THE SILENT WAR Read online

  "That's not entirely true," George pointed out.

  "But we did exile him," the warehouseman retorted. "So we don't have to allow him to dock here."

  "That all happened ten years ago," said one of the older board members, a former miner who had started a new career as an armaments repairman.

  "But he was exiled for life, wasn't he?"

  "Right," George admitted.

  "So there."

  The woman sitting directly across from George, a plumpish redhead with startling violet eyes, said, "Listen. Half the HSS ships in the Belt are going to be looking for Fuchs. If he puts in here they'll grab him."

  "This is neutral territory," George said. "Everybody knows that. We've established it with HSS and Astro. We service any ship that comes to us, and they don't do any fighting within a thousand klicks of our habitat."

  "That doesn't mean we have to service Fuchs. He's an exile, remember."

  "There's something else involved," George added. "We have a news media star heading here. She'll arrive tomorrow. Edith Elgin."

  "I've watched her shows from Selene!"

  "Isn't she married to Douglas Stavenger?"

  "What's she coming here for?"

  "To do a documentary about the war," George explained.

  "Do we want to have a documentary about the war? I mean, won't that be bad publicity for us?"

  "She'll want to interview Fuchs, I bet."

  "That'd be a great way to get everybody's attention: an interview with the notorious pirate."

  "It'll make us look like a den of thieves."

  "Can we stop her?"

  All eight of them looked to George.

  Surprised at this turn, George said, "We'd have a helluva time shooing her away. She's got a right to report the news."

  "That doesn't mean we have to help her. Let her interview Fuchs somewhere else."

  But George was thinking, Humphries's people are smart enough to watch her and wait for Fuchs to show up. Wherever she interviews Fuchs, it's going to be fookin' dangerous for both of them.

  ASTEROID VESTA

  An individual nanomachine is like an individual ant: mindless but unceasingly active. Its blindly endless activity is of little consequence by itself; even the most tireless exertions of a device no bigger than a virus can be nothing but invisibly minuscule in the human scale of things.

  But while an individual ant can achieve little and has not enough brain to accomplish more than instinctual actions, an ant colony of many millions of blindly scurrying units can strip a forest, build a city, act with a purposefulness that seems little short of human intelligence.

  So it is with nanomachines. An individual unit can accomplish little. But strew millions of those virus-sized units over a restricted area and they can build or destroy on a scale that rivals human capacities.

  The asteroid Vesta is a spheroid rich in nickel-iron, some 500 kilometers in diameter. The Humphries Space Systems base on Vesta was burrowed, for the most part, more than twenty meters below the asteroid's pitted, airless, bare surface.

  The nanomachines that were strewn across a small area of the asteroid's surface operated in a far different regime of scale and environment. Their world was a universe of endlessly vibrating, quivering molecules where electromagnetic forces held atoms in tight clusters, and Brownian motion buffeted atoms, molecules and nanomachines alike. On that scale of size, the nanomachines were giant mechanical devices, like huge bulldozers or derricks, bulling their way through the constantly jostling, jiggling molecules.

  Each nanomachine was built with a set of grippers that fit the shape of the molecule that made up high-grade steel. Each nanomachine had the strength to seize such molecules and pull them apart into their constituent atoms of iron, carbon, chromium, and nickel.

  Drawing their energy from the unceasing Brownian vibrations of the molecules themselves, the nanomachines patiently, mindlessly, tirelessly chewed through every molecule of steel they could find, tearing them apart. On the molecular scale of the nanomachines this was a simple operation. It would end only when the quantum-dot timing devices built into each individual nanomachine told it to stop and disassemble itself.

  Or when the nanos ran out of steel to chew on. Whichever came first.

  Leeza Chaptal was the first to understand what was happening. As she stood in the control center deep underground and watched the monitor screens go blank, one by one, she realized that only the sensors and other equipment up on the surface were failing.

  The technicians seated at their consoles around her had gone from surprise to irritation to outright fear.

  "Something's wiping out everything up on the surface," one of them said, needlessly. They could all see that.

  "Those missiles," said Leeza. "They must be responsible for this."

  "But what... how?"

  "There wasn't any explosion," said one of the puzzled technicians. "Nothing seismic registered except their crashing on the surface."

  "And then everything started blanking out."

  "Nanomachines," Leeza guessed. "They must have brought in nanomachines that are eating up our surface installations."

  All the techs turned to her in wide-eyed fear. Nanomachines. They had all heard stories about how they could chew up everything, including people, and turn everything in their path into a dead, formless gray goo.

  "Somebody's got to go up the surface and see what's going on up there."

  Nobody budged.

  Leeza hadn't expected volunteers. "I'll go myself," she said.

  Leeza's heart was already thumping loudly as she clumped to the hatch in the awkward, bulbous hard-shell space suit. Then she saw that the display on the hatch opening onto the vertical shaft that led up to the surface showed that there was nothing but vacuum on its other side.

  Omygod, she gasped silently. They've eaten through the hatch at the top of the shaft.

  Should I go through? What if they infect my suit? What if they start chewing on me?

  Yet she had to know what was going on, had to learn the nature and depth of the attack they were undergoing.

  Turning to the two maintenance engineers who had helped her into the suit, she said through its fishbowl helmet, "Get back on the other side of the hatch down the corridor."

  They didn't need to be told twice. Both of them scampered down the corridor and squeezed through the hatch together, neither one of them willing to wait for the other. Leeza heard the metallic thud when they slammed the hatch and sealed it.

  Okay, she told herself. Just a quick peek. A fast reconnaissance. Nothing heroic.

  With gloved fingers she tapped the code on the hatch's control panel. It popped open slightly, and she noticed a puff of gritty dust from the floor swirl through the crack.

  Breathing heavily inside her helmet, she pushed the hatch all the way open and stepped tentatively through. The lamps fixed to the shoulders of her space suit reflected light off the steel wall of the shaft.

  "Looks all right so far," she said into her helmet microphone to the techs in the control center watching her progress in the corridor's surveillance camera.

  "Some dust or dirt accumulated on the floor of the shaft," she reported, kicking up little lingering clouds of dust as she turned a full circle.

  She had to crane her neck painfully to look up the length of the shaft. Sure enough, the hatch up at the top was gone. She could see a swatch of stars in the circular opening up there. Feeling jumpier with every heartbeat, Leeza unclipped the hand torch from her waist and shone it up the shaft. The gleaming reflection from the smooth steel lining ended about halfway up.

  "The metal lining of the shaft seems to have been eroded or something," she said. A pebble pinged on her helmet. She would have jumped halfway out of her skin if she hadn't been inside the cumbersome suit.

  "It's eating the metal!" she yelped.

  "Get back inside," said one of the techs from the control center. "Get back before they start chewing on you!"

&nb
sp; Leeza didn't wait to be told twice.

  There was no nanotech expert among the HSS crew at the Vesta base. And no way to call for advice or information, with all the surface antennas gone. Leeza ordered the entire team into the galley, the only room large enough to hold the nearly two hundred men and women in the base at the same time.

  "It's nanomachines," she concluded, after reporting to them what was happening. "They seem to be attacking metal. Maybe they're specifically programmed to destroy steel, maybe it's any metal at all. We don't know. But either way, we're in deep trouble."

  "They could eat out all the hatches and open the whole complex to vacuum!" said one of the mercenary soldiers.

  "That's what they're in the process of doing," Leeza admitted.

  The head of the logistics storeroom, a soft-looking sandy-haired man with a bold blue stylized wolf tattooed across his forehead, spoke up:

  "They're coming down the shaft and eating at the airtight hatch, right?"

  "Right," said Leeza.

  "And when they've gone through that first hatch they'll come along the corridor toward the next hatch, right?"

  "We all know that!" snapped a dark-haired woman in pale green coveralls. "They'll eat up anything metal."

  "Well," said the logistics man, "why don't we spray the corridors and hatches with something nonmetallic?"

  "Spray?"

  "We've got sprayguns, ceramics torches, butterknives, for chrissakes. Cover every square millimeter of exposed metal with something nonmetallic. Slather it on good and thick. Maybe that'll stop the nanos."

  "That's ridiculous!"

  "Maybe not."

  "It's worth a try."

  Leeza agreed that it was worth a try. If nothing else, it would keep everybody busy, instead of waiting in dread for the nanomachines to kill them.

  COMMAND SHIP SAMARKAND

  A great way to go into battle, thought Dorik Harbin: out of fuel, stripped of armor, and low on rations.

  Sitting in the command chair on Samarkand's bridge, Harbin turned his gaze from the main display screen to the thick quartz port set into the bulkhead on his left. They were close enough to the Chrysalis for him to see it without magnification; the habitat's linked circle of metal-skinned modules glinted faintly in the light from the distant Sun, a tiny spark of human warmth set against the cold, silent darkness of infinite space.

  "I have contact with Chrysalis, sir," his communications technician said, turning halfway in her chair to look at Harbin.

  "Main screen," he ordered.

  A woman's face appeared on the screen, ascetically thin, high cheekbones, hair cropped down to a bare fuzz, almond-shaped dark eyes full of suspicion.

  "Please identify yourself," she said, her voice polite but hard-edged. "We're not getting any telemetry data from you."

  "You don't need it," Harbin said, reflexively rubbing one hand over his fiercely dark beard. "We're looking for Lars Fuchs. Surrender him to us and we'll leave you in peace."

  "Fuchs?" The woman looked genuinely puzzled. "He's not here. He's an exile. We wouldn't—"

  "No lies," Harbin snapped. "We know Fuchs is heading for your habitat. I want him."

  Her expression turned from surprise to irritation. "How can we produce him when he's not here?"

  "Who's in charge there?" Harbin demanded. "I want to speak to your top person."

  "That'd be Big George. George Ambrose. He's our chief administrator."

  "Get him."

  "He's not here."

  Harbin's jaw clenched. "Are you joking, or do you want me to start shooting?"

  Her eyes widened. "George is aboard the Elsinore. Greeting some VIP from Selene."

  "Patch me through to him."

  Sullenly, the woman said, "I'll try."

  The screen went blank. Harbin turned to his comm tech. "Did she cut me off?"

  The technician shrugged. "Maybe it wasn't deliberate."

  Harbin thought otherwise. They're playing a delaying game. Why? Do they know we're almost out of propellant? Why are they being stubborn?

  Aloud, he commanded, "Show me the ships parked at the habitat."

  The technician murmured into the pin microphone at her lips and the main screen lit up. Chrysalis showed up as a circle in the middle of the display. Harbin counted eleven ships co-orbiting nearby. One of them was identified as Elsinore, a passenger-carrying torch ship. The others appeared to be freighters, ore carriers, logistics supply vessels.

  We'll have to take the propellants and supplies we need from them, Harbin said to himself. After we've found Fuchs.

  He called up Elsinore's manifest. Registered to Astro Corporation. Just in from Selene. No cargo. Carrying only one passenger, someone identified as Edith Elgin, from Selene.

  From Selene, he thought. Who would pay the expense of sending a torch ship from Selene to Ceres for just one passenger? Lars Fuchs must be aboard that ship. He has to be. The passenger they've identified on their manifest, this Edith Elgin, must be a front for Fuchs.

  It must be.

  Harbin rose from his command chair. "Take the con," he said to his pilot. "I'll be back in a few moments. If Chrysalis's chief administrator calls, let me know immediately."

  He ducked through the hatch and walked the few steps to the door of his private quarters. They're not going to give up Fuchs willingly, Harbin thought. They might know that we're low on supplies, or guess it. Maybe they think they can wait us out. They could be calling for more Astro attack ships to come to their aid.

  He looked at his bed. How long has it been since I've slept? he asked himself. With a shake of his head he answered, No matter. This is no time for sleep. He went past the bed and into his lavatory. There he opened the slim case that housed his medications. I'll need to be alert, razor-sharp, he told himself. He picked one of the vials and fitted it to the hypospray. Rolling up the sleeve of his tunic, he pressed the spray-gun against his bare skin and pushed the plunger.

  He felt nothing. For good measure he fitted another vial to the hypospray and shot the additional dose into his bloodstream.

  Big George was walking Edith Elgin down the passageway to Elsinore's main airlock, where his shuttlecraft had docked.

  "You won't need a space suit," George was saying. "We'll go straight into the shuttle and then we'll dock with Chrysalis. Shirtsleeve environment all the way."

  Edith smiled, delighted with this big, shaggy mountain of a man with the wild brick-red hair and beard. He would look terrific on video.

  "I'm looking forward to seeing how the rock rats live," she said, secretly berating herself for not having a microcam attached to her and slaved to wherever her eyes focused. Always be ready to shoot, she reminded herself. You're letting an opportunity slip away.

  "Aw, there aren't many ratties in the habitat. Mostly clerks and shopkeepers. The real rock rats are out in the Belt, workin' their bums off."

  "Even with this war going on?" she asked.

  George nodded. "No work, no eat."

  "But isn't it dangerous, with ships being attacked?"

  "Sure it is. But—"

  "URGENT MESSAGE FOR MR. AMBROSE," the overhead intercom speakers blared.

  George swiveled his head around, spotted a wall phone, and hurried to it. Edith followed him.

  A bone-thin woman's face showed in the wall phone's little screen. "An unidentified ship has taken up a parking orbit. They're demanding we surrender Lars Fuchs to them."

  "Lars isn't here," George said.

  "I told him that but he said we either give him Fuchs or he starts shooting!"

  "Bloody fookin' maniac," George growled.

  "He wants to talk to you."

  "Right. I want to talk to him. Put me through."

  Harbin felt perfectly normal. Bright, alert, ready to deal with these miserable rock rats or whatever other enemies came at him.

  For the moment, though, he was sitting in his command chair and staring into the sky-blue eyes of a man sporting a thick mane of blazing r
ed hair and an equally wild-looking beard.

  Stroking his own neatly cropped beard, Harbin said, "It's very simple. You surrender Fuchs to me or I'll destroy you."

  "We don't have Fuchs," George Ambrose said, obviously working hard to hold back his temper.

  "How do I know that's true?"

  "Come aboard and look for yourself! He's not here."

  "He is aboard Elsinore, don't deny it."

  "He isn't. He's not here. You're welcome to come aboard and search the ship from top to bottom."

  "I'm not such a fool. You've already spirited him away to your habitat."

  "Search the habitat then!"

  "With a dozen men? You could hide him from us easily."

  Ambrose started to say something, thought better of it, and sucked in a deep breath. At last he said, "Look, whoever the fook you are. Chrysalis is neutral territory. We're not armed. We have no weapons. You're welcome to search the habitat to your heart's content. We'll resupply your ship and fill your propellant tanks for you. What more can I offer you?"

  "Lars Fuchs," said Harbin, implacably. This stubborn fool is beginning to anger me, he realized. He could feel the rage building, deep within him, like a seething pit of hot lava burning its way toward the surface.

  "Lars isn't here!" Ambrose insisted. "He's not anywhere near here! We exiled the poor bloody bastard years ago. He's persona non grata."

  Harbin leaned forward in his chair, his eyes narrowing, his hands clenching into fists. "You have one half-hour to produce Fuchs. If you haven't given him to me by then, I will destroy your precious habitat and everyone in it."

  SELENE: DOUGLAS STAVENGER'S QUARTERS

  Doug Stavenger sat tensely in the armchair at one end of his living room's sofa. At the matching chair on the other end sat Pancho Lane. Between them, Martin Humphries was on the sofa, beneath a genuine Bonestell painting of a sleek rocket sitting on the Moon's rugged surface.

  Pancho looks wary, Stavenger thought, like a gazelle that's been caught in a trap. The trousers of her trim sea-green business suit hid the cast on her left ankle.