The Silent War gt-11

by Ben Bova

  He got up from the command chair. All four of his crew turned from their consoles toward him.

  “I’m going to catch some zees,” he said gruffly. “You take your normal relief, one at a time. Ms. Yamaguchi, you have the con. Wake me in five hours.”

  “Yes, sir. Five hours.”

  The captain ducked through the hatch. His quarters were immediately aft of the bridge. Five hours, he thought. I’ll make my decision after a good nap, when my mind is fresh.

  He knew what he wanted that decision to be.

  HUMPHRIES MANSION

  In his basement office, Humphries’s security chief watched the screens on the wall to one side of his desk with growing dismay. Four guys are holding off two dozen of my people. The dumb bozos are just sitting there like a bunch of petrified chipmunks. And now the back staircase is on fire. Humphries is gonna fry my ass for this.

  Angrily he punched the keyboard on his desk. “What the hell are you punks doing, waiting for hot dogs so you can have a fuckin’ barbecue?”

  He had only a voice link with his team upstairs, no video. “I got six people wounded here.”

  “You got a dozen and a half untouched! Go get the intruders!”

  “Why should we rush ’em and take more casualties? They’re not goin’ anywhere. We can wait ’em out.”

  “While the fuckin’ house burns down?” the chief yelled.

  “Then we’ll burn ’em out!”

  The chief thought it over swiftly. Humphries is sealed into his master suite. They can’t get to him. The fire’s triggered the automatic alarms. That upstairs hallway is closed off by airtight doors. Windows are already sealed. Okay. We’ll let the fire do the job.

  It was getting smoky in the upstairs hall. Leaning his back against the overturned table Fuchs peered down the hallway and saw flames licking at the carpet, spreading toward them.

  “We must get out,” Amarjagal repeated.

  The flames reached the drapes on the farthest window. They began smoldering.

  Coughing, Sanja added, “It is useless to die here, Captain.”

  Fuchs wanted to pound his fists on the floor. Humphries was a few meters away, cowering behind his protective cermet barrier. The coward! Fuchs raged. The sniveling coward. But he’s smarter than I am. He’s prepared for this attack, while I’ve led my people into a stupid assault that will gain us nothing even if we live through it. He pictured Humphries’s smirking face and felt the rage rising inside him even hotter than the flames creeping toward them.

  “THE ENTIRE HALLWAY AREA IS SEALED OFF,” the loudspeaker voice declared. “THE FIRE’S GOING TO SUCK ALL THE OXYGEN OUT OF YOUR AIR. YOU HAVE THREE CHOICES: SUFFOCATE, ROAST, OR SURRENDER.”

  Sitting cross-legged on his oversized bed, Humphries yelled at the wallscreen image of his security chief, “You’re letting them burn up the second-floor hallway? Do you have any idea of the value of the artwork on those walls? The furniture alone is worth more than your salary!”

  The security chief looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Sir, it’s the only way to get them. They’ve wounded six of my people already. No sense getting more of them hurt.” “That’s what I pay them for!” Humphries raged. “To protect me! To kill that sonofabitch Fuchs! Not to burn my house down!”

  Ferrer was sitting on an upholstered chair on the far side of the spacious room, her robe demurely pulled down below her knees.

  The security chief was saying, “You’re perfectly safe inside your suite, Mr. Humphries. The walls are concrete and your door is fireproof reinforced cermet.”

  “And my hallway’s going up in flames!”

  “They started the fire, sir, my people didn’t. And now they either surrender or the fire kills them.”

  “While your people sit on their asses.”

  Stiffly, the security chief replied, “Yessir, while my people keep the rest of the house secure and wait for the intruders to give themselves up.”

  Humphries stared at the chief’s image for a long moment, panting with frustrated rage. Then he snarled, “Don’t look for a bonus at Christmas.”

  “We’re trapped here,” Amarjagal said, still as unemotional as a wood carving.

  Fuchs saw the flames licking up the window draperies, heard them hissing, edging along the carpeting toward them. But the smoke was no worse than it had been before: annoying, but not suffocating.

  “Where’s the smoke going?” he muttered.

  “Captain, we must do something,” said Sanja, his voice tense. “We can’t stay here much longer.”

  Fuchs scrambled to his feet and took a few steps along the hall. He saw the smoke curling up from the blazing drapes and streaming across the ceiling in a thin, roiling layer. It grew noticeably thinner halfway along the hall.

  “Help me,” he called to Sanja as he grabbed a heavy chest of inlaid ebony. The two men wrestled it into the middle of the hall and Fuchs clambered up onto it.

  A ventilator, he saw, its grillwork cleverly disguised to look like an ornamental design on the ceiling. It was closed, he realized, but not completely. Some of the smoke was being sucked up through it. He pushed against it with both hands. It gave, but only slightly.

  Sanja immediately understood. He took a copper statuette from the nearest table and handed it up to Fuchs, base first. Fuchs pounded at the ventilator grill with the fury of desperation. It dented, buckled. With an animal roar he smashed at it again and the ventilator gave way with a screech of metal against metal. Immediately, the smoke slithering along the ceiling began pouring into the opening.

  “It’s big enough to crawl through!” he shouted.

  “Nodon,” said Amarjagal, on her feet now. “He’s unconscious.”

  “Carry him. Come on.”

  Fuchs hauled himself up into the ventilator shaft. It was filled with smoke and utterly dark inside. Coughing, he reached down for Nodon’s still-unconscious body. This shaft can’t be too long, he thought. We’re up near the roof. There must be an outlet nearby.

  Crawling, coughing, eyes streaming with burning tears, he dragged Nodon’s limp body through the shaft. Its metal walls felt hot to his fingers, but he slithered along, knowing that either he found his way out of the building or he would soon die.

  The security chief was peering at his display screens, straining to see what was going on in the dim shadows of the upstairs hall. The only light came from the flickering flames. The intruders were moving around, he felt sure, but it was almost impossible to make out anything definite in the smoke. Even the infrared cameras were virtually useless now. Several of the window draperies were blazing; the flames overloaded the surveillance cameras’ light sensitive photocells. All he could see was overexposed flickers of flame and inky black shadows shambling around.

  The fire’s contained to the upstairs hall, he saw, checking the other screens. Thank god for small miracles. I’ll probably have to resign after this. If Humphries doesn’t fire me outright.

  Pacing the length of the big bedroom, Humphries muttered, “I don’t like this. I don’t like being cooped up in here.” Victoria Ferrer suppressed an incipient smile. He’s really frightened, she thought. Normally, if we were locked in his bedroom together he’d peel this robe off me and pop me between the sheets.

  “I don’t like waiting,” he said, louder.

  “Think of it this way,” she suggested, not moving from the chair where she sat, “Fuchs is dying out there. When those fireproof doors open again you can go out and stand over his dead body.”

  He nodded, but it was perfunctory. The thought of victory over Fuchs obviously didn’t outweigh his innate fear for his own life.

  Fuchs’s lungs were burning. The metal walls of the ventilator shaft were scorching hot now as he crawled along blindly, dragging Nodon’s inert body with one pain-cramped hand. He couldn’t see Amarjagal or Sanja behind him. He didn’t even know if they were still there. His entire world had narrowed down to this smoke-filled, blistering hot purgatory.

  Through
tear-filled eyes he saw a light up ahead. It can’t be, he told himself. I’m starting to hallucinate. The garden outside is still in its nighttime lighting mode. There can’t be bright lighting out there—

  His heart clenched in his chest. Unless the guards have turned up all the outdoor lights! Like a badger, Fuchs scuttled along the upward-slanting shaft, leaving Nodon and the others behind. Light! Air! He bumped his head against a metal grill, feeling blessedly cool air caressing his hot, sooty face. The smoke was streaming out. Fresh air was seeping in.

  With his bare hands Fuchs battered the grill, punched it until his knuckles were raw and bleeding, butted it with his head, finally forced it open by wedging his feet against the sides of the shaft and leaning one powerful shoulder against the thin metal and pushing with all his strength. It gave way at last.

  He took one huge gulp of fresh air, wiped at his eyes with grimy hands, then ducked back down the shaft to grab Nodon by the collar of his coveralls and haul him up onto the roof. Amarjagal’s head popped up behind Nodon’s booted feet. She too was grimy, soot-streaked. But she smiled and pulled herself out of the shaft.

  “Stay low,” Fuchs hissed. “The guards must be patrolling the grounds.”

  Sanja came up, and crawled on his belly to lay beside Fuchs. They looked out onto the splendid garden just beyond the mansion’s wall and, farther, to the trees and green flowering shrubbery of this artificial Eden planted deep below the surface of the Moon.

  And there were guards standing out there, armed with assault rifles, ready to shoot to kill.

  SHINING MOUNTAIN BASE

  You there!” the guard yelled. “Stop that or I’ll shoot!”

  Pancho realized that her necklace was tucked inside the dratted softsuit. She couldn’t reach it. Couldn’t whip it off her neck and toss it at the goon. Prob’ly wouldn’t have time to do it before he drilled me, anyway, she thought as she slowly climbed to her feet and raised both gloved hands over her helmeted head. She nudged the laser slightly with her boot. It was still on, still cutting away at the honeycomb shield outside the dome’s wall.

  “Who the devil are you?” the guard demanded, walking slowly around the minitractor, a pistol leveled at Pancho’s navel. He looked African but spoke like an Englishman. “And what the devil do you think you’re doing?”

  Pancho shrugged inside the softsuit. “Nothin’,” she said, trying to look innocent.

  “My god!” the guard yelped, seeing that hole cut into the dome wall and the bright red hot spot the laser was making on the honeycomb shield. “Turn that thing off! Now! Don’t you realize you could—”

  At that instant the honeycomb cracked open and a rush of air knocked Pancho flat against the curving dome wall. The guard was staggered but kept his senses enough to realize what was happening. He turned and ran as fast as he could, which wasn’t very fast because he was leaning against a gale-force wind trying to rush out of the hole Pancho had cut. The loudspeakers started yammering in Japanese, then in another language Pancho didn’t understand. She slid down to the floor and slithered out of the break, hoping the softsuit wouldn’t catch or tear on the broken edges of the holes the laser had made.

  Outside, she looked around the barren lunar landscape. The dome was on the crest of the ringwall mountains that surrounded Shakleton. The ground sloped away, down toward the floor of the crater. Nothing to see but rocks and minicraters, some of them no bigger than a finger-poke into the stony ground. Damn! Pancho thought. I’m on the wrong side of the dome.

  Without hesitation she began sprinting, looking for the launchpads, happy to be able to run inside a space suit. Inside the old hardshell suits it was impossible to do anything more than lumber along like Frankenstein’s monster.

  That guard’ll be okay, she told herself. There’s plenty of air inside the dome. They’ll get the leak plugged before anybody’s in any real danger. Jogging steadily, she grinned to herself. Meantime, while they’re chasing around trying to fix the damage I’ve done, I’ll get to one of the hoppers and head on home.

  A sickly pale green splotch of color appeared on the left side of her helmet. The earphones said, “Radiation warning. Radiation level exceeding maximum allowable. Get to shelter immediately.”

  “I’m trying!” Pancho said, surprised at the suit’s sophistication.

  Before she took another dozen strides the color went from pastel green to bright canary yellow.

  “Radiation warning,” the suit said again. “Radiation level exceeding maximum allowable. Get to shelter immediately.”

  Pancho gritted her teeth and wondered how she could shut off the suit’s automated voice synthesizer. The launchpads were still nowhere in sight.

  Nobuhiko was back at the base’s infirmary, this time in a screened-off cubicle barely large enough to hold a bed, looking down on a heavily sedated Daniel Tsavo. A spotless white bandage covered the upper half of the Kenyan’s black face. He was conscious, but barely so, as the tranquillizing drug took effect.

  “… she blinded me,” he was mumbling. “Blind … can’t see…” Yamagata glanced impatiently at the African doctor standing on the other side of Tsavo’s bed. “It’s only temporary,” the doctor said, trying to sound reassuring. He seemed to be speaking to Yamagata, rather than his patient. “The retinal burns will heal in a few days.”

  “Failed,” Tsavo muttered. “Failure … blind … nowhere to go … career ruined…”

  Bending slightly over the bed, Nobuhiko said, “You haven’t failed. You’ll be all right. Rest now. Everything will be fine in a day or two.”

  Tsavo’s right hand groped toward the sound of Yamagata’s voice. Nobuhiko instinctively backed away from it.

  “Did you find her?” the Kenyan asked, his voice suddenly stronger. “Did you get what you wanted from her?”

  “Yes, of course,” Nobuhiko lied. “You rest now. Everything has turned out very well.”

  Tsavo’s hand fell back to the sheets and he breathed a heavy sigh. The doctor nodded as if satisfied that the drugs had finally done their job. Then he made a small shooing gesture.

  Nobuhiko understood. He turned away from the bed and stepped out of the tiny cubicle. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of antiseptics that pervaded this part of the infirmary. He had spent many hours in hospitals, when his father was dying. The odor brought back the memory of those unhappy days.

  The pair of aides waiting for him out in the corridor snapped to attention almost like elite-corps soldiers, even though they wore ordinary business suits.

  “Have they found her?” Nobuhiko asked in Japanese.

  “Not yet, sir.”

  Nobu frowned as he started walking toward the exit, allowing his aides to see how displeased he was. To come all this way to the Moon, he thought, and have her slip away from us. Hot anger simmered through him.

  The senior of the two assistants, noting the obvious displeasure on his master’s face, tried to change the subject:

  “Will the black man recover his sight?”

  “Apparently,” Nobuhiko snapped. “But he is not to be trusted with any important tasks. Never again.”

  Both aides nodded.

  As they reached the double doors of the infirmary the handheld of the senior aide beeped. He flicked it open and saw a Yamagata engineer in a sky-blue hard hat staring wide-eyed in the miniaturized screen.

  “The dome has been penetrated!” the engineer blurted. “We have sent for repair crews.”

  The aide looked stricken. He turned to Yamagata, wordlessly asking him for instructions.

  “She did this,” Nobu said. “Despite all our guards and precautions, Pancho has gotten away from us. She’s outside.”

  “But the radiation storm!” the junior aide said, aghast. “She’ll be killed out there.”

  Suddenly Nobu felt all his anger dissolve; all the tension that had held him like a vise for the past several hours faded away. He laughed. He threw his head back and laughed aloud, while his two aides gaped at him.


  “Killed out there?” he said to them. “Not likely. Not Pancho. We couldn’t hold her in here with a thousand guards. Don’t think that a little thing like a solar storm is going to stop her.”

  His two aides said nothing even though they both thought that their master had gone slightly insane.

  “Radiation warning,” the suit repeated for the umpteenth time. “Radiation level exceeding maximum allowable. Get to shelter immediately.”

  Pancho made a silent promise to herself that when she got back to Selene she would rip the voice synthesizer out of this goddamned suit and stomp on it for an hour and a half.

  The color splashed across the left side of her bubble helmet was bright pink now. I’m absorbing enough radiation to light a concert hall, she thought. Unbidden, the memory of Dan Randolph’s death from radiation poisoning rose in her mind like a ghostly premonition of things to come. She saw Dan lying on his bunk, too weak even to lift his head, soaked in sweat, gums bleeding, hair coming out in bunches, dying while Pancho looked on, helpless, unable to save him.

  You got a lot to look forward to, she growled to herself.

  Her loping stride had slowed to a walk, but she was still doggedly pressing forward across the outer perimeter of the dome. You don’t really appreciate how big something is until you have to walk around it, she told herself. Everything always looks bigger on foot.

  And there it was! Around the curve of the dome she saw one, then two and finally three spacecraft sitting on concrete launchpads. She recognized the little green one that had brought her here from the Astro base, about a hundred klicks away.

  Would they have guards placed around those birds? Pancho asked herself, without slowing her pace toward the launchpads.

  Naw, she answered. Not in this storm. That’d be suicide duty. Not even Yamagata would ask his people to do that. Then she added, I hope.