by Ben Bova
“It’s marked with a red circle.”
Doug held his left arm up in the light of his helmet lamp. It brushed the underside of the hopper’s platform. He squinted hard to keep his vision from blurring. Either the lamp’s running down or my eyesight’s going, he thought.
“Okay, found it.”
“Toggle the microswitch and then press the keypad for frequency three,” Anson directed patiently.
It seemed to take forever, but Doug finally got it right.
“Okay, good,” Anson said. “Data’s coming in.”
“What about Brennart?”
“Do the same for him, if you can.”
Puzzled by the if you can, Doug pushed himself closer to Brennart, found the right switch and punched frequency three on his radio keypad.
“We’ve only got another fifty seconds before the satellite drops below your horizon,” Anson said. “Killifer, get a team up to those two immediately.”
“Will do.”
“We hope to re-establish a link with you in fifteen minutes.”
“Right.”
The contact broke up into crackling static. Doug clicked off the noise. The universe went silent, except for the sound of the suit’s fans and his own breathing, it sounded ragged, labored. A wave of nausea was surging up his throat Doug fought it back. The last thing he wanted was to upchuck inside the helmet.
Panting, sweating, feeling sick and dizzy, he clicked on the suit-to-suit frequency, to check on Brennart’s breathing.
Nothing. Doug held his breath and listened hard. He could not hear anything at all from Brennart.
BASEL
Wilhelm Zimmerman rocked slowly in his desk chair. It creaked under his weight. He was a fat, bald, unkempt man in a wrinkled gray suit that looked as if he had been sleeping in it for a week.
The woman sitting in front of his desk looked distraught. She was well into her seventies, lifeless white hair hanging straight, skin wrinkled and brittle-looking, obviously her blood circulation was poor. Too bad, thought Zimmerman, she must have been something of a beauty once.
“I don’t want to die,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Neither do I,” said Zimmerman softly. “No one does. And yet…’ He shrugged elaborately.
“I’ve heard… some of my friends have told me… that it is possible to reverse the effects of aging.” She looked at him piercingly, her diamond-hard blue eyes belying the hesitancy in her voice.
Zimmerman rested his hands on his considerable paunch. She wants to live. So do I.
“Madam, what your friends have told is unkind. There are no miracles.”
“But… I thought that your work here at the university,” she said. “What is it called? Nano-something or other.”
“My research is on nanotechnology, yes,” he replied. “But procedures on human subjects is absolutely forbidden. The laws are very strict. We are not allowed to deal with human patients.”
“Oh!”
“In fact,” Zimmerman said, “for the past several years we have worked only on non-medical aspects of nanotechnology. The animal rights movement has made even animal experiments too difficult to continue.”
The elderly lady took a tissue from her tiny purse and dabbed at the corners of her eyes.
Pointing a chubby finger at the graphs on his office wall, Zimmerman said with some distaste, “As you can see, Madam, our most recent work has been on new manufacturing processes for solar panels and long-range electrical distribution lines.”
“Oh my,” said the elderly lady, “I haven’t the faintest idea of what that means.”
“For an organization called OPEC,” Zimmerman explained, frowning. “To generate electricity in the desert and send it here to Europe.”
The woman’s eyes went crafty. “But isn’t it true that you also do therapeutic work — but you’re not allowed to let people know about it?”
Zimmerman shook his head hard enough to make his cheeks waddle. “No!” he said firmly. “That would be against the law. The university would not stand for it and neither would the authorities.”
“But I was told—”
“Madam, you were misinformed. I am sorry, but do I look like the kind of man who would risk his career and his good name by breaking the law?”
Dubiously, she replied, “I suppose not.”
For another half hour she tried to get Zimmerman to admit that he could use nanotherapy to help her. When at last she gave up and left, Zimmerman called a friend from the forensic medical department who came to his office, grinning, and lifted several excellent fingerprints from the armrests of the chair on which she had sat.
It took more than a week for Zimmerman’s connections in the Swiss national police to get the information to him. The elderly woman was the mother of a bureaucrat in Berne who was in charge of monitoring all nanotherapy work in the nation.
“An agent provocateur,” Zimmerman said to himself. “Next they will close down all nanotechnology work, even research, the way they’ve done in the United States.”
He wished there was somewhere in the world where he could continue his work in peace.
MOONBASE
“It’ll take at least twelve hours to get a lobber properly loaded with the supplies they need,” Anson said over the din in the garage.
Tractors were starting up, the whining shrill of their electrical engines echoing painfully off the rock walls of the cavernous garage area. Men and women were scurrying across the polished rock floor; the big steel inner hatch of the airlock itself was groaning on its bearings as it slid shut for the twentieth time in the past two hours.
“They need help now,” Greg insisted. “My brother’s dying, for chrissake.”
Anson shook her head. “No sense killing more people by going out there half-cocked.”
“Can’t we send a medical team right now?” Greg pleaded. “I don’t care what it costs—”
Anson whirled on him. “You think I’m worried about cost?”
Greg backed a step away from her sudden fury. “What I meant was… dammit, send a medical team now. Right away! Consider that an order from the board of directors.”
“I take my orders from Ibriham Rashid, in Savannah,” Anson said, striding away from Greg.
He pushed past two technicians waving hand-held computers at each other as they argued.
Grabbing Anson by her shoulder, Greg said, “Send the medical team now. Don’t wait for the rest of the stuff they need. Do it now! I’ll take the responsibility.”
Anson glared at him. “We don’t have any medical staff to send! One doctor and a couple of part-time technicians, that’s our medical staff. They won’t be able to do anything for him down there anyway.”
“But—”
“It isn’t a matter of responsibility or cost or anything else except the fact that we don’t have the personnel we need up here. And it takes time to fuel up a rocket vehicle, goddammit to hell and back! It takes time to bring our radars and other surface, instruments back on line after the pounding they just took.”
“I know, but—”
“I can’t just wave a freakin’ magic wand and have a fully loaded and properly crewed lobber jump off to the freakin’ south pole!”
“But you can send out a lobber as soon as the goddamned equipment is back on lines can’t you?” Greg yelled back. “Get him here as soon as you can.”
Anson pulled in a deep breath and stood there in the middle of the bustle and noise, staring hard at Greg. He saw her nostrils flare angrily and thought for a moment that she was going to charge him, like an enraged bull.
Instead, her shoulders relaxed slightly and she said, just loud enough to be heard over the clanging, yelling, screeching cacophony, “Yeah, you’re right. I can.”
Before Greg realized what she had said, she added, “And I will.”
She turned abruptly and started off in a half trot, yelling over her shoulder, “C’m’on, we’ve got to get out to the rocket port and l
ight some flares under some butts.”
As soon as she heard Doug’s voice over the satellite link, Bianca Rhee ducked out of the cramped comm compartment and raced down the shelter’s central aisle to the airlock, where the spacesuits were stored. Without bothering even to think about what size she was grabbing, she pulled on the first pair of leggings she came to and plopped down on the floor to tug on the boots.
“What d’you think you’re doing?”
Rhee looked up and saw Kilьfer standing over her, looking displeased.
“We’ve got to go up there and get them!” Rhee said, scrambling to her feet once the boots were sealed.
“You know how to run a hopper?”
“No,” she said, “but you do. Come on, hurry!”
Kilьfer grunted unhappily. “That’s my suit you’re putting on.”
“Oh!” She felt confused for a moment. “Look, there’s no time for me to get out of these and into my own. We’re about the same size. Use my suit.”
“Plumbing’s different,” Kilьfer said. But he reached for Rhee’s suit, hanging next to his.
“We won’t be out long enough for that to matter,” Rhee said. Then she added, “Will we?”
Kilьfer almost laughed.
Is he dead? Doug wondered. Brennart didn’t seem to be breathing and all Doug’s prodding and poking hadn’t awakened the astronaut.
Maybe it’s just a coma, Doug told himself. The radiation hasn’t killed me, why should it kill him?
But he had to admit that he felt very sick. His head was spinning and waves of nausea made him feel weak and feverish. The bleeding in his mouth seemed to have stopped, though. Maybe I just bit my lip or something, he tried to reassure himself.
Doug didn’t realize he had drifted into sleep until a sudden voice jerked him awake.
“Brennart! Stavenger! We’re here!”
Someone was rolling the canister of nanomachines out of the way.
“Under here,” Doug called weakly. “We’re underneath the hopper.”
Someone pulled him by the arms. “Careful,” he heard. “Don’t rip his suit.” Bianca’s voice? Doug couldn’t be sure.
“Brennart,” Doug mumbled. “Get him. He needs help.”
“Like you don’t”
Doug felt himself carried a short distance and then laid down on his side. He fought back the nausea that burned up into his throat. Don’t vomit, he commanded himself. Not inside the helmet. “Strap him down, I’ll go get Brennart.”
“Can you carry him by yourself?”
“If I need help I’ll holler.”
“Vidcam,” Doug said weakly. “Make certain the vidcam’s in my pocket.”
“Don’t worry about that now.” Definitely Bianca’s voice, he thought.
“No, it’s important Our legal claim. Got to have it. Otherwise Yamagata…’ He had to pause for breath.
“It’s okay,” Bianca said. “The vidcam’s there in your thigh pouch.”
“You take it,” Doug gasped. “Hang onto it Take care of it.”
She pulled the vidcam out of his thigh pouch and held it up so he could see it. “I’ve got it I’ll take care of it. Now relax, Doug.”
Relax. The word seemed to echo in Doug’s mind. Relax. Relax. There’s nothing more that you can do. You’ve done everything you could. It’s up to them now. Up to them.
The sudden pressure of takeoff startled him out of his drowsiness. Doug realized he was strapped down like a patient on a surgical table. And then the long, falling emptiness as the hopper descended back to their base camp. Got to tell them about the Yamagata team, Doug thought We’ve got to rescue them. They’re hurt. Got to tell them about it.
But the falling sensation overpowered every thought in his head and Doug held himself as rigidly as possible, forcing himself not to give in to the nausea burning up into his throat The only thing he could see was the flank of the mountain, twinkling like crystal in the sunlight gleaming so brightly that it hurt his eyes and he had to squeeze them shut.
Weight returned. We’ve landed, Doug knew. Darkness all around him. He was being lifted again, moved.
“We’re down,” Bianca’s voice said tenderly. “We’ll have you in the shelter and out of your suit in a few minutes.”
“Barf bag,” Doug mumbled.
“What is it?” He sensed Bianca bending low over him, as if that would improve their suit-to-suit radio link. “What do you need?”
“Barf bags,” he repeated, raising his voice as loud as he could. “Plenty of them.”
Joanna sat tensely in the rear seat of the company jetcopter. Greg’s face on the tiny pop-up display screen built into the seat’s armrest looked tired and strained.
“He’s taken a massive radiation dose,” Greg was saying. “The data they’re transmitting from his medical sensors aren’t good.”
Greg continued speaking, but Joanna ignored his words and said, “Get him back to Moonbase as quickly as possible. I’ll get a team of specialists up there right away.”
She saw Greg stop in midsentence to hear what she was saying. “I expected as much,” he said. “Jinny Anson’s already sent off a lobber to get him. It should be landing at their base camp in half an hour or so.”
“Good,” said Joanna. “I’m coming up there, too.”
Even in the minuscule screen she could see the displeasure on Greg’s face. “There’s nothing you can do to help him.”
Nothing you can do.The words echoed in Joanna’s mind. I let this happen to Doug. The Moon killed his father and now it’s going to kill him.
Misunderstanding her silence, Greg said, “We’re doing everything possible.”
“I’m already on my way to the rocket port,” Joanna said firmly.
When her words reached him, Greg nodded wearily. “I’m not really surprised, even though I think it’s a waste of your time.”
Joanna bit back an angry retort and said instead, “Greg, if this had happened to you, I’d be on my way to Moonbase just as fast.”
His face brightened a little. But only a little.
Joanna saw the yellow message light beside the screen start to flicker.
“Greg, I’ve got to end this call,” she said. “I’ve been trying to reach Kris Cardenas all morning and she’s finally returning my calls.”
It seemed to Doug that he spent a thousand hours or more weaving between consciousness and a restless feverish sleep that brought him neither rest nor relief from the waves of pain and nausea that were washing through him.
But it couldn’t have been all that long, because when he opened his eyes he saw Bianca Rhee still bending over lьm. And she was still in her spacesuit; only the helmet i was gone.
“How’s Brennart?” Dougfcroaked. His throat was raw from i the bout of vomiting that he had surrendered to as soon as they had removed his helmet.
“He’s dead,” said Rhee.
Killifer’s face appeared beside her, unshaven, dark circles beneath the eyes. “Poor bastard strangled on his own puke while the two of you were laying under the hopper.”
“Oh no.” Doug gagged on the bile burning up into his throat again. Rhee grabbed a vomit bag and pushed it into Doug’s hand. He retched miserably.
When he lay back on the bunk again, his eyes were watery and he felt as if every molecule of strength had been drained out of him.
“Brennart must have been unconscious when it happened,” Rhee said. “Totally out of it.”
“You’re lucky to be alive,” Killifer said dourly. “You took a helluva dose out there.”
“I would have died if Brennart hadn’t rigged up a shelter for us.”
“You might still die, kid,” said Killifer. “You’re not out of the woods yet”
Doug grinned weakly. “Thanks for the news.”
Killifer walked away.
Does he blame me for Brennart’s death, Doug wondered. He turned to Bianca. “What about the Yamagata people?”
“What Yamagata people?”
Rhee shook her head. “Don’t worry about them. You’ve made the claim to the mountaintop. I’ve got your vidcam.”
“No… you don’t understand.” Doug tried to raise his head but the effort left him dizzy, exhausted. “They crashed. They’re hurt. They need help.”
Rhee’s eyes widened. “They crashed?”
“We talked to them. They need medical help.”
“Wait,” Rhee said. I’ll tell Killifer.”
She disappeared from Doug’s sight. He lay on the bunk, too weak to do anything else.
Bianca returned with Killifer, who looked more annoyed than usual.
“What’s this about the Yamagata team?”
Doug told him. Killifer eyed him suspiciously. “You sure about this? Maybe you were delirious out there and dreamed it up.”
“I’m sure,” Doug said, too weary to get angry.
“Well,” Killifer groused, “they’ve probably re-established communications with their own base. Let the Japs take care of their own; we’ve got enough on our hands.”
“No,” Doug protested. “Go get them.”
Glaring, Killifer said, “Get real, kid. Why should we help the competition?”
Trying to pull together enough strength to get a whole sentence out, Doug said, “Because… if we rescue them… it wipes out any hope Yamagata might have… of making a claim… to any part of this region.”
Killifer stared at him for a long moment.
“Do it,” Doug urged, his voice little more than a whisper. “It’ll impress… management”
“Think of it as a working vacation,” Joanna was saying to the tiny display screen.
Kris Cardenas looked distinctly unhappy.
Glancing up at her window, Joanna saw that the jetcopter was approaching the landing circle at the far end of the Savannah rocket port. A Clippership stood waiting on Pad Three, a thin wisp of white vapor wafting from the liquid oxygen hose connected to its LOX tank.
“Kris, I don’t have time for pleading with you. My son is dying from a massive radiation dose. If you tell me there’s nothing that nanotherapy can do for him, all right, I’ll have to believe you. But if there’s the slightest chance that you could help him…’ Joanna ran out of words. For the first time in years she felt on the verge of crying.