Privateers

by Ben Bova

  “She’s the best lay in Tyuratam,” Dan heard one of them saying, over the suit-to-suit radio frequency.

  “That’s what you say. …”

  Their conversation never got any further. Dan’s men overpowered the two Russians and quickly wrapped their arms to their sides with long strips of Velcro while Njombe and Kaktins squeezed the Russians’ air hoses-not enough to really harm them, just enough to make them understand what might happen.

  “Be quiet,” Dan commanded in Russian, “don’t struggle, and do what you’re told. Otherwise you’ll be dead men.”

  With tools from their belt kits, Elger and Kaktins disconnected the Russians’ suit radios. Then the six astronauts left the freighter and closed the hatch behind them.

  “How much air in their tanks?” Dan asked Kaktins over their suit-to-suit frequency.

  “Four hours, if they filled tanks as regulations say,” answered the Latvian as he climbed up into the cab of the little tractor parked outside the freighter. He added, “And if suits working hokay. They don’t check out equipment too good sometimes. Lazy stupid.”

  The five others clambered up onto the tractor as Kaktins briefly scanned its dashboard, then grasped the two control levers and pushed them forward. Dan felt the electric motor vibrate as the tractor lurched into motion. Hanging on to its rear fender, Dan swept his gaze around the lunar horizon. It was night on the Moon; the Sun would not rise for another nine days. But the Earth shone bright and huge in the dark starry sky, aswirl with white clouds against living blue, bathing the barren lunar landscape with soft light. The big blue marble, Dan thought. At this distance it seemed to be an oasis of life set in the implacably cold and black emptiness of the universe.

  The ore freighter looked like a giant metal bubble balanced delicately on three spidery legs. The undulating dark gray plain of the waterless Sea of Tranquillity was pockmarked with countless craterlets, some no bigger than a fingertip’s poke. Worn old mountains, sandpapered smooth by aeons of microscopic meteors falling out of the sky, broke the flatness of the horizon off to Dan’s left. The tractor’s treads lifted dust from the barren soil, and the clouds hung lightly in the gentle gravity of the Moon.

  Beyond the freighter they had landed in, three more of the big spherical ore carriers stood. One of them was being loaded: a train of four treaded cars was pulled up alongside it and a conveyor belt, angling steeply upward like the arm of a crane, was moving powdered rock up to a large hatch in the sphere’s top and spilling it into its interior. A grayish plume hung over the sphere, like a cloud that clings to a mountain peak.

  Dan fiddled with his suit radio to find the frequency the Russian loading crew was using. They were talking casually, completely unaware of what was happening a few hundred yards away. Dan grinned, inside his helmet. One of the Russians was complaining about the food they were getting.

  Turning, he looked past the shoulders and helmets of the other space-suited figures and saw the low domes of Lunagrad, the Soviet base. Most of the living quarters and offices were underground, Dan knew, protected by many feet of solid rock against the harsh radiation and occasional meteor shower that peppered the unprotected lunar surface. Even the domes here on the surface were partially covered with rubble bulldozed from the top layers of lunar soil.

  Standing just outside the little cluster of domes was a trio of squat spherical spacecraft. To Dan they looked like smaller versions of the ore freighter. But he knew that they were personnel carriers, capable of taking off from where they stood and going all the way back to Earth in an emergency. Our return tickets, he told himself.

  Kaktins drove the tractor right into the biggest dome, following a trail of tractor tracks that led to a huge airlock hatch. The big metal doors swung open soundlessly as they approached; Dan could not tell if Kaktins had sent a signal from the tractor’s instrument board or if the hatch worked automatically whenever a vehicle came near. They drove inside, the outer hatch closed and Dan could feel pumps start to rumble from somewhere beneath the big metal chamber. It took an agonizingly long time, but at last he could hear air hissing around him.

  “Keep your voices down and keep using the suit radios,” Dan commanded. “Let’s give them as little information about who we are as possible.”

  The inner airlock hatch slid open as Dan’s crew got down from the tractor. On the other side of the hatch stood three young Russian technicians in faded, stained coveralls. They looked surprised to see six space-suited figures aboard the tractor. Before they could raise an alarm, Dan and his team overpowered them and marched them into the narrow, hot little control room from which the airlock was monitored. Two more technicians were sitting at the controls, conversing casually together.

  Dan yanked the pistol from his belt and ordered them in Russian to stand up and put their hands on their heads. Shocked speechless, they did as they were told. While Kaktins and Njombe bound and gagged the five men, Dan swiftly scanned the control panels. Several were not functioning; one of the consoles had its front panel removed, showing the wiring and circuitry in its guts. Somebody’s half-eaten lunch was strewn on the floor; crumbs and an empty unlabeled bottle littered the control board’s work surface. Inside his suit helmet, Dan’s nose wrinkled in disgust. Slobs. Just plain slobs. I’d fire anybody who dirtied up their work station like this. But another part of his mind was telling him, If they’re this lax, you’ve got a chance to surprise them. You’ve got a chance to get away with it.

  He left Elger in the cramped little control room to guard the five bound men.

  “This is our escape route,” he told her. “You’ve got to keep it open for us. If you have to, shoot them.”

  He could not see her face through the helmet’s tinted visor, but he could sense her nodding. “I’ll check out the getaway vehicles while I’m here, make sure they’re ready for us.”

  “Good.” It had not occurred to Dan that they might not be ready for a quick escape.

  As the rest of them headed for the ladderway that led down into Lunagrad’s main areas, Dan saw the bantam-sized astronaut sit in front of the video screens that showed the personnel vehicles outside the airlock. She carefully slid the pistol she was carrying from the tool pouch at her waist and rested it in her lap. The five bound and gagged Russians stared at the gun.

  “Go get ‘em, boss,” Dan heard her in his earphones. “Everything here will be just fine.”

  Laughing, he made his way down the ladder to catch up with the others.

  With Kaktins’ guidance, they clumped down the dimly lit corridor toward the base’s main control center, where technicians stood watch over Lunagrad’s electrical power and life support systems. Control them, Dan knew, and you control the whole base.

  The corridor was narrow and almost empty. And low. Dan instinctively ducked his head as they made their way along it. Oppressive. Depressing. They passed three Russians along the way: a man and a woman walking together, and a man alone. All were dressed in faded gray coveralls. All looked surprised at the sight of five people in space suits. None of them said a word; they squeezed past Dan and his crew in silence. Good Soviet training, Dan thought. When in doubt, keep your mouth shut and your eyes averted.

  No guards. No sign that the Russians were aware they had been invaded. Business as usual. Lunagrad ran on Moscow time, and Dan had picked a freighter that landed at two A.M. for his Trojan Horse. Catch them in their sleep.

  Kaktins, striding at the head of their group, lifted a hand to signal a halt.

  “There it is,” he said. Dan read the Cyrillic letters on the door:

  CENTRAL CONTROL-AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

  Without a word of command from Dan, each of the five men pulled out their slim, deadly black automatic pistols. As he flicked off the safety catch and cocked his, Dan reminded them, “Nobody is to fire unless I do. I don’t want to hurt any of these people; I just want to get our guys back.”

  He heard their muttered agreement. Taking a deep breath, he reached for th
e door latch with his left hand and pulled it open.

  There were eight men and three women inside the control center, most of them sitting at consoles, watching instrument dials or display screens. One of the women was at an electric samovar, pouring herself a glass of tea. Two of the men were in a corner, playing chess. Like the airlock control station, this center also looked grimy, overused and undercleaned, to Dan. The Russians all froze with shock as he and his crew marched in and closed the door behind them.

  “Take your hands off the controls and put them on top of your heads,” Dan commanded, loudly enough for them to hear him through his helmet.

  They herded the Russians into a corner and made them sit on the floor, hands clasped behind their heads.

  “Who’s in charge here?” Dan asked.

  They glanced at each other. The only gray-haired man among them, heavyset, with fatty jowls and tiny, angry eyes, glared up at Dan. “I am.”

  “Get up,” Dan said. Picking up a phone handset as the Russian got laboriously to his feet, Dan ordered, “Call the base commander. Tell him there’s an emergency and you need him here.”

  For the flash of an instant, Dan thought the Russian would resist. But after only a moment’s hesitation he took the handset from Dan and punched out a four-digit number.

  “My pardon for waking you, sir,” the Russian said in a voice that was suddenly unctuous. “This is Ustinov, in the control center. We have …eh, something of an emergency here. It requires your presence… . Yes, sir, now, if you please… . Yes, it is quite serious. It calls for decisions that I am not empowered to make. You are the only one who can do it. … Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it, sir.”

  Handing the set back to Dan, his tone went back to flat hardness. “He will be here in five minutes.”

  Nodding inside his helmet, Dan said, “Good. Now where are the prisoners?”

  The Russian looked at him blankly. “The prisoners?”

  “The prisoners!” Dan snapped, lifting his hand so that the muzzle of his gun pointed at the Russian’s bulbous nose.

  “We have twelve thousand prisoners here,” the Russian said. “Which do you want?”

  Twelve thousand? Dan’s mind reeled. Twelve thousand. I had no idea they had brought so many up here. They can’t all be working the mines. Most of them must be just rotting away up here, exiled forever.

  He forced the picture from his mind. “The prisoners that were just brought in from a private spacecraft. They’re not Soviet citizens. …”

  “The capitalists,” said the Russian.

  “Yes,” Dan said. “The capitalists. Where are they?”

  “In a holding cell, two levels down.”

  “How are they guarded?”

  He shrugged his fat shoulders. “I don’t know. That’s none of my business.”

  The door swung open and Dan reflexively turned toward it, gun pointed. So did the other four of his crew.

  Vasily Malik stepped through the doorway and stopped, his eyes instantly taking in the situation. He was wearing spanking-new coveralls, the trousers still creased, the collar opened casually. His mouth dropped open in surprise.

  “This isn’t the base commander,” Dan growled.

  “Who are you?” Malik demanded. “What is going on here?”

  “Why are you here? Where’s the base commander?”

  Malik s eyes went crafty. “I came here a few hours ago to supervise the transfer of a group of thieving pirates to the Soviet Union, where they will be tried by an international court.”

  Dan realized that his finger was curling around the trigger of his pistol. With a deliberate effort, he eased the pressure.

  “I want those prisoners freed,” he said.

  “I won’t release them,” Malik replied. “They are in the custody of the Soviet Union and they will remain so.”

  Dan strode over to the control boards. “Which of these panels monitors the air to the living quarters? Do you want me to shut it off? Or turn off the heat? Or overload the main generators so badly that they’ll burn out and leave the whole base dead?”

  Malik’s eyes were studying him, trying to pierce through the gold-tinted visor to see the face behind it. Dan was speaking in Russian, and his voice was muffled by the helmet, but he could see that Malik was straining to identify him.

  “I’m not playing games,” Dan shouted. “I’ll wipe this base out completely if you don’t release those prisoners.”

  The Russians sitting on the floor were all looking at Malik, eyes wide with fear. Dan could see that fat Ustinov had begun to sweat. But Malik did not move, did not say a word; he stood his ground and glared angrily at Dan, ramrod stiff, fists clenched.

  Feeling rage boiling up within him, Dan whirled and quickly ran his gaze down the line of control switches and knobs on the board before him. He reached out and clicked off one switch, then a second.

  “Electrical power to the communications center just went off. And to the food storage lockers.” He took two steps along the long row of panels. “Life support for the sleeping quarters. Do you really want me to turn off their air?”

  The tension seemed to flow out of Malik’s body. His hands unclenched, his face relaxed almost into a smile.

  “I’ll get the prisoners for you,” he said. “But I want it clearly understood that I do so under protest, and merely to save the lives of innocent Soviet citizens.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Dan snapped. He stepped toward Malik and prodded him toward the door with the muzzle of his pistol. To Kaktins, he said, “Zig, you come with me.” Then, pointing to the hulking form of Njombe, “Take charge here. If there’s the slightest sign of trouble, shut down all the life support systems for their living quarters. Destroy the controls if you have to.”

  He heard Njombe’s deep-throated chuckle in his earphones. “I’ll make them breathe vacuum if they try to fight.”

  With Malik in the lead, Dan and Kaktins clumped along the low-ceilinged corridor, then down a ladderway two levels. The corridor here was even narrower, lower, but brilliantly lit. The glare was almost painful. It was lined with blank metal doors on both sides. How many prisoners were being held in those cells? Dan wondered. How long had they been locked in there? And for what offenses? Speaking their minds? Trying to get out of the Soviet Union? Failing to fall on their faces when the Kremlin ordered them to?

  Some fifty feet up the hallway, Dan saw a pair of uniformed guards, armed with pistols holstered at their hips. It was the longest fifty feet he had ever walked. From behind the visor of his helmet, Dan watched the guards’ faces. They registered surprise that Comrade Malik would be approaching them at this hour of the morning with two men in space suits accompanying him. Surprise, but not alarm.

  He could not see the expression on Malik’s face, because he was behind the Russian, holding his pistol in the small of his back, hidden from the guards.

  Malik stopped in front of the guards’ desk. With only a slight prod from Dan’s gun, he said, “The new prisoners-release them from their cell.”

  The guard seated at the desk-started to tap on the buttons of the keyboard in front of him. The other, though, peered hard at Dan, trying to see through the gold-tinted visor. Kaktins slid over to one side and casually took his pistol from his tool pouch.

  “Do what he told you,” Dan commanded, “or all three of you will be shot.”

  The seated man glanced questioningly at Malik.

  “Do as he says.”

  He finished punching out the combination. Behind them, Dan heard the faint click of a lock. He turned and saw Carstairs push open the door closest to the desk. There was a swelling bruise beneath his eye, but as soon as he saw the space-suited figures he broke into an immense grin.

  “What’d I tell you?” he called over his shoulder. “Come on!”

  Nobo was the last to leave the cell, and Dan let out a relieved breath when he saw that the young Japanese was unharmed. Carstairs and Vargas helped themselves to the guards’ gun
s, and the whole squad of them started back toward the control center.

  “How’d you-”

  “No questions and no talk,” Dan snapped. “Just keep moving and do as you’re told.”

  “Righto, boss,” answered the Australian.

  Dan marched the little band back to the control center, where Njombe and the others still had the crew sitting on the floor. He studied the control board, swiftly deciphering the Cyrillic letters taped alongside each dial and switch. The entire layout became clear to him. He could destroy the whole Soviet base with a few touches of his fingers. And the twelve thousand prisoners they had exiled here. They would die too. Damned clever of the Russians; the prisoners guarantee their safety-unless the shit hits the fan.

  “I don’t think I could have lasted another hour,” Halloran was babbling, unable to stop talking. “They had all of us jammed into that lousy little cell. There wasn’t any air, no lights-”

  “Cut it!” Dan snapped, once he was certain that he understood the controls. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  He punched down the switches that shut the airtight hatches between every section of the living quarters on the levels below. Emergency Klaxons hooted, but Dan knew that the Russians below were trapped in their quarters, locked in by heavy steel hatches that sealed the corridors every twenty meters, and they would stay locked in until someone turned off the switches on the control board.

  They took the entire control center crew with them, together with Malik and the two soldiers, as far as the airlock. Elger was waiting for them, and reported that she had run one of the emergency personnel rockets through its countdown. It was ready to lift off. Dan forced Malik to get into a space suit with the others and go out to the getaway rocket with them. They packed the eight Dolphin crewmen and his six raiders into the one spherical spacecraft, leaving Malik standing on the lunar soil just outside the airlock hatch.

  Dan was the last to go up the ladder. He knew that Malik would sprint for the airlock as soon as he turned his back. The Russian would not wait to be caught in the blast of the spacecraft’s rocket engines. Dan also knew that by then there was nothing that Malik or any of the others could do to stop them from getting away and making their rendezvous with Goldman and the spacecraft orbiting above them.