Moonwar gt-7

by Ben Bova

  “Probably.” If that thought perturbed Wicksen in the slightest, it didn’t show in his voice.

  He’s actually happy about this, Doug realized. He’s running an experiment that might get himself and all his people killed, but the whole project excites him. Like a hunter tracking down a lion in thick underbrush: dangerous, but what an adrenaline rush!

  Doug took his leave of the physicist, wishing he could be as fatalistic as Wicksen. As he climbed into his tractor and trundled away from the mass driver, heading back toward Moonbase, he tried to see things the way Wicksen did. Either the experiment works or we all get killed. Is that the way he really thinks? Or is it that he’s so absorbed in the experiment itself that he’s not thinking at all about the consequences.

  Doug’s first stop after getting out of his spacesuit and cleaning it was the control center. Everything looked normal in the big, dimly lit room. The quiet hum of electronics. Rows of consoles monitored by men and women staring at the screens, pin mikes at their lips and earphones clamped to their heads. A controlled intensity, with the big electronic wall displays that showed schematics of the entire base looming over all of them.

  He saw Jinny Anson bending over the shoulder of the chief communications technician.

  Walking over to her, he asked, “What’s up, Jinny?”

  She straightened up and Doug saw that her face was somber. “Lot of activity at L-1,” she said, gesturing toward the comm tech’s center screen.

  Doug saw a radar plot of the space station that hovered nearly sixty thousand kilometers above them. Several additional blips clustered around the red dot marking the station.

  “Resupply?” Doug mused.

  “Not likely,” said Anson. “Their regular resupply run took place on schedule last week. No, they’re delivering something to the station, but it’s not life support supplies or propellant.”

  Doug took in a deep breath. “The nuclear missile?”

  “Maybe more than one.”

  For a moment Doug was silent, thinking. Then he said, “I’m going to call Harry Clemens. It’s time to pop an observation satellite so we can keep an eye on Nippon One.”

  Anson nodded, then grinned ruefully. “You might not like what you see, boss.”

  Gordette was sitting in The Cave, nursing a mug of the stuff that passed for coffee at Moonbase. It was midday, and the cafeteria was filling up with the lunchtime crowd. But no one sat at Gordette’s table. No one came near it; a ring of empty tables surrounded him.

  Pariah, he said to himself. That’s the word. For days he’s been trying to recall the term. At last it came swimming up from his subconscious. Pariah. Outcast. Murderer. Assassin. That’s me and they all know it.

  It would’ve been better if Doug had let me die, Gordette told himself. He says he trusts me, but none of these others do. They all know about me now, or they think they do. And they all hate me.

  Then he saw Paula Liebowitz carrying a tray in both hands, making her way through the crowded tables, heading straight toward him. She walked with a determined stride and an odd, tenacious expression on her face, right up to Gordette’s table.

  “Do you mind if I sit here?” she asked, almost truculently.

  Gordette spread his arms to take in all the empty chairs. “Be my guest.”

  Liebowitz plopped her laden tray on the table and took the chair next to Gordette.

  “Is it true? Did you really try to kill Doug Stavenger?”

  Gordette couldn’t make out what was in her eyes. It wasn’t anger, exactly. But it wasn’t tenderness, either.

  “It’s true,” he said flatly.

  “You’re a hired assassin? A hit man?”

  He puffed out a sigh. “When I first met you I was trying to sabotage Doug’s suit.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Liebowitz said. She wasn’t calling Gordette a name, he realized; merely expressing her emotions.

  He tried to shrug. “That’s what I was sent here to do.”

  “And when you invited me to dinner, that was part of it? You were going to try to use me to help you kill Stavenger?”

  “No,” he answered slowly. “I invited you to dinner because I liked you.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “Even trained assassins need some human companionship now and then,” Gordette told her.

  “Don’t try to make a joke out of this!”

  “It’s no joke, believe me.”

  “Why should I believe anything you say?”

  “Why do you ask me, then?”

  “I liked you,” Liebowitz said. “I was even thinking about going to bed with you.”

  “Get your kicks with a black man, huh?”

  She frowned with puzzlement. “What?”

  “I’m black.”

  “And I’m a Jew. What’s that got to do with anything?”

  Gordette thought it over for a moment. “Nothing. Nothing’s got anything to do with anything.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, getting irritated with her cross-examination. “So I liked you and you liked me. So what?”

  “Stavenger’s letting you stay here? You’re still working with him?”

  Gordette nodded.

  “He trusts you? After you tried to kill him?”

  “I told him the story of my life,” Gordette said, acid in each word, “and he decided he’s gonna reform me. Start me a new life here on the Moon, where everybody loves me and trusts me.”

  “Yeah, you’ve made it so easy to be loved and accepted.”

  “The only thing I’ve made easy is being black, so you can spot me at a distance.”

  “What the hell’s this black business got to do with it?”

  “You see any other black people up here?”

  Liebowitz almost laughed at him. “My supervisor’s black. There’s dozens of Afro-Americans and blacks from other countries here.” She turned in her chair and pointed. “Look. Black people. And Asians. Hell, they even let Italians up here!”

  “Very funny.”

  “The first American astronaut on Mars was black.”

  “Big deal.”

  “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

  “Okay. Good advice. I’ll do that,” he mumbled.

  Liebowitz glared at him like a disappointed mother. “You really tried to kill him?”

  “I slit his throat. All right? Is that what you wanted to hear? My fuckin’ confession?”

  He said it loudly enough so that people at the nearest tables turned to stare at him.

  “What I want to hear,” Liebowitz said, her voice low, “is where you’re going from here.”

  “Straight to hell,” Gordette said.

  “So you’re going to isolate yourself, build a wall and not let anybody near you.”

  He pointed to the ring of empty tables around them. “You see anybody trying to make friends with me?”

  “I am,” she said.

  He blinked, uncomprehending.

  “I’m having lunch with you, aren’t I?” Liebowitz said. “Maybe you can tell me the story of your life and make me believe that you’re something more than just a hired killer.”

  Arrrrrrrrrrrgggh and no arrivals of lunar cargo carriers. The manufacturing facility had shut down for lack of raw materials. No lunar transfer vehicles needed maintenance or repair; they were all hanging silent and useless in weightless geodesic cocoons that protected them from incoming radiation and the occasional meteoroids that peppered cislunar space. The tourist hotel was still running, but its business had dropped sharply since the war against Moonbase had started.

  Jill Meyers gazed sadly through an observation port in the hotel module. She had helped to build Masterson, back in the days when she’d been a government astronaut. She was accustomed to seeing spacesuited figures bustling from module to module, jetting along in solo maneuvering units or riding the bare-bones shuttlecraft called broomsticks. But now the whole region was quiet, empty. This war
was costing Masterson Corporation millions of dollars per day, and even though the U.N. promised reparations, Meyers knew that nothing could repay time lost, careers interrupted.

  “There you are!”

  Jill turned from the circular glassteel observation port to see Edan McGrath standing in the hatch. His sizable bulk almost filled the hatchway, the lighting from the central corridor silhouetting him dramatically.

  “You finally got here,” Meyers said, taking a step toward him.

  “I’ve been looking all over this tin can for you,” he replied gruffly. “Come on, let’s eat. I haven’t had a bite since breakfast.”

  The hotel’s restaurant was nearly empty. Only two other couples sitting at the elegant tables, and a family of four off in the farthest corner, where the children wouldn’t annoy other diners. They’ve got more waiters than customers, Meyers noticed as she scanned the richly-decorated room. Windowall screens displayed astronomical scenes, glorious interstellar nebulas glowing delicate pink and electric blue. Meyers realized that real windows would have shown the scenery outside spinning lazily; not the most soothing background for flatland tourists to eat and drink by.

  McGrath had ordered champagne. They clinked their fluted glasses and toasted each other’s health. Meyers had dressed in comfortable tan slacks and a loose blouse embroidered with flowers. McGrath wore a bulky white turtleneck sweater over jeans that looked stiffly new.

  With a lopsided grin on his beefy face, McGrath asked, “Do you come here often?”

  It was a corny line and they both knew it.

  Meyers laughed politely. “I used to, in the old days.”

  “I understand you were quite a hell-raiser back then,” he said.

  Her smile turned reminiscent. “Back then,” she murmured.

  The waiter brought them oversized menus. McGrath ordered three courses and more wine, Meyers only a salad.

  “Okay,” he said, after the waiter had left, “you asked me to meet you here. What’s up?”

  Meyers looked into his pale blue eyes. “Edan, you know that if I were still in the Senate I’d be raising all kinds of hell about this war against Moonbase.”

  “I’d hardly call it a war,” he said.

  “That’s what your network calls it.”

  McGrath shrugged. “That’s show business, Jill. You know how it is.”

  “I need your help to put pressure on the President,” she said.

  His brows rose slightly. “I thought you were on her side. You’re the same party—”

  “Not on this,” Meyers snapped. “I’ve never been a blind supporter of the New Morality and she knows it. She named me to the World Court to get me out of the Senate because she knew I’d raise hell about going after Moonbase.”

  “Why don’t you raise hell now? I’d give you all the air time you want.”

  “I can’t,” Meyers said, shaking her head. “As a judge in the International Court of Justice I’ve got to stay strictly out of politics.”

  With a laugh, McGrath asked, “What you’re doing now isn’t politics?”

  “This is private, just between you and me.”

  “And Global News and the White House,” he added.

  Meyers gave him a disdainful look. “You know what I mean, Edan.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said, raising his hands in mock surrender. “But what more can I do? Global’s been airing Edie Elgin’s reports from Moonbase. Faure’s pissed as hell with me over that.”

  “You could start by showing what a ghost town this space station has become,” Meyers said. “American jobs are down the tubes because of Faure.”

  “And the New Morality’s insistence that the nanotech treaty be enforced even on the Moon.”

  “Right.”

  “You want me to take on the New Morality?”

  She hesitated, studying the expression on his face. McGrath had been handsome before he’d let himself start going to fat. He still looked pretty good. But is he strong enough? Meyers wondered.

  Carefully, she said, “I want you to show the American public—the world public, really—how much this war against Moonbase is really costing.”

  The waiter brought McGrath’s first course. Once he left, McGrath lifted his soup spoon, but instead of digging in he jabbed it in Meyers’ direction.

  “You know,” he said, “There’s nothing like a really good controversy to boost ratings.”

  Meyers grinned at him.

  MOONBASE

  “What on Earth are you doing?” Claire Rossi blurted.

  Nick O’Malley was dragging a bulky container into their one-room quarters. It looked like an oversized piece of soft-sided luggage, and it made their little compartment crowded.

  “Emergency procedure,” O’Malley said, pushing the container into the corner between the bunk and the desk. Still it took up almost half the floorspace.

  Rossi watched impatiently as her husband knelt on one knee and began to rip open the Velcro seams of the container. She leaned over his broad shoulder and looked inside.

  “A spacesuit!”

  “Right,” O’Malley said. “I’m going to show you how to get into it, in case you need to while I’m not here.”

  “Why would I—oh.”

  As he hauled the torso and leggings of the suit out and spread them on the bunk, O’Malley said, “When the attack comes we might lose air pressure. This gadget here will yowl when the pressure drops below a safe minimum.”

  He put a small gray box on the shelf carved into the stone wall above the bunk.

  “When you hear this go off, you get into the suit as fast as you can. Here, I’ll show you how.”

  “But suppose I’m in the personnel office when it happens?” she asked.

  O’Malley shook his head. “When the Peacekeepers start their attack everybody not on essential duty will go to their quarters. That’s orders from management.”

  She almost started to twit him about her personnel job being considered non-essential, but the dead serious expression on her husband’s face stopped her.

  Instead she asked, “Is everybody getting a spacesuit?”

  “Not enough to go around,” he answered, shaking his head.

  “Then why do I get special treatment?”

  He smiled bleakly at her. “Because you’re a special person. You’re married to me. And you’re pregnant.”

  “But that means somebody else will have to go without a suit.”

  His lips were a grim, pinched line. “Claire, hundreds of people here are going to go without a suit. But you’re not. Now let me show you how to put it on properly.”

  She knew better than to argue with him. He’s trying to protect me, she told herself. And the baby. But if the air pressure goes down, lots of people will die here. And how long will the suit keep me?

  Aloud, as she struggled into the clumsy leggings, she asked, “Where will you be when the shooting starts? Not operating the tractors, of course.”

  He scowled. “No. I’ve been assigned to help Professor Zimmerman, for the sake of St Ignatius.”

  “Zimmerman?”

  “I think Doug Stavenger wants me to be the old man’s bodyguard.”

  “Is the professor getting a suit?” Rossi asked as she tugged on the boots.

  “There isn’t one in the base that’d fit him.”

  “Oh dear.”

  As he knelt at her feet and helped her zip the boots and leggings together, O’Malley said, “After just half a day with the old bugger, I almost wish somebody would knock him off.”

  “That’s no way to talk, Nick.”

  “He’s impossible.”

  “He’s a genius and geniuses have their quirks.”

  O’Malley made a sour face. “You know what I’ve been doing for him all morning? Collecting dust!”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been teleoperating a tractor all damned morning, scooping up dust off the regolith for him to experiment with.”

  “That sounds crazy
.”

  “Tell me about it. He wants to build nanomachines that behave like dust particles, so he tells me he needs samples of dust to work with.”

  Rossi wormed her arms into the suit’s torso, then popped her head through the neck ring.

  “Why does he want to make nanomachines that behave like dust particles?” she asked.

  “Because he’s ’way beyond quirky, that’s why. He’s outright daft.”

  SAVANNAH

  “It’s easy duty,” said the security chief. “Four men outside, two inside. Pretty soft, really.”

  Jack Killifer sat in the stiff little plastic chair in front of the chief’s metal desk, trying hard to keep his face from showing what he was feeling inside. I’m in Joanna Brudnoy’s house! he exulted. Okay, it’s just the servants’ wing of the house, but still—here I am.

  The security chief wore a tan summerweight uniform with epaulets and shoulder patches and even a couple of medals pinned above his left breast pocket. Tin soldiers, Killifer thought.

  He himself was in a baggy shirt and Levis, the “uniform of the day,” as instructed.

  The security chief kept glancing at the array of display screens that made up one whole wall of the bare little office. They showed security camera views of the grounds around the house, the garage, the pool area, and every room inside except the master bedroom.

  “The only thing you’ve got to remember,” the chief said, swivelling his attention back and forth between the screens and Killifer, “is that she doesn’t like to see uniformed guards around the place.”

  “So we dress like gardeners,” Killifer said, putting just a hint of disdain in it.

  “Yeah. Both chauffeurs are on the team, of course, and the butler’s supposed to be a black belt. He carries a nine-millimeter, too. All the time.”

  They had issued Killifer a brand-new Browning machine pistol: fifty rounds, either semi- or full-automatic. It still smelled of packing grease.

  “But the butler only works the day shift, doesn’t he?” Killifer asked.

  The chief hiked an eyebrow. “The butler works until they both go to bed. He don’t sleep until they do.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So all you’ve got to do is patrol outside, make yourself look like a gardener, and keep an eye out for strangers.”