by Ben Bova
“What happens to all this equipment if Moonbase shuts down?” Doug asked.
“The university consortium will keep them running as long as they can, I guess,” Rhee answered. “The data gets piped back Earthside automatically, as it is. Maybe they’ll be able to send a maintenance crew up here every six months or so, keep it all going.”
“It would be a shame to lose all this,” Brudnoy muttered.
Doug nodded agreement even though they couldn’t see him do it.
It took three hours for Rhee to complete all her maintenance checks and make the necessary adjustments in the instruments. Then they climbed back into the open tractor and trundled toward Moonbase. Brudnoy and Doug got off at the rocket port and Rhee drove alone back to the main airlock and the garage inside it.
“So this is the one you want to buy,” Brudnoy said as they walked slowly to the lunar transfer vehicle sitting on one of the smoothed rock pads.
“It’s been in service for ten years,” Doug said, looking up at the ungainly spacecraft. “The corporation would sell it for about twice its scrap value, I think.”
The LTV looked rather like a pyramidal shaped skeleton. It squatted on four bent, flimsy-looking legs that supported a metal mesh platform. From the platform rose gold-foiled propellant tanks, darker odd-shaped cargo containers, pipes and plumbing with gray electronics boxes wedged in, it seemed, wherever they could-be fitted. Up at the top, some thirty feet above Doug’s head, was the empty plastiglass bubble of a passenger/crew compartment.
“Well,” Brudnoy said, sighing, “we won’t need the passenger bubble.”
“Replace it with more cargo holds,” said Doug.
“No, I think the mining equipment should go there.”
“Oh, right,” Doug agreed hastily. “I almost forgot we’ll need that.”
For nearly an hour they clambered over the aging LTV, awkward in their cumbersome surface suits. The spacecraft stood stoically on the pad, like a dignified old gutted building being inspected by skeptical prospective buyers.
“Metal fatigue,” Brudnoy muttered time and again. “This whole section must be replaced.”
Doug took notes on his hand-held computer.
Finally the Russian was satisfied. “Not as good as I wanted,” he said as he and Doug climbed back down onto the scoured ground again. “But not as bad as I feared.”
“Can we get into shape?” Doug asked.
“Of course,” Brudnoy answered. Then he added, “The question is, how much will it cost to get it into shape?”
“We’ve got some homework to do,” Doug said as they headed for the main airlock.
Once inside, and out of their suits, Doug said, “Come on down to my quarters and we’ll start figuring out the cost numbers.”
He started striding down the tunnel. Brudnoy lagged behind him.
“I could use a good night’s sleep,” the Russian said.
Doug saw that Brudnoy’s pouchy eyes had dark circles under them. He glanced at his wristwatch. It was nearly midnight.
“Oh. Okay,” Doug said as they approached the double-sized hatch of the farm. “Actually, I’ve got a few hours of studying to do; got an exam tomorrow.”
“On what subject?”
“European architecture. I’ll have to build either a classical Greco-Roman temple or a Gothic cathedral.”
“With your bare hands?” Brudnoy asked.
Grinning, Doug replied, “They’ll let me use a computer.”
“Very kind of them.”
“I’ve still got to put in a few hours at the screen, though,” said Doug.
Brudnoy stopped a moment at the farm’s entrance. The airtight hatch was closed, as usual.
“I should check on my rabbits,” he said, yawning. “The automatic feeder has been cranky lately.”
I’ll help you,” Doug offered.
“No, not now. I’m too tired. Tomorrow will be good enough.” And he started walking down the tunnel again.
Doug slowed his own pace to keep in step with the Russian.
“You never get tired, do you?” Brudnoy asked.
“I don’t feel tired, no.”
“Is it the natural buoyancy of youth, I wonder? Or do the nanomachines in you give you this preternatural endurance?”
“Preternatural?” Doug laughed.
Just as they reached the cross tunnel, two young women came around the corner. They stopped and stood uncertainly in the tunnel, both in crisp new white coveralls. Doug saw that they were wearing weighted boots. Newcomers.
“Oh!” said the taller of the two. “We’re looking for the farm.”
She was a good-looking brunette. Her companion was stockier, curly red hair clipped short, with a bosom that strained the front of her jumpsuit.
Brudnoy stroked his bearded chin. “The farm? Why should two such lovely ladies be looking for the farm at this time of night?”
“We just got off our shift,” said the brunette.
“And we heard that you keep bunny rabbits down here,” said the redhead.
Brudnoy’s weariness seemed to disappear. Before Doug’s eyes the tired old man turned into a smiling, boyish swain with large, liquid eyes that blinked at the two women longingly.
“Ah, yes, the bunny rabbits. One of them just gave birth, this very afternoon.” ,
“Really?” they squealed in unison. “Can we see them?”
“Of course,” said Brudnoy. “Right this way.”
“It’s not too late?”
“For such lovely newcomers to our humble farm, how could it be too late?” Brudnoy glanced at Doug and rolled his eyes.
“I’ve got to be going,” Doug said.
Smiling wolfishly, Brudnoy said, “Then I shall have to show the rabbits to these young ladies all by myself?”
“Well,” said Doug, “maybe I can hang around for a little bit.”
“If it’s not too much trouble,” the brunette said.
“No trouble at all,” Brudnoy answered grandly. “Just follow me.”
Doug laughed to himself as he followed Brudnoy and the two women back toward the farm and the rabbit pens. No wonder Lev likes to keep the rabbits, he said to himself. And here I thought he only had our nutritional needs in mind.
Well, Doug mused, maybe we can recruit these two for Operation Bootstrap. If nothing else.
MT. YEAGER
“Well, what do you think?” Doug asked.
He could hear his mother’s excited breathing through the suit radio. From their vantage atop Mt. Yeager they could see almost the entire floor of Alphonsus before the sharp lunar horizon cut off their view. In the other direction, Mare Nubium stretched out like an endless undulating frozen sea of rock, dotted with smaller craters and the glowing red beacon lights of the old temporary shelters.
“You were right, Doug,” Joanna said in a hushed, awed voice. “It’s breathtaking.”
She had never been out on the lunar surface before. Doug quietly insisted that she make an excursion with him; they both knew his motive was to get her alone, away from Greg, so they could talk without interruption, without eavesdropping.
Joanna had been upset and impatient during the hour they spent getting into the spacesuits and prebreathing their low-pressure mix of oxygen and nitrogen. Then Doug had requisitioned a hopper and taken his mother — who made it clear she was frightened half to death — up to the top of the tallest mountain in Alphonsus’ ringwall.
“There’s the mass driver,” Doug said, pointing at the dark line laid out across the crater floor. “And the rocket port. You can see the solar energy farms…”
But Joanna’s eyes were turned the other way. She stretched out a gloved hand toward the red beacons marching straight out toward the brutally close horizon.
“Those are the tempos, aren’t they?” she asked.
Doug nodded inside his helmet, then grasped his mother’s shoulders gently and turned her slightly to the left.
“That’s Wodjohowitcz Pass,” he
said, pointing to a rounded cleft in the ringwall. “That’s where my father died.”
He heard the breath catch in her throat.
“Would you like to see the plaque there?” Doug asked.
“No,” Joanna said, her voice husky. “I know what it says.”
“We put one like it at the top of Mt. Wasser,” he said. “For Brennart.”
“I know.”
“We really ought to put up a statue for Brennart,” Doug went on. “He deserves it.”
“Not until there are tourists to spend money to see it,” Joanna replied firmly.
Doug laughed lightly. “Right.” More seriously, he added, “Brennart and I were just getting to know each other… respect each other…”
“And you lost him.”
“We all lost him. Mom, if he were still here he’d be pushing Operation Bootstrap even harder than I am.”
“All right,” Joanna said. “Tell me what it is that you didn’t want to say in front of Greg.”
Doug went to scratch his chin, but his gloved hand bumped into his helmet, instead. “Well,” he said, only slightly startled, “I need to buy an LTV.”
“A lunar transfer vehicle? Buy one?”
“Would the corporation let us modify one of their LTVs for the asteroid mission? Would Greg?”
“No,” she said. “Of course not.”
“Then I’ll have to buy one. I’ve thought it all through a thousand times,” he said, exaggerating only a little. “I’ve worked it out with Lev Brudnoy and a couple of other people who don’t want their names used, not yet, anyway—”
“You’ve got a real conspiracy going!” Joanna said, sounding shocked.
“A cabal,” Doug answered lightly. He immediately added, “But it hasn’t done any harm to Moonbase. Or to Greg. No harm at all.”
“Really?”
Doug returned to his subject. “We need an LTV to get out to the asteroid.”
“But you’ll have to modify the spacecraft. You can’t use it as-is to make a rendezvous with an asteroid.”
“That’s right.” Doug nodded.
“And where will you make these modifications?”
“I’d like to do it right here.”
“At Moonbase?”
“Right.”
“Do you have the facilities here?”
“Not really.”
The proper personnel?”
“Sort of.”
“And how do you propose to get the facilities and people you need without your brother knowing about it?”
Doug spread his arms out wide. “That’s the tough part of it. But I figured once we actually acquired an LTV he’d have to let us go ahead and modify it.”
“Have to?” Doug could hear the amusement in his mother’s voice. “Greg would more likely fire everyone connected with your — what did you call it, cabal?”
“He wouldn’t fire anyone if you were on our side,” Doug said.
That stopped her. Joanna fell silent. The time stretched and stretched.
“I can’t be on your side,” Joanna said at last, her voice almost a whisper. “And I can’t be on Greg’s. I don’t want you two to oppose each other.”
“I know you don’t, Mom,” Doug said. “But you’re going to have to choose.”
“No!”
“You can’t avoid it,” Doug said firmly, knowing that it was going to come down to this, hating the need but fully certain that there was no other way, there’d never been any other way, she was destined to choose between the two of us since these mountains were raised up, since the beginning of time.
“It’s not just Greg or me,” Doug explained. “It’s Moonbase.
It’s the future of humanity. Either Moonbase expands and becomes self-sufficient or it dies. My father knew that. You know it! We’ve got to move beyond being a mining town and grow into a community that’s physically and economically self-sufficient. That’s what the diamond Clipperships are all about, but Greg’s too close-minded to see the entire picture, to grasp the fullness of the future.”
“And you do understand it?”
“I honestly think I do, Mom. Either Moonbase grows or it dies. And if Moonbase dies, if we close this little foothold on the frontier, humankind folds back in on itself. The whole human race will sink into poverty and despair — and the kind of mind-controlling dictatorship that the New Morality is aiming at.”
“What about Yamagata and Europeans?”
“They can’t open the frontier the way we can. They’re government-run, they’ll stay small and stick to scientific research.”
“I don’t see where—”
“Dictatorship is already on the march back Earthside, Mom. It’s already happening!” Doug insisted, pleading with her. “Now they want to shut down all nanotechnology. They’ve been censoring books and video for years. They’re taking control of the universities. Don’t you see, Mom? They’re trying to control the thought centers! Once they’ve got them under control they can take over governments. And then the corporations.”
“But even if that’s true, what’s it got to do with Moonbase?”
“We can be free of them,” Doug said. “And as long as there’s one place that’s free the rest of the human race has a chance. We can be an example of what people can accomplish when they’re free to think and build and grow.”
For a few moments Joanna was silent. Doug strained to see her face through her visor, but all he saw was the reflection of his own blank helmet.
“Those are fine words, Doug,” she said at last. “And I know you believe them—”
“You believe them, too, don’t you?”
“I don’t know.” She turned away from him, looked out across Mare Nubium again.
“My father believed it,” Doug said. “He died for it. So did Brennart.”
She stood stock-still, facing the vast Sea of Clouds and the tiny red beacons still glowing out where the old buried shelters stood.
“I need your help, Mom.”
“So does Greg.”
“Then you’ll have to choose between us.”
“No,” she whispered.
“Yes,” Doug insisted. “Him or me. My father’s dream, or…” Doug found that he couldn’t finish the sentence.
But Joanna could. “I either help you build Paul’s dream or I help his murderer. That’s what you’re saying.”
“That’s where it is, Mom.”
She turned back to face him. “Buy your damned LTV,” Joanna hissed. “Do what you have to do. I’ll try to get Greg to listen to reason.”
“Thanks.” Doug was surprised by the bitterness in her voice, and even more shocked at the resentful anger he felt welling up inside him.
I’ve won, he told himself. Why does it feel so awful?
VANCOUVER
“Isn’t this city beautiful?” Kris Cardenas asked. “I’m going to hate to leave it.”
She and Wilhelm Zimmerman were strolling along a curving path through Stanley Park’s harborside garden, dazzling with flowers: Above them the sky was a perfect blue, dotted with puffs of cumulus. In the distance the snow-capped peaks of the coastal range floated like blue-white ghosts disconnected from the ground.
“Christchurch is just as beautiful,” said Zimmerman, in his wretchedly accented English. “Almost.”
“I’ve been very happy here,” Cardenas said wistfully. “Pete’s been able to do really useful work among the poor.”
“Are you safe here?” Zimmerman asked. “There have been murders, you know.”
Cardenas laughed lightly. “Safer than Switzerland, Willi. Canadians are the least violent people on Earth, I think.”
“But Canada will sign the U.N.’s treaty,” Zimmerman said heavily.
“New Zealand’s so far away!”
Although he was not that much older than she, Zimmerman looked to passersby like Cardenas’ father or at least a paunchy elder uncle as they walked slowly along the meandering garden path. Puffing away on a foul-s
melling cigar that earned him several angry stares, the Swiss biophysicist was sloppy and grossly overweight, his suit jacket flapping in the sea breeze like a loose sail. Cardenas still looked like a California surfer, curly sandy hair and broad in the shoulders, decked in jeans and a light beige sweater.
But her bright blue eyes did not sparkle.
“How does your husband feel about New Zealand?” Zimmerman asked.
She waggled a hand in the air. “A good neurosurgeon can work wherever he goes. That’s no problem.”
“And the children?”
Cardenas smiled at him. “Grandchildren, Willi.”
“No!”
“Of course. What did you expect? My oldest will be thirty in another few months.”
Zimmerman puffed hard on his stogie. “How many grandchildren are there?”
“Two, so far. My daughter’s expecting in November. That’s why I want to stay until the end of the year.”
“Well,” said Zimmerman bravely, “Christchurch is less than an hour away from here, if-you use the rocket.”
Cardenas smiled wanly. “I know. But still…”
“Yes, I know. I understand. I will miss Basel, also. The pastries. And the good beer. More than half of my staff refuse to leave Switzerland. I can’t blame them. Some of them worry about their pensions, others have family they don’t want to leave.”
“It’s not an easy choice, Willi.”
“For you and me, it is. We go where they allow us to work. As long as New Zealand doesn’t sign the verdammt treaty—”
Her phone buzzed. Only the immediate family had access to it, so Cardenas hurriedly pulled the palm-sized instrument from her shoulder purse.
“Yes? Pete?” Zimmerman watched her face relax. She was worried about her pregnant daughter, obviously. “Joanna Stavenger?” She glanced at Zimmerman. “Why in the world would I travel to Moonbase, just to examine her son? That’s ridiculous… No, I’ll call her myself when we get home.”
Her husband said more, and Zimmerman saw Cardenas’ jaw clench. “Oh no! Oh my god.”