by Ben Bova
Killifer thought it over briefly. “What the hell,” he said. “Why not?”
“Then you agree?”
“If you’ll come to dinner with me.”
She seemed to think it over with great care. At last Melissa said, “I’d be happy to have dinner with you, Jack. But only dinner.”
“Sure,” he said. “Just dinner.” It was a lie and he knew that she knew it.
The North End of Boston had once been an Italian preserve, but over the decades it had evolved into Little Asia. Vietnamese, Malay, Thai, Indian and a dozen varieties of Chinese now occupied the narrow twisting streets where once a patriot had climbed the Old North Church bell tower to signal Paul Revere.
Over spicy Hunan platters Killifer found himself spinning out his life story to this beautiful black woman with the haunted eyes. As if he couldn’t stop himself, he spilled out the bitterness, the rage and frustration of his wasted life.
“But why did you spend all those years in Moonbase,” Melissa asked sweetly, chopsticks held gracefully in her long slim fingers, “when you had such a promising career in nanotechnology?”
’Shedid it,” he growled. “Masterson’s widow. Then she married Stavenger. She stuck me in Moonbase.”
“But you could have resigned and come back to Earth, couldn’t you?”
He hadn’t intended to tell her about the nanobugs and Greg Masterson and Paul Stavenger’s murder. He had never intended to speak of that at all. But by the time dinner was finished and they were walking the crowded, brightly-lit streets, he had revealed himself to her almost completely.
“Greg Masterson murdered his stepfather?”
There was something in the way she said it that brought Killifer up short. Something in her voice.
“You know Greg Masterson?”
She nodded. In the harsh glare of the street lamp her face looked like frozen stone. “I knew him. Long ago.”
They walked in painful silence down to the waterfront, where the streets were emptier. And darker.
“My apartment’s up there.” Killifer pointed to an apartment block across the street from the piers.
“You must have a nice view,” Melissa said absently, sounding as if her thoughts were a quarter-million miles away.
“Come on up and see it,” he suggested, taking her by the arm.
She disengaged effortlessly. “No, Jack,” she said. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“Come on,” he wheedled. “Just have a drink with me.”
With a smile that might have been sad, or perhaps pitying, Melissa said, “You don’t understand, Jack. I’m celibate.”
“You’re what?”
“I’ve been celibate since I met General O’Conner, many years ago.”
“Celibate?”
“It’s part of our creed.”
“You mean everybody I saw in your building…?”
She nodded.
“That’s hard to believe.”
“Believe it, Jack. Celibacy removes one of the great causes of pain in this life.”
“But… but you’re so beautiful! It’s a damned shame. A waste.”
Her eyes flared. “No, it’s not a waste. I know what pain can be caused by the attractions of sex. I was caught in that web, once, years ago. It led to nothing but pain and evil, drugs and self-destruction. I nearly killed myself before General O’Conner found me.”
“General O’Conner.”
“He, wasn’t the general then; he hadn’t even founded the Urban Corps yet. But he saved my life. He made me dedicate my life to the New Morality and all that it stands for.”
“And you’ve gotta be celibate?”
“It simplifies your life, Jack. It allows you to concentrate your energies on the things that really matter.”
“Still seems like a damned waste to me,” Killifer grumbled.
“No, Jack. It makes life so much easier. Cleaner. Come back to the office tomorrow, Jack. I want you to join us. We need your help.”
Killifer thought, Maybe this celibate crap is just her excuse. After all, we just met this afternoon. Give it time, she’ll pull her pants down sooner or later.
“Okay,” he said lightly. “See you tomorrow morning.”
“Nine sharp,” said Melissa.
“Right.”
He left her at the street corner and went into his apartment building. She didn’t seem to have the slightest fear of being alone on the dark street.
Jinny Anson stared at her husband. “What do you mean?” she demanded.
“Just what I said,” he replied calmly, his teeth clamped on his favorite briar pipe.
“You’ve got to submit your syllabus to a freakin’ committee?”
His studied composure irritated her. “It’s not as if this is the first time,” he said.
“But this committee’s got nothing to do with the university,” she said.
Her husband shrugged. “It’s a local citizens’ group. They call themselves the Moral Watchdogs or something like that.”
“Moral dipshits,” Anson ’muttered.
Her husband gave her a disapproving frown. He was obviously afraid his young daughters might hear her language, even though the door to their bedroom was firmly shut and the kids were down in the rec room watching video on their new wall-to-wall Windowall screen.
Quentin Westlake was a sweet, gentle professor of English literature at the University of Texas. It had taken him ten years to work his way from various outlying campuses in the vast hinterlands of the state to the main campus at Austin. Along the way he had married, fathered two daughters, and divorced when his first wife fell in love with an investment broker from Chicago.
Jinny Anson had met him at a seminar in Lubbock, where she had been invited to participate in a panel discussion of ’Literature in the Space Age.” Jinny had been the only panel member who was not an English lit professor and Quentin had been the only one among them who had treated her with kindness.
It was a different kind of romance, with Jinny commuting every few months from Moonbase to Texas, and Quentin trying to convince his two pre-pubescent daughters that he wouldn’t marry anyone who would turn into a wicked stepmother. When Jinny took her regular annual leave from the directorship of Moonbase the commute became easier: merely from Savannah to Austin. By the time she returned to the Moon they had decided to get married.
Their wedding was at the Alamo, as scheduled, with Quentin’s two daughters serving as bridesmaids and Joanna Stavenger among the guests. Joanna’s best wedding present was to allow Jinny to transfer to the corporation’s manufacturing facility in Houston; she could commute to work now on the high-speed levitrain from Austin. In addition to her regular duties, Jinny was supervising construction of a model water recycling center for the city of Houston, based on the technology perfected at Moonbase. It made for very long days, but at least she was home each night with her husband. Most nights.
For nearly six months, now Jinny had lived in his three-bedroom ranch-style house in suburban Austin, getting acclimatized to raising two half-grown daughters and to the intricate jealousies and competitions of a major university’s faculty. She quickly fell in love with the girls; the other faculty wives and women professors — and administrators — she felt she could gladly do without.
Now, as they were undressing for bed, Quentin told her about the new committee that would be reviewing his work. She knew he was concerned about it, despite his easy-going attitude. He wouldn’t have brought up the subject if it didn’t bother him.
“But what right does a self-appointed gaggle of uptight New Morality people have to pass judgment on your syllabus?” Jinny asked, aggrieved.
Quentin smiled wearily and rubbed the forefinger of his right hand against its thumb. “Money talks, sweetheart. Some of those committee members are among the biggest contributors to the university.”
“It’s an invasion of academic freedom!” Jinny snarled.
“Sure it is,” he agreed amiably. “But
what can I do about it? The Jews don’t like “The Merchant of Venice,” the Africans don’t like “Othello.” The Baptists say “Hamlet” is smutty and the feminists complain about “Macbeth,” for lord’s sake! What can I do?”
That stopped her. What could they do about it if the university administration and the faculty leaders permitted it? Probably a lot of New Morality members among them, she realized.
“You know the old Chinese advice about getting raped,” Quentin said softly, as he took off his trousers.
“You shouldn’t relax,” she said, from her side of the bed. “And you sure as hell shouldn’t enjoy it.”
Naked, he flopped onto the bed. “Ah, love, let us be true to one another, for this world has neither certitude nor peace nor help for pain,” he misquoted slightly.
Jinny sat on the bed beside him. “This world,” she replied.
DIRECTOR’S OFFICE
“Operation Bootstrap?” Greg echoed, from behind his desk. “Are you joking?”
“No,” said Doug. “It’s not a joke.”
The two of them were alone in Greg’s office: Doug in his usual spot on the couch by the door, Greg sitting upright behind his desk.
With a shake of his head, Greg said to his brother, “When Mom told me about it I thought perhaps it was some kind of prank you and Brudnoy had cooked up.”
“Greg, it’s something we have to do,” Doug said earnestly.
“Really?”
“Sooner or later.”
“It won’t be sooner.”
For all the urgency in his words, Doug looked calm and relaxed, almost insolently at ease, Greg thought His young half-brother slouched back in the couch all the way across the office. He expects me to get up from my desk and go over to him, Greg told himself. No way.
I’m the director of Moonbase. I called him here into my office; he’s not going to make me jump through his hoops.
“Look, Doug, I asked you to come here without Mom so we could talk over this crazy idea of yours—”
“It’s not a crazy idea,” Doug said.
“Come on, now—”
“I’ve worked out the numbers, Greg. We can build Clipper-ships that’ll outperform anything that’s ever flown. And that’s just the beginning. There’s aircraft, automobiles — we can transform the whole world!”
Greg frowned at his half-brother. “Pie in the sky. Nothing but pipedreams.”
“Look at the numbers!” Doug urged. “I can bring them up on your computer.”
“I’m sure you can put numbers on a screen that say anything you want them to say,” Greg replied, acidly. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to get as crazy as you are.”
“It’s not crazy!”
“Operation Shoelace,” Greg sneered.
Doug jolted to his feet and strode up to the curving desk. Greg had to look up at his younger half-brother, leaning both fists on the desk top menacingly.
“Operation Bootstrap will not only save Moonbase, Greg,” Doug said, as calm and implacable as a brick wall, “it’ll make Masterson Aerospace the most powerful corporation on Earth. “Sit down,” Greg snapped.
Doug pulled up the nearest webbed chair and sat in it.
“Now listen to the realities,” Greg said, tapping a fingernail on his desk top.
Doug smiled slightly. “Okay, I’m listening.”
“I’ve spent the past six months searching for a way to keep this base afloat—”
“Operation Bootstrap is the way to do it!”
“All that you’ll accomplish,” Greg countered annoyedly, “is to push Moonbase into the red deeper and faster. It’s nonsense! Absolute nonsense!”
“But it’s not—”
“For chrissake, Doug, we can’t even get the mass driver finished!”
“I know that.”
“It’s taking every bit of energy and manpower that I can spare. I’ve got to get the mass driver built and still show a profit every quarter. Do you know how tough that is? Do you have any idea of the pressures I’m under?”
“Okay,” Doug said, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Forget everything I just said, then.”
“Good.”
“But we’ve got to do Operation Bootstrap if we’re going to keep Moonbase alive.”
“Moonbase is a continuing drain on the corporation’s finances.”
“Greg, this isn’t about money! It’s much more-’ ›
“Don’t be childish,” Greg snapped. “It’s always about money. There isn’t anything else.”
“But—”
“But nothing! If I don’t show a profit the board will shut us down, just like that.” Greg snapped his fingers. “Is that what you want?”
“No,” said Doug quietly. “But it’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Greg stared at him.
“You didn’t take the directorship here to save us, Greg. You came up here to kill Moonbase.”
Doug saw his brother flinch at the word ’kill.” I shouldn’t have said it, he told himself. But it’s too late now.
“Moonbase is Mom’s pet project,” Greg said slowly, his voice low and trembling. “She’s been nursing it along for more than twenty years now. But there’s no rationale to keep it going. It’s a drain on the corporation.”
With a shake of his head, Doug replied, “There’s more involved here than the quarterly profit-and-loss statement, Greg.”
“You still don’t see—”
“No, you don’t see,” Doug said, raising his voice slightly. “Moonbase has been tottering on the brink of extinction ever since it started. I know that. I also know that if we’re limited to supplying raw materials for the orbital factories we’ll always be on the ragged edge. Always!”
“What do you mean, limited?”
“We’ve got to expand our operations! We’ve got to make ourselves self-sufficient and move beyond just being a mining operation. Being self-sufficient means more than just having enough water to go around, Greg. We’ve got to be able to manufacture everything we need, right here at Moonbase, without needing imports from Earthside.”
“In your dreams,” Greg muttered.
“We can do it! I know we can! But we’ve got to start now. We’ve all got to work together on this.”
Is he really that naive, Greg wondered, or is he just trying to manipulate me?
Taking a deep breath and sitting up straighter, Greg said firmly, “When my term here is over, I’m going to recommend to the board that Moonbase be shut down.”
“But we can turn things around,” Doug urged.
Exasperated, Greg burst out, “Do you have any idea of what you’d need to mine an asteroid? This isn’t some game! Get real!”
Strangely, instead of getting angry, Doug smiled. “Greg, I’ve calculated every detail of the job. I’ve run it through our logistics and engineering programs. I can even tell you the exact date on which we’ll make rendezvous with 2015-eta.”
“With what?”
“That’s the best asteroid for our purposes. When you trade off its nearest-approach distance against the eccentricity and inclination of its orbit—”
Doug blathered on about the asteroid while Greg sat, seething. I didn’t want Mom here, he reminded himself, because she’d side with him and not me. I wanted to confront him face-to-face, all by ourselves. But now he’s pulling out all this technical garbage to show how much more he knows than I do.
“Hold it!” Greg snapped.
Doug stopped in mid-sentence.
“Now listen to this and believe it: Nothing new is getting started at this base. I’m willing to let the mass-driver job continue, but that’s just because we might be able to sell the facility to the Japanese once it’s finished.”
“Sell it?”
“Or sell the know-how. Yamagata could buy the nanobugs and build their own mass driver for themselves.”
“Maybe Yamagata will want to buy Moonbase,” Doug thought aloud. “The whole base.”
; “Maybe,” Greg agreed, with a cold smile. “I hadn’t thought of that possibility. They just might be fanatic enough.”
“But otherwise you’ll shut’down Moonbase.”
“What choice do we have? The U.N.’s nanotech treaty will wipe out the base anyway.”
“So the deal with Kiribati is just a fake?” Doug asked.
“I’ll take care of the Kiribati deal. You don’t have to worry about it.”
“You’re just doing it to keep Mom happy.”
I’m doing it,” Greg said icily, “so that we’ll have a place to continue nanotech work, despite the U.N. treaty.” Before Doug could reply he added, “We don’t need Moonbase or even space stations to use nanotechnology. I can make Kiribati a very wealthy nation, using nanotechnology.”
“If the U.N. doesn’t pressure them into quitting,” Doug said. “Or the New Morality doesn’t bomb the islands.”
Greg glared at him.
“So you’re really going to shut down Moonbase,” said Doug.
“That’s right. And you can run to Mom and tell her all about it. I don’t care. My mind’s made up.”
“You’re making a mistake, Greg. A horrible mistake.”
Raising his voice nearly to a shout, Greg insisted, “Doug, I won’t have it! Stop this crap here and now! Moonbase is history! It’s dead!”
Doug looked shocked. For the first time since he’d sauntered into the office, he looked upset, almost fearful. Greg nodded, satisfied. That wiped the self-satisfied smile off his face.
“I’ve made my decision and that’s it,” Greg said. “Moonbase is history and there’s nothing you or Mom or anyone else can do to save it.”
Doug studied his older brother’s face for several silent moments. There’s no sense arguing with him, he realized. His mind’s made up. He’s in no mood to consider the facts.
“All right.” Slowly, Doug got up from the web chair. “You’re the boss.”
Greg’s smile widened slightly. “I’m glad you understand that.”
Doug walked to the door. He knew he shouldn’t, but he turned back and said, “But if Moonbase is dead, it’s because you’ve murdered it.”
Greg wanted to scream at the impudent young snot, but for just a flash of a second he thought he saw Paul Stavenger standing at the door and not his son. Looking at him accusingly. Greg blinked and it was Doug again. With the same accusing stare.
