Moonwar

by Ben Bova

  Kadar slouched back in his chair like a petulant child. “I want to talk to Stavenger,” he said.

  “He’s too damned busy for picobits like this, Zoltan. I’m the acting director and I say your rocket sits.”

  With a slight hike of his heavy brows, Kadar got slowly out of his chair and walked to the door.

  “Thank you for your time,” he said to Anson.

  “Nothing to it.”

  Kadar stepped through the door and closed it softly, saying to himself, Now where in hell can I find Stavenger?

  TOUCHDOWN MINUS 95 HOURS 20 MINUTES

  “When do they land?” asked Toshiru Takai.

  Doug did not have to look at his watch. “In less than four days.”

  Takai nodded and made a sound halfway between a sigh and a groan.

  Doug was walking with him slowly across the vast floor of the crater Copernicus, where the Nippon One base was situated, more than a thousand kilometers from Moonbase. Since they were communicating through a virtual reality program, they could walk on the lunar surface without spacesuits. Doug wore his usual unadorned sky-blue coveralls; Takai a similar jumpsuit of pearl gray, decorated with a single white heron over the breast pocket, the symbol of Yamagata Corporation.

  “I tried to reach your corporate headquarters in Tokyo,” Doug said, “but there seemed to be some difficulty with their receiving equipment.”

  “I imagine your transmissions are being jammed by the Peacekeepers,” Takai said, showing no emotion on his lean, bony face. He was in his early thirties; Doug thought of him as his own age, roughly, even though Takai was at least five years older.

  With an understanding smile, Doug said, “Our transmissions are getting through to Savannah and Tarawa and even New York.”

  Takai gave him a sidelong glance. “Do you want me to tell you that my superiors in Tokyo have decided not to speak with you?” His voice was low, but filled with strength.

  “I’d like to know where they stand,” Doug said evenly. “Where you stand.”

  “Why, here I am, in the middle of the most beautiful crater on the Moon!”

  Doug laughed at the joke. Although they had never met physically, he had known Takai for three years now, ever since the young engineer had been chosen to direct the Yamagata lunar base. While their virtual selves could walk in the vacuum without even kicking up a cloud of dust, each of them was safely in his office, deep underground.

  Yet Doug could reach out and clasp Takai’s shoulder. “Toshi, I need to know what Yamagata is going to do. It’s important for us. For both of us.”

  “I know,” Takai admitted.

  Nippon One was the only other lunar base still active. Its reason for existence, aside from scientific studies, was to extract helium-three from the Moon’s regolith and ship it to the nuclear fusion power plants that were springing up throughout Japan, China, and the Pacific Rim nations. Fusion power was not welcomed in Europe or North America, where anti-nuclear fears not only persisted, but were actively fanned by the nanoluddites.

  The Europeans had closed down their base at Grimaldi when the nanotech treaty had gone into effect for the Euro-Russian consortium that managed the base. They still sent occasional maintenance crews to repair and refurbish the scientific gear that ran automated at Grimaldi, but even those visitors rode on Masterson LTVs or Yamagata’s.

  “Are you going to shut down Nippon One?” Doug asked, half-dismayed that he had to be so direct with his Japanese friend.

  “That is not in my instructions,” Takai replied.

  Damn! thought Doug. He’s not just being roundabout; he’s being actually evasive.

  “Toshi, I really need to know what Yamagata plans to do.”

  For several moments Takai said nothing. He simply walked along the virtual crater floor and avoided looking at Doug.

  “What do you plan to do?” Takai countered. “Surely you don’t expect to fight the Peacekeepers.”

  “We’ve declared our independence,” Doug said. “Legally, the Peacekeepers have no right to bother us.”

  “Only if the U.N. accepts your independence.”

  Doug nodded.

  “They won’t,” Takai predicted. “You know they won’t.”

  “I’m not so sure. Time is on our side. If we can hold on and prevent the Peacekeepers from taking over the base, we could eventually get world opinion on our side and—”

  “Time is on your side until the Peacekeepers land,” Takai pointed out.

  “But if we can keep them from taking Moonbase,”

  Doug said earnestly, “then we can get through this. All we have to do is show the world that we can survive, that we can hang in there and take care of ourselves. Sooner or later they’ll recognize the fact that we are independent.”

  Takai shook his head. “You’re dreaming, Doug.”

  “No,” Doug insisted. “It’s like the situation in the American Civil War. All the Confederacy had to do was keep itself intact, not let the Union conquer it. In time, the nations of Europe would recognize it as a separate nation.”

  “But that didn’t happen, did it?” Takai asked gently.

  “We can make it happen here.”

  “No, Doug. That isn’t going to be allowed to happen, believe me.”

  Doug hesitated, digesting not only Takai’s words, but their tone. He knows more than he’s willing to tell me, Doug realized.

  “Don’t you think Japan would recognize our independence if we drove off the Peacekeepers?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Is Yamagata against us? I need to know, Toshi. Lives depend on it.”

  Takai said nothing.

  “Well?” Doug demanded.

  The pained expression on Takai’s face showed the tension he was feeling. “My instructions are to continue as usual. We will operate Nippon One as we normally do, despite your present … difficulties.”

  They both knew that Nippon One carefully refrained from using nanotechnology. Instead of using nanomachines to extract helium-three from the ground, they used cumbersome bulldozers and old-fashioned mass spectrometers to separate the isotope from the other lunar ores. It kept the cost of helium-three at least ten times higher than it would have been if nanomachines had been employed to ferret out the helium-three nuclei individually.

  But Nippon One bought its water from Moonbase. Shut down Moonbase and the Japanese base dies, too.

  “I don’t understand how that can be,” Doug said.

  “Those are my instructions.”

  Walking beside his virtual friend in silence, Doug thought, He wants, to tell me what’s going on, but he can’t. His loyalty to Yamagata is preventing him from telling me the whole truth.

  “We’ve already declared our independence, you know,” Doug said.

  “Yes, you told me. I doubt that it’ll do you any good.”

  “What was Tokyo’s reaction to that?”

  “No reaction. The first I heard of it was just now, when you told me.”

  “Your corporate superiors didn’t tell you about it?”

  “Not one word.”

  “We beamed the information to Yamagata headquarters and to every news agency on Earth.”

  “I have not received any information about that,” Takai said, genuinely upset.

  “That must mean that Faure intends to ignore our declaration and proceed as if it’s a nonstarter.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  They took a few more paces across the crater floor, skirting a fresh-looking craterlet about the size of a beach ball’s indentation.

  “Toshi, how are you going to get water if Moonbase is shut down? You can’t use nanomachines, and—”

  “We will get our water the same way we do now.”

  “But Moonbase will be closed. The Peacekeeper troops are on their way to shut us down.”

  Takai grimaced, struggling inwardly. At last he said, “The Peacekeepers are coming to remove you and your people from the management of Moonbase. That does
not mean they intend to close the base entirely.”

  Doug stopped in his tracks. “Not …” His mind started spinning. “Not close the base? Toshi, are you sure?”

  “It could cost me my position if anyone learns that I told you. Yes, I am quite certain. Or I should say that Tokyo is quite certain.”

  “They’re not going to close the base?”

  “Faure spoke directly to the head of the Yamagata clan himself and assured him that Moonbase will continue to supply water to Nippon One—after the Peacekeeper troops remove you and your staff from the base.”

  “Faure intends to continue running Moonbase,” Doug repeated, feeling hollow with surprise. “The little furball doesn’t care about the nanotech treaty; he wants to control Moonbase himself!”

  TOUCHDOWN MINUS 93 HOURS 45 MINUTES

  “But don’t you understand what this means?” Joanna demanded.

  “It means that Faure wants to take over Moonbase,” said Doug.

  “It means we can do business with him!” his mother replied eagerly. “We can cut a deal.”

  Doug stared at his mother. She was sitting bolt upright in the chaise longue she had brought from her home in Savannah as part of the elaborate furnishings for her two-room suite at Moonbase. Leaning toward her from the delicate little Sheraton sofa on which he sat, Doug shook his head unhappily.

  “Faure won’t make any deals. He intends to use the Peacekeepers to toss us out of here and then have the U.N. itself run the base.”

  Joanna gave her son a pitying smile. “Doug, he’ll need trained personnel to run this base. He’ll have to use the people who are here.”

  “That doesn’t include thee and me.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Joanna said. She seemed actually happy with Doug’s news, pleased that Faure wanted to take over Moonbase.

  “He’ll want to continue to manufacture Clipperships, of course,” Joanna mused. “That’s where the profits are. Every transportation line on Earth wants our Clipperships and he can pump the profits into the U.N.”

  “Or his own pocket.”

  “Maybe,” Joanna agreed. “Even better. The more venal he is, the easier it’ll be to deal with him.”

  Doug shook his head again. “That’s what the German industrialists thought about Hitler.”

  “Faure’s no Hitler. He’s not a fanatic. He isn’t even going to stop our nanomachines. He just wants to run them for his own profit.”

  Getting to his feet, Doug said, “I’m still assuming that we’ll have to handle the Peacekeepers, and we’ve got less than four days to figure out how to do it.”

  “What do you intend to do?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve asked Zimmerman and Cardenas to meet me in my quarters. Lev and Jinny Anson, too. And one of the aquaculture technicians, the only guy in the base who’s had any military experience at all.”

  “All right,” Joanna said, looking up at her son from the chaise longue. “You do that. I’m going to put in a call to Faure. He’ll negotiate. I know he will.”

  “Don’t commit us to anything until I get a chance to see what it is, okay?”

  Joanna nodded absently. “Oh, I don’t think Faure will agree to anything concrete until the Peacekeepers get here and take over the base.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to prevent.”

  “Good,” she said. “If we could somehow keep the Peacekeepers out of here it would strengthen our hand tremendously.”

  “I’ll see what we can do,” said Doug.

  TOUCHDOWN MINUS 90 HOURS 11 MINUTES

  Moonbase had started as a clutch of temporary shelters, little more than aluminum cans the size of house trailers, dug into the lunar regolith on the floor of the crater Alphonsus and then covered over with rubble to protect them from the radiation and temperature swings between night and day. And from the occasional meteoroid strike. Meteor showers that were spectacular light shows in the night sky of Earth were potentially dangerous volleys of celestial machine-gun fire on the airless Moon.

  By the time of Doug Stavenger’s first visit to the Moon, on his eighteenth birthday, Moonbase had grown into a set of four parallel tunnels dug into the flank of Mt. Yeager. Offices, labs, workshops and living quarters lined the tunnels. The water factory was at the front of one tunnel, the environmental control center—where the base’s air was recycled and kept circulating properly—was at the rear.

  In his seven years at Moonbase, Doug had seen those original four tunnels grow to eight, with the four new tunnels sunk a level below the original quartet. Rough rock walls were smoothed with plasma torches and painted in pastels selected by psychologists—then painted over by base personnel who demanded brighter, bolder colors. And the occasional graffitist. When the grand plaza’s construction was finished, twenty more tunnels would be added beneath it.

  If we ever get to finish the grand plaza, Doug thought as he walked toward his quarters. He nodded and smiled automatically to everyone he passed. Doug knew most of the long-time Lunatics by sight, but there were always hundreds of short-term workers at the base. How many of them will stay with us? he wondered. Even if we keep the Peacekeepers out and establish our independence, will we have enough people left here to run the base?

  There were directional signs on the walls now, and electronic maps at intersections that showed a schematic of the tunnel system. Corridors, Doug reminded himself. We call them corridors now, not tunnels.

  He turned left at an intersection and bumped into a man in olive-green coveralls who was striding purposefully down the corridor. They each muttered an apology and fell into step, side by side, as they walked down the corridor.

  Out of the side of his eye, Doug looked the man over. He thought he recognized him, but couldn’t quite place who he was. The man was a couple of inches shorter than Doug’s own six one, but built wide and solid, like a bulldozer. Not an ounce of fat on him: he had felt iron-hard when Doug had bumped into him. His skin was the color of milk chocolate, his neatly-trimmed hair dark and wiry. Doug could not see his nametag without making it obvious he was looking at it.

  So he said, “I’m Doug Stavenger,” and stuck out his hand without breaking stride.

  The man made a perfunctory smile. “I know.”

  For a moment Doug thought he was going to refuse to shake, but then the man took Doug’s proffered hand and said, in a clear, distinct, deliberate baritone, “My name is Bam Gordette.”

  “Leroy Gordette?” Suddenly the picture from the personnel file clicked in Doug’s mind.

  Gordette replied, “Call me Bam. It’s short for Bama, which in turn is short for Alabama.”

  “You’re from Alabama?” Doug asked.

  “Yeah, but I got no banjo on my knee.” Gordette smiled, but it looked purely mechanical.

  “I was born in Georgia,” said Doug.

  “I know.”

  They had reached the door to Doug’s quarters, which were doubling as his office now that Jinny Anson occupied the director’s post. Opening it, Doug ushered Gordette in with a gesture. “The others will be here in a few minutes.”

  The smart walls were all blank as they stepped in. Gordette started to sit on the couch by the door, but Doug pointed to the slingchair next to his writing desk. As he went to the desk and dropped into his swivel chair, Doug said, “We can use the few minutes to get to know each other.”

  Gordette nodded tightly. Doug looked into his deep brown eyes and saw that Gordette would be a tough opponent in a poker game. He gave away nothing.

  “You were in the army?” Doug prompted.

  “Special Forces.”

  “How long?”

  “I did a four-year hitch.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  “Got a better offer.”

  Doug tapped on his keyboard and Gordette’s personnel file came up on the wallscreen to his left.

  “What kind of a company is Falcon Electronics?”

  “Small,” said Gordette. “They did customized electro-optical
rigs, stuff like that.”

  “You were with them almost nine years?”

  “Right.”

  “And then you got a job with Masterson Corporation and came to Moonbase.”

  “Right.”

  Leaning back in his chair, Doug asked, “How do you like it here?”

  Gordette thought for a moment. “Not bad. Most of the people here are smart, civilized.”

  “Civilized?”

  “There’s not much of a color problem here. Not like back in the States.”

  Doug felt shocked. “You had race problems?”

  Gordette smiled again, but this time it dripped acid. “There’s no black man on Earth doesn’t have race problems.”

  “I’m part black,” Doug said. “My father—”

  “I know all about it. But your skin is white enough, and you got enough money, so it doesn’t matter to you.”

  Doug felt as if he were battering against a solid steel barrier. Not that Gordette seemed hostile; he simply offered nothing. It was like talking to an automaton. And yet there was something going on behind those unwavering eyes. The man wasn’t stupid, Doug judged. He’s just sitting there, looking at me. As if he’s studying me.

  Lev Brudnoy stuck his head through Doug’s open door and broke the tightening silence. Moments later, Jinny Anson, Professor Zimmerman and Kris Cardenas joined the conference.

  As they carefully, meticulously went over every inch of Moonbase’s layout, equipment and supplies, Doug watched Gordette. The man said nothing, but seemed entirely focused on their discussion. He listened intently, hands clasped in front of his face as if in prayer. Every now and then, though, Doug caught him looking directly at him. Gordette never looked away. He simply stared at Doug, face utterly impassive, eyes boring as if he were taking X-ray photographs.

  “So we can button up and wait for ’em to run out of air,” Anson said, waving a hand at the schematic diagram of the base that filled one whole wall of Doug’s office.

  “Suppose they blow out the main airlock?” Brudnoy asked. “What then?”