Ben Bova - Moonwar

And what am I willing to do for him? Gordette asked himself. Then a new thought touched him: If he dies, what happens to me? The rest of the people around here don’t trust me. They hate me. They’ll even blame me for not protecting Doug. But what can I do? What do I want to do? Am I willing to get myself killed for him?

Doug, meanwhile, had taken a few steps inside the dimly-lit studio. He called out, “Edith, are you all right?”

She rose to her feet slowly. “I’m okay.” Her voice was shaky.

The suicide bomber poked the top of his head above the couch’s back. Doug saw that he had taken off his spacesuit helmet, but couldn’t see where his hands were.

“You are Douglas Stavenger?”

“I am Douglas Stavenger.”

The man hissed with satisfaction. “ Kami wa subarashi! You will come here, to me. Now!”

“First you’ve got to let her go,” Doug said.

“When you are here beside me I will allow her to leave.”

“No,” Doug said. “You release her first. Once she’s safely out of this room, I’ll come and stand beside you.”

“You do not trust me?”

Doug almost smiled. “I want to make sure that she’s safe. That there aren’t any… accidents.”

“Why should I trust you? You are filled with the devil machines!”

And you are filled with hate, Doug thought. Or is it fear? Can I work on his fear or will that just make things worse?

“My nanomachines can’t harm you or anyone else,” he said.

“It makes no difference,” the young man said. “Soon we will both be dead.”

“Yes, that’s true. But let the woman go. She has nothing to do with what must happen between you and me. She’s a visitor here, trapped here by the war. Let her go.”

“When you come to me, she can go.”

Stalemate. Then Doug thought, “At least allow her to get a camera and make a video record of our last moments together. So the whole world can see what you did.”

Even from across the half-lit studio Doug could see the young man’s eyes brighten. He started to respond, then hesitated.

Doug felt his pulse thundering in his ears.

At last the suicide bomber said gruffly, “Very well, she can video our last moments.”

If Edith minded that both the men were talking about her in the third person, she didn’t show it. Without another word being said, she walked purposefully from behind the couch to the rack of electronic equipment near the door.

The suicide bomber remained almost totally hidden behind the couch. Is there enough of him showing for Bam to get a shot off? Doug wondered.

“Now you come here!” the young man commanded.

“No!” Gordette roared.

Wheeling, Doug had just a split-second to see Gordette’s fist coming at his jaw. Then everything went blurry and he felt himself sagging to the floor.

“Get out of here!” Gordette yelled to Edith. Take him with you!”

“No! Stop!” the suicide bomber screamed. “I will kill us all!”

Doug felt Edith’s arms clutch him, dragging him toward the door. It was only a few steps away but it seemed like miles.

“Wha…” he heard himself mumble, still dazed, legs stumbling awkwardly. “Wait, don’t…”

“Stop! Who are you?” the suicide bomber yelled, ducking behind the couch again.

Walking deliberately toward the couch, assault rifle levelled at his hip, Gordette said, “I’m the angel of death, man. You want to die? Well, so do I.”

Gordette smiled as he realized the beautiful, inevitable truth to it. I’m the one who’s been rushing toward death, he knew at last. I’m the one who needs to die. At least now my death will mean something, accomplish something.

“I’ll kill us all!” the bomber screamed.

“You go right ahead,” Gordette answered calmly.

Doug was struggling to his feet out in the corridor while Edith was sliding the door shut. He heard the chatter of the assault rifle and then an explosion ripped the doors off their slides and flung Edith across the corridor.

It took fully half an hour for Georges Faure to calm himself to the point where he could touch his intercom keypad with a trembling finger and say, his voice hardly shaking at all:

“I see that several calls have accumulated while I was speaking with the Peacekeepers on the Moon. Tell them all that I am unavailable.”

His aide replied from the outer office, “Mr Yamagata is most insistent, sir.”

Faure saw that Yamagata’s name was at the top of the list on his desktop screen.

“I am unavailable,” he repeated sternly.

“Yes, sir.”

For long moments Faure sat there in his desk chair, feeling cold sweat soaking him. I must look terrible, he thought. He pushed himself to his feet and tottered across the thick carpeting to his lavatory.

In the mirror over the sink he saw the face of a defeated man. The Moonbase rebels have won the victory, he told himself.

He splashed water on his face, mopped it dry, then carefully combed his hair. I must change the clothes, he thought. This suit is wrinkled and damp.

As he reached for the cologne, the phone beside the sink chimed. He ignored it.

Moonbase has won the battle, he said to himself, patting the musk-scented cologne on his cheeks, but not the war. Straightening his slumped spine, squaring his shoulders, he repeated to his image in the mirror, No, not the war.

The phone chimed again. And again.

Banging its keypad, Faure snarled, “I told you that I am unavailable!”

His aide’s awed voice said, “But it’s the President of the United States, sir.”

Faure’s shoulders sagged. Perhaps the war is lost after all, he thought.

Edith swam up out of the black depths and tried to open her eyes. They were gummy, as if she’d been asleep a long, long time. A figure was standing over her, its face a blur. Blinking, she brought it into focus.

“Doug,” she croaked. Her voice sounded strange to her, as if she hadn’t really spoken at all but merely mouthed the word.

He smiled down at her, and she noticed that he had a jagged red line running across one side of his forehead. He leaned down and kissed her lightly on the lips. His mouth moved but no sound came out of it.

Still smiling, he reached toward her. She felt him pushing something into her ear.

“Can you hear me now?” he asked. His voice sounded tinny, as if it were coming through a bad radio. And there was an annoying ringing sound in the background.

She nodded.

“The explosion deafened both of us,” he said, as if his voice were coming through a tunnel from Mars. “My nanomachines fixed me up in a couple of hours, but you’ll have to wear an earplug for a few days.”

Edith realized that her vision was partially blocked by a large white lump, a bandage. She put her hands to her face; they were both heavily bandaged.

“You got pretty badly banged up, saving my life,” Doug said. “You got me out into the corridor, but when the doors blew they knocked you into the opposite wall.”

“My face?” she asked.

“The best plastic surgeon in the States is on his way here.

You’ll be good as new in a few weeks. Faster, if you’ll accept nanotherapy.”

“Nano—” Suddenly what he was saying clicked in her mind. “A surgeon from the States? The blockade’s over?”

“The war’s over,” Doug said. “We’ve won. Sort of.”

Edith tried to push herself up to a sitting position, but a jagged bolt of pain made her sink back onto the pillows. Doug reached for her.

“Take it easy,” he said. “You’re not ready to go dancing yet.”

“You are.”

“I get a little help from my friends,” Doug said.

“You can put nanos in me? Help me recover?”