbase, with a real bed of actual wood — polished lustrous rosewood — and a thick cushiony mattress with pillows and flowered sheets and even a comforter that was strictly for ostentation in the climate-controlled environs of the underground base.

  There was no space in the bedroom for the two massive wardrobes full of clothes that Joanna had brought with her; there was barely enough space to inch around the massive bed. So Joanna had requisitioned a pair of technicians to build storage space under her bed; the drawers formed a son of platform that was high enough to require steps to get up onto the bed itself.

  The bed on its’throne’ — and who might be sharing it with the ’queen’ — quickly became the most talked-about item in Moonbase.

  “You must tell Greg about this,” Joanna said to Doug as she reclined on the smaller of the two couches in her sitting room. She was wearing casual pale green silk slacks and a loose cashmere sweater of slightly darker green.

  Doug had noticed that some of the women among the long-term Lunatics had taken to wearing more stylish clothes since his mother had come to Moonbase. Some women had started modifying their coveralls, snipping out pieces along the sleeves or shoulders or legs, adding trinkets or decorative patches. Eye candy, one of the guys called it.

  Doug enjoyed the fashion trend. The women were adding color to the drab underground surroundings. Like the flowers that Brudnoy grew and the pictures that the Windowalls offered. Women wore perfume more often now, too. Even Bianca had added a trio of tiny gold pins to her collar as soon as she had arrived from Earthside: two cats on one side and some kind of fish on the other.

  Doug remembered how Brennart had decorated his coveralls with mission patches and emblems. Yet none of the men had followed his lead. Doug himself wore his plain sky blue coveralls as he sat on the spindly armchair next to his mother’s delicate little upholstered couch, leaning forward intensely, elbows on knees.

  “I wanted to run it past you first,” he said, “to make certain there aren’t any obvious holes in the plan.”

  The corners of Joanna’s lips curled slightly. “I might even detect a subtle flaw, if there are any.”

  Doug grinned sheepishly. “Aw, Mom, you know what I mean.”

  “What you’re trying to do is to make Moonbase as self-sufficient as possible.”

  “And as soon as possible.”

  “Without letting the corporate management know what you’re doing.”

  “Or the board of directors,” Doug added.

  .Joanna studied her son for a long moment. Then she said, “The board’s in a turmoil since Carlos’ assassination. They’re all jockeying for power down there.”

  “Will it affect you?”

  She smiled grimly. “Of course it will. The trick is to make certain it enhances my position on the board rather than detracting from it.”

  “Will you have to go back Earthside?”

  “I don’t think so,” Joanna answered slowly. “The VR link’s been good enough — so far.”

  Doug saw the shadow of uncertainty on her face. “I don’t want to start new problems for you, but—”

  “No, I think your scheme could be a good insurance policy for us, in case they really do try to stop us from using nanomachines.”

  Doug nodded.

  “In fact,” Joanna said, smiling slightly, “if all the other major corporations are prevented from using nanotechnology by the treaty, Masterson could become very wealthy. Extremely wealthy.” Her smile widened. “We should support the nanotech treaty!”

  “We can’t do that,” Doug snapped. “It’d be immoral.”

  With a small shrug, Joanna said. “I suppose so. But still…”

  “Will Greg go along with us?”

  Joanna’s smile vanished. “Well,” she said carefully, “it’s a lot to swallow in one bite, for him.”

  “He wants to shut down Moonbase, doesn’t he?” Without waiting for his mother’s response, Doug went on, “And I want to enlarge it, turn it into a manufacturing center, make it profitable so it can grow and prosper. That’s what Operation Bootstrap is all about…”

  Joanna saw the intensity in her son’s face. Operation Bootstrap, she thought. A theatrical name for a pretty daring idea.

  We’ve been talking about making Moonbase self-sufficient for years. Paul wanted to do it, even back then. And now Doug’s found the way to do it, if we can only get it started. Greg will be dead-set against this, though.

  Aloud, she told her son, “Let me talk to Greg about it first. Alone.”

  Doug nodded as if that was what he had expected. Maybe what he had hoped she would say.

  “I think he’ll take it better if he hears it from you, Mom.”

  Joanna sighed. “I think so too.”

  Doug got to his feet and Joanna stood up beside her son. It always surprised her that Doug was so much taller than she, taller than his father had been. He looks so much like Paul, she thought, solid and compact. But he’s really much bigger. Almost Greg’s height.

  And he’s still growing, she realized. Mentally. He’s challenging Greg already, although he doesn’t really understand that. Greg does, though. Greg will see exactly what this means.

  I mustn’t let them clash over this Operation Bootstrap. I’ve got to get them to work together, not against one another.

  Wilhelm Zimmerman almost toppled off his bar stool as he flinched away from his friend’s blazing anger. His huge bulk teetered on the swivelling stool. He had to grab the edge of the bar with both hands to steady himself.

  Verban took no notice of his obese friend’s struggle to stay on the stool.

  “Are you mad?” Verban hissed, his teeth showing. “Do you want to ruin us all?”

  The bar was of the American type, in the old Osborne Hotel where the tourists stayed. Verban had insisted on their meeting there, rather than the ratskeller next to the campus where they usually had their seidels of beer.

  It was late in the afternoon, yet the place was almost empty. Muted bland music issued thinly from the speakers in the ceiling. A few elderly couples, obviously tourists from Japan or one of the Asian rim tigers, sat together at one circular table, their heads together over a vidcam as they viewed their day’s videodiscs.

  Verban had suggested this hotel bar as a place where they would not be seen. Zimmerman thought the
y looked as obvious as a syphilitic chancre on a nun’s face. How much better he would have felt in the noisy fellowship of the beer hall!

  Zimmerman steadied himself, then said, “No one is going to be ruined just because I occasionally help a wealthy foreigner.” He whispered in the quiet, almost deserted bar.

  “Madness!” Verban repeated. “Sheer madness.”

  Zimmerman had known the man for nearly thirty years. Verban had always been the jittery type, scarecrow thin, nervous, given to smoking illicit cigarettes when he thought no one was watching. He was a professor in the university’s law school, on the verge of graduating into the bliss of a professor emeritus’ well-earned retirement.

  “I’ve been doing it for so many years,” Zimmerman said. “Why does it upset you now?”

  “Because the pressures are stronger now than ever! Don’t you watch the news? Don’t you see what’s going on around you — all over the world!”

  “You mean that assassination in New York?”

  “That’s only part of it.”

  “And the treaty that the United Nations is sponsoring.” Zimmerman smiled at his old friend. “You see, I do keep an eye on events outside my laboratory.”

  “Switzerland will sign the treaty.”

  Zimmerman shrugged and reached for his glass of beer, a delicate thing that held only a fraction of a seidel’s worth. It was almost empty. At their favorite haunt the barmaids always made certain that the mugs were topped off regularly.

  “So Switzerland will sign the stupid treaty. So what? The authorities have never bothered me.”

  “They will now,” Verban whispered harshly. “They will close your laboratory entirely.”

  “No, they won’t stop research—”

  “Yes they will! And they’ll come looking for you first of all, you with your proud announcement that you saved that boy’s life on the Moon with nanckherapy.”

  “But it’s true,” Zimmerman insisted. “I did.”

  “And you had to tell the world about it?”

  “I had to tell the world that nanotherapy is useful, therapeutic, and — used properly — it isn’t harmful.”

  “So now you are a marked man. They will close your laboratory.”

  Feeling sudden panic, Zimmerman blurted, “But what am I to do?”

  “Retire as gracefully as you can. You certainly have enough money to live well.

  He shook his fleshy head. “Not really. Most of my income I spent on new research, once the university stopped funding nanotechnology work.”

  “It’s over, Willi,” Verban said, half annoyed, half sorrowful. “You mustn’t fight against them. Just take this peacefully and go off into retirement.”

  “Never!”

  “You’ll get the entire university shut down, you fool! Don’t you understand what kind of power they have?”

  Zimmerman wanted to laugh. “They can’t shut down the entire university.”

  “They can and they will, if you try to struggle against them.”

  “But…’ Zimmerman’s words died in his throat. He stared at his old friend. Verban was terrified. If the university shut down, who would pay out his pension?

  His voice suddenly heavy, Zimmerman said, “What they are doing is terribly, terribly wrong.”

  “Yes, I know it,” said Verban. “But they have the power. And they will use it mercilessly.”

  “I can’t stop my life’s work. I won’t! There must be some university, somewhere. Perhaps in America.”

  “Hah!”

  “Or Canada?” Zimmerman asked hopefully.

  Verban shook his head.

  Zimmerman realized he was perspiring. A fear reflex, he knew. They’re making me afraid. He felt a sudden surge of hatred for the faceless people who ladled out fear as part of their power.

  Verban said, “It’s all finished, Willi. Nanotechnology — even theoretical research on the subject will be outlawed once the treaty goes into effect.”

  “There must be someplace…’ Zimmerman muttered.

  “Nowhere on Earth,” said Verban sadly.

  Zimmerman heaved an enormous sigh. But then he remembered that his protege, Kris Cardenas, was now living in Canada. Vancouver, he recalled. Perhaps she can help; after all, she won the Nobel Prize. She must have some influence.

  CHELSEA, MASSACHUSETTS

  She was good-looking. Older than Killifer would’ve liked, but a real stunner despite her age. Skinny, though. Her arms were rail-thin and he guessed her legs were, too, beneath the tight ankle-length skirt she wore. No way of telling how much of a figure she had under that severe outfit. It was plain dull gray from the choker collar down to her plain dull gray shoes. Killifer almost wondered why she didn’t wear gloves, every other part of her body was covered. No jewelry at all.

  But her face was enough to kill for. A sculptor’s dream. The kind of face video stars wished they had. A black Venus, a chocolate-cream-colored goddess of beauty.

  As she walked up to Killifer, he was totally unable to stop himself from staring at her. Automatically he got up from the bench where he had been waiting. But then he saw something in her eyes that almost frightened him. Her eyes were pained, haunted, rimmed with red like the fires of hell.

  “Jonathan Killifer?” she asked needlessly. Her voice was smokey, low, inviting.

  “Jack,” he managed to choke out.

  “I’m Melissa Hart. Pleased to meet you, Jack.” Without a smile, without any change in those burning eyes. “Would you follow me, please?”

  Killifer wanted to tell her he would follow her off the edge of a cliff, but her eyes stopped him. In silence he walked beside her down the busy corridor. He noticed that all the people here dressed in gray, men and women alike, the only difference was that the men wore trousers while all the women wore tight ankle-length skirts. Well, Killifer thought, they sure can’t run away from you in those hobbles.

  He expected her to lead him into her office, or maybe a conference room. Instead he followed her to the end of the hallway, up a narrow flight of stairs, and then through a metal door out onto the building’s roof. The open sunlight made Killifer’s eyes water.

  “We can speak freely here, Jack,” she said.

  That worried him. Wiping at his eyes, he asked, “Whattaya mean? Is your office bugged?”

  Melissa gave him a cool smile. “Jack, the Urban Corps doesn’t believe in private offices, not even for General O’Conner. I thought that we could have our first chat here, without anyone else to bother us.”

  “How’d you find me?” Killifer asked.

  “We have sources of information.” She walked slowly toward the brick parapet along the roofs edge. “Isn’t it a beautiful day?”

  Following her, Killifer could see that the building was on a hill and the whole city of Boston was laid out before them, beneath the bright cloudless sky. After so many years at Moonbase, the deep clear blue almost hurt. Everything was so dazzling: the green of the trees, the red brick buildings, the glittering glass facades of the soaring downtown high-rises.

  Killifer took in a deep breath of real air. It smelled great, with the salt tang coming in off the harbor. He could almost taste it.

  “You were born in Boston, weren’t you?” Melissa asked him.

  He nodded and pointed. “Winthrop. Out there by the old airport.”

  A Clippership took off from the airport, like a toy at this distance, the thunder of its rocket engines nothing more than a muted rumble.

  “Do you remember what Chelsea used to be when you were growing up in Winthrop, Jack?”

  Killifer grinned sourly. “A dump. We used to make jokes about Chelsea. It was the bottom of the barrel.”

  “That’s right,” said Melissa Hart, like a schoolteacher pleased with her student’s answer. “For generations Chelsea was the bottom of the barrel.”

  “And now?”

  “Now it’s a model community. The Urban Corps has transformed Chelsea. We brought new industry into the community, ne
w businesses. People have jobs now. They have hope. Crime is down. The schools are turning out model citizens.”

  “I thought it was the New Morality did that.”

  “We’re part of the New Morality. The Urban Corps, the Angels of God, the Disciples of Allah, St. Michael’s Battalion — there are dozens of organizations within the New Morality structure.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “We want your help, Jack.”

  “Mine? What for?”

  “You’ve worked for years at Moonbase. We need to know all about Moonbase, what they’re doing up there, how they operate, what they’re planning.”

  “Why?”

  Melissa looked disappointed. “Jack, they work with nanomachines at Moonbase, don’t they?”

  “They’ve got to,” he said.

  “Nanomachines will soon be illegal,” she said. “We’ve got to know how the people at Moonbase will react to the new law.”

  Killifer turned away from her and looked out at the city again. It was so shining and lush it almost looked unreal. It all seemed clean and fresh. And quiet. Hardly any noise from street traffic. No boom boxes blasting away. No voices raised.

  “What’s in it for me?” he asked, still without looking at her.

  If his self-centered questioned bothered her, Melissa Hart gave no hint of it. She immediately answered, “We’ll hire you as a consultant at fifteen hundred a day, with a guarantee of a minimum of one hundred consulting days per year.”

  A hundred-fifty thousand per year, Killifer realized.

  “That should augment your Masterson Corporation pension very nicely,” she added.

  “My pension, yeah.” He wanted to spit.

  “It’s a very generous offer, Jack.”

  “For how many years?”

  Sounding slightly disappointed again, she replied, “Oh Jack, I can’t promise you more than this one year. If everything goes the way we expect it to, Moonbase will be shut down by the end of that time.”

  “And then what happens to me?”

  “We’ll see,” she said simply. With a glowing smile. But her eyes still radiated pain.