by Ben Bova
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 non-starter.”
“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 fur ball 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 UN 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 Mount 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 s
hake, 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 was 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 sling chair 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 wall screen 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 into Doug 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?”
Anson’s normally perky expression paled slightly. “Why would they do that?”
“They want to take over the base,” Brudnoy replied.
“Yeah, but they wouldn’t want to kill us! Not if we’re just sitting tight inside.”
“Blowing the main airlock wouldn’t necessarily kill us, would it?” Cardenas asked.
“No,” said Anson. “It’d just open up the garage. All the tunnels would still be sealed off—”
“Corridors,” Doug corrected.
“Whatever.”
“Still,” Brudnoy said, “if they blast out the main airlock that would surely mean that they are prepared to blow their way through any of the other airlocks and hatches in the base.”
“It would mean they’re ready to kill us,” Doug agreed.
Zimmerman, sitting alone on the couch by the door, pointed out, “If they blast open the main airlock we would have to surrender. There would be no other option.”
“Not unless we can breathe vacuum,” Anson admitted.
Doug turned to Gordette and again the man was staring at him. “What do you think, Bam? What does your military experience tell you?”
Without the slightest hesitation, Gordette replied, “The Peacekeepers are trained to accomplish their mission with as little bloodshed as possible. They won’t blow any airlocks. Not at first, anyway.”
“You mean we could sit inside and wait ’em out?” Anson asked.
Gordette shook his head.
“What would you do,” Doug asked, “if you were heading up this Peacekeeper mission?”
Getting slowly to his feet, Gordette walked to the wall map and pointed to the thin lines that represented the buried power cables that led from the solar farms into the base. “I’d cut your electrical power lines, here, here, and here.”
“The solar farms,” murmured Brudnoy.
“Without electricity this base goes down the tubes.” Gordette made a diving motion with one hand.
“We have the backup nuclear system,” Anson said.
“They know that,” Gordette replied flatly. “They’ve got as good a map of this base as you do.”
Doug said, “So they’ll cut the line from the nuke, too.”
Gordette nodded.
“Kaput,” said Zimmerman. “How long can we last without electricity? Thirty seconds, perhaps?”
“We have emergency batteries, fuel cells,” said Anson.
“So? How much time do they give us?”
“A few hours.”
“The Peacekeepers will have enough air to wait for us to surrender, no?”
“Yes.”
From his chair in front of Doug’s desk, Brudnoy looked up at Gordette with gloom in his pouchy eyes. “Is there anything we can do? Anything at all?”
Gordette seemed to think about it for a moment. “There’s a maneuver that we use in martial arts when your opponent points a gun at you.”
“What is it?”
Gordette slowly raised his arms over his head in the universal sign of surrender.
The room fell into a dismal silence. Doug looked at them; they seemed defeated already.
“What we’ve learned,” he said in as firm a voice as he could, “is that we’ve got to keep the Peacekeepers from cutting our power lines.”
“How?” Brudnoy asked.
Doug pointed toward Zimmerman. “We need something to defend those power lines.”
“Something?” Zimmerman growled. “What?”
“That’s what you’ve got to figure out, Professor. And you’ve got less than four days to do it.”
TOUCHDOWN MINUS 63 HOURS 29 MINUTES
Joanna Masterson Stavenger was not accustomed to being snubbed, not even by the world’s most powerful politicians. But Faure refused to speak to her.
At first the U.N. simply did not acknowledge her calls. The wall screen in her quarters showed nothing but electronic hash. The comm tech who was monitoring her transmission said flatly, They’re not answering.”
She reached the Masterson Corporation offices in New York and tried to pipe a call to Faure through them. After nearly twenty-four hours of delays and evasions, one of the U.N. flunkies blandly told her that the secretary-
general was unavailable.
Huffing with impatient anger, Joanna called Masterson corporate headquarters in Savannah on a direct laser link.
“I want to speak with the chairman of the board,” she told the young man whose face appeared on her wall screen.
“Mr Rashid isn’t here, Mrs Brudnoy. He’s in—”
Joanna did not wait for the sentence to end. “Find him, wherever he is. I need to talk to him immediately.”
It took almost three seconds for her words to reach Rashid’s aide and his startled expression to show on her screen.
“Get him!” she snapped.
Nearly half an hour later, Ibrahim al-Rashid’s face finally appeared on the wall screen. He had been handsome once, but now his romantic good looks were sinking into softness. His closely-clipped beard was streaked with gray, as was his tightly-curled hair. He had a look of decadence about him, Joanna thought. She knew that Rashid did not drink; he was a faithful Moslem in that regard. But there were drugs. And women, many of them. And the responsibilities that came inescapably with great power.
“Greetings and felicitations, most illustrious one,” he said, his voice reedy but melodious. “How are you enjoying your visit to the Moon?”
“I need to talk to Faure,” Joanna said, unwilling to engage in the usual banter.
Three seconds later Rashid’s brows rose slightly. “I very much doubt that the secretary-general would be willing to speak with you at this point in time.”
“Make it happen, Omar,” Joanna snapped.
If her use of his old nickname upset him, Rashid showed no trace of it. He merely smiled patiently and replied, “And how do I do that, Joanna? Rub a magic lamp?”
Holding on to her swooping temper, Joanna replied, “You get that little Quebecer on the phone and tell him that I’m going to announce to the news media that he has no intention of shutting down Moonbase. He’s going to continue using our nanomachines for his own profit!”
Rashid seemed more sobered than surprised when her words reached him.