Ben Bova - Moonwar

“Was it satisfactory? Can I see it?”

Wearily, Edith ran the abbreviated interview on camera one’s monitor. Munasinghe watched himself, fascinated. Edith wondered if the network suits would play the interview. They had made it clear they wanted to cooperate with the U.N., and this interview could stir a lot of hostility toward the Peacekeepers if it was aired.

No, she told herself, they’ll play it. They’ll have to. So the U.N. bitches about it, so what. This is news.

The mercenary returned to his quarters and sat on his bunk. The time to strike is nearly here, he told himself.

The situation was almost ludicrous. The more he thought about the base’s electrical power supplies, its life support systems, its total lack of weaponry or military capability, the more he realized that a single man like himself could bring the entire base to its knees.

They won’t need a ship full of Peacekeepers. I can do it all by myself.

But the Peacekeepers were on their way and there was almost nothing that the inhabitants of Moonbase could do to stop them.

Why assassinate the leaders when they can’t offer any resistance? Just knock out their electrical power system and they’re helpless. It won’t make any difference if Doug Stavenger lives or dies; Moonbase will cave in as soon as the Peacekeepers arrive.

The mercenary got down onto the floor in front of his bunk and folded his legs into the lotus position. Resting the backs of his hands on his knees, he closed his eyes and murmured his mantra, seeking harmony and understanding.

He saw in his mind’s eye what he always saw. His ten-year-old brother in convulsions, dying of the zip he had snorted while their mother lay sprawled on the sofa, too dazed with the same shit to phone for help. He saw his six-year-old self locked in the dark roach closet because he’d been a bad boy, watching his brother die through the closet door keyhole, listening to the screams that turned into strangled, choking sobs and finally ended in a groan that still tortured his soul.

If I had been good, I wouldn’t have been locked in the roach closet. I could’ve helped Timmy.

He saw his mother die, too. She was the first person he ever killed. He was fifteen and a father but she still treated him like a little kid. Took the strap to him. He grabbed it away from her and swung it hard enough to knock her down. Her head cracked on the table leg and her eyes went blank.

He saw his first sergeant, as brutal a man as any, but fair and unwaveringly honest. And the old cowboy on the rifle range, the one who taught him how to shoot. And how to hunt.

Death was his companion always. His ancient friend. He was death’s best assistant. That was his destiny, his purpose in life: to bring people to death.

He opened his eyes. Deep within him the ancient calm had returned. There were no doubts, no qualms, no divisions within him. He was one again. Whole. Death was at his side, invisible but palpable, his oldest and best companion.

After all, he told himself, Stavenger’s entire life revolves around Moonbase. Take that away from him and he’s as good as dead anyway. I’ll merely be helping him to the place where he wants to be.

Still, he sighed.

Joanna Stavenger actually felt nervous as she sat in her favorite armchair, waiting for Georges Faure’s call. The secretary-general had at first refused to speak to her at all, but the threat of telling the media that he planned to use nanomachines despite his public denouncement of them apparently had forced his hand.

Apparently, she reminded herself. The little bastard’s waited until the troopship is almost ready to land before agreeing to talk to me.

Faure had put up conditions. This was to be strictly a private conversation between the two of them. No third parties. And it was to be understood that he was speaking to her as a courtesy only, not in his capacity as secretary-general of the United Nations.

Joanna had agreed easily. She knew that Faure had no private existence; whatever he said to her was being said by the man who headed the U.N. And she conveniently forgot her pledge of privacy when she told her son that Faure was going to speak to her. Doug was not in her sitting room with her, but he was plugged into their conversation, in his own quarters.

Precisely at the appointed moment the synthesized voice of the communications system said, “Monsieur Faure is calling from New York.”

“On screen, please,” Joanna replied.

A window seemed to open on the wall before her and Faure’s face appeared, no larger than life-size. Joanna had programmed the smart wall that way; she had no desire to see Faure looming over her like an intimidating giant.

“Madame Brudnoy,” Faure said, with a polite little smile.

“Mr Secretary-General,” Joanna replied.

While she waited the three seconds for his reply, Joanna examined the room in which Faure was sitting. It didn’t look like an office; more like the living room of a spacious apartment in a high-rise building. She could not see much of the background behind him, but there was a window that looked out on the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

“I am not speaking as the secretary-general, Madame. This is a personal conversation between two private citizens.”

Joanna nodded an acknowledgement.

“May I say that you look radiant? And your apartment, from what I can see of it, seems quite charming. I had no idea such luxuries were to be found in Moonbase.”

Joanna had put on a tailored blouse of coral pink and a dark mid-thigh skirt: comfortable without being too dressy.

“Thank you,” she said. “This is my personal furniture. I had it brought up from Savannah years ago. I assure you, the other living quarters here are nowhere near as elegant.”

“I see,” said Faure, after the annoying lag. “The privileges of the wealthy.”

Joanna bit back the temptation to comment on Faure’s luxurious apartment. “I appreciate your taking the time to speak with me.”

This time it took more than three seconds for him to reply. His brow furrowed, his mouth pursed. At last he said, “Madame Brudnoy, it took a struggle with my conscience to decide to answer your request. I confess that my first instinct was to ignore it, and remain aloof from you and everyone else in Moonbase until this crisis is settled.”

“I think it’s always best to discuss problems frankly, face-to-face.”

His frown eased somewhat. “Yes, I agree. That is why I am speaking to you.”

“What about our declaration of independence?”

If the question jolted him, Faure gave no indication of it. “Declaration of independence? Pah!” He snapped his fingers. “A transparent ploy to avoid complying with the nano-technology treaty.”

“A right of every nation,” Joanna retorted. “Just because we’re on the Moon doesn’t mean we don’t have the same rights as any other group of people.”

“You are not a nation,” Faure countered. “Moonbase is a division of a corporation.”

“Moonbase is a community of more than two thousand people. We have the right to be independent.”

His cheeks flushed, Faure waved both hands indignantly. “But you are not a nation! Two thousand people do not make a nation! You can’t even exist by yourselves without supplies from Earth. It is as if a group of people on an ocean liner declared themselves an independent nation. It is nonsense!”

“We are self-sufficient,” Joanna insisted. “We produce our own food. We can exist on our own without any help from Earth.” That was stretching things, she knew, and yet a part of her mind marveled at the realization that the stretch was not all that much. Moonbase could exist without help from Earth.