Moonwar

by Ben Bova

  “Nanomachines could make me slim!” he gasped. “I could eat whatever I like and still become thin!”

  Joanna leaned back in the stiff metal chair, thinking that she had won the man over.

  But his laughter died away. “All this may be very true, but suppose you are carrying nanomachines that are harmful?”

  “Harmful?”

  Leaning his heavy forearms on his desk, the doctor said, “You are assuming that the specialists who treated you with nanomachines are benign people. Suppose they are not? Suppose they put into you nanomachines that can…” He fished for an appropriate subject.

  “Gobble up plastics?” Brudnoy suggested.

  Joanna scowled at her husband.

  “Destroy plastics,” the doctor agreed. “Or invade computers and eat up their memory drives. Or destroy red blood cells in humans. Or attack the human immune system. Or—”

  “Aren’t you being melodramatic?” Joanna said, almost sneering at the man.

  “This is what we fear,” said the doctor. “You may think it is not important, but we cannot take such a risk.”

  “I told you before,” Brudnoy said, “we are not Trojan horses. Nor Frankenstein monsters.”

  “How do you know?” the doctor shot back. “You may have been infected without your knowledge.”

  “Nonsense!” Joanna spat.

  “That is a risk we will not take,” the doctor repeated firmly.

  “Do you honestly believe anyone at Moonbase would inject us with nanobugs that would be dangerous to Earth? Why would they do something like that? What possible reason could there be?”

  The doctor folded his hands over his middle again. “Mrs. Brudnoy, the chances of such an event are minuscule, I admit. But the consequences of such an event—no matter how unlikely it may be—would be catastrophic.”

  Joanna looked at Brudnoy, who shrugged helplessly.

  “Those are my orders,” the doctor said. “You are to be held here until the results of your blood tests come in.”

  “Where are the tests being done?” Joanna asked.

  “There are very few facilities with the necessary equipment and personnel who are capable of performing such tests.”

  “Of course,” said Brudnoy. “You’ve closed all the nanotechnology facilities.”

  “Where are the tests being done?” Joanna insisted.

  “It is very difficult to analyze blood samples for nanomachines.”

  “Where?”

  The doctor hesitated, then said, “At the University of Tokyo.”

  “At a lab funded by Yamagata Corporation, I imagine,” Brudnoy said.

  Joanna was too furious to speak.

  DAY SEVEN

  “This is Edie Elgin, speaking to you from Moonbase.”

  Edith smiled into the minicam being held by one of the technicians from the defunct Lunar University. Doug Stavenger stood beside the camerawoman, smiling encouragement to Edith.

  She looked bright and beautiful in a close-fitting sheath of cardinal red. Doug had appropriated his mother’s wardrobe, the most extensive in Moonbase, hoping that she would understand and not be too angry when she found out. Edith had to do some fast alterations, and now she prayed that the dress would hold together without popping one of her hastily-sewn seams.

  “Behind me you can see Moonbase’s extensive farm,” she went on, thinking that maybe a popped seam would improve her ratings. If the shitfaced suits back in Atlanta put her report on the network at all.

  “More than five hundred acres have been carved out of the lunar rock,” she said, reading the script she and Doug Stavenger had put together. The words appeared on the flat display screen attached to the minicam just above its lens.

  “Here, deep underground, the agricultural specialists of Moonbase grow the food that feeds the two thousand, four hundred and seventy-six men and women who live at Moonbase. This corner of the farm,” she started walking toward a row of dwarf trees, “is the citrus arbor, where fresh oranges, grapefruit, lemons and limes are growing…”

  Edith described the hydroponics trays, bending down to show how the plant roots reached down not into soil but into liquid nutrients that were carefully matched to each plant’s needs. She walked down one of the long rows, pointing out soybeans, legumes, grains and leafy vegetables.

  “Over in that enclosed area,” she pointed, “biologists are experimenting with growing plants in an atmosphere that is higher in carbon dioxide than normal. The scientists need to wear breathing masks to work in there.”

  Edith explained the full-spectrum lighting strips that ran along the farm’s high ceiling. “This artificial sunlight is on twenty-four hours a day. Moonbase’s farm never knows night, and its crop yield is more than five times the yield from a similar acreage on Earth.”

  She showed the flower bed that Lev Brudnoy had started years ago in lunar soil. And the pens of rabbits and chickens that provided Moonbase’s meat. She did not mention the need for nitrogen, which had been imported from Earth, but now would have to be mined from asteroids orbiting near the Earth-Moon system, just as the carbon for building the diamond Clipperships was mined.

  “Before the current crisis erupted,” Edith went on, walking smoothly to an area where two large titanium tanks stood empty, with holes where piping should be attached, “this area was going to be used for an experimental aquaculture section. The idea was to use some of Moonbase’s precious water to grow fish, frogs and algae. Aquaculture can yield more protein per input of energy than even Moonbase’s advanced hydroponic farming, and the water can be recycled almost completely.”

  Her smile faded, her face grew serious. “Unfortunately, the aquaculture project has been put on hold while Moonbase’s leaders and the political leadership of the United Nations discuss independence for Moonbase.”

  The camera panned slowly across the farm’s rows of hydroponics tanks as Edith continued:

  “Moonbase can feed itself. Even though no spacecraft has been allowed to land here for a week—except for the Peacekeeper troops who attempted to seize Moonbase—the men and women of this community on the Moon are self-sufficient. The question before the world’s leaders now is: Will Moonbase’s determination to be free be allowed to flower into true independence?”

  The camera stopped on Brudnoy’s little flower bed.

  “This is Edie Elgin, at Moonbase.”

  “We’re out,” said the camerawoman, lowering the minicam and its awkward prompter screen.

  “Good work,” Doug said, reaching out to shake Edith’s hand.

  “And I didn’t mention nanomachines once, did I?” Edith said, grinning back at him.

  “You did a great job,” Doug said.

  Edith’s grin faded. “Now I’ve got to get the suits to run the damned thing.”

  Still clutching her hand, Doug started toward the airtight hatch that led out of the farm. “I’ve got an idea about that.”

  “Oh?”

  “You talk to Atlanta, I’m going to talk to Kiribati.”

  Tamara Bonai was on the rooftop of the Tarawa Kiribati Hotel and Casino when Doug’s call came through. As chairwoman of the board of the Kiribati Corporation, her responsibilities to her people were many and weighty. She knew that the Americans and Europeans regarded her people as childish islanders and regarded her as little more than a figurehead, an attractive front for the real power behind the corporation: Masterson Aerospace and its board chairman, Ibrahim al-Rashid.

  Until the Moonbase crisis rose up like a sudden typhoon, Bonai had been content to be regarded as a figurehead. Kiribati Corporation was making good profits from its ownership of Moonbase, where the diamond Clipperships were manufactured for sale all over the world, and from its hotels and casinos, scattered across a dozen islands in the broad Pacific. A strange combination, nanomanufacturing on the Moon and resort hotels on tropical islands, but no stranger than other corporations that took their profits wherever they could find them.

  Her father had bequea
thed the corporate responsibilities to her. The old man had spent as many years as he could stand behind a desk; finally he had declared his early retirement and gone off to fish and play with his grandchildren. Tamara, the youngest of his five daughters and the only one still unmarried, inherited his desk.

  With it came gradually building pressure from the United Nations to force Kiribati to sign the nanotech treaty. Knowing that it would mean the death of Moonbase, Bonai resisted as long as she could, looking to Masterson and the other international corporations for help. They gave none. She was especially surprised, even hurt, that Rashid stayed aloof from the struggle with the U.N. There were raging arguments in the Masterson Corporation board of directors. Joanna Brudnoy fought for Moonbase’s survival. But Rashid insisted that the nanotech treaty was unavoidable; sooner or later they would have to obey it.

  Now Moonbase had defied Faure and the Peacekeepers. They had declared their independence, a move that Bonai supported with all her heart.

  Is it because of Doug that I want Moonbase to win? she asked herself. She had never seen Douglas Stavenger in the flesh; they had never been closer than the Moon’s distance since they’d first met. Their only contact had been through videophones or virtual reality links. Yet she felt that Doug was important to her; she could fall in love with him someday.

  She sat at a table near the railing that edged the roof and looked out at the sparkling ocean and the surf breaking on the reef beyond the island’s white sand beach. One of the hotel’s small army of assistant managers brought a phone to her and placed it softly on the table.

  “Mr. Stavenger is calling from Moonbase,” the young man said.

  Bonai thanked him and activated the phone with the touch of a manicured finger. Doug’s earnest, handsome face filled the tiny screen as she worked the receiver plug into her right ear.

  “Tamara, did you look at the video we beamed down to you a couple of hours ago?” Doug asked immediately.

  “Yes. The Peacekeeper officer killed himself, didn’t he?”

  She glanced out at the ocean again as she waited for his response, thinking that he never called except on business. We have no personal relationship, she told herself. It’s never even entered his mind.

  “Global News Network is having difficulty deciding whether they want to air it not,” Doug said.

  “I understand that they are leaning over backwards to support Faure,” Bonai replied, “although I don’t see what good it will do them.”

  A boy was spearfishing for octopus out in the shallows by the reef, she saw. He lunged and pulled a pulpy tangle of tentacles out of the water on the end of his spear. It writhed helplessly, no larger than his hand. He bit its head and the writhing immediately stopped. She wished she could be out there too, having fun. With Doug.

  “We’re talking to the head of the network and trying to make a case for fairness, balanced reporting and all that,” Doug said. Without waiting for her to reply, he added, “In the meantime, it occurred to me that Kiribati might broadcast the video in your hotels—maybe even bounce it off your commsats so the rest of the Pacific nations can see it.”

  She frowned slightly. “But isn’t the video the property of Global News? Wouldn’t our airing it cause copyright problems? To say nothing of the U.N.’s reaction.”

  This time she watched Doug’s face as she waited. He looked so earnest, so determined. “Yes, it probably would cause a flap. But we’ve got to show the world what really happened here!”

  “Ah,” she said, understanding.

  Doug was continuing, “We need airtime, Tamara! We need to tell the world that we’ve declared independence and we’re serious about it and we didn’t kill that Peacekeeper captain. Especially in the United States, we need to get our side of the story to the people.”

  “And this will force the issue. I see.”

  For nearly three seconds she waited. Then Doug asked, “Will you do it for us, Tamara? Will you help us?”

  “On one condition,” she replied. She enjoyed watching his face turn perplexed.

  “One condition? What is it?”

  “That after all this is over you come here to Tarawa and go fishing with me.”

  He smiled at her once he heard her words. “You’ve got a deal!” Doug said fervently.

  DAY EIGHT

  “This is intolerable!” Joanna was raging. “We’ve been kept in quarantine for three days now!”

  The image of the U.N. flunky on her phone screen seemed serenely unperturbed, as bland and inflexible as a wax dummy.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Brudnoy,” he said in an infuriatingly soft voice, “but the quarantine is for your own safety. You have no idea how strongly public opinion feels about the killing of Captain Munasinghe. If you were allowed out without our protection, it could be quite dangerous for you.”

  Joanna glanced up from the screen to her husband, stretched out on the couch across the room. Lev knows how to accept imprisonment, she thought. It must be in his Russian genes.

  But to the image in the phone screen she said, “Now look. I’m perfectly capable of arranging my own security. I could have a small army of bodyguards here in Corsica in a few hours if you’d allow me to make a phone call back to my corporate headquarters in Savannah.”

  “Aren’t you comfortable in your quarters?” the bureaucrat asked. “Our instructions were to see that you had the very best suite—”

  “The best suite in your jail!” Joanna spat.

  “Really, Mrs. Brudnoy …”

  “Your damned medical tests have shown we’re not infested with nanobugs. I don’t care what your so-called security risks are. I want to get out of here!”

  “I’m afraid—” The bureaucrat’s vapid expression suddenly changed. He blinked several times and a small knot of anxiety appeared between his brows. “One moment, please.”

  The phone screen went blank.

  Joanna wanted to scream. She looked over at her husband. “Lev, how can you just lie there?”

  “I am planning our escape,” he said, quite seriously. “All we need is a tunneling machine.”

  Before Joanna could reply the screen chimed and Georges Faure’s face appeared, scowling like a miniature thundercloud.

  The newscast from Kiribati came through while Faure was in his office discussing economic controls over international air traffic. He did not have the luxury, then, of demolishing the furniture or any other way of venting his fury.

  He dismissed his underlings and watched the newscast alone, his anger and blood pressure rising with each second. There was Captain Munasinghe, screaming uselessly at his troops as they ingloriously ran away from Moonbase’s garage. There was Munasinghe, obviously in a fit of hysteria, fumbling with a grenade and charging through the wide-open airlock. And there was Munasinghe, killed by his own grenade.

  Idiots! Faure fumed silently. Who allowed this to happen?

  He banged a chubby fist on his phone console and demanded to be put through to Edan McGrath, owner of Global News. But even before the electronics could make the connection he cancelled the call.

  It will do no good, Faure told himself. The cat has escaped the sack. Whether or not McGrath has gone back on his promise to me no longer matters. Neither of us can put the cat back inside now.

  Yet he made a mental note to work more closely with the New Morality zealots in Washington who wanted to put more limits on the news media.

  Breathing deeply in a vain attempt to calm himself, Faure put through a call to Corsica, instead of Atlanta.

  By the time Joanna Brudnoy’s surprised face appeared on his desktop phone screen, Faure had almost regained his self-composure.

  “Madame Brudnoy,” he said as pleasantly as he could manage.

  “Mr. Faure,” she snapped back. Obviously she was not happy at being detained in Corsica.

  “It has come to my attention that you wish to return to your home,” Faure said.

  Joanna cocked a brow at him. “I didn’t come b
ack to Earth to sit in a Corsican jail cell, no matter how nicely furnished it may be.”

  “I quite understand,” said Faure, “and I agree. Your detention has been a sad error on the part of certain over-anxious members of my staff. I apologize most humbly.”

  Joanna looked totally unconvinced.

  Faure went on, “I am giving orders this instant that you are to be released and provided transportation for whatever destination you wish.”

  Warily, Joanna replied, “We’ve been given to understand that we’ll need some hefty security because of public resentment over the Peacekeeper’s death.”

  Faure made himself nod reluctantly. “Alas, that may be true, Madame.”

  “If you don’t mind,” said Joanna, “I’d rather provide my own security. And my own transport, too.”

  “Of course! Whatever you wish.”

  The woman looked suspicious. Faure made himself smile at her as he thought, With a bit of luck, some fanatic will assassinate her.

  Joanna mumbled her thanks to Faure and broke the phone link. Looking up from the screen, she saw that Lev was already on his feet.

  “We’re free to leave,” she said, not quite believing it.

  Lev scratched at his beard. “Something’s changed Faure’s mind. I wonder what it was?”

  Joanna had no answer.

  “Do you think Rashid got to him, at last?”

  With an angry shake of her head, Joanna replied, “No. I think Rashid was very happy to keep us bottled up here. I think he’s going to be badly shook up when we arrive in Savannah. At least, I intend to shake the little rat as hard as I can.”

  DAY TEN

  He hasn’t been alone for more than five minutes, the mercenary grumbled to himself. I don’t mind taking him out in front of witnesses if I have to, but it’d be better to get him alone, make it look like an accident or something natural, like a heart attack.

  He almost laughed to himself. Heart attack. The kid’s twenty-five years old and healthy as a horse. It’s going to have to be an accident.