Ben Bova - Moonwar

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.

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 on parade. He was on the small side, quite slim, 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, un-athletic—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.”

“Goodbye, Harry,” said Kadar.

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

“Goodbye, 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-tern.” 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 UN 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?”

Kadar slouched back in his chair like a petulant child. “I want to talk to Stavenger,” he said.

“He’s too damned busy for picobits like this, Zoltan. I’m the acting director and I say your rocket sits.”

With a slight hike of his heavy brows, Kadar got slowly out of his chair and walked to the door.

“Thank you for your time,” he said to Anson.

“Nothing to it.”

Kadar stepped through the door and closed it softly, saying to himself, Now where in hell can I find Stavenger?

“When do they land?” asked Toshiru Takai.

Doug did not have to look at his watch. “In less than four days.”

Takai nodded and made a sound halfway between a sigh and a groan.

Doug was walking with him slowly across the vast floor of the crater Copernicus, where the Nippon One base was situated, more than a thousand kilometers from Moonbase. Since they were communicating through a virtual reality program, they could walk on the lunar surface without space suits. Doug wore his usual unadorned sky-blue coveralls; Takai a similar jumpsuit of pearl gray, decorated with a single white heron over the breast pocket, the symbol of Yamagata Corporation.

“I tried to reach your corporate headquarters in Tokyo,” Doug said, “but there seemed to be some difficulty with their receiving equipment.”

“I imagine your transmissions are being jammed by the Peacekeepers,” Takai said, showing no emotion on his lean, bony face. He was in his early thirties; Doug thought of him as his own age, roughly, even though Takai was at least five years older.

With an understanding smile, Doug said, “Our transmissions are getting through to Savannah and Tarawa and even New York.”

Takai gave him a sidelong glance. “Do you want me to tell you that my superiors in Tokyo have decided not to speak with you?” His voice was low, but filled with strength.

“I’d like to know where they stand,” Doug said evenly. “Where you stand.”

“Why, here I am, in the middle of the most beautiful crater on the Moon!”

Doug laughed at the joke. Although they had never met physically, he had known Takai for three years now, ever since the young enginner had been chosen to direct the Yamagata lunar base. While their virtual selves could walk in the vacuum without even kicking up a cloud of dust, each of them was safely in his office, deep underground.