by Ben Bova
TOUCHDOWN MINUS 113 HOURS 22 MINUTES
Doug sat alone in his quarters, staring at his blank wall screen. Declare our independence, he thought. Just like that. Tell the flatlanders down there that we no longer belong to Kiribati Corporation or any company or government on Earth. What words do I use to get that across?
His quarters were larger than his office, one of the new ‘suites’ big enough to partition into a sitting room and a separate bedroom. It even had its own bathroom.
Leaning back in his comfortable chair of yielding plastic foam, Doug asked the computer to call up the American Declaration of Independence from his history program. Jefferson’s powerful, eloquent words filled the wall screen. Doug reduced the display to a less imposing size, then spent several minutes studying it. Finally he shook his head. That was fine for 1776, he told himself, but this is nearly three hundred years later. They’d sound pretty stilted now.
Besides, he thought, everybody’d recognize the source. I’d be accused of plagiarism. That’s no way to start a new nation.
He thought back to his studies of military history. The American general who had commanded the Allied armies in Europe during World War II—what was his name? Ike something.
A few touches of his laser pointer and he had Dwight Eisenhower’s multimedia biography on the screen. He muted the sound and scrolled slowly through it, searching for the terse statement that Eisenhower had written back to Washington when the Nazis surrendered. His aides had wanted a long, flowery announcement filled with stirring phrases and fulsome praise for the various generals. Eisenhower had tossed their suggestions aside and written—ah! There it is: “The mission of this Allied force was fulfilled at 02.41 local time, May 7, 1945.”
That’s what I want, Doug said to himself. Short, strong, direct.
He cleared his throat and called to the computer, “Dictation.” Then, after a moment’s thought, he said slowly and clearly:
“Moonbase hereby declares its independence from Earth and asks for admission to the United Nations.”
He stared at the words for a long moment, then decided they said what he intended to say. Briefly he thought of running them past his mother and Lev Brudnoy, but he shook his head at the idea. They’d want to tinker with the statement, maybe hedge it or decorate it with reasons and arguments. Ear candy. I’m in command, we’ve all agreed to that and we’ve all agreed to declaring our independence. This is the message we send to Faure and the rest of Earth.
Doug called up the communications desk at the command center.
“Beam this message to U.N. headquarters in New York,” he said, “and spray it to every antenna on Earth. All the commsats, too. Send it by laser to Kiribati and to Masterson Corporation’s headquarters in Savannah.”
The chief comm tech on duty was a young man that Doug had played against in Moonbase’s annual low-gravity Olympic games. He grinned as he scanned Doug’s message.
“Right away, boss,” he said.
Doug blanked his screen and leaned back in his foam chair. Okay, it’s done. Now to see if it has any effect.
TOUCHDOWN MINUS 112 HOURS 17 MINUTES
Although Lunar University had no real campus, its heart was the plushly-equipped studio where teaching was done through electronic links to Earth and virtual reality programs.
Wilhelm Zimmerman liked his creature comforts. He demanded them. He had come to Moonbase because the ‘verdammt treaty’ had closed his university department in Basel. He had given up cigars and strudel and even beer, but he still managed to overeat, under-exercise, and drive Moonbase’s supply and maintenance staffs into frenzies with his demands for couches and padded chairs big enough to take his girth comfortably.
He still dressed in the gray, old-fashioned three-piece suits he had brought to Moonbase with him seven years earlier. He had personally designed a set of nanomachines to keep the suits in perfect repair, renewing fraying cuffs and worn spots—atom by atom. The nanomachines even kept his clothes clean.
Still, as he sat sprawled in his favorite sofa, he looked like a rumpled mess, his jacket unbuttoned and flapping loose, his vest stretched tight across his ample stomach, tie loose from shirt collar, the halo of stringy gray hair surrounding his bald pate as dishevelled as King Lear in the storm scene.
“A direct trajectory here?” he was asking Doug. “It is customary first to go to a space station, yah?”
“I think they might be worried that most of the people in the space stations are on our side,” Doug said.
Doug was sitting in one of the oversized, overpadded armchairs facing the sofa. Built by nanomachines that Zimmerman himself had programmed, the furniture looked ludicrously out of place in this vast, echoing electronics studio carved out of the lunar rock. No one else was in the studio. The lights had been turned off, except for the lamps on the end tables that flanked the sofa: slender graceful stalks of lunar aluminum; the tables were built of lightweight but sturdy honeycomb ‘sandwich’ metal, also produced by nanomachines.
Zimmerman nodded as if Doug’s answer satisfied him. “And you have notified the U.N. that we are now an independent nation?”
Nodding, Doug replied, “The U.N., and as much of the news media as we could reach.”
“Still the troopship has not turned around?” Zimmerman’s accent seemed to get thicker each year.
“Not yet.”
“And there is no reaction from the U.N. to your declaration of independence?”
“Not yet,” Doug repeated.
“So,” the professor stretched out his short arms, “now we have nothing to do except wait, yah?”
“And prepare.”
Zimmerman’s shaggy brows shot up. “Prepare for what? Either they accept our independence or the Peacekeepers come in here and close everything.”
“I don’t intend to allow them to close Moonbase,” Doug said evenly.
Zimmerman snorted. “And how do you intend to stop them? With prayer, maybe?”
“That’s why I’ve come here to you, Professor,” said Doug. “We need your help.”
“To do what? Make a magic wand for you out of nanomachines? A death ray, maybe you want?”
Doug was accustomed to the old man’s blustering. “I was thinking more along the lines of medical help,” he said. “We may need—”
“I thought I’d find you here, Willi.”
Kris Cardenas came striding out of the shadows. Despite her years on the Moon she still kept a deep tan, thanks to ultraviolet lamps. To Doug she looked like a California surfer: broad shoulders, trim build, sparkling blue eyes. She kept her sandy hair clipped short and wore a loose, comfortable jumpsuit of pastel yellow. No jewelry, no decorations of any kind. From the easy-going, no-fuss look of her, you would never suspect she was a Nobel laureate nanotech researcher.
“Our young friend here wants me to make everyone bulletproof,” Zimmerman said, grudgingly dragging his bulk to one side of the sofa so Cardenas could sit beside him. Even on the Moon, Zimmerman did not move fast.
“No,” Doug protested. “All I’m asking—”
“You think perhaps that the nanomachines you carry inside you will protect you against machine guns? They saved your life twice before, but they don’t make you a superman.”
“Willi,” said Cardenas, with a charmer’s smile, “why don’t you let Doug tell you what he wants?”
“Medical supplies,” Doug blurted before Zimmerman could say another word. “If we’re cut off from Earth for more than a couple of months we’re going to run short of medical supplies. I was wondering if nanomachines could be developed to replace or augment some of the pharmaceuticals we use.”
“How can I do that? Your own silly rules prevent me from using nanomachines anywhere inside Moonbase, except in my laboratory,” Zimmerman grumbled.
“The safety rules, yes, I know,” said Doug.
“Even my furniture I had to make in my lab and then get a crew to schlep into here.”
“We can’t take t
he chance of having nanomachines propagate inside the base.”
“Nonsense,” Zimmerman muttered. “Superstition.”
Cardenas stepped in again. “So you’re ready to bend the safety rules, Doug?”
“We’ll have to, at least a little.”
“And you need help with medical supplies, right?”
“Right.”
“Aspirin maybe?” Zimmerman grumbled suspiciously.
“More than aspirin,” said Doug.
“Specifically?”
“I don’t know, specifically. You’ll have to talk to the medical staff.”
“I will have to? These are your orders? You are the field marshal now and I am under your command?”
“That’s exactly right,” said Cardenas, still smiling sweetly. “That’s the situation we’re in, Willi, and we’ve all got to do everything we can to help.”
Zimmerman mumbled something in German.
“Otherwise,” Cardenas warned, “we’ll all be sent back to Earth—and never allowed to work on nanotechnology again.”
For a long moment the old man said nothing. Then, with an enormous groaning sigh, he nodded unhappily. It made his cheeks waddle.
“Yah,” he said at last. “I will speak with your medical staff. I might as well. There is nothing else for me to do, now that Kiribati no longer takes our transmissions.”
Lunar University’s courses had been beamed to Kiribati for distribution to students around the world. That had worked well enough for the engineering and humanities curricula. But since most nations forbade teaching nanotechnology openly, the nanotech courses had to be packaged separately and delivered in clandestine ways. Cardenas often complained that she felt as if she were dealing in pornographic videos, “shipping them out in plain brown wrappers’.
“When this is over you can start teaching again,” Doug said.
“You think we will win?” Zimmerman’s tone made it clear that he had no such illusions.
“We’ll try,” said Doug, getting to his feet.
“And we’ll do everything we can to help,” Cardenas said. “Won’t we, Willi?”
“Yah.” Without enthusiasm.
“Thanks,” Doug said. “I appreciate whatever you can do.”
He started off toward the door, threading his way through the equipment standing idle in the shadows of the unlit studio. Behind his retreating back, Cardenas leaned toward Zimmerman and whispered a suggestion to him. The old man frowned, then shrugged.
“Maybe we can make you invisible,” Zimmerman called after Doug, his voice echoing through the darkened studio.
Doug looked back over his shoulder and suppressed the urge to laugh. That’d be great,” he said, thinking that bulletproof would be a lot better.
Back in his quarters, Doug lit up his wall screen, scanning the computer’s personnel files for anyone who had military experience. It was a fruitless search. Moonbase’s employees were scientists and engineers, technicians and medical doctors, computer analysts, nurses, construction specialists, agrotechnicians, managers and administrators. They had all been hired through Masterson Corporation’s personnel office, back Earthside. The only military veterans were a handful among the astronauts who piloted the transfer spacecraft from Earth, and none of them were at Moonbase at the present time.
Faure picked his timing very carefully, Doug realized. Halfway through the first phase of building the main plaza, with dozens of extra construction workers on hand and not a single spacecraft at the rocket port. We’ve even got that dance troupe from Canada visiting; another thirty-five mouths to feed.
He sat up straight and raised his arms over his head, stretching until he felt his vertebrae pop. Well, he said to himself, at least the dancers don’t eat much. I guess.
Of all the two thousand, four hundred and seventy-seven men and women at Moonbase, only one had the slightest military experience. One of the construction technicians working on the new aquaculture tanks, a man named Leroy Gordette. His file showed that he had spent four years in the U.S. Army, enlisting when he had been seventeen, nearly ten years earlier.
His photo on the wall screen showed a serious, almost grim Afro-American with red-rimmed eyes and a military buzz cut almost down to his scalp. He looks fierce enough, Doug thought, staring at the picture.
“It’s better than nothing,” Doug muttered. “Phone,” he called.
“Call please?” asked the computer’s androgynous synthesized voice.
“Leroy Gordette,” he said to the phone system.
“No response,” said the computer a moment later. “Do you wish to search for him or leave a message?”
“Leave a message.”
“Recording.”
“Mr Gordette, this is Douglas Stavenger. Please call me as soon as you can. It’s about the military situation we’re in.”
With twenty-twenty hindsight, Doug could see that this confrontation had been inevitable from the day Faure had won his campaign to be elected secretary-general of the United Nations; he intended to enforce the nanotech treaty with every weapon at his disposal. None of the others—not even Doug’s mother—had foreseen that it would come down to military force. But Doug had studied enough history to understand that force was the ultimate tool of political leaders. He had no illusions about it, despite his assurances that this ‘war’ was not going to be a shooting match.
Faure was no military genius, but he was a tyrant. He fully intended to make the U.N. into a true global government. With himself at its head.
Moonbase stood in his way. The nanotech treaty was just an excuse. As long as Moonbase ignored the U.N.’s authority, nations on Earth could justifiably resist U.N. encroachments on their sovereignty. So Moonbase had to be brought into line. Or destroyed.
The trouble was, the more Doug studied history, the more he delved into the bloody, murderous track that led to the present day, the more he found himself reluctantly agreeing with Faure’s professed aims.
Ten billion people on Earth. And that was only the official count. There were probably a billion more, at least, that the various national censuses missed. Ten or eleven billion mouths to feed, ten or eleven billion people to house and clothe and educate. Most of them were poor, hungry, ignorant. And their numbers were growing faster than anyone could cope with. Three hundred thousand babies born every day. All the wealth in the world could barely maintain a minimum level of existence for them.
The rich refused to help the poor, of course. Not unless the poor reduced their birth rate, lowered their numbers. Starvation swept whole continents; plagues killed millions. Still the numbers grew. The poor of the world increased and multiplied and became poorer, hungrier, sicker.
Only a world government could hope to deal with the global problem of population. Only a true world government had the faintest chance of redistributing the world’s wealth more equitably. That was Faure’s proclaimed goal, his aim.
Doug agreed that the goal was worthy, vital, crucial to the survival of the human species. He also knew that it would never be achieved; not the way Faure was going about it.
The beep of his computer snapped Doug out of his ruminations. Its message light blinked at him.
“Answer,” he commanded the phone.
It was not Gordette returning his call. Doug recognized the face of one of the communications technicians, calling from the control center.
“Doug, we’re getting a transmission from L-1. Single frequency. The secretary-general of the United Nations is about to give a speech and they want us to see it.”
“Okay,” he said, sagging back tiredly in his chair. “Pipe it through. Might as well put it on the general system, so everybody can see it.”
“Will do.”
Then Doug got as better idea. “Wait. Make an announcement that anyone not on essential duty should go straight to The Cave. Put Faure on the wall screens there. I want everybody to see this.”
“Will you be going to The Cave, too?”
“
Right,” said Doug, pushing himself out of his chair.
TOUCHDOWN MINUS 112 HOURS
Georges Henri Faure felt not the slightest twinge of nervousness as he walked slowly to the podium. The General Assembly chamber was hushed, so quiet that Faure could hear his own footsteps on the marble floor, despite the fact that the chamber was completely filled. Every delegate was in his or her proper seat. The media thronged the rear and overflowed into the side aisles, cameras focused on him. The visitors’ gallery was packed.
He was a dapper little man, shaped rather like a pear but dressed so elegantly that no one noticed his figure. Nor the slight limp that marred his stride. His thinning dark hair was slicked back from his high forehead, and his face was round, pink-cheeked, almost cherubic except for his old-fashioned wire-brush moustache. On the rare occasions when his iron self-control failed and he became agitated, the points of the moustache would quiver noticeably. It sometimes made people laugh, but it was a bad mistake to laugh at Georges Faure. He neither forgot nor forgave.
His eyes were small, deep-set, dark and never still. They constantly darted here and there, watching, weighing, probing, judging. Many said, behind his back, that they were the eyes of an opportunist, a climber, a politician. Faure knew what they said of him: that he was a man consumed by ego and vaulting ambition. But no, he insisted to himself; what drove him was not personal ambition but an inner desire, a drive, a sacred mission: to save the world from itself; to bring order and stability to all of humankind; to avert the tragedy of chaos and disaster that threatened the Earth’s misguided peoples.
He reached the marble podium. The floor behind it had been raised slightly, cunningly, so that no one in the audience could see that he actually stood on a platform. Smiling down on the rows of expectant faces, he leaned his weight on his arms, to ease his aching foot. He waited a moment, feeling the warmth of the undivided attention of every delegate, the glow of the media’s cameras and recorders, the admiration of the public. The first line of his speech was on the electronic prompter; the tumbler on the podium held the Evian water he was partial to. Everything was in its place.