Ben Bova - Moonwar

Getting to his feet, Doug said, “I’m still assuming that we’ll have to handle the Peacekeepers, and we’ve got less than four days to figure out how to do it.”

“What do you intend to do?”

He shrugged. “I’ve asked Zimmerman and Cardenas to meet me in my quarters. Lev and Jinny Anson, too. And one of the aquaculture technicians, the only guy in the base who’s had any military experience at all.”

“All right,” Joanna said, looking up at her son from the chaise longue. “You do that. I’m going to put in a call to Faure. He’ll negotiate. I know he will.”

“Don’t commit us to anything until I get a chance to see what it is, okay?”

Joanna nodded absently. “Oh, I don’t think Faure will agree to anything concrete until the Peacekeepers get here and take over the base.”

“That’s what I’m trying to prevent.”

“Good,” she said. “If we could somehow keep the Peacekeepers out of here it would strengthen our hand tremendously.”

“I’ll see what we can do,” said Doug.

Moonbase had started as a clutch of temporary shelters, little more than aluminum cans the size of house trailers, dug into the lunar regolith on the floor of the crater Alphonsus and then covered over with rubble to protect them from the radiation and temperature swings between night and day. And from the occasional meteoroid strike. Meteor showers that were spectacular light shows in the night sky of Earth were potentially dangerous volleys of celestial machine-gun fire on the airless Moon.

By the time of Doug Stavenger’s first visit to the Moon, on his eighteenth birthday, Moonbase had grown into a set of four parallel tunnels dug into the flank of Mount Yeager. Offices, labs, workshops and living quarters lined the tunnels. The water factory was at the front of one tunnel, the environmental control center—where the base’s air was recycled and kept circulating properly—was at the rear.

In his seven years at Moonbase, Doug had seen those original four tunnels grow to eight, with the four new tunnels sunk a level below the original quartet. Rough rock walls were smoothed with plasma torches and painted in pastels selected by psychologists—then painted over by base personnel who demanded brighter, bolder colors. And the occasional graffitist. When the grand plaza’s construction was finished, twenty more tunnels would be added beneath it.

If we ever get to finish the grand plaza, Doug thought as he walked toward his quarters. He nodded and smiled automatically to everyone he passed. Doug knew most of the long-time Lunatics by sight, but there were always hundreds of short-term workers at the base. How many of them will stay with us? he wondered. Even if we keep the Peacekeepers out and establish our independence, will we have enough people left here to run the base?

There were directional signs on the walls now, and electronic maps at intersections that showed a schematic of the tunnel system. Corridors, Doug reminded himself. We call them corridors now, not tunnels.

He turned left at an intersection and bumped into a man in olive green coveralls who was striding purposefully down the corridor. They each muttered an apology and fell into step, side by side, as they walked down the corridor.

Out of the side of his eye, Doug looked the man over. He thought he recognized him, but couldn’t quite place who he was. The man was a couple of inches shorter than Doug’s own six-one, but built wide and solid, like a bulldozer. Not an ounce of fat on him: he had felt iron-hard when Doug had bumped into him. His skin was the color of milk chocolate, his neatly-trimmed hair dark and wiry. Doug could not see his nametag without making it obvious he was looking at it.

So he said, “I’m Doug Stavenger,” and stuck out his hand without breaking stride.

The man made a perfunctory smile. “I know.”

For a moment Doug thought he was going to refuse to shake, but then the man took Doug’s proffered hand and said, in a clear, distinct, deliberate baritone, “My name is Bam Gordette.”

“Leroy Gordette?” Suddenly the picture from the personnel file clicked in Doug’s mind.

Gordette replied, “Call me Bam. It’s short for Bama, which in turn is short for Alabama.”

“You’re from Alabama?” Doug asked.

“Yeah, but I got no banjo on my knee.” Gordette smiled, but it looked purely mechanical.

“I was born in Georgia,” said Doug.

“I know.”

They had reached the door to Doug’s quarters, which was doubling as his office now that Jinny Anson occupied the director’s post. Opening it, Doug ushered Gordette in with a gesture. “The others will be here in a few minutes.”

The smart walls were all blank as they stepped in. Gordette started to sit on the couch by the door, but Doug pointed to the sling chair next to his writing desk. As he went to the desk and dropped into his swivel chair, Doug said, “We can use the few minutes to get to know each other.”

Gordette nodded tightly. Doug looked into his deep brown eyes and saw that Gordette would be a tough opponent in a poker game. He gave away nothing.

“You were in the army?” Doug prompted.

“Special Forces.”

“How long?”

“I did a four-year hitch.”

“Why did you leave?”

“Got a better offer.”

Doug tapped on his keyboard and Gordette’s personnel file came up on the wall screen to his left.

“What kind of a company is Falcon Electronics?”

“Small,” said Gordette. “They did customized electro-optical rigs, stuff like that.”

“You were with them almost nine years?”

“Right.”

“And then you got a job with Masterson Corporation and came to Moonbase.”

“Right.”

Leaning back in his chair, Doug asked, “How do you like it here?”

Gordette thought for a moment. “Not bad. Most of the people here are smart, civilized.”

“Civilized?”

“There’s not much of a color problem here. Not like back in the States.”

Doug felt shocked. “You had race problems?”

Gordette smiled again, but this time it dripped acid. “There’s no black man on Earth doesn’t have race problems.”

“I’m part black,” Doug said. “My father—”

“I know all about it. But your skin is white enough, and you got enough money, so it doesn’t matter to you.”

Doug felt as if he were battering against a solid steel barrier. Not that Gordette seemed hostile; he simply offered nothing. It was like talking to an automaton. And yet there was something going on behind those unwavering eyes. The man wasn’t stupid, Doug judged. He’s just sitting there, looking at me. As if he’s studying me.

Lev Brudnoy stuck his head through Doug’s open door and broke the tightening silence. Moments later, Jinny Anson, Professor Zimmerman and Kris Cardenas joined the conference.

As they carefully, meticulously, went over every inch of Moonbase’s layout, equipment and supplies, Doug watched Gordette. The man said nothing, but seemed entirely focused on their discussion. He listened intently, hands clasped in front of his face as if in prayer. Every now and then, though, Doug caught him looking directly at him. Gordette never looked away. He simply stared at Doug, face utterly impassive, eyes boring into Doug as if he were taking X-ray photographs.

“So we can button up and wait for ’em to run out of air,” Anson said, waving a hand at the schematic diagram of the base that filled one whole wall of Doug’s office.

“Suppose they blow out the main airlock?” Brudnoy asked. “What then?”

Anson’s normally perky expression paled slightly. “Why would they do that?”