Moonwar

by Ben Bova

“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Joanna said.

  “But it will,” Doug added, realizing the truth of it as he spoke the words. “We’ve won the opening skirmish, but this war won’t be over for a long time.”

  TOUCHDOWN PLUS 12 HOURS 52 MINUTES

  Jack Killifer stood in the open hatch to the cockpit, trying not to sound as if he were pleading with the two pilots.

  “You gotta let me ride up here with you,” he said. “On the jumpseat.”

  The copilot’s eyes were fixed on the control panel’s gauges. He and the command pilot had lifted the Clippership from its landing spot on the regolith to one of Moonbase’s rocket port pads, where the spacecraft was being refueled for the flight back to Earth.

  The command pilot looked up at Killifer. “We’re not supposed to take passengers up here. We got work to do.”

  Killifer wheedled, “Come on, guys. You’re making a high-energy burn, aren’t you? Friggin’ flight’s only gonna take nineteen hours, right?”

  “Why d’you want to ride up here, instead of in a nice comfy seat with the rest of the passengers?”

  “You’re bringing two extra people along, right? Mr. and Mrs. Brudnoy, right?”

  “That’s Lev Brudnoy, isn’t it?” asked the copilot, without taking his eyes off the control panel. “He used to be a cosmonaut back in the old days, didn’t he?”

  It was Brudnoy’s wife that bothered Killifer. Joanna. She’ll recognize me, he knew. Haven’t seen her in damned near eight years, but she’ll recognize me if she sees me. Especially if we’re locked up in this sardine can for nineteen hours. She’ll see me. She’ll remember who I am.

  “And you got the captain’s body, too,” Killifer said.

  “He goes in the cargo bay.”

  “Yeah, but you need two extra seats for the Brudnoys. Mine and the reporter’s. Makes it all come out even.”

  The pilot glanced at his copilot, then looked up again at Killifer. “Okay, I guess it’ll be all right. Just don’t chatter at us while we’re taking off.”

  “Okay!” said Killifer, a surge of gratitude gusting through him.

  “Or reentry,” said the copilot.

  “Or landing,” the pilot added.

  “Okay, okay,” Killifer laughed shakily. I can sit here for nineteen hours and never go out into the passenger compartment, he told himself. They got a relief tube here in the cockpit. I can go nineteen hours without taking a crap.

  He had never acknowledged it before, but he was deeply afraid of Joanna Brudnoy. It was irrational, but he feared her. That realization made him feel shame. And a burning, relentless hate.

  The mercenary lay slouched in his bunk and watched his wallscreen display of the Peacekeeper ship taking off. He was startled by the suddenness of it. One instant the big Clippership was sitting out on the floor of the crater, sunlight glinting off its curved diamond body. The next, it was gone in a puff of hot exhaust gases and blown dust and pebbles. When the dust cleared the crater floor was empty. The ship was on its way.

  Got to hand it to the kid, the mercenary thought. He faked them out and got them to turn tail. Peacekeeper troops ought to be tougher than that; letting the threat of nanobugs panic them.

  He lifted his feet off the floor and wormed off his softboots, then swung his legs onto the bunk. Get some rest, he told himself. The next few days are going to be tough.

  He considered his options. There was no way out of it: Doug Stavenger was going to die. The only questions were when and how. Can I do it without getting caught? Maybe make it look like an accident. Or will it be more effective if they all know that he’s been assassinated?

  Even if they catch me at it, about all they’ll do is ship me back Earthside. Or will they? That Jinny Anson’s a pretty feisty broad. Would she have guts enough to execute me? Yeah, maybe so, if she’s pissed enough at my killing Stavenger.

  Maybe I ought to get her first, he thought. But then he shook his head. No way. Knock off Stavenger first. He’s the key, especially with his mother back Earthside. Knock him off, and then afterward get Anson and anybody else you can reach.

  So they kill me, he told himself. I’ve been running toward death all my life. I’ll take a lot of them with me.

  PART II

  SIEGE

  These are the times that try men’s souls…

  Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered…

  —THOMAS PAINE

  DAY FIVE

  It was hot, unbearably hot. Georges Faure hated to wear black, but for this occasion it was necessary. The steaming tropical heat was boiling the vast crowd standing in the sunshine like patient cattle, yet inside his suit of mourning Faure felt comfortable, almost cool. He wore an astronaut’s undergarment, threaded with plastic capillaries that circulated cooling water over his body.

  As he sat on the dais listening to the interminable eulogies, Faure’s only worry was that perspiration was beginning to gather on his forehead. The Sri Lankan government had put up an awning of colorful silk to shade the VIPs from the blazing sun, of course, yet even with the cooling undergarment, the broiling heat was making his unprotected head perspire.

  As surreptitiously as possible, he mopped his sweating brow, hoping he would not look like a sodden mess when he got up to speak.

  He kept his face an impassive mask, although he could feel rivulets of sweat running down his cheeks. It will appear ridiculous if I drip perspiration from my nose while I am speaking, he told himself. Again he pulled out his capacious handkerchief and wiped his face.

  At last he heard the Sri Lankan prime minister say, “I present to you the secretary-general of the United Nations, Monsieur Georges Faure.”

  As he walked slowly to the teak podium, carefully hiding his limp as much as possible, Faure realized that it was the rebels at Moonbase who had inflicted this indignity on him. If not for them, he would be comfortably ensconced in his air-conditioned office in New York instead of attending the funeral services of an obscure Peacekeeper captain who was so inept that he killed himself with his own grenade.

  He focused his mind on the hateful Moonbase renegades even as his eyes looked out on a sea of dark, solemn-eyed faces. The Sri Lankan government had made a media extravaganza of Captain Munasinghe’s funeral. After decades of civil war, they desperately needed a hero, a martyr, whom every citizen could admire. Jagath Munasinghe, at best a mediocre officer in life, was being built into an international hero in death.

  Thousands of solemn faces stared up at Faure. He kept his own face blank, suppressing the smile that wanted to break out at the thought of having the world’s media focused on him. By his express order, this funeral service was being beamed to Moonbase, too.

  Leaning on the teak podium, he began, “The cause of peace has seen many heroes, many men and women who have given their lives. Captain Jagath Munasinghe has joined their illustrious ranks …”

  Before long, Faure was virtually snarling, “And why has this brilliant young officer met such an untimely death? Because a handful of renegades at Moonbase refuse to accept international law. Scientists and corporation billionaires want to live beyond the law in their secret base on the Moon. Captain Munasinghe was killed trying to enforce the law which they resist. They killed him.”

  Doug watched Faure’s performance from the bunk in his quarters, where his digital clock read 6:28 AM. Even before Faure had completed his diatribe, Doug pressed the keypad at his bedside that activated the phone.

  He started to ask for Jinny Anson, but heard himself say instead, “Edith Elgin, please.”

  He muted Faure’s image on the smart wall. Edith’s voice came through, but no picture.

  “This is Edith Elgin,” she said, as clearly as if she were signing off on a news report. At least I didn’t wake her up, Doug thought.

  “Doug Stavenger,” said Doug. “Are you watching the funeral services?”

  “Sure am. Faure’s working himself to a stroke, looks like.”

  “He’s blaming us for t
hat Peacekeeper’s death.”

  “What’d you expect? Munasinghe’s handed him a great public relations club and Faure’s going to beat you with it as hard as he can.”

  Feeling frustrated that he couldn’t see her, Doug asked, “Well, what can we do about it?”

  Edith immediately replied, “I’ve got the whole thing on a pair of chips.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve checked both my cameras. They show what really happened.”

  Doug’s surge of hope dampened quickly. “But the media have been ignoring us. Would they play your chips?”

  Edith laughed. “Does a chimp eat bananas?”

  “No, really,” he said, “the media all seem to be on Faure’s side.”

  Her voice grew more serious. “I’ll take care of that.”

  “Can you?”

  “If I can’t, nobody can.”

  Despite himself, Doug had to smile at her self-confidence. Or was it just plain ego?

  “Are you really a billionaire?” Edith asked.

  “Me?”

  “Faure said you’re a billionaire. Is that true?”

  With a puzzled blink, Doug replied, “I don’t know. Maybe. I guess my mother is, certainly.”

  “Say, have you heard anything from her? Your mother, I mean?”

  “No.”

  “Doesn’t that worry you?”

  Doug leaned back against his pillows. Suddenly he felt very tired of it all. “You know,” he said to Edith, “I haven’t even had the time to worry about her. But now that you mention it, yeah, I had thought she would’ve called by now.”

  For several heartbeats Edith did not reply. Then she said, her voice low, “I’m sorry I brought it up, Doug. You’ve got enough on your shoulders without me adding to it.”

  He felt himself smiling at her. “That’s okay. I guess if you hang out with reporters you’ve got to expect troubles.”

  She laughed. “That’s it. Blame the media.”

  DAY SIX

  Edith was surprised at how difficult it was to make contact with her boss at Global News in Atlanta. She had beamed the contents of her camera chips to headquarters, then spent the whole day trying to get through to the programming department to make certain they had received it okay.

  Now it was past midnight, and still the smart wall display read: YOUR CALL HAS NOT BEEN ACCEPTED.

  “Shee-it,” she muttered in her childhood Texas accent, sitting tensely on the spindly desk chair in the one-room apartment the Moonbase people had given her.

  Doug had told her that the commsats were blacked out, but Global should be able to take a message directed straight at their rooftop antennas. Yet her call did not go through.

  “Did they take my broadcast chip?” she asked herself, wondering for the first time if Global would accept anything she sent from Moonbase.

  She sank back in her chair, thinking hard. It was well past midnight at Moonbase. A few stabs at the keyboard on her desk brought up the information that it was 7:23 PM in Atlanta.

  Manny’ll be home, knocking back his first cocktail of the evening, she thought. Good!

  But how to get him, if neither the commsats nor Global’s private antennas were taking calls from the Moon?

  She hated to call Doug and admit she couldn’t get through on her own, especially since the guy was probably asleep at this time of night. Yet she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  Doug’s face popped up on her smart wall immediately. He was wide awake, still dressed, at his desk.

  He listened to her problem, then showed her how to route calls through Kiribati. Edith thanked him, keeping her face serious, strictly business. Yet she found herself feeling glad that he wasn’t in bed with someone else.

  It took a few minutes more, but the wait was worth it once she saw Manny’s look of shock when he recognized who was calling him.

  “Edie! You’re in Kiribati?”

  “No, I’m still at Moonbase. How come y’all aren’t taking calls from here?”

  In the three seconds it took for his reply to reach her, Manny’s surprised expression knitted into a frown.

  “That’s not my doing, kiddo. If it were up to me I’d keep a special link open to you twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Well, put your drink down and get on it, then,” Edith said sternly.

  “We’re getting everything you send,” he said, looking worried, guilty. “We’re just not allowed to acknowledge receiving your transmissions.”

  “Not allowed? By who?”

  For three seconds she waited, and got, “Whom.”

  “Don’t smart-ass me, Manny. Who’s not allowing what?”

  Manny took a long pull from the old-fashioned glass he was holding before replying. “Orders from the very top,” he said.

  “McGrath himself?”

  “That’s right. He wants us to cooperate in every way we can with the U.N.”

  “You mean he won’t run the stuff I sent? Eyewitness report of the Peacekeeper’s death?”

  Manny shrugged. “I’m trying to get it past the suits upstairs, Edith. Honest I am.”

  “Honestly,” she muttered.

  “Honestly,” he said, three seconds later.

  “This is a weird situation,” Edith said.

  “Tell me about it.”

  For more than twenty-four tense hours, Joanna feared that the Peacekeepers were going to keep her and Lev in Corsica. When their Clippership landed at the Peacekeeper base, the two of them were shuffled through several layers of bureaucracy, including the most thorough medical examinations they had undergone in years.

  “You will need a few days to adjust to terrestrial gravity,” the chief doctor told her and her husband, from behind his metal desk.

  In truth, Joanna did feel the sullen weight of Earth more than she had expected. She had spent more time on the Moon than on Earth for a quarter-century now, but she always exercised every day while in Moonbase and never considered her returns to Earth as health-threatening.

  “I’ll be fully adjusted in another few hours,” Joanna said. She glanced at Lev, who seemed blithely unaffected by the six-fold increase in gravity.

  The doctor shook his head good-naturedly. “No, I am afraid it will take several days, at least.”

  He was a smiling, plump, golden-skinned Chinese with many chins and rolls of fat showing at the open-necked collar of his short-sleeved Peacekeeper tunic. Joanna thought he might have been the model for statues of the happy Buddha that she had seen in gift shops. He spoke with a cultivated British accent, which sounded very strange coming from his round, almond-eyed Chinese face.

  Joanna smiled back at him coldly. “Doctor, have you found anything in the examinations your people have given us to indicate a health problem?”

  “No,” he said, drawing the word out. “But still the effects of increased gravity must be taken into account.”

  Sweetening her smile, Joanna asked, “You’re waiting for the results of our blood tests, aren’t you? You’re stalling for time until you learn whether or not there are nanomachines in our bloodstreams.”

  The doctor’s fat-enfolded eyes widened for just a heartbeat. Then he folded his hands across his ample belly and admitted, “Just so. We must be extremely careful about allowing nanomachines into the terrestrial environment.”

  Satisfied, Joanna replied, “We’re not harboring nanomachines.”

  “We are not Trojan horses,” Brudnoy chipped in.

  “But you have both undergone nanotherapy on the Moon, haven’t you?” the doctor asked.

  “No,” Brudnoy replied simply. “I’ve never had to, although I admit as I get older the temptation grows stronger.”

  “It does?”

  Scratching at his beard, the Russian explained, “Each morning brings a new ache. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be. My prostate is growing.”

  “That is natural,” said the doctor.

  “Yes, but my nanotech friends tell me that they could bring my
eyesight back to twenty-twenty and shrink my prostate back to normal and strengthen my poor old muscles, with nanomachines.”

  Joanna looked at her husband with new eyes. Lev had never complained; she had never had an inkling that he felt his years. In bed he was as vigorous as men half his age. But if he feels old and creaky on the Moon, he must be in agony now, here. Yet he won’t show it, not even to me.

  She reached out and grasped his hand. He looked surprised, then grinned sheepishly at her.

  The doctor was oblivious to their byplay. He said to Joanna, “But you, Mrs. Brudnoy, you have used nanomachines, haven’t you?”

  Joanna nodded easily. “Many times. For cosmetic reasons, mainly, although I’ve had them scrub plaque from my arteries more than once.”

  “You see?” the doctor said, as if she had just confessed to a crime. “We cannot take the risk of having nanomachines infect our terrestrial environment.”

  “Doctor, I’m surprised to hear such nonsense from an educated man,” Joanna said.

  “Nonsense?”

  “Of course it’s nonsense. To begin with, there are no nanomachines in me. I underwent therapy and then the machines were flushed out, quite naturally.”

  “How can you be sure—”

  “They know the number of machines they put in,” Brudnoy explained, “and they count the number that come out. It’s quite simple.”

  “But they could multiply inside the body, couldn’t they?”

  “Only if they’re programmed to do so,” said Brudnoy.

  Before the doctor could reply, Joanna went on, “Second, and more important, is that nanomachines are machines. They are not alive. They cannot mutate and change. What if there were a few nanomachines left in my bloodstream? What harm could they do, even if they got loose into your environment?”

  “That depends on what they were designed to do, I should think.”

  “Yes.” Joanna’s smile returned. “If a few got into you, for example, they might remove some of the fat you’ve accumulated.”

  For an instant she did not know how the doctor would respond. He stared at her as he digested her words. Then his round pudgy face opened into a hearty laughter.