Ben Bova - Moonwar

Faure did not reply.

“Mrs Brudnoy is quite capable of getting herself to New York for her meeting with you. She is in no way a prisoner or a hostage.”

Studying Rashid’s face as the man spoke, Faure realized that the chairman of Masterson Corporation’s board was no more pleased with this situation than he was.

“Monsieur Rashid,” Faure said, relaxing slightly as he jiggled the silver spheres in his right hand, “let us be candid with one another.”

“By all means.”

“Madame Brudnoy represents the illegal and immoral rebels of Moonbase who are defying international law. A Peacekeeper officer has been killed by them, you know.”

“I was told he was killed in an accident he himself caused,” Rashid replied warily.

“I am sure that is what you were told,” said Faure. “However, the inescapable fact is that he was killed because Moonbase is resisting international law.”

Rashid nodded gravely.

Faure resumed, “I am perfectly willing to treat Madame Brudnoy as an ambassador plenipotentiary, and accord her diplomatic immunity.”

“Good,” said Rashid, tonelessly.

“But technically, she is a criminal. Just as all the leaders of Moonbase are.”

Rashid hesitated, passed a hand across his neatly trimmed beard. Then he asked, “If that is your attitude, then to what avail are the negotiations going to be?”

“None,” Faure said, feeling cheerful for the first time since Lieutenant Hansen had reported the failure of the Peacekeepers’ mission. “None whatsoever.”

“I see,” said Rashid slowly. It seemed to Faure that he did not look displeased at all.

In the old days, when he’d been just a teenager, Doug had liked to come out to the rocket port and watch the ships arriving or departing in the eerie silence of the Moon. He would climb up the narrow ladder to the observation bubble, a tiny dome of clear plastic, and get a worm’s eye view of landings and liftoffs.

The old rocket port was a set of storage chambers now. The new port was not much bigger, and had been dug into the floor of Alphonsus more than a kilometer from the flank of Mount Yeager, where the main plaza was going to be built.

Doug drove on the spring-wheeled crawler down the long tunnel to the port, his mother and Lev Brudnoy seated behind him, the reporter at his side.

“Does the head of the base work as a taxi driver very often?” Edith asked, grinning at him.

The tunnel was long and straight and bare. Strips of fluorescent lamps lined its unfinished rock ceiling, their light making everyone’s skin look sickly, almost green.

“I’m not the head of the base anymore,” Doug answered lightly. “And around Moonbase, everybody pitches in and does what needs doing.”

“I thought you were Moonbase’s director,” Edith said, her grin replaced by a puzzled frown.

“I was, but I gave it up for the duration of this crisis.”

“Then what’s your title? How do I identify you for your interview?”

Doug lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Damned if I know. Titles don’t mean all that much around here.”

“Call him the chief administrator of Moonbase,” Joanna said, leaning forward slightly in her seat.

“Generalissimo,” Brudnoy joked.

Edith was serious. “Chief administrator. That sounds good. And who’s the director of the base? Or is there one now?”

“Jinny Anson,” Doug said. “You’ll want to interview her, too.”

“And my wife’s title is ambassador plenipotentiary,” Brudnoy said, “while my own title is luggage handler.”

Edith fingered the minicam in her lap. “I want to squeeze in an interview with you before you take off, Mrs Brudnoy.”

“It’ll have to be a quick one,” Doug said, glancing at his wristwatch. “Liftoff’s scheduled for twenty-six minutes from now.”

With a laugh, Edith said, “Twenty-six minutes is an eternity in video news, Doug.”

But she got down to business immediately and began questioning Joanna about what she hoped to accomplish in negotiations with Faure.

“It’s very simple,” Joanna said. “I’m going to New York to get the U.N. to recognize Moonbase’s independence.”

“And if they refuse to recognize it?” Edith prompted.

Joanna shook her head. “We are independent. Physically, we are self-sustaining. All we’re asking is for the United Nations to recognize reality.”

“And if they don’t?”

For a heartbeat, Joanna did not reply. Then she said, “Then we’ll have to prove to Faure and the rest of the U.N. that we won’t be intimidated.”

“Do you think the U.N. will send more Peacekeeper troops to try to take over Moonbase?”

“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Joanna said.

“But it will,” Doug added, realizing the truth of it as he spoke the words. “We’ve won the opening skirmish, but this war won’t be over for a long time.”

Jack Killifer stood in the open hatch to the cockpit, trying not to sound as if he were pleading with the two pilots.

“You gotta let me ride up here with you,” he said. “On the jumpseat.”

The copilot’s eyes were fixed on the control panel’s gauges. He and the command pilot had lifted the Clippership from its landing spot on the regolith to one of Moonbase’s rocket port pads, where the spacecraft was being refueled for the flight back to Earth.

The command pilot looked up at Killifer. “We’re not supposed to take passengers up here. We got work to do.”

Killifer wheedled, “Come on, guys. You’re making a high-energy burn, aren’t you? Friggin’ flight’s only gonna take nineteen hours, right?”

“Why d’you want to ride up here, instead of in a nice comfy seat with the rest of the passengers?”

“You’re bringing two extra people along, right? Mr and Mrs Brudnoy, right?”

“That’s Lev Brudnoy, isn’t it?” asked the copilot, without taking his eyes off the control panel. “He used to be a cosmonaut back in the old days, didn’t he?”

It was Brudnoy’s wife that bothered Killifer. Joanna. She’ll recognize me, he knew. Haven’t seen her in damned near eight years, but she’ll recognize me if she sees me. Especially if we’re locked up in this sardine can for nineteen hours. She’ll see me. She’ll remember who I am.

“And you got the captain’s body, too,” Killifer said.

“He goes in the cargo bay.”

“Yeah, but you need two extra seats for the Brudnoys. Mine and the reporter’s. Makes it all come out even.”

The pilot glanced at his copilot, then looked up again at Killifer. “Okay, I guess it’ll be all right. Just don’t chatter at us while we’re taking off.”

“Okay!” said Killifer, a surge of gratitude gusting through him.

“Or re-entry,” said the copilot.

“Or landing,” the pilot added.

“Okay, okay.” Killifer laughed shakily. I can sit here for nineteen hours and never go out into the passenger compartment, he told himself. They got a relief tube here in the cockpit. I can go nineteen hours without taking a crap.

He had never acknowledged it before, but he was deeply afraid of Joanna Brudnoy. It was irrational, but he feared her. That realization made him feel shame. And a burning, relentless hate.

The mercenary lay slouched in his bunk and watched his wall screen display of the Peacekeeper ship taking off. He was startled by the suddenness of it. One instant the big Clippership was sitting out on the floor of the crater, sunlight glinting off its curved diamond body. The next, it was gone in a puff of hot exhaust gases and blown dust and pebbles. When the dust cleared the crater floor was empty. The ship was on its way.