Moonwar

by Ben Bova

  Joanna scowled with the memory. “That’s right. Faure may think he’s running the U.N., but Yamagata’s running him.”

  Leaning back in the chair far enough to make it squeak, Doug said, “So we need someone who can negotiate with Faure—and with Yamagata, behind Faure.”

  “And who might that person be?” Brudnoy asked, needlessly.

  Everyone in the little group turned to Joanna.

  TOUCHDOWN PLUS 1 HOUR 45 MINUTES

  “We can’t stay out here forever.” Edith heard the Norwegian’s words in her helmet earphones. He sounded uptight, tense.

  It had been nearly a half hour since he’d sent his report Earthside. No orders had come up from Peacekeeper headquarters.

  They were standing off to one side of the open airlock hatch, in the shadow of the mountain’s glassy-smooth flank. The troopers were spread around the crater floor, silent, waiting like obedient oxen, ashamed of their panicked flight from the garage. Edith wondered if they blamed themselves for Munasinghe’s death. Apparently the harsh sunlight bathing the crater floor actually did. stop the nanomachines from damaging their suits further.

  “If we had missile launchers with us, we could blow those inside hatches from here,” Lieutenant Hansen said, “and then run through the garage and inside the base before the nanomachines could do any real damage.”

  “But we don’t have missile launchers,” Edith said. “Do you?”

  Edith could sense the Norwegian shaking his head inside his helmet. “Well, we can’t remain out here forever. We must do something.”

  Then Edith heard Stavenger’s calm, almost pleasant voice again. “I’d like to speak to whoever’s in charge of your operation, please.”

  For some seconds no one replied. Finally, “I am Lieutenant Hansen.”

  “I want you to know,” Stavenger said, “that we regret very deeply the death of your captain.”

  Hansen replied, “That’s good of you.”

  “We seem to have an awkward situation on our hands,” Stavenger said evenly. “I suggest we try to negotiate some way to solve it.”

  “You could surrender to us,” Hansen suggested mildly.

  But Stavenger merely responded, “That isn’t negotiating, sir. That is demanding.”

  “I’m awaiting orders from Peacekeeper headquarters.”

  “I’m afraid those orders won’t reflect the actual situation here. The real question is, what can you accomplish? We don’t want you to have to retreat back Earthside with nothing at all to show for your mission.”

  “Except a dead captain,” Hansen said.

  For a long moment there was no response. Then Stavenger answered, “Yes, except for that.”

  Hansen seemed to draw himself up straighter. “What do you suggest?”

  Edith listened, fascinated, as Stavenger slowly, gently led Hansen to the possibilities of salvaging something from his captain’s failure to capture Moonbase.

  He wants to get the Peacekeepers to go on back to Earth, Edith realized, before they do any real damage to Moonbase. He’s smooth, this Stavenger guy, Edith told herself.

  For nearly an hour Stavenger talked with Lieutenant Hansen, soothingly, sanely, trying to move from confrontation to compromise.

  Then a new thought struck Edith. If Stavenger’s successful, we’ll all pack up and go back to Earth. I’ll never see the inside of Moonbase! I’ll never get to interview any of their people. All I’ll have is a story about the Peacekeepers being humiliated, and the suits upstairs might not even want to run it!

  The hell with that, she told herself. I’ve got to get inside the base. I’ve got to see this Stavenger guy and the other rebels.

  But how?

  There was only one way that she could think of. Hansen was still talking with Stavenger, the other lieutenant standing glumly by him, the rest of the troopers out on the crater floor, standing, sitting, pacing restlessly.

  Slowly, without calling attention to herself, Edith sidled away from the Peacekeeper officers, toward the lip of the open airlock hatch. It was much bigger than anything she had expected to see at Moonbase, big enough to allow two tractors through, side by side.

  They wouldn’t let me die from their nanobugs, Edith reassured herself. They didn’t want any of the troopers to get killed, after all. They’ll come and get me. If they don’t, I’ll just run back out here again.

  If I have time, she added.

  Okay, Edith asked herself. How big a risk are you willing to take for an exclusive interview with the Moonbase rebels?

  She hesitated one moment more. Hansen and Stavenger were still talking: something about Mrs. Brudnoy coming back Earthside with the Peacekeepers to negotiate face-to-face with Faure.

  Edith took a deep breath of canned air, then started to run as hard as she could in the cumbersome spacesuit across the smooth rock floor of the Moonbase garage. The floor that still teemed with deadly nanobugs.

  TOUCHDOWN PLUS 2 HOURS 6 MINUTES

  Doug tried to keep the tension out of his voice. It was weird, trying to negotiate with someone you can’t see. Why did the lieutenant decide to stay off to one side of the hatch, where our outside cameras can’t pick him up? Is there a reason for that, or is it just a fluke?

  His throat was getting dry from so much steady talking. Somebody handed him a tumbler of water and he sipped at it gratefully.

  No one had left the control center. They were still gathered around him. Doug could feel the heat of their bodies, the sweat of their anxiety.

  On the screens before him Doug saw the empty garage and a good swath of the floor of the crater, where most of the Peacekeeper troops seemed to be milling about aimlessly. We should count them, he thought as he talked with Hansen, make certain they’re all accounted for.

  “Mrs. Brudnoy is willing to accompany you back Earthside,” he was saying as he reached for the keyboard and began typing. “She’s a member of the board of directors of Masterson Corporation, and its former chairperson. She could negotiate this problem directly with the secretary-general.”

  On the screen to his right appeared his message: COUNT THE TROOPERS. MAKE SURE NONE ARE MISSING. THEY COULD BE TRYING TO FIND THE EMERGENCY AIRLOCKS.

  Hansen was saying, “I will have to communicate with my superiors. I don’t have the authority to make such a decision.”

  “Of course,” Doug said. Anything, so long as they don’t get the notion to cut the power lines from the solar farms, or damage the farms themselves.

  The mercenary watched Doug’s performance with grudging respect. He just might pull it off, he told himself. He just might get the Peacekeepers to haul ass out of here and leave us alone.

  The mercenary looked at the faces of the people gathered around Doug. Anxiety, plenty of it. But there was hope in their perspiration-sheened faces, too. And more than hope: admiration. Unadulterated admiration for this young man who was shouldering the burdens of leadership for them, and succeeding at it.

  Deep within himself, the mercenary felt a tangled skein of conflicting emotions. He admired Doug Stavenger, too. But he knew that the more successful Doug was, the closer he was moving to death. If he really does drive the Peacekeepers off, then I’ll have to kill him, like it or not.

  It was strange. For the first time in his life he approached an assassination reluctantly.

  But then he realized that it was Stavenger himself who would force the issue. Like all prey, Stavenger was moving willingly toward his final moment. The mercenary wasn’t stalking him; Stavenger was coming to him, seeking death. If the kid would just let the Peacekeepers come in and take over, I wouldn’t have to touch him, the mercenary told himself.

  But no, he’s going to outsmart the Peacekeepers and make himself a hero. A dead hero.

  “Hey, what’s that?”

  Doug caught the flicker of movement in the upper right screen and jerked his attention away from his dialogue with Lieutenant Hansen.

  A spacesuited figure was running into the garage. A kamika
ze? Doug’s heart lurched in his chest. A suicide trooper clutching explosives to blow the hatch to one of the corridors?

  “I’m Edie Elgin from Global Network News!” the figure shouted as she ran clumsily toward the hatch to corridor one. “I’m not a soldier, I’m a news reporter and you’ve got to let me in!”

  “Get out of there!” Doug yelled. “The nanobugs will eat out your suit and kill you!”

  “No!” Edith shouted back. “I’m a reporter and I want to talk with you people face-to-face!”

  She reached the hatch and skidded to a stop.

  “The nanobugs are already chewing on your boots,” Doug said. “Get back outside while you still have a chance!”

  “No! You come and let me inside the base.”

  “Flathead,” Jinny Anson growled.

  “It’s a trick,” said Joanna.

  “But she’ll die!” Brudnoy said.

  “Let her! It’s her own damned fault.”

  Doug stared at the display screen showing the spacesuited figure standing defiantly at the hatch. If she were nervous or frightened, it didn’t show. She just stood there, arms folded across her chest.

  “Jesus Christ,” someone muttered.

  Kris Cardenas leaned over Doug’s shoulder. “The bugs will work their way through her boots in a couple of minutes, Doug.”

  “You can’t let her kill herself.”

  “Why not?” Anson snapped.

  “Bad publicity,” Joanna answered.

  While they argued above his head, Doug flicked to the Peacekeepers’ suit-to-suit frequency. Hansen and several others were bellowing to the reporter to get back into the sunlight before the nanobugs killed her. She did not reply to them. Probably not even tuned in to the suit-to-suit freak, Doug thought.

  He looked up at Brudnoy. “Lev, get a team of people down to that airlock. Bring a UV lamp to deactivate the bugs.”

  Brudnoy nodded once and started off.

  Doug called after him, “Do not let any part of her suit inside the base! Understand? Her suit stays in the airlock chamber until we can make absolutely certain it’s been fully decontaminated.”

  Zimmerman lumbered off, too.

  “Where are you going, Professor?” Doug asked.

  “To meet this foolish woman, where else?”

  Doug turned back to the display screens on the console. Hansen and the others were still jabbering on their suit-to-suit frequency.

  “Lieutenant Hansen!” Doug broke in. “Lieutenant, this is Douglas Stavenger.”

  “She’s going to kill herself,” Hansen said grimly.

  “We’re going to take her inside,” Doug said. “Don’t try to take advantage of the situation.”

  “I assure you,” Hansen said, “that this insanity is entirely her own doing. I want no part of it.”

  “Fine,” said Doug. Yet in his mind’s eye he saw this as a ploy by the Peacekeeper lieutenant. Get us to open the hatch to save the life of a nutty reporter and they rush a squad of troopers to get to the hatch before we can close it again.

  “Just to be on the safe side,” Doug said, “I would appreciate it if you and your troopers began filing back toward your Clippership.”

  “You don’t trust me?” Hansen’s voice sounded surprised.

  “It’s easier to trust,” said Doug, “when I can see that you’re not going to rush that hatch.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “Then you’ll bear the responsibility for the reporter’s death.”

  That was a stretch, Doug knew. We can’t let a reporter die, he told himself. Bad enough their captain killed himself. Everybody on Earth would be turned totally against us. Reporter killed by Moonbase nanobugs. They’d nuke us and feel justified about it.

  “I will order my troopers to stand clear of your airlock,” Hansen said. “That will have to do.”

  Nodding wearily, Doug said, “Okay. I can accept that.”

  TOUCHDOWN PLUS 2 HOURS 11 MINUTES

  Lev Brudnoy tapped Gordette’s shoulder as he started out of the control center.

  “I’ll need your help,” he said to the black man.

  Gordette looked startled, but quickly recovered and followed Brudnoy as the old ex-cosmonaut hurried along the corridor toward the cross-tunnel that led to corridor one.

  Brudnoy stopped at one of the wall phones only long enough to call security and ask for an emergency team with a pair of UV lamps to meet them at airlock one.

  “Why two lamps?” Gordette asked as they started trotting down the corridor toward the airlock.

  “In case one fails,” Brudnoy said, puffing.

  “Redundancy.” Gordette understood. An astronaut’s way of thinking.

  The emergency team was not there yet when they got to the end of the corridor. Brudnoy muttered under his breath in Russian.

  “Here they come,” Gordette said, pointing up the corridor.

  With a tight glance, Brudnoy reached out his long fingers and touched the MANUAL OVERRIDE stud on the airlock control panel set into the wall.

  “Tell Doug that I am cycling the airlock manually,” he said to Gordette as he pressed the stud that opened the outer hatch.

  Gordette picked up the wall phone and spoke into it with a hushed urgency. “He’s telling her to step inside the airlock,” he said to Brudnoy.

  The emergency team came up. Its leader, a roundish dark-haired woman, was panting. “We were in the Cave with everybody else when the call came through. Hadda run all the way down to the storage lockers to find a second ultraviolet lamp. Why the hell you need two?”

  Brudnoy ignored her. “Is she inside?” he asked Gordette.

  “Yeah, you can close the outer hatch now.”

  Edith never doubted for a moment that they would let her inside. Stavenger sounded too level-headed, too organized to do something stupid.

  “We’re going to open the outer hatch,” his voice said in her helmet earphones. “Get inside quickly, because we’ll need to shut it before any of your Peacekeeper buddies can make a charge for it.”

  The hatch slid open before she could reply. She stepped into what looked like an empty telephone booth with walls of smooth blank metal, lit by a single lamp set into the metal ceiling.

  Soundlessly, the hatch slid shut again.

  Nothing happened. It was like being in a spacious metal coffin. Room enough for two; maybe three, if you really squeezed it.

  Edith heard a throbbing sound. She didn’t really hear it so much as feel it through the soles of her boots. I wonder if the nanobugs really are chewing up my boots, or is the whole thing just an elaborate trick?

  She could really hear a pump chugging away now, and the hiss of air.

  “In a minute or so the inner hatch will open,” Stavenger’s voice told her. “Don’t move. Do not step through the hatch. Understand me? Do not step through.”

  “I understand,” Edith said. He sure sounds uptight all of a sudden.

  “Good,” Stavenger said. “One or two men will come into the airlock with you and help you out of your suit. Do exactly what they tell you.”

  “Okay, sure.”

  “We’re risking the safety of this entire base and everybody in it,” Stavenger said. “If the nanobugs infesting your suit get inside we’ll all be dead.”

  Edith blinked with surprise. He really means it! He’s putting the whole base in jeopardy to save my neck.

  The hissing and chugging noises stopped, and for a long moment she stood alone and still in the metal sarcophagus.

  Then the inner door slid open and a lanky, grave-faced old man with a ratty gray beard stepped inside. Behind him was a shorter African-American, solidly built. He looked somber, too.

  “Welcome to Moonbase,” said the old man, breaking into a boyish smile. “It is my pleasant duty to help you take off your clothes.”

  TOUCHDOWN PLUS 3 HOURS 25 MINUTES

  Wilhelm Zimmerman scowled at the woman. She was pretty, in an All-American, blond, coltish way. And com pl
etely stupid.

  “You came this close to killing yourself,” he growled at Edith, holding his thumb and forefinger a bare millimeter apart.

  Sitting on the examination table, wrapped in nothing but a thin sheet, Edith nodded somberly. “I didn’t realize I’d be putting the whole base at risk.”

  “You think perhaps all this is a game?”

  “Not hardly.”

  Zimmerman locked his hands behind his back and stared at the readouts on the display screens lined above the exam table. Everything looked normal. The UV lamps had deactivated the nanomachines infesting her boots. None of them had penetrated to the inner soles. This woman was clean of nanobugs. Her boots and the rest of her spacesuit were in the nanolab, down in the old section of Moonbase. Zimmerman wanted to inspect those boots personally, to see how much damage the gobblers had done to them. He intended to play back the video of the reporter’s dash through the garage and establish a timeline to determine the rate at which the nanobugs ate through the plastic of the boots.

  “When can I get my clothes back?” Edith asked, clutching the sheet under her chin.

  Startled out of his thoughts, Zimmerman waved a pudgy hand in the air. “Now. They were not contaminated.”

  With a shy smile, she asked, “Then where are they?”

  Zimmerman scowled again. “Am I your valet? How should I know where they are?”

  Hansen had returned to the Clippership and spent a weary hour discussing the situation with his superiors. He started with his commanding officer at the Peacekeeper base in Corsica, then was bucked up to Peacekeeper headquarters in Ottawa and finally to the U.N. secretary-general, Georges Faure himself.

  Patiently he explained how Captain Munasinghe had been killed. Faure listened, a strange little smile playing about his lips.

  “The captain died in battle against the rebels, then.” Faure made it a statement, not a question.

  “He killed himself accidentally,” Hansen corrected.

  Faure’s expression hardened once he heard the lieutenant’s words. “No, no, no. He died in battle. How it happened is of little consequence. If the Moonbase rebels had not resisted, he would not have been killed.”