Moonwar Read online

  “Well?” Doug asked.

  “That’s not important now,” said Gordette.

  “What do you mean, not important?”

  “You’re defeated, Doug. You know that, don’t you?”

  Doug’s eyes had no fire in them, no zest. He merely stared at Gordette blankly.

  “Moonbase is lost. You can’t save it. You couldn’t even help Ms. Bonai. You watched her being raped and murdered and couldn’t do a thing about it.”

  Doug opened his mouth but no words came out. He nodded dumbly.

  “Everything you want has been taken away from you,” Gordette said, speaking slowly, sonorously, like a priest at a sacrificial altar. “Even your life.”

  So swiftly that Doug could not even raise his arms, Gordette clamped his left hand over Doug’s mouth and nose, yanking his chin up, and with his right hand sliced the blade deeply across Doug’s throat, making certain to sever the carotid arteries behind each ear.

  Blood spurted high up the wall, gushed over Gordette’s green coveralls and into his face, making him blink and wince. Doug’s body shivered and twitched, then went still.

  His hands soaked in Doug’s blood, Gordette stalked out of the room and headed down the empty corridors of Moonbase, shadowy in their nighttime lighting, toward the garage and the main airlock.

  For the first time since he’d been a boy, there were tears in his eyes.

  “The last time I was on the Moon ended unpleasantly,” said Keiji Inoguchi.

  “So?” replied Zimmerman, coolly.

  Inoguchi was a full head taller than Zimmerman, and gracefully slim. He seemed to glide rather than walk, totally unperturbed by the low lunar gravity.

  “I worked at Nippon One eight years ago,” he told Zimmerman, “but I was sent back to Japan after being injured in an accident. Several of my ribs were broken.”

  Zimmerman nodded absently. Of the three U.N. inspectors sent up on the evacuation flight, Inoguchi seemed to be the only one who knew anything about nanotechnology. He claimed to be a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Kyoto, but to Zimmerman he seemed too young for a full professorship—unless he was actually working in a new field, uncluttered by tenured old men, a field such as nanotechnology.

  For four days, since the evacuation flight had touched down at Moonbase, Inoguchi and the two other U.N. inspectors had been making their methodical way through the nanolabs. Kris Cardenas had personally conducted their inspection tour, showing them everything— except Zimmerman’s lab.

  Zimmerman stayed to himself behind locked doors, unwilling to allow U.N. spionin to poke through his work. From what Cardenas told him, Inoguchi was bright, inquisitive, polite and knowledgeable. The other two seemed to be out-and-out intelligence agents, ham-fisted and hard-eyed, looking for nanotech “weapons” without understanding what they might be.

  The inevitable happened late in the evening of their fourth day at Moonbase. Cardenas phoned Zimmerman, still barricaded in his lab, and warned him that Inoguchi was heading his way. Alone.

  Zimmerman heard a polite tap at his door almost before he clicked off the phone. Muttering to himself, he went to the door, determined to tell the interfering Japanese upstart that he had no business bothering the great Professor Zimmerman and he should go away and stay away.

  Inoguchi bowed deeply as soon as Zimmerman slid the door open. “I am Keiji Inoguchi of the University of Kyoto,” he said, staring at his shoes, not daring to look at Zimmerman. “I know it’s an imposition, but I am required to ask you to allow me to inspect your laboratory.”

  Grudgingly, Zimmerman waved the younger man into his lab.

  “It is an honor beyond my greatest expectations to actually meet you,” Inoguchi said. His English was American-accented, and Zimmerman thought the man sounded sincere enough, even though he kept his face almost totally expressionless and still avoided making eye contact.

  “Professor Cardenas tells me you appear quite knowledgeable,” Zimmerman said gruffly. “You are engaged in nanotechnology research at Kyoto?”

  Inoguchi hesitated the merest fraction of a second, then replied, “As you know, Professor, nanotechnology research is forbidden by law.”

  “Yah. Of course.”

  They stood just inside the doorway, Zimmerman blocking his visitor’s further access into the lab, and spoke of many things, from the quality of students to the obtuseness of deans, without again mentioning nanotechnology. Despite their verbal sparring, or perhaps because of it, Zimmerman found that he enjoyed the younger man’s company.

  “How long will you remain at Moonbase?” Zimmerman asked.

  “I wish I knew,” Inoguchi replied wistfully. “Our mission to Moonbase was arranged very hastily, and with the blockade in effect—”

  “Blockade?”

  “No flights to Moonbase have been permitted for six weeks now. Surely you were aware of that.”

  “Oh, that. Yah. I didn’t think of it as a blockade,” Zimmerman said.

  With a rueful gesture, Inoguchi said, “They told us back home before we left that they would try to arrange a mission from Nippon One to pick us up here and then bring us back to Copernicus. From there we can take a flight back to Earth. But I have no idea of how long that will take to negotiate, or how long I must remain here.”

  “I see.”

  “One thing is certain, however. Even if there were a hundred ships ready to take me back to Kyoto, I could not leave until I had looked through your laboratory.”

  Zimmerman grunted. “You think I am cooking up nanomachines to wipe out Japan, maybe?”

  Inoguchi actually broke into a grin. “No, sir, I don’t. But the people at the U.N. who sent me here fear that you might be brewing nanobugs that will spread deadly plagues all across Earth.”

  “Nonsense!”

  “You know it is nonsense, and I know it is nonsense, but they do not have enough knowledge to allay their fears.”

  Zimmerman looked at the younger man with newfound respect.

  “Let us be frank with one another,” Zimmerman said. “I will show you my work, but you must tell me about your own. Fair?”

  Inoguchi nodded. “Quite fair.”

  “Your laboratory is funded by Yamagata Industries, I trust?”

  “My entire department is funded by Yamagata. Seigo Yamagata himself has taken a deep interest in my work.”

  “Which is?”

  “Nanotechnology, of course. You must have known that.”

  Turning to lead him to the bench where the electron microscope and micromanipulators were, Zimmerman said over his shoulder, “I had my suspicions.”

  Several hours later they were sitting on stools at the back end of the lab, where Zimmerman kept his dwindling supply of imported beer. He had led his visitor through his whole lab, congratulating himself on not once letting him guess that his most recent work was all aimed at helping Moonbase to defend itself against Peacekeeper attack.

  Zimmerman took a long draught of beer from the plastic beaker he used as a stein. “If the verdammtblockade continues much longer,” he groused, “I will be reduced to drinking fruit juice.”

  Inoguchi said nothing.

  “We’ve been trying to make beer with nanomachines, you know.”

  “Ah?”

  Shaking his head, Zimmerman confessed, “It tastes like piss.”

  “Mr. Yamagata is most interested in the therapeutic uses of nanotechnology,” Inoguchi said, holding his lab beaker of beer in both hands. “He is concerned about cancer, especially.”

  “So? How old is he?”

  “Hardly fifty, but the family history—”

  “PROFESSOR ZIMMERMAN, PLEASE REPORT TO THE INFIRMARY IMMEDIATELY,” the wall speaker blared. “PROFESSOR ZIMMERMAN TO THE INFIRMARY AT ONCE. EMERGENCY.”

  DAY FORTY-TWO

  Even nanomachines need a finite time to react.

  The virus-sized machines teeming in Doug’s bloodstream sensed the sudden drop in pressure and the desperate
chemical changes that tried to activate the natural clotting factors before Doug bled to death. His windpipe was cruelly ruptured and blood was leaking into his lungs, choking him.

  Unconscious, gasping for breath, bleeding to death as his heart spewed his life’s blood out through his severed arteries, Doug’s hands spasmed, his body shuddered, and then he was still.

  Inside him hundreds of millions of nanomachines were working with millisecond frenzy, seizing individual atoms and locking them in place like a stubborn team of men doggedly packing sandbags onto a flood-broken levee. With mindless purposefulness other nanomachines pulled apart the droplets of blood leaking into Doug’s lungs, broke up the liquid into molecules of gas. Doug coughed and retched as nanomachines seamlessly knitted together his carotid arteries and began to close the gash across his throat.

  Nearly half his blood had been splashed over the bunk, the wall, even the ceiling above the bunk before the nanomachines sealed his arteries and stopped the major bleeding. It took longer—minutes—to completely close the wound in his throat.

  Still unconscious, Doug sank into a deeper coma while the nanomachines cleaned his lungs and augmented the natural chemical factors that prompted his bone marrow to start producing more red blood cells. Yet his blood supply was dangerously depleted. He needed plasma and liquids. He lay there, between life and death, unable to move, unable to open his eyes or stir himself out of the coma.

  Hours later, Edith came back to the apartment, tired yet keyed up with the excitement of having pulled off a masterful broadcast. By golly, I am good, she told herself as she slid the door shut and started across the living room to see how Doug was doing.

  She screamed when she saw all the blood. Her knees buckled and she felt as if she was going to faint.

  No! she raged at herself. Get help! Quick!

  She banged on the phone keyboard and shrieked for an emergency medical team. Then she ran back to take a closer look at Doug. Despite the blood she saw no wounds, nothing but a thin red line across his throat. It looked more like a paper cut than anything serious. Yet there was blood all over the bunk, soaking him, splattered on the wall, the ceiling. He was unconscious, totally out of it. He was breathing, though. Or is he? Fighting down her panic, Edith saw that Doug was breathing slowly, deeply, like a man innocently asleep.

  The medical team barged into the apartment: the base’s resident doctor and two paramedic aides drafted from other duties.

  “What the hell happened here?” Dr. Montana scowled at the scene. Within minutes Doug was being wheeled to the infirmary by the aides while the deeply puzzled doctor again and again asked Edith questions that she could not answer as they ran behind the gurney.

  * * *

  By the time Doug opened his eyes, Zimmerman and Kris Cardenas were hovering over his infirmary bed and Jinny Anson was standing beside a pale and shaken Edith, both women peering worriedly at him through the glass partition that closed off his cubicle. A tall youngish Japanese man was out there, too; Doug remembered him as one of the U.N. inspectors.

  Doug looked up at Zimmerman, who was staring intently at him, as if sheer willpower could make his patient waken. The old professor looked more dishevelled than usual, straggly hair in wild disarray, both vest and jacket unbuttoned and flapping across his paunch. Yet there was a gentleness in his gaze, like a grandfather watching over a sleeping infant.

  “This is getting monotonous,” Doug said, weakly. His voice was hoarse, grating.

  Zimmerman’s expression immediately hardened into his usual disapproving frown. “So? Even a cat has only nine lives,” he said bruskly. “You are using up yours at a rapid rate.”

  “I’m getting a lot of help,” Doug breathed. He realized there were intravenous tubes in both his arms. Monitors beeped away quietly somewhere behind his head.

  “What happened?” Zimmerman asked.

  Doug blinked, remembered. “Bam. Leroy Gordette. He tried to murder me.” His sandpaper voice was filled with the surprise and grief that he felt at Gordette’s betrayal.

  “It was Gordette?” Cardenas asked, her clear blue eyes snapping. “The ex-soldier?”

  “He slit my throat,” Doug said, fingering his throat, finding neither wound nor pain there.

  Edith pushed into the narrow cubicle, Anson right behind her. Inoguchi remained on the other side of the observation window.

  Flinging herself on Doug, she burst into the tears she’d been holding back for hours. “I thought you were dead!”

  Doug held her close; felt the sobs racking her body.

  “I’m okay,” he whispered into her golden hair. “I’m okay now.”

  “God, was I scared,” Edith gushed. She kissed him on the lips. The others fidgeted around the bed.

  Once Doug let go of Edith and she straightened up, Anson surmised, “Gordette must’ve been the one who malfed your suit.”

  “Yeah.” Doug tried to push himself up on his elbows. The room spun and he dropped back onto the pillow.

  “You lost much blood,” Zimmerman said, glancing at the monitors over the bed. “You need time to build up your supply.”

  “Where’s Bam now?” Doug croaked.

  Anson shrugged. “I’ll get security to roust him.” She ducked out of the cubicle.

  “Are you really all right?” Edith asked, wiping at her eyes.

  “I’m okay,” said Doug. “Weak, though.”

  “A blood transfusion would help,” Cardenas suggested.

  Doug thought a moment. “How much do we have on hand? If we’re attacked, we might need a lot.”

  “No transfusion,” Zimmerman said flatly. “I must see how long it takes my nanomachines to rebuild his blood supply. A transfusion would obscure the data.”

  Edith started to say something, but Doug gripped her hand and stopped her.

  Smiling weakly at the old man, Doug said, “I’m still your walking experiment, huh?”

  Zimmerman put on his scowl again. “Except you spend more time on your back than walking.”

  “It’s not my idea of fun, believe me.”

  Dr. Montana came in and shooed them all out of the cubicle with the authority and impatience of a minor tyrant.

  “If he’s not allowed a transfusion,” the doctor grumbled, glancing sideways at Zimmerman, “then he needs rest.”

  “I am kind of sleepy,” Doug admitted. “And hungry.”

  “My nanomachines need energy,” Zimmerman mumbled.

  “We’re pumping nutrients into you,” Montana said, touching one of the IV tubes gently.

  “He can take solid food, as well,” said Zimmerman.

  Montana looked skeptical, but said nothing.

  Edith kissed him again and they all left, the doctor and Zimmerman in a heated, whispered conversation about who should be making the decisions about the patient. A few minutes later, an aide brought Doug a tray of food. He had to be helped up to a sitting position. He ate quickly, then fell asleep almost immediately.

  When Doug awoke he saw that Edith was sitting in the little observation area on the other side of the glass partition, staring intently into the display screen of a laptop. The IV tubes had been removed. He felt strong enough to sit up on his own. A little woozy, but it passed quickly. He pressed the button that cranked up the bed, then leaned back comfortably.

  One of the paramedics bustled into his cubicle, her face set somewhere between pleased and annoyed. “You’re not supposed—”

  “I’m starving,” Doug said. “When do I get something to eat?”

  With a swift glance at the monitors, the aide muttered, “I’ll get you another tray,” and headed out.

  Edith snapped her laptop shut and pushed past the departing aide.

  After a quick kiss, Doug asked, “Have they found Gordette?”

  “No,” she said. “He checked out a tractor and went outside just after he tried to kill you.”

  “A tractor?” Doug’s mind raced. “He can’t get all the way to Copernicus in a tractor.”


  “Copernicus?”

  “The Yamagata base, Nippon One.” Doug reasoned it out. “He knows as much about our situation here as any of us, Edith. He can tell the Peacekeepers exactly how weak we are, what we’re expecting from them, how to take us.”

  “But he can’t get that far in a tractor, you said.”

  “Maybe he’s got a pickup arranged with them. He could bounce an emergency signal to them off L-1 and they’ll come out and pick him up.”

  “But L-1 is off the air, isn’t it?”

  “For us, but they’re still working for Yamagata.”

  The aide brought in a tray heavy with a double portion of dinner. Doug thanked her and began wolfing it down.

  “Edith, call Jinny for me. Ask her if there’s any way to spot Gordette’s tractor. I need to know where he’s going.”

  “Why … ?”

  “So I can stop him, that’s why.”

  Inoguchi and Zimmerman were sitting at a small corner table in the Cave, sipping fruit juice. The big cavern was nearly empty, yet they hunched together and spoke in low tones like conspirators.

  “His throat was cut?” Inoguchi’s pretense of impassivity was long gone. There was wonder in his eyes, awe in his voice. “You are certain?”

  Zimmerman took a sip of juice, then frowned at the glass. “From the amount of blood in his room, at least one of his carotid arteries must have been opened.”

  “But he seems hardly hurt at all.”

  “The machines work on millisecond time scales.”

  “So do the natural blood-clotting factors, but they could not have stopped arterial bleeding in time.”

  “I think maybe the machines activated muscles in his neck and used them to clamp down the wound,” Zimmerman mused.

  “Not possible! Is it?”

  With the wave of a pudgy hand, the older man said, “You saw the results.”

  Inoguchi shook his head ruefully. “I am a child. Compared to your work, what I’m doing in Kyoto is kindergarten level.”

  “The benefits of censorship and your lovely treaty,” Zimmerman said acidly. “You work in ignorance of what has already been done years ago.”

  “Yes, I can see that.”