Ben Bova - Moonwar

The mass driver was crawling with spacesuited figures. Laser welding torches flashed against the dark bulk of the long metal machines. Doug clambered down from the tractor, leaving the construction team to drive a few hundred meters on, to where their cohorts were digging a trench for the prefab shelter for Wicksen’s people.

The suit-to-suit radio frequency was alive with chatter, but Doug found Wicksen visually, from his slight form and the bright blue WIX stencilled on his backpack. There was so much crosstalk on the regular suit-to-suit frequency that Doug walked up to the physicist and tapped him lightly on the shoulder.

Wicksen seemed to recognize Doug’s suit and held up three gloved fingers. Doug tapped frequency three on his wrist panel.

“I’ve saved this freak for private conversations,” Wicksen’s voice said in his earphones.

“How’s it going?” Doug asked.

“Have they launched yet?”

“Not as of half an hour ago.” Then he added, “I would’ve gotten a call if they’d launched while I was riding out here.”

“We should have this kloodge put together in another ten or twelve hours.”

“Good.”

“But there won’t be any time to test it.”

“Then it better work right the first time,” Doug said.

He could sense Wicksen shaking his head inside his helmet. “Nothing works right the first time. Haven’t you ever heard of Murphy’s Law?”

Ignoring that, Doug asked, “How soon will you have the extra electrical power connected?”

Pointing past the mass driver’s long metal track, Wicksen answered, “The extra men you assigned me are doing that now. You’re going to have a temporary brown-out when we fire the gun.”

“Better than having a nuclear explosion inside the crater,” Doug said grimly.

Wicksen was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “Thanks for putting the construction crew to work for us.”

“The numbers that the safety people ran on their computer said that four meters of regolith rubble should protect you from the radiation blast—if they got the yield from the bomb right.”

“Whether it works or not, we all feel a lot better knowing we can sit in the shelter while we’re running the gun. Thanks a lot.”

“Nothing to it. The construction people have nothing else to do.”

Turning back toward the mass driver, Wicksen made a wistful little sigh. “I sure wish we had time to test this beast.”

“So do I,” Doug said fervently. “So do I.”

“But I must speak to Seigo Yamagata,” said Ibrahim al-Rashid. “It is most urgent.”

Rashid’s office had once belonged to Joanna Brudnoy, when she had been chairman of Masterson Corporation’s board of directors. Many was the time that she had summoned him into her sanctum and he had dutifully scurried to her in response. Once he had acceded to the chairmanship, however, Rashid had completely refurnished and redecorated the office. His desk was a sweeping, curving modernistic work of glass, his high-backed black leather chair custom-built to his measurements. The walls were adorned with tapestries from Persia and India, the windows were actually wall screens that could display any of thousands of scenes stored in his personal computer’s memory.

One of those screens now showed the image of a young Japanese man in an open-neck white shirt and tastefully checkered sports jacket, sitting at a desk in an office panelled in what appeared to be teak.

“Seigo Yamagata is not available at present,” he said in the homogenized American English of a television announcer. “I am Saito Yamagata, his eldest son. May I be of assistance to you?”

“I must speak to your father,” Rashid demanded.

The younger Yamagata smiled gently and said, “I regret to tell you once again that he is not available.”

Rashid felt as if he were talking to a brick wall. Or worse, a large soft pillow that absorbed his words without being moved by them in the slightest.

“This is important!”

“Of course it is,” Yamagata agreed readily. “That is why the staff has routed your call to me, rather than some underling.”

Rashid blinked with surprise. “You mean that you are in charge?”

His face going serious, the young man replied, “My father left instructions that you are to be received by his personal representative and no one else. That personal representative is me.”

Sinking back in his cushioned leather chair, Rashid recognized the oriental manner of stonewalling: polite, gracious, accommodating, but stonewalling just the same.

“How may I help you?” Saito Yamagata asked solicitously.

Bowing to the inevitable, Rashid said, through gritted teeth, “I have received information that among the Peacekeeper troops marching on Moonbase there is a special contingent of Yamagata suicide bombers who intend to blow up Moonbase.”

Yamagata’s brows rose a couple of millimeters.

“Destroying Moonbase is idiotic!” Rashid snapped, unable to contain his temper any longer. “Our entire operation, my whole understanding with your father, depends on Moonbase providing helium-three for your fusion generators. How can they provide anything if the base is blown to bits?” He fairly shouted the question.

Saito Yamagata’s expression had gone from polite interest to mild surprise to the absolute blank face of a man who has much to hide.

“Is your information trustworthy?” he asked softly.

“I have my sources both in United Nations headquarters and the Peacekeepers’ chain of command.”

“I see.”

“This is a betrayal of our understanding,” Rashid said harshly. “It also destroys the very thing that your father wants so badly—Moonbase.”

The young man nodded. “The suicide bombers are not Yamagata employees. They are volunteers from the Bright New Sun, an organization of fanatics that is allied with your own New Morality movement.”

“Then how are they allowed to be with the Peacekeepers? Who permitted them to come to Nippon One?”

“My father accepted their…” Yamagata searched for the right word, “…their help, most reluctantly. You must understand that even in Japan, religious zealotry is a very powerful force.”

“But you’re going to allow them to destroy Moonbase!”

Yamagata smiled thinly. “Not at all. My father is not stupid. He bowed to the pressures of the Bright New Sun and allowed them to add a squad of kamikazes to the Peacekeeper force. But they will not be permitted to damage Moonbase. The Peacekepers will take the base and there will be no need for suicide bombers.”

Rashid closed his eyes for a few moments, trying hard to think it all through.

“Suppose,” he said at last,’that the Peacekeepers fail to take Moonbase.”

“Impossible,” said Yamagata.

“They drove off the first attack, didn’t they?”

Yamagata smiled again. “This time there are three hundred troops, armed with missiles and heavy weapons. A nuclear bomb will knock out Moonbase’s electrical supply. This time they will not fail.”

“But those people at Moonbase are very clever,” Rashid insisted. “Suppose they stop the Peacekeepers?”

With a slight shrug, Yamagata said, “Then there will be no option except allowing the kamikazes to blow up as much of Moonbase as they can.”

“But that is lunacy!”

“A clever play on words,” the young man said, although his expression showed no humor.

“You can’t let them blow up Moonbase!” Rashid yelled.

“The forces are in motion,” said Yamagata. “How they will play out remains to be seen. Even if Moonbase is entirely destroyed, it can be rebuilt.”

“But… but—”

“Patience is a virtue, Mr Rashid. Yamagata Industries will receive the U.N.’s mandate to operate Moonbase, no matter what condition the base may be in when the fighting is finished. If necessary, we will rebuild it. The important thing is that Moonbase will be in our hands.”