by Ben Bova
Once the access tunnel was connected and pumped up with air Doug slid down the ladder in dreamy lunar slow motion, without touching his feet to its rungs, and landed softly behind the two controllers.
“Thanks, guys,” he said, despite the fact that they both happened to be women on this shift. Without waiting for them to reply, he ducked through the hatch and padded quickly in his softboots down the tunnel that led to The Pit, the receiving area.
The airlock’s inner hatch was just swinging open as he got there. Two men stepped over the hatch’s steel lip, both dressed in me olive green coveralls of the mining and manufacturing group. The next, another man, wearing the pumpkin orange of the science and exploration group, tripped over the coaming. A newcomer, Doug realized. Despite his weighted boots he stumbled and floundered, arms flailing. Doug went to him, grabbed him, straightened and steadied him.
“I’m okay,” the man said. Like most of the short-timers, he was in his twenties.
“It’s a little strange, your first time,” Doug said. “Especially after a couple days of zero-gee.”
“I’m okay,” he repeated, scowling as he pulled free of Doug’s supportive grasp.
Doug watched him walk awkwardly away, as if he were stepping on land mines. He’ll never make it here, Doug said to himself. Too uptight to accept help; probably too self-centered to give help when it’s needed.
Turning back to the hatch, he saw Bianca step carefully through, also in orange. Her round face broke into a wide grin at the sight of Doug.
“Welcome back!” Doug said, striding up to her, arms outstretched.
“Hi!” she said, shifting her travel bag so they could embrace in a welcoming hug.
Half an hour later they were in The Cave, sipping fruit punch and catching up on the months since Rhee had last been at Moonbase.
“I’m not just a grad student slave this time,” she said proudly from across the narrow table. “I’m here to do my thesis work.”
“No kidding?”
“If I don’t run into any snags, I’ll be Doctor Rhee this time next year.”
“Terrific,” said Doug.
He liked Bianca. Ever since their experience together on the first south polar expedition — which was known now as the Brennart Expedition — Doug had felt that Bianca Rhee was one of his best friends. She had come to Moonbase twice in the past six months, for a month each time. They had eaten together, joined others for parties or meals, talked endless hours about their hopes and plans for the future. Nothing more. Sometimes Doug got the feeling that Bianca might be feeling lonely at Moonbase; sometimes he thought he saw something in her eyes, in her voice, that made him feel as if she was — what? Disappointed? Sad? Uncertain?
Maybe she’s a frustrated ballerina, Doug thought, remembering her shy confession about dancing. She had never brought up the subject again, so he hadn’t asked about watching her dance.
Doug couldn’t figure it out, and didn’t feel that he wanted to probe Bianca’s psyche that deeply. Is it sex? he wondered.
But she’s older than I am and she’s got her own life back Earthside. Probably boyfriends or lovers. Maybe her family’s already picked out a husband for her. She’s never brought up the subject and it’s none of my business. We’re friends and that’s fine; no sense getting it all tangled up with sex.
Doug was not a virgin, but he was far from experienced. He had dated now and then during his year on the Caltech campus. Despite the so-called New Morality that the politicians, the media, and even the university administration constantly drummed on, several times his dates had ended in bed. He had never had to push it, he just went along with the tide. He never considered that being good-looking, athletic, easy-going — and extremely wealthy — made him attractive to young women. Doug simply did what came naturally.
At Moonbase it was the same, yet different. There was a core of some two hundred long-term Moonbase employees, plus a couple of permanent residents such as Lev Brudnoy and his mother. The long-term Lunatics tended to form solid, long-term relationships, for the most part, although there were a couple of loose cannons of both genders. Rumor had it that Brudnoy himself was quite a Romeo, or had once been.
It was among the short-timers, the men and women who visited Moonbase for a month or so at a time, that most of the action took place. Doug had enjoyed a couple of flings, nothing major, nothing more than fun and games.
“So what’s your thesis about?” he asked.
“Well, originally I was going to do it on brown dwarfs; you know, superlarge planets that’re almost real stars. With the equipment up here I’ve been able to do a real thorough search for them.”
“Have you found any?”
“I’ve got six candidates, but I’d need some ultrasensitive infrared equipment to definitely identify them as brown dwarfs. They’ve got to be radiating at the wavelengths predicted by Chartrand’s theory.”
“Sounds heavy,” said Doug.
She grinned again. Too heavy. Too big a subject My thesis advisor wouldn’t let me tackle it”
“So?”
She took a quick breath arid then said, delightedly, “So I’m going to analyze the chemical compositions of the Earth-crossing asteroids, using the observatory here at Moonbase.”
Doug was immediately interested. “Now that’s something we can use right here. One of these days we’re going to want to go out and grab an asteroid that’s rich in carbon—”
“I remember you talking about mat last time I was up here,” Rhee said. “That’s one of the reasons I picked that topic. I thought it might help you.”
“It’d be a terrific help, Bianca. When we actually start the project, you could be part of our team.”
She beamed at him.
“If we ever start it,” he added, more soberly.
“If?”
“I’m learning economics the hard way,” Doug said. “I want to get an asteroid and mine it so we can use nanomachines to build Clipperships from asteroid carbon, make them out of pure diamond.”
“Diamond?”
Nodding eagerly, Doug said, “Diamond’s got a strength-to-density ratio fifty times better than the aluminum alloys we make at the space stations.”
“And nanobugs can produce pure diamond?”
“Out of the carbon we mine from the asteroid, sure: atom by atom.”
“Wow!” Rhee said. “That’s brutal!”
“But it takes money to get started. Capital investment And Moonbase isn’t making enough profits to swing it”
“Won’t the corporation—”
Doug interrupted, “The board of directors won’t sink any risk capital into Moonbase, not with the U.N. working up an international treaty that’ll ban nanotechnology completely.”
“That would shut Moonbase down!” Rhee said, alarmed.
“Maybe,” Doug replied. “But whether it does or not, the corporation isn’t going to provide the capital we need for the asteroid project.”
Rhee stared glumly at her half-finished drink. “And I was ready to come up here full time.”
“Full time? Really?” Doug asked. “I mean, I know you’ve got family and school and everything back Earthside.”
“There aren’t that many jobs for astronomers back there,” she said. “I couldn’t even get a teaching assistant’s position this semester.”
“Well, I’m sure we could fit you in here.” Then he added, “If this flipping nanotech treaty doesn’t shut us down completely.”
“You don’t think that could happen, do you?”
Doug smiled reassuringly. “No way. We’ll keep Moonbase going and we’ll use our nanomachines no matter what laws they pass down there.” Then he added, “I hope.”
“It’s really getting sick back home, you know,” she said, suddenly glum. “The New Morality people keep passing new laws and the Supreme Court lets them get away with it. They’ve even shut down the national art museum in Washington!”
But Doug’s mind was looking outw
ard. “If only we could start the asteroid program now. If there was only some way I could get Greg to go for it.”
“I could stay here,” Bianca said. “I wouldn’t mind staying here with you indefinitely.”
“You want to become a real Lunatic?”
“Why not?”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded gravely. I’m positive.”
Again Doug caught a hint of something more going on than her words revealed. But he pushed that out of his thoughts. How can we can get the asteroid-grabbing program started right now? he asked himself.
Looking up, he saw that people were filing into The Cave, lining up at the food dispensers for their evening meals. He spotted Lev Brudnoy’s tall, gangly form meandering through the rapidly-filling tables, a tray of food in his hands and a bemused, almost puzzled look on his grizzled face.
“Mr. Brudnoy,” Doug called out, getting to his feet. “Would you care to join us?”
“Why? Are you falling apart?”
“Huh?’”
Brudnoy smiled sheepishly as he approached their table. “Forgive me. It’s an gld Groucho Marx line and it’s become something of a conditioned reflex in my silly little brain.”
Doug didn’t quite understand. “Marx? Like, with Lenin?”
With a sigh, Brudnoy said, “Please ignore my foolishness. And, yes, I would like to join you. I hate to eat alone.”
“You were an astronaut, weren’t you?” Doug asked as Brudnoy put his tray down on the table and folded his lanky frame into the chair between himself and Rhee.
“A cosmonaut,” Brudnoy corrected. “The same thing, but in Russian.”
“What do you think of the possibilities of going out and finding a carbonaceous asteroid and moving it into an orbit around the Moon?”
Brudnoy slumped back in his chair and puffed out his cheeks, then let out a long, slow whistle. “Ambitious. It would take a lot of delta vee.”
“Change in velocity,” Doug explained before Rhee could ask.
“I know that!” she hissed.
“Even for the Earth-crossing asteroids,” Brudnoy said, half musing, “you would need a tremendous expenditure of propellant to change their momentum into a lunar orbit”
“Suppose we use the asteroid’s own materials as propellant?” Doug challenged.
Brudnoy’s shaggy brows went up. “It would have oxygen, wouldn’t it.”
Rhee said, “Carbonaceous chondrites contain water.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Hydrates,” she said, “chemically linked to the rock.”
“It would take energy to get the water from the rock.”
“There’s plenty of solar energy,” Doug said. “And we can use nanomachines to do the separation.”
“I see. Once you have water, of course, you have hydrogen and oxygen for rocket propellants.”
“Right.” Doug nodded eagerly.
“Of course, the trick is not to use up all the asteroid’s valuable chemicals merely to get it into an orbit around the Moon. You want its water for us to use here, don’t you?”
“And its carbon,” said Doug.
“Carbon?” Brudnoy’s shaggy brows rose. “For life support?”
“For making spacecraft out of diamond, using nanomachines,” Doug said.
“Diamond,” Brudnoy whispered.
“Stronger, lighter, more heat-resistant,” said Doug. “And cheaper to manufacture, with nanomachines.”
Brudnoy nodded, deep in thought, his dinner tray untouched. At last he asked, “Why bring the asteroid into lunar orbit?”
“So we can mine it,” Doug said.
“You can mine it while it remains in its own orbit around the Sun. Then all you need to bring back here are the materials you really want. Why drag the entire asteroid here? It’s inefficient.”
Doug thought about it for a moment. “Yes… that could work.”
“You see, my young friend, in space distance is not so important as the amount of energy you must expend to get the job done.”
Doug nodded agreement. “And it would take much less energy to bring the raw materials we want from the asteroid to Moonbase than it would to move the whole asteroid into a lunar orbit. I see.”
“Much less energy,” said Brudnoy, smiling approvingly at Doug. “Which means much less rocket propellant.”
“Which means much less money,” said Doug.
Brudnoy patted Doug’s shoulder. “You understand it very well.”
Rhee pointed to Brudnoy’s tray. “Your dinner’s getting cold.”
Glancing down at the plastic dishes, Brudnoy said, “It’s almost criminal how the cooks take the fruits of all my hard labor and turn it into unappetizing mush.”
“Maybe we need a good chef up here,” Rhee said, grinning.
Brudnoy nodded dolefully: “We certainly need someone who can create something better than this. Look, even the salad is soggy and lifeless.”
But he stuck a fork into it anyway. “I raised these sad little leaves. They were crisp and cheerful when I handed them over to the cooks.”
Doug had never given much thought to the quality of the meals. He ate what was available.
Munching thoughtfully, Brudnoy swallowed and asked, “What will you use for a spacecraft?”
“Adapt a lunar transfer ship, I suppose,” Doug replied.
“You will need a team of engineers and technicians.”
“We already have an astronomer to pick out the most likely asteroid.” Doug jabbed a thumb in Rhee’s direction.
“Congratulations.” Brudnoy lifted his tea mug to her. “But if you don’t mind my saying so, you’re going to need more than the three of us to accomplish this task.”
“Three of us? You mean you’re willing to help us?”
“Of course.”
“Terrific!” said Doug, tremendously pleased.
They clinked their cups together.
“We’ll take one of the LTVs and have it modified for the mission,” Doug said, his insides beginning to tremble with growing excitement.
“Do you have the facilities for modifying spacecraft here?” Rhee asked.
“No, but the corporation has space stations that can do that kind of work. In Earth orbit.”
Brudnoy’s enthusiasm was muted. “Why do it at a space station?” he asked, jabbing at another piece of salad on his tray. “Why not do it here?”
“We don’t have the facilities here,” Doug said.
“We could adapt what we do have,” said Brudnoy. “We have the talent, too, if we use our people properly.”
Doug gaped at him. “Modify the LTV here,” he muttered.
“Do the entire job here at Moonbase,” Brudnoy said firmly.
“Do you think we could build the Clipperships here at Moonbase?” Doug asked.
“Why not? The nanomachines don’t care where they are.”
“That would mean turning Moonbase into a major manufacturing center.”
“Why not?” the Russian repeated, smiling patiently. “After all, I can feed you lapin a la Brudnoy now, although I shudder to think of what the cooks would do with it. Why not take the next step forward?”
“From a mining center to a manufacturing center,” Doug mused.
“A natural step in the evolution of a frontier settlement. It will allow us to expand from a town into a city.”
“Wow,” said Rhee. “This is getting awesome.”
But Doug sagged back in his chair. “We’d need a lot of additional capital investment.”
“Of course.”
Rhee sensed Doug’s sudden change of mood. “The corporation won’t put up the money?”
“Not with this nanotech treaty hanging over us. The whole scheme depends on nanotechnology.”
“But you said we’d keep on using nanotechnology regardless of the treaty.”
“If we can. We’ll have to fight Washington over it.”
“And Moscow,” said Brudnoy. “And London
and all the other world capitals. Even in Paris the couturiers must submit their fashion designs to a censorship board before they are allowed to go ahead with them.”
Doug began to wonder if Kiribati could withstand the international pressure, despite the best Greg could do.
“Could we do this without the corporation knowing about it?” Rhee asked.
Doug began to shake his head.
But Brudnoy said, “Perhaps it would be possible to “retire” one of the older transfer craft and then modify it.”
“We’d have to take people off other jobs to do it,” Doug said. “It would show up in the base’s bookkeeping.”
“There is a technique,” said Brudnoy, “known as midnight requisitioning. You must learn to be as creative in your bookkeeping as you are in your engineering.”
“Moonlight the whole project?! Rhee asked.
“Why not?” Brudnoy replied. “O perhaps we should call it Earthlighting, considering where we are.”
“Instead of capital investment from the corporation,” Doug mused, “we get people to invest their own time and talents into helping us. That’s a form of capital that doesn’t involve money.”
“Or the company’s bookkeepers,” Brudnoy added.
Doug said, “Greg would have to be in on this. We couldn’t hide it from him.”
A sly smile crept across Brudnoy’s bearded face. “Fort Apache,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing,” said Brudnoy. “I was just recalling a conversation I had with your brother when he first came up here.”
“What we’re proposing is to bring Moonbase up to the next step toward self-sufficiency,” Doug said.
“By mining an asteroid?” asked Rhee.
“If this scheme succeeds, Moonbase will have developed the means of supplying itself with carbon and nitrogen and all the other volatiles we now import from Earth,” Doug said, feeling the excitement rising in him again.
“If we succeed,” Rhee said.
“But if we can do it,” said Doug, “then it won’t matter what treaties or laws they pass Earthside. We can survive without them.”
“By mining asteroids,” Rhee repeated.