Moonwar Page 5

  TOUCHDOWN MINUS 109 HOURS

  Aboard the Clippership Max Faget, Captain Jagath Munasinghe stared suspiciously at the schematic displayed on his notebook screen.

  “And this is the control center? Here?” He pointed with a blunt finger.

  “That’s it,” said Jack Killifer. “Take that and you’ve got the whole base under your thumb.”

  Munasinghe wore the uniform of the U.N.’s Peacekeeping Force: sky blue, with white trim at the cuffs and along the front of his tunic, captain’s bars on his collar and a slim line of ribbons on his chest below his name tag. He was of slight build, almost delicate, but his large dark eyes radiated a distrust that always bordered on rage. Born in Sri Lanka, he had seen warfare from childhood and only accepted a commission in the Peacekeepers when Sri Lanka had agreed to disarmament after its third civil war in a century had killed two million men, women and children with a man-made plague virus.

  Behind him, forty specially-picked Peacekeepers sat uneasily in weightlessness as the spacecraft coasted toward the Moon. None of them had ever been in space before, not even Captain Munasinghe. Despite the full week of autogenic-feedback adaptation training they had been rushed through, and the slow-release anti-nausea patches they were required to wear behind their ears, several of the troops had vomited miserably during the first few hours of zero-gee flight. Munasinghe himself had managed to fight down the bile that burned in his throat, but just barely.

  Sitting beside the captain, Killifer wore standard civilian’s coveralls, slate gray and undecorated except for his name tag over his left breast pocket. He was more than twenty years older than the dark-skinned captain and almost a head taller: lean, lantern-jawed, his face hard and flinty. Once his light brown hair had been shaved down almost to his scalp, but now it was graying, and he wore it long enough to tie into a ponytail that bobbed weightlessly at the back of his neck. The sight of it made Munasinghe queasy.

  “Forty men to take and hold the entire base,” Munasinghe muttered unhappily.

  “It’s not that big a place,” Killifer replied. “And like I told you, take the command center and you control their air, water, heat—everything.”

  Munasinghe nodded, but his eyes showed that he had his doubts.

  “Look,” Killifer said, “you put a couple of men in the environmental control center, here”—he tapped a fingernail on the captain’s notebook screen—“and a couple more in the water factory, keep a few in the control center and the rest of ’em can patrol the tunnels or do whatever else you want.”

  “There are more than two thousand people there.”

  “So what? They got no weapons. They’re civilians, they don’t know how to fight even if they wanted to.”

  “You are absolutely sure they have no weapons of any kind?”

  Killifer gave him a nasty grin. “Nothing. Shit, they don’t even have steak knives; the toughest food they have to deal with is friggin’ soybean burgers.”

  “Still …”

  Feeling exasperated, Killifer growled, “I spent damn near twenty years there. I know what I’m talking about. It’ll be a piece of cake, I tell you. A walkover. You’ll be a friggin’ hero inside of ten minutes.”

  Munasinghe’s dubious expression did not change, but he turned and looked across the aisle of the passenger compartment to the reporter who was sitting next to them.

  TOUCHDOWN MINUS 108 HOURS 57 MINUTES

  Edith Elgin had thought she’d chat with the women soldiers among the Peacekeepers all the way to the Moon. But ever since the rocket’s engines had cut off and the spacecraft had gone into zero gravity she had felt too nauseated to chat or even smile. Besides, most of the women barely spoke English; the little flags they wore as shoulder patches were from Pakistan and Zambia and places like that.

  If she didn’t feel so queasy it would have almost been funny. The reporter who broke the story of finding life on Mars, the woman who had parlayed a Texas cheerleader’s looks and a lot of smarts into prime-time news stardom, sitting strapped into a bucket seat, stomach churning, sinuses throbbing, feeling woozy every time she moved her head the slightest bit. And there’s more than four days of this to go. Sooner or later I’ll have to get up and go to the toilet. She did not look forward to the prospect.

  At least nobody’s upchucked for a while, Edith told herself gratefully. The sound of people vomiting had almost broken her when they had first gone into zero gee. Fortunately the Clippership’s air-circulation system had been strong enough to keep most of the stench away from her row. Still, the acrid scent of vomit made the cabin smell like a New York alley.

  It had been neither simple nor easy to win this assignment to accompany the Peacekeepers to the renegade base on the Moon. The network was all for it, of course, but the U.N. bureaucracy wanted nothing to do with a reporter aboard their spacecraft. Edith had to use every bit of her blond smiling charm and corporate infighter’s savvy to get past whole phalanxes of administrators and directors and their petty, close-minded assistants. All the way up to Georges Faure himself she had battled.

  “My dear Miss Elgin,” Faure had said, with his smarmy smile, “this is a military expedition, not a camping trip.”

  “This is news,” Edith had countered, “and the public demands to know what’s going on, firsthand.”

  She had been brought to Faure’s presence in the Secretariat building. Not to his office, though. The secretary-general chose to meet her in a small quiet lounge on the building’s top floor. The lounge was plush: thick beige carpeting, comfortable armchairs and curved little sofas. Even the walls were covered with woven tapestries of muted browns and greens. The decor seemed to absorb sound; it was a room that gave no echoes, a room to share whispered secrets.

  Edith had chosen to wear a clinging knee-length dress of bright red, accented with gold bracelets and necklace to complement her sunshine yellow hair. Once it had been truly that happy color; for years now she had helped it along with tint.

  Faure had let her wait for almost ten minutes before he showed up, a dapper little man in a precisely-cut suit of elegant dark blue set off perfectly by a necktie of deep maroon.

  He took her hand so daintily that Edith thought he was going to kiss it. Instead, Faure led her to one of the plush armchairs and sat in the one facing hers. As she sat down, Edith looked past Faure’s smiling figure to the ceiling-high windows that faced uptown, northward, along the East River. She could see the Fifty-ninth Street bridge and well past it, all the way up to the Triboro and beyond.

  “What a sparkling day,” she said.

  Faure took it as a personal compliment. “You see how the electric automobile has already improved the air quality,” he said, beaming. It made his tiny eyes almost disappear.

  Edith wasn’t willing to let him take all the credit. “I thought the electric cars were mandated by the U.S. government. The Environmental Protection Agency, wasn’t it?”

  “Ah, yes,” said Faure quickly. “But only after our own efforts had proven successful in reducing the pollution in Tokyo and Mexico City. Now all the major cities are following our lead.” Again the smile that almost swallowed his eyes.

  Edith wondered silently, Is he using the editorial “we” or the imperial?

  But she smiled back at the secretary-general and said sweetly, “You know that a big chunk of the American public doesn’t agree with what you’re doing to Moonbase.”

  Faure’s expression turned hard for a moment, then he shrugged and put on a sad face. “Yes, I know. It is very unfortunate. But one cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs, can one?”

  Now he’s saying “one” instead of “we,” Edith realized.

  “Most of the inhabitants of Moonbase are Americans,” she said.

  “They are violating the treaty that Americans themselves drafted. The very treaty that the American delegation originally proposed to the General Assembly and fought so hard to have passed.”

  “Still,” Edith said, leaning back in the comfort
able armchair and crossing her legs at the ankles, “many Americans sympathize with the people in Moonbase.”

  Faure made a what-can-I-do shrug.

  “They would feel better about it,” Edith continued, “if an American reporter went with the Peacekeepers and sent back on-the-spot reports.”

  The secretary-general began to shake his head.

  “The American media would feel much better about it if a reporter were allowed to go along,” Edith added.

  “You mean those who control and direct the news media, no?”

  “Yes. The top brass.”

  Faure sighed heavily. “Frankly, Miss Elgin, the American news media have not always been kind to me.”

  Edith kept herself from grinning. In most countries the government could muzzle the media pretty effectively. But the First Amendment was still in force in the U.S. So far.

  “You see,” Faure said, leaning closer to her, placing his hands on the knees of his perfectly creased trousers, “it is not I who resists your request. The Peacekeepers are military men. And women, of course. They do not want a news reporter to travel with them. They fear it might hamper them—”

  “The military never wants reporters around.”

  “Quite so. But in this case I can fully understand their hesitation.”

  Edith said, “If there’s a news blackout, the media will have nothing to work with except rumors.”

  “We will furnish news releases, as a matter of course. Each day a complete summary will be given to the media.”

  “But some reporters will wonder how accurate it is. There’s always the tendency to put your own spin on the actual events, isn’t there?”

  Wearily, Faure replied, “I suppose so. But you must not impugn the integrity of the Peacekeepers. They have accomplished very difficult assignments in many parts of the globe. Take Brazil, for example—”

  “Are you saying,” Edith interrupted, “that it’s up to the Peacekeepers themselves to decide if they take a reporter or not?”

  “No, not at all. Merely—”

  “Because I thought the Peacekeepers reported to you. I thought you made the final decisions.”

  “But I do!”

  “Yet in this case you’re going to let them dictate to you, is that it?”

  Faure’s mustache quivered slightly. “Not at all! I make the decision and they follow.”

  Smiling her prettiest, Edith knew she had him. “In that case, you certainly understand how important it will be to have an unbiased, trusted news reporter on the scene when they land at Moonbase.”

  Faure’s face clearly showed that he did not like being mousetrapped. But slowly his expression changed; he smiled again, showing teeth.

  “Yes, you are correct,” he said slowly. “The responsibility is mine. All mine. The weight of the major decisions is upon my shoulders alone.”

  Edith recognized the crafty look in his eyes.

  “This is not an easy decision to make, Miss Elgin,” Faure went on. “Special arrangements require certain … ah, accommodations.”

  “What do you mean?” Edith asked, knowing perfectly well what he meant.

  Leaning forward even more and tapping a pudgy finger on her knee, Faure said, “We have much to discuss about this. Perhaps we could have dinner this evening?”

  The body tax. Edith controlled her inner anger as she told herself, Even after all these years of women’s rights it still comes down to the damned body tax. He’s got the power and he knows it. If I want him to do me a favor he expects me to do one for him in return. And all he sees is a good-looking blonde.

  “Dinner sounds fine,” she said, thinking, It won’t be the first time you’ve opened your legs to get a good assignment. Sometimes you’ve got to give some head to get ahead.

  TOUCHDOWN MINUS 96 HOURS

  The mercenary stared at the message that was waiting for him on his wallscreen.

  “The prey runs to the hunter,” he muttered to himself.

  Slowly he peeled off his grimy fatigues and wadded them into a ball that he tossed onto his bunk as he headed for the shower stall. His quarters were one of the old rooms in Moonbase. Most people complained that they were small and cramped, but the mercenary found the space just fine for his needs. Two of the walls were smart screens, recently installed. The shower stall was new, too.

  Making sure the temperature dial was still set for dead cold, the mercenary stepped into the stall and let the reviving water sluice over his body. The prey runs to the hunter, he thought again. Doug Stavenger wants to see me.

  Ever since he had first begun training as a sniper, back during his army days, he had thought of killing as a sort of religious rite. A sacred responsibility. Everybody dies, the only question about it is where and when. And how.

  I give them a clean death. Not like some of those freaks.

  When he was taken out of the army to serve in the covert intelligence agency, he had the time and the need to take up the study of primitive hunters who believed that the animals they killed came to them for death. The prey runs to the hunter.

  If you do everything just right, make all the proper rituals and set things up just the way they should be, then the prey comes to you and asks to be allowed to die. Not in so many words, of course. But they come to me for death.

  Just like Doug Stavenger’s going to do. Hell, he’s already started along the path.

  TOUCHDOWN MINUS 95 HOURS 54 MINUTES

  Zoltan Kadar was a Hungarian who prided himself on being slicker and smarter than ordinary mortals. He also happened to be one of the top astronomers in the world and an extremely clever man.

  But now he felt frustrated and, worse, ignored.

  He strode along the corridor toward the base director’s office, hands balled into fists, arms swinging like a soldier’s on parade. He was on the small side, quite slim, with a fencer’s agile figure. His hair was dark and straight, and came to a pronounced widow’s peak centered above his heavy dark eyebrows. People called him Count Dracula, although once they got to know him they changed his nickname to Slick Willy. Kadar revelled in the characterization.

  “Hey, Slick, where you going?”

  Kadar barely slowed his determined stride as he recognized Harry Clemens, head of the transportation division. Clemens was one of the older engineers, a true Lunatic who had been working at Moonbase for many years.

  “Hello, Harry.”

  Working hard to stay with Kadar, Clemens—lanky, balding, unathletic—said, “Jeez, you look like you’re going to lead the charge of the Light Brigade.”

  “They’ve cancelled my farside survey flight,” Kadar said through gritted teeth. “I’m going to get it back on schedule.”

  “Oh, yeah, I know about that. Too bad.”

  “Too bad for them. They can’t just stop my work like that.” He snapped the fingers of his left hand.

  “Everything’s ground to a halt. We’re at war, you know.”

  “Pah!”

  “Nothing’s going out, really. There’s a Peacekeeper troopship on its way here.”

  “What has that got to do with building the farside observatory?”

  Clemens was a practical engineer, and he recognized a stone wall when he saw one. “Well, I’ve got to turn off here. I’m helping the nanotech crew to shut down the bugs building the Clippership.”

  “Good-bye, Harry,” said Kadar.

  “Hope you can get what you want, but I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “Good-bye, Harry.”

  Another minute’s march brought Kadar to the base director’s office. He rapped once on the door and opened it.

  Jinny Anson was sitting behind the desk, talking on the phone to some woman. She glanced up at Kadar and waved him to a chair in front of her desk. From the expression on her face, Kadar realized that she knew she was in for trouble.

  “Where is Stavenger?” Kadar asked as soon as Anson clicked off her phone screen.

  “Doug’s taking charge of the war. I’m
the base director pro tem.” Before Kadar could draw a breath she added, “And all work outside has been suspended, Zoltan, not just yours.”

  “I’m not interested in the rest of them. It’s my work that is important.”

  “Sure,” Anson said good-naturedly. “But we can’t hang a surveillance satellite over farside until this business with the Peacekeepers is cleared up.”

  “I don’t see why. It’s an uncrewed satellite. I will take care of all the monitoring myself. I have the programs all in place.”

  With a patient sigh, Anson explained, “Look, there’s a Clippership full of Peacekeepers on their way here to take over the base. We’re going to try to stop them—don’t ask me how, that’s Doug’s problem.”

  “But what has this to do with my work?” Kadar couldn’t help putting a stress on the word my.

  “The U.N.’s already taken over the L-1 satellite. Maybe they’ve got Peacekeepers there, maybe not, we don’t know.”

  “But again, what has this—”

  “They’re watching us, Zoltan. They’re watching every move we make. With telescopes and radar and every other kind of sensor they’ve got.”

  “So?”

  “So what’s their reaction gonna be if we launch a rocket? They won’t just ignore it. Maybe they’ve already got high-power lasers at L-1 and they’ll zap your rocket before they can figure out where it’s heading.”

  “Nonsense! We’ll simply tell them what the rocket’s mission is.”

  “And they’ll believe you?” Anson’s earnest expression eased into a sly smile. “They’ll believe a Hungarian?”

  Kadar grinned back at her. “That might be a problem,” he conceded.

  “We don’t want to do anything that’ll give the U.N. a reason to start bombarding us. Your rocket stays in the shed until this crisis is over.”

  “Bombard us? That’s idiotic. We’re buried deep enough so that even nuclear bombs won’t harm us.”

  “Really?” Anson snapped. “You really want to test that theory? And what about the solar farms and the mass driver and all your astronomical equipment out on the crater floor? What happens to them?”