Moonwar

by Ben Bova

  Death was his companion always. His ancient friend. He was death’s best assistant. That was his destiny, his purpose in life: to bring people to death.

  He opened his eyes. Deep within him the ancient calm had returned. There were no doubts, no qualms, no divisions within him. He was one again. Whole. Death was at his side, invisible but palpable, his oldest and best companion.

  After all, he told himself, Stavenger’s entire life revolves around Moonbase. Take that away from him and he’s as good as dead anyway. I’ll merely be helping him to the place where he wants to be.

  Still, he sighed.

  TOUCHDOWN MINUS 20 HOURS

  Joanna Stavenger actually felt nervous as she sat in her favorite armchair, waiting for Georges Faure’s call. The secretary-general had at first refused to speak to her at all, but the threat of telling the media that he planned to use nanomachines despite his public denouncement of them apparently had forced his hand.

  Apparently, she reminded herself. The little bastard’s waited until the troopship is almost ready to land before agreeing to talk to me.

  Faure had put up conditions. This was to be strictly a private conversation between the two of them. No third parties. And it was to be understood that he was speaking to her as a courtesy only, not in his capacity as secretary-general of the United Nations.

  Joanna had agreed easily. She knew that Faure had no private existence; whatever he said to her was being said by the man who headed the U.N. And she conveniently forgot her pledge of privacy when she told her son that Faure was going to speak to her. Doug was not in her sitting room with her, but he was plugged into their conversation, in his own quarters.

  Precisely at the appointed moment the synthesized voice of the communications system said, “Monsieur Faure is calling from New York.”

  “On screen, please,” Joanna replied.

  A window seemed to open on the wall before her and Faure’s face appeared, no larger than life-size. Joanna had programmed the smart wall that way; she had no desire to see Faure looming over her like an intimidating giant.

  “Madame Brudnoy,” Faure said, with a polite little smile.

  “Mr. Secretary-General,” Joanna replied.

  While she waited the three seconds for his reply, Joanna examined the room in which Faure was sitting. It didn’t look like an office; more like the living room of a spacious apartment in a high-rise building. She could not see much of the background behind him, but there was a window that looked out on the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

  “I am not speaking as the secretary-general, Madame. This is a personal conversation between two private citizens.”

  Joanna nodded an acknowledgment.

  “May I say that you look radiant? And your apartment, from what I can see of it, seems quite charming. I had no idea such luxuries were to be found in Moonbase.”

  Joanna had put on a tailored blouse of coral pink and a dark mid-thigh skirt: comfortable without being too dressy.

  “Thank you,” she said. “This is my personal furniture. I had it brought up from Savannah years ago. I assure you, the other living quarters here are nowhere near as elegant.”

  “I see,” said Faure, after the annoying lag. “The privileges of the wealthy.”

  Joanna bit back the temptation to comment on Faure’s luxurious apartment. “I appreciate your taking the time to speak with me.”

  This time it took more than three seconds for him to reply. His brow furrowed, his mouth pursed. At last he said, “Madame Brudnoy, it took a struggle with my conscience to decide to answer your request. I confess that my first instinct was to ignore it, and remain aloof from you and everyone else in Moonbase until this crisis is settled.”

  “I think it’s always best to discuss problems frankly, face-to-face.”

  His frown eased somewhat. “Yes, I agree. That is why I am speaking to you.”

  “What about our declaration of independence?”

  If the question jolted him, Faure gave no indication of it. “Declaration of independence? Pah!” He snapped his fingers. “A transparent ploy to avoid complying with the nanotechnology treaty.”

  “A right of every nation,” Joanna retorted. “Just because we’re on the Moon doesn’t mean we don’t have the same rights as any other group of people.”

  “You are not a nation,” Faure countered. “Moonbase is a division of a corporation.”

  “Moonbase is a community of more than two thousand people. We have the right to be independent.”

  His cheeks flushed, Faure waved both hands indignantly. “But you are not a nation! Two thousand people do not make a nation! You can’t even exist by yourselves without supplies from Earth. It is as if a group of people on an ocean liner declared themselves an independent nation. It is nonsense!”

  “We are self-sufficient,” Joanna insisted. “We produce our own food. We can exist on our own without any help from Earth.” That was stretching things, she knew, and yet a part of her mind marvelled at the realization that the stretch was not all that much. Moonbase could exist without help from Earth.

  Faure made a visible effort to calm himself. “Madame Brudnoy, you know and I know that this so-called declaration of independence is nothing more than a smoke screen, the camouflage to disguise the fact that you wish to continue using nanotechnology and evade the conditions of the treaty.”

  “But you intend to continue using nanotechnology once you’ve taken over Moonbase,” Joanna said.

  Once he heard her words, Faure’s face went from red to white, as if someone had slapped him.

  He took a deep breath, then said evenly, “What makes you think that?”

  Smiling, Joanna replied, “Don’t you think I have contacts inside Yamagata Corporation? Several of the board members of Masterson Corporation are also on Yamagata’s board.”

  Faure sat in silence for several moments. Then he made a little shrug and admitted, “It is entirely possible that we will allow some work on nanomachines to continue, once we have taken over operation of Moonbase.”

  “Moonbase will continue to supply water to Nippon One,” Joanna said flatly, not making a question of it.

  Reluctantly, Faure nodded.

  “And Moonbase will continue to manufacture spacecraft using nanomachines,” she added.

  “Only temporarily,” Faure replied once he heard her words. “You have contracts with various international transport companies. The United Nations will see that those contractual obligations are fulfilled.”

  “Of course,” said Joanna graciously. “And by the time all our backlog orders have been filled, the United Nations will find that nanomanufacturing can be quite profitable. And not harmful in the slightest. Right?”

  Faure leaned tensely toward the camera. “Madame Brudnoy, the nanotechnology treaty exists because of the fears that nanomachines have created. Your own husband was killed by nanomachines, was he not?”

  Joanna kept herself from flinching. I should have expected that, she told herself.

  Without pausing, Faure went on, “Nanotechnology can produce insidious weapons, deadly weapons. Nanomachines can kill, as you well know. A mistake, an error, and runaway nanomachines could devour everything in their path, like those armies of ants in South America that devastate entire landscapes and leave nothing alive in their wake.”

  His mustache bristling with fervor, Faure continued, “We cannot have nanomachines on Earth! No matter what glorious benefits they promise, we cannot take the risk that they present to us.”

  “But we’re not on the Earth. You could allow nanomanufacturing here on the Moon,” said Joanna.

  He replied, “I am willing to allow it on a temporary, experimental basis—under United Nations control.”

  With sudden understanding, Joanna said, “Because Yamagata insisted on it. And if Yamagata didn’t go along with you, then the Japanese government would oppose your takeover of Moonbase, and you can’t afford to have them against you.”

  She realized
that that was the truth of it. If Japan opposed Faure’s plans, a whole bloc of opposition would arise in the U.N.

  “You are very perspicacious,” Faure said. He leaned back in his chair, seemed to relax. “But the facts are that Japan supports my efforts and the Peacekeepers will be landing at Moonbase in less than twenty hours. Fait accompli!”

  “And who’s going to run Moonbase after the Peacekeepers land?”

  Once Faure heard her question, he smiled like the Chesire cat. “Why, who else but specialists from Yamagata Corporation?”

  Joanna could not have been more stunned if Faure had leaped across the quarter-million miles separating them and punched her. She simply sat in her armchair, mouth hanging open, while Faure smiled his widest at her.

  TOUCHDOWN MINUS 17 HOURS 38 MINUTES

  Dr. Hector Montana was not known for his bedside manner. He was a brusque, no-nonsense physician who had spent most of his career dealing with factory workers, construction crews, and industrial accidents. He was a capable surgeon and, thanks to Moonbase’s electronic communications systems, he could consult and even work with virtually any physician on Earth.

  Until the war sprang up.

  Now he scowled openly at the young couple sitting tensely before his desk. He was a slim, pinch-faced man with graying hair combed straight back off his low forehead. His skin was the color of sun-dried adobe. His profile looked as if it had been carved by an ancient Mayan: high cheekbones, prominent nose.

  “Pregnant.” He made the word sound like an accusation.

  “Yes,” said Claire Rossi. “There’s no doubt about it.”

  “I’m not an obstetrician.”

  “Yes, but we thought you should know.”

  O’Malley spoke up, “I want to make sure she gets the best medical attention possible.”

  “Then you should’ve taken some precautions beforehand,” Dr. Montana snapped. “We don’t have facilities for this sort of thing here.”

  Nick bulled his shoulders forward slightly, matching the physician’s frown with one of his own. “We don’t need facilities, for god’s sake. I just want to see that she gets the proper care.”

  “I can’t even get in touch with other medical centers back on Earth,” Montana grumbled. “We’ve been blacked out.”

  “Surely this emergency will be over with soon enough for me to go back Earthside,” said Claire. As chief of the personnel department, she knew Moonbase’s policy perfectly well. Pregnant women were shipped back Earthside before their pregnancies became so advanced that rocket flight was not recommended.

  “And what if it isn’t?” Montana snapped.

  “Then you’ll have to take care of her,” O’Malley said, with more than a hint of belligerence in his voice. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you?”

  “You want my considered medical advice? Abort it. Get rid of it now, to be on the safe side. There’s no telling how long this stupid blockade is going to last.”

  “We can’t!” O’Malley said.

  “You’re young enough to have a dozen babies. This one is bad timing, that’s all.”

  “I won’t,” Claire said quietly.

  “You’re both Catholic, is that it?” Montana’s voice softened slightly. “I am too. The Church won’t—”

  “We’re not going to have an abortion,” O’Malley said, his voice darkening. “And that’s final.”

  Montana huffed at him. “Well, maybe the Peacekeepers will take over the base and send us all back home.”

  TOUCHDOWN MINUS 12 HOURS 22 MINUTES

  Doug stood atop a house-sized boulder and watched the drivers park their tractors on the three unoccupied landing pads of the rocket port. The half-built Clippership that had been towed onto the fourth pad gleamed in the starlight.

  Jinny Anson, recognizable by the bright rings of butter yellow on the arms of her bulky spacesuit, stood beside him.

  “Okay,” her voice said in his helmet earphones, “we clutter up the landing pads so they can’t use ’em. But they can still put down on the crater floor just about anywhere they want to.”

  Doug nodded inside his helmet. Jinny was right. Alphonsus’ floor was flat enough for a Clippership to set down. The ground was cracked with rilles, pockmarked with small craters and strewn with rocks, but there were plenty of open spaces where a good pilot could make a landing.

  “All you’re doing is forcing ’em to set down a kilometer or so farther away from our main airlock,” Anson went on. “What good’s that going to do?”

  “Maybe none,” Doug admitted. “But I sure as hell don’t intend to let them use our landing pads.”

  He sensed Anson shrugging inside her suit.

  “Jinny, it’s just about the only chance we’ve got, other than just folding up and surrendering.”

  “That damned Quebecer wants to turn the base over to Yamagata?” Anson asked for the fortieth time.

  “That’s what he told my mother.”

  “Son of a bitch.” She pronounced each word distinctly, with feeling.

  “Come on, let’s get inside,” Doug said. “They’re finished here and I want to see how far Zimmerman and Cardenas have gotten along.”

  The nanotech lab was a series of workshops set along one of the old Moonbase tunnels. The rooms were interconnected by airtight hatches, and that entire section of corridor could be sealed off from the rest of the base, if necessary. Each workshop room and the corridor outside had powerful ultraviolet lamps running along their bare rock ceilings, capable of disabling any of the virus-sized nanomachines that might have inadvertently been released to float in the air. The floors and walls were strung with buried wires that could generate a polarizing current that would also deactivate any stray nanomachines.

  These safety systems were turned on at the end of every working day, to guarantee that no nanomachines infected the rest of the base. The containment worked. Although nanomachines were assembled constantly for tasks as diverse as ferreting oxygen atoms out of the regolith and building spacecraft structures of pure diamond out of carbon dust from asteroids, there had been no runaway “gray goo” of nanomachines devouring everything in their path, no plagues of nanobug diseases.

  Over the years Professors Cardenas and Zimmerman and their assistants had developed nanomachines for medical uses. Moonbase employees regularly received nano injections to scrub plaque from their blood vessels and to augment their natural immune systems. In a closed environment such as the underground base, nanotherapy helped to prevent epidemics that might endanger the entire population. It was a standing joke that people returned from Moonbase healthier than they arrived. No one in Moonbase even had the sniffles, except for those few who were allergic to the ubiquitous lunar dust.

  And the Cardenas/Zimmerman team was working on that.

  Or had been, until the U.N. crisis erupted.

  Doug went to Cardenas. Zimmerman would see no one; he had locked himself in his lab with orders that he could not, must not, would not be disturbed under any circumstances whatsoever.

  “It’s my fault,” Kris Cardenas told Doug. “I teased Willi that afternoon you came to us in the university studio, told him he ought to figure out how to make a person invisible.”

  “That’s what he’s working on?”

  Cardenas nodded.

  “But what help is that going to be?”

  She shrugged. “Leave him alone. While he’s pushing down that line he’ll probably come up with one or two other things that’ll be really useful.”

  Doug started to object, but Cardenas added, “It won’t do you any good to try to get him onto another track. He’ll just bluster and roar and go right back to what he wants to do.”

  “I know,” Doug admitted ruefully.

  “Let me show you what we’ve accomplished,” Cardenas said, leading Doug to the massive gray metal tubing of the high-voltage scanning probe electron microscope that stood at one end of the lab table.

  The two scientists working at the table made room for the
m. Cardenas peered at the microscope’s display screen briefly, made a small adjustment on a roller dial, then turned smiling to Doug.

  “Take a look.”

  The display screen showed a swarm of dots surrounding a flat grayish thing. The gray material was shrinking rapidly. The dots seemed to be devouring it like a pack of scavengers tearing apart a bleeding carcass.

  “We’ve revived an old idea,” Cardenas said as he watched. “Something we were working on more than twenty years ago, back Earthside.”

  Slowly, Doug backed away from the screen and looked into her brilliant blue eyes. “Gobblers,” he whispered.

  “Right. This particular set is programmed to disassemble carbon-based molecules …” Her voice trailed off as she saw the expression on Doug’s face and realized that it had been gobblers, from her own lab in San Jose, that had killed Doug’s father up on Wodjohowitcz Pass.

  “Oh!” she said, fingers flying to her lips.

  Doug fought the memory. It had happened before he’d been born. He’d been eighteen when he finally discovered that his half-brother Greg had used gobbler nanomachines to murder Paul Stavenger. That’s all in the past, Doug told himself. Greg’s been dead for seven years and it’s all over and there’s nothing you or anybody else can do to change the past.

  “It’s ail right,” he said brusquely to Cardenas. “I was just … it just caught me unaware, that’s all.”

  “I had forgotten,” Cardenas said, her voice low, trembling slightly. “Twenty-five years ago …”

  “It’s all right,” he repeated. Taking a deep breath, he tried to bury the past and concentrate on the present. “By the time the Peacekeepers land, though, the Sun will be up and the nanomachines will go into estivation, won’t they?”

  “We can program a batch to work at high temperature.”

  “What about the UV?”

  Cardenas nodded and leaned her butt on the edge of the work bench. “It’s pretty intense in sunlight, yeah. But I think we can work around it.”