Ben Bova - Moonwar

Doug could see that Tamara was terribly worried, frightened. She really cares about us, he told himself. Maybe Mom’s right and she really cares about me.

“And they’re armed with missiles?” he asked.

Three seconds later Bonai replied, “He said they’ll have tractors and missiles and everything they need to surround Moonbase and force you to surrender.”

Doug muttered, “So that’s why we haven’t seen any Peacekeeper buildup. They’ve been building their forces a little at a time over at Nippon One.”

“Yes.”

“And training. Getting acclimatized to lunar conditions.”

“What are you going to do, Doug? They’ll be ready to strike in a month!”

“I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “I don’t know if there’s anything we can do in that short a time.”

Tamara’s face looked anguished once she heard his response. “Doug, don’t let them destroy you! Surrender to them. Don’t let them kill you.”

He said nothing. There was nothing he could say. Yamagata and the Peacekeepers were going to come in and overwhelm them. Doug realized that his efforts to build some sort of defense for Moonbase had been nothing but a child’s game. He’d been pretending to be a military leader when he didn’t have the knowledge, the experience, the resources—like a kid with a plastic raygun playing soldier.

“Doug?” Tamara called again. “You can surrender now, you know. I can send a Clippership up there to get you and as many others as you want. You can live here in Kiribati. You’ll be safe here.”

“Thanks,” he muttered, his mind still reeling. It’s all been for nothing, he told himself. We never had a chance, not from the very beginning.

“I’ll call you back in a little while,” he said to Tamara absently. “I have to—I need some time to think this through.”

“I’ll be here, Doug. I’ll be waiting for your call.”

He sagged back in his desk chair as the wall screen went blank, his thoughts spinning.

Edith came in from the corridor, all smiles. “Just sent another Pulitzer-quality report to the network,” she said, bending to kiss his cheek swiftly. Then she breezed past the partition into the bedroom.

Before Doug could reply to her, someone rapped at the doorframe and slid the accordion-pleat door back enough to stick her head into the room. Jinny Anson.

“I need to talk to you, boss,” she said crisply. “Got a minute?”

With that, she slid the door all the way back and stepped into the living room. Behind her, Nick O’Malley and Claire Rossi trooped in.

The little cubicle was suddenly crowded, especially with O’Malley’s bulky form. The redhead looked shamefaced, like a guilty little boy. Claire Rossi looked stubborn, defiant.

Doug struggled to his feet. “What’s this all about?”

“This mother-to-be,” Anson said sharply, “was supposed to be on the evacuation flight.”

“You’re the couple who got married,” Doug said, feeling thick-headed, stupid.

“I decided to stay here with my husband,” Claire said, clasping O’Malley’s arm.

“But you’re pregnant.”

“She’s fractured her employment contract,” Anson said. The rules are specific—”

“I don’t care about the rules,” Rossi insisted. “I want to stay with my husband.”

Doug looked up at O’Malley, whose wiry red hair almost brushed the ceiling. “Don’t you have enough sense to know what a risk she’s taking?”

Looking miserable, O’Malley replied, “I told her. I wanted her to go. But she wouldn’t listen to me.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Doug saw Edith step from behind the partition to watch the proceedings. She thinks this’ll make a good news story, Doug thought. Great human interest.

But he felt anger welling up inside him. “She wouldn’t listen to you?” Doug said to O’Malley. Turning to Rossi, he almost snarled, “And you, how idiotic can you be? Haven’t you given any thought to your baby? Don’t you care at all?”

“I care—”

“Then why aren’t you on your way back Earthside, where you can get proper medical attention?” Doug yelled at her.

O’Malley stepped between them. “Now wait just a minute here…”

“Wait for what?” Doug hollered. “Wait until the next attack on this base, so both of you can get killed? And the baby, too?”

He turned on Anson. “How in the whole dimwitted congregation of blockheads that passes for your crackerjack staff could she get away with this, Jinny? Didn’t you have anybody checking on who went aboard the evac flight? Are they all blind or stupid or just plain corrupt? What the blazes happened?”

“I don’t know,” Anson said, her voice suddenly small and hushed.

Rossi started, “I gave my paperwork to—”

Doug silenced her with a fearsome glance. “Do you think this is all a game? We’re facing a life-and-death situation here and you put your unborn child at risk! What kind of irresponsible, unfeeling people are you? I don’t need this! Haven’t I got enough on my shoulders without worrying about an idiot pregnant woman and her baby?”

Edith put a hand on Doug’s shoulder and Anson grabbed at Rossi’s arm.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Anson said. “Doug, I’m sorry I laid this one on you. There’s nothing any of us can do about it now.” And she tugged at Rossi, urging her toward the door.

O’Malley glared angrily at Doug and for a moment he looked as if he’d like to throw a punch or two. But he snorted and turned to follow Anson and his wife.

Doug stood in the middle of the little room, realizing how small it was, how low the ceiling pressed down on him, how many people were going to die if he kept up this charade of trying to defend Moonbase.

Edith whispered, “I was wondering when you’d blow off some steam. I’m just glad I wasn’t in your line of fire.”

It was well past midnight. Doug lay wide awake in the darkness, Edith beside him. They had not even tried to make love; Doug was too wired, too angry to either give or receive tenderness.

I’m scared, he realized. I’m really frightened. And there’s nothing I can do to help. Not a blasted thing.

“Are you sleeping?” Edith whispered so low he barely heard it.

“No.”

“Me neither.”

Doug stayed flat on his back, staring at the dark ceiling. “I shouldn’t have yelled at those kids.”

“They broke the rules, didn’t they?”

“Yelling at them didn’t help anything. I’ve just made them sore at me.”

“You’ve got to let off steam somehow,” Edith said. “If you don’t you’ll bust.”

“I still shouldn’t have done it to them.”

Edith was silent for several heartbeats. Then she whispered, “If you want to curse, go right ahead.”

“What?”

“Don’t hold it in. Sometimes a good string of cussing can be real satisfying. Go ahead, turn the air blue. I won’t mind.”

For long moments he didn’t know what to reply. Then he confessed. “I don’t know any.”

“Any what?”

“Any curses. I never learned to swear. My mother didn’t like it and I never heard it when I was a kid.”

“Nothing at all?” Edith was incredulous.

“Hell and damn. Sonofabitch bastard. Fuck, shit, asshole.”

“Lord, you make it sound like you’re reciting a list.”

He shrugged. “They don’t mean much to me. Not emotionally.”

Edith turned to face him. In the darkness she could barely make out the outline of his head against the pillow.

“What do you do when you get real mad? When you want to spit and kick your faithful ol’ hound dog?”

He knew she was trying to cheer him, trying to lighten his foul mood. “I never had a dog.”