Ben Bova - Moonwar

Although Doug’s office was little larger than a cubbyhole carved out of the ringwall mountain’s flank, its walls were smart screens from padded tile floor to smoothed rock ceiling; flat, high-definition, digital display screens that could be activated by voice or by the pencil-sized laser pointer resting on Doug’s desk.

Doug kept one eye on the screen covering the wall to the left of his desk; it was scrolling a complete checkout of Moonbase’s entire systems. He needed to reassure himself that everything was operating normally. The other two walls could have been showing videos of any scenery he wanted, but Doug had them displaying the security camera views of the base, switching every ten seconds from one tunnel to another and then to the outside, where the teleoperated tractors were still working in the pit as if nothing had happened. The wall behind him was blank.

Feeling uneasy as he sat behind his desk, Doug said, “Now I don’t want people getting twitchy about this. The base should run as normally as possible.”

“Even though Faure’s declared war on us?” Anson cracked.

“It’s not that kind of a war,” Doug snapped back. “There’s not going to be any shooting.”

“Not from our side, anyway,” said Anson. “The best we could do is throw rocks at ’em.”

“At whom?” Doug’s mother asked testily.

“Peacekeeper troops,” said Doug.

Everyone in the office looked startled at the thought.

“You don’t think they’d really go that far, do you?” Anson asked, looking worried for the first time.

Doug picked up his laser pointer and aimed its red spot at one of the icons lining the top of the wall screen on his left. The wall became a schematic display of the Earth-Moon system, with clouds of satellites orbiting the Earth. A dozen navigational satellites clung to low orbits around the Moon, and the big crewed station at the L-1 position still showed as a single green dot.

“No traffic,” Doug said. “This morning’s LTV’s stopped at L-1. Nothing at all moving between LEO and here.”

“Not yet,” muttered Brudnoy.

“They wouldn’t invade us,” Joanna said firmly. “That little Quebecer hasn’t got the guts.”

Brudnoy ran a bony finger across his short gray beard. No matter how carefully he trimmed it, the beard somehow looked shaggy all the time.

“That little Quebecer,” he reminded his wife, “has fought his way to the top of the United Nations. And now he’s gotten the U.N. to declare us in violation of the nanotech treaty.”

Joanna frowned impatiently. “We’ve been violating that treaty since it was written.”

“But now your little Quebecer has obtained the authority to send Peacekeeper troops here to enforce the treaty on us,” Brudnoy continued.

“You really think it’ll come to that?” Anson asked again, edging forward slightly in her chair.

“Sooner or later,” Doug said.

“They know we can’t stop using nanomachines,” Joanna said bitterly. “They know they’ll be destroying Moonbase if they prevent us from using them.”

“That’s what they’re going to do, though,” said Brudnoy, growing more gloomy with each word.

“Then we’ll have to resist them,” Doug said.

“Fight the Peacekeepers?” Anson seemed startled at the thought. “But—”

“I didn’t say fight,” Doug corrected. “I said resist.”

“How?”

“I’ve been studying the legal situation,” Doug said. “We could declare our independence.”

His mother looked more irked than puzzled. “What good would that do?”

“As an independent nation, we wouldn’t sign the nanotech treaty, so it wouldn’t apply to us.”

Brudnoy raised his brows. “But would the U.N. recognize us as an independent nation? Would they admit us to membership?”

“Faure would never allow it,” Joanna said. “The little Quebecer’s got the whole U.N. wrapped around his manicured finger.”

“How would the corporation react if we declared independence?” Jinny Anson asked.

“Kiribati couldn’t do anything about it,” said Doug.

Brudnoy sighed painfully. “If they hadn’t knuckled under to Faure and signed the treaty—”

“They didn’t have much choice, really,” said Doug. Looking straight at his mother, he went on, “But what about Masterson? How’s your board going to react to our independence?”

“I’ll handle the board of directors,” Joanna replied flatly.

“And Rashid?”

She smiled slightly. “He’ll go up in a cloud of purple smoke. But don’t worry; even though he’s the board chairman now I can keep him in his place.”

“Independence,” Anson murmured.

Doug said, “We’re pretty much self-sufficient, as far as energy and food are concerned.”

“How long is “pretty much?” Joanna asked.

“We can go for months without importing anything from Earth, I betcha,” Anson replied.

“Really?” Doug asked.

She shrugged. “Condiments might be a problem. Ketchup, seasonings, salt.”

“We can manufacture salt with nanomachines,” Doug said. “Ought to be simple enough.”

“Where can you get the sodium and chlorine?” Anson retorted. “Not out of the regolith.”

Doug smiled a little. “Out of the reprocessors. Recycle the garbage.”

Anson made a sour face.

“Could we really get along for months without importing anything from Earth?” Joanna asked.

“Maybe a year,” Anson said. “If you don’t mind eating your soyburgers without mustard.”

Brudnoy flexed his gnarled fingers. “Aren’t you glad that I insisted on planting onions and garlic, along with my flowers?”

“Do you have any jalapeno peppers out at the farm?” Anson asked.

Brudnoy shook his head.

“A year,” Joanna mused. “This ought to be settled long before that.”

“One way or another,” said Brudnoy morosely.

“Pharmaceuticals might be a problem,” Doug said, turning to the wall screen on his right. With the laser he changed the display from a camera view of the empty rocket launching pads to an inventory of the base’s pharmaceutical supplies. “We’ve been bringing them up on a monthly schedule. Got a…” he studied the display screen briefly, “…three-month supply on hand.”

“Maybe we can use nanomachines instead,” Joanna suggested. It was an open secret that her youthful appearance was due to nanotherapy that tightened sagging muscles and kept her skin tone smooth.

“I can talk to Cardenas about that,” Anson replied.

“And Professor Zimmerman,” Doug said.

’You talk to Zimmerman,” she snapped. “He always tries to bully me.”

Brudnoy volunteered, I’ll see Zimmerman.”

“You?”

With a guilty smile, the Russian said, “He and I have been working on a little project together: using nanomachines to make beer.”

“Lev!” Joanna glared at her husband.

Brudnoy raised a placating hand. “Don’t worry. So far, we’ve accomplished less than nothing. The stuff is so bad not even Zimmerman will drink it.”

Doug chuckled at his stepfather’s self-deprecating manner. Then he said, “Okay. Our first move is to declare independence and—”

“How can we let anyone on Earth know we’re applying for U.N. membership if all the communications links are cut off?” Joanna asked.

“We can talk to Earth,” Anson assured her. “Radio, TV, even laser beams if we need ’em. We don’t need the commsats; just. squirt our messages straight to the ground antennas.”

“The question is,” said Brudnoy, “will anyone on Earth respond to us?”

“They will,” Doug said. “Once they learn what we’re doing. And there’s always the news media.”