Ben Bova - Moonwar

Bam Gordette, standing slightly behind Doug like a bodyguard, said, “That’s the army: hurry up and wait.”

Doug thought that the thirty-klicks-per-hour pace of the Peacekeepers’ vehicles hardly qualified for hurrying up, but they were definitely waiting now.

The control center had settled into a waiting mode also. Everything that could be done to prepare Moonbase’s defenses had been done. Nick O’Malley paced nervously a few consoles away, hoping that his dust would work as he had promised. Vince Falcone and his crew had finally come back from Wodjo Pass, grumbling and griping about the foamgel’s intractability but satisfied that they had covered as much of the pass as they could.

Wix and his people are still working on the particle gun, Doug knew. They’re the key to our defense, the crucial link in the chain. If they can’t stop that nuclear missile we might as well surrender. We’ll have to surrender.

Nothing had moved out on the Mare Nubium for at least an hour.

“They’re waiting for the missile strike,” Doug said to no one in particular.

As if in response, one of the comm techs sang out, “They’ve launched! Rocket flare from L-1. Their missile’s heading our way.”

Robert T. Wicksen was still outside, checking the wiring connections from the main magnets to the hastily installed switching panel, when the word came from the control center:

“L-1’s launched their bird.”

By reflex, he looked up. Instead of the sky he saw the inside of his helmet, dark and confining.

“How much time do we have?” he asked calmly.

“Wait one,” the comm tech’s voice said in his earphones. Then he heard her muttering, “Doppler plot… burn rate…acceleration—looks like… one hundred fifty-six minutes, according to the computer.”

“Two and a half hours, plus six minutes.”

“If they don’t light a second stage.”

“Keep me informed.”

“Will do.”

Switching to the suit-to-suit frequency, Wix told the four volunteers still working with him, “We have two and a half hours. Double check everything.”

The spacesuited figures bent to their work.

“That’s the nuke,” Doug muttered.

“Must be,” said Jinny Anson. Like Doug, she was staring at the screen showing the blunt-nosed missile. It seemed to be hanging in space now that its rocket engine had shut down; the stars in the background did not move.

Two and a half hours, Doug thought. What have we forgotten to do? Looking up, he traced the glowing lines on the electronic map of the base that covered one entire wall of the control center. Water factory, environmental control center, electrical power—they’re as protected as they’ll ever be. Turning to the insect-eye array of screens at the console he had commandeered, Doug saw displays of Wodjohowitcz Pass and the crater floor. Off near the brutally short horizon he could barely make out the ant-like forms of Wix and his volunteers still tinkering at the mass driver.

Another screen showed the crowd in The Cave. They seemed calm enough. They’re safe, he told himself. Even if Wix’s gun fails and the nuke blasts out the solar farms, they’ll be unharmed. We’ll have to surrender, I guess, but they’ll be safe.

Then a new fear assailed him. If they knock out our electrical power we’ll only have a few hours’ worth of juice from the backup fuel cells. The Peacekeepers must have emergency power generators with them. They’ve got to! Otherwise everybody here will die in a couple of hours, asphyxiated from lack of air to breathe.

The Peacekeepers won’t want to kill us all, he told himself. They’ll have emergency power supplies with them. Otherwise this’ll be a slaughter.

“Why aren’t you in The Cave?” Kris Cardenas asked.

Zimmerman looked up from the scanning probe microscope’s image-intensifier screen at his unexpected visitor. Keiji Inoguchi, on the other side of the room at the processor control board, stared at the sandy-haired, trim-figured Cardenas as if she were a video star.

“And why should I be at The Cave? Am I expected at a party?”

“Everyone who’s not assigned to a defense task is supposed to go to The Cave.”

“Pah!” Zimmerman snapped his fingers.

“Doug Stavenger’s orders,” Cardenas said.

“So why are you not in The Cave?” Zimmerman demanded.

She grinned as if she enjoyed fencing with him. “I’m on duty at the infirmary. I just ran up here to see how much of a supply of therapeutic nanobugs you had left for us.”

“We are still working on them,” Zimmerman said.

Turning her cornflower blue eyes to Inoguchi, Cardenas asked, “And you’re helping him?”

Inoguchi bowed deeply, then replied, “It is my privilege to assist Professor Zimmerman, yes.”

“But you’re one of the U.N. inspectors, aren’t you?”

“Yes, that is true. But the medical work we are doing here is beyond the scope of politics.”

Zimmerman scowled. “He’s learning everything he can in preparation for running the nanolab once Yamagata takes over the base.”

Inoguchi looked stricken. “I am assisting you for humanitarian reasons!”

“You are spying on me,” Zimmerman grumbled.

“Now Willi,” Cardenas intervened, “you can’t attack Professor Inoguchi like that! It’s not polite and it isn’t fair.”

“Yah. Of course. Only it is true.”

“It’s not Professor Inoguchi’s fault that we’re being attacked,” Cardenas said. “I think it’s very generous of him to assist us.”

Inoguchi said, “I am most honored to work with you both.”

“And looking forward to running this lab once the Peacekeepers have driven us out,” Zimmerman insisted.

Squaring his shoulders visibly, Inoguchi said, “Yes, that is true. What would you expect me to do, go back to Japan and allow someone else to take over this laboratory?”

Cardenas laughed. “He’s right, Willi. Why shouldn’t he want to run this facility? It’s the most advanced in the world.”

“In the solar system!” Zimmerman corrected.

To Cardenas, Inoguchi said, “I have offered a position here to Professor Zimmerman. I would be most honored if you, a Nobel Laureate, would remain here to continue your work.”

Cardenas replied, “Assuming that the Peacekeepers actually do take over the base.”

“And hand it over to Yamagata Industries,” Zimmerman groused.

Inoguchi snapped his chin down in a nod that almost became a little bow.

Her smile fading, Cardenas said, “Would you offer a position to my husband, as well? He’s a neurosurgeon. I won’t stay here if he can’t.”

Inoguchi immediately answered, “Yes, of course.”

“Most of the work Pete’s done has been by virtual reality link Earthside, since we’ve come up to Moonbase,” Cardenas mused, thinking out loud. “If he can continue doing that he’ll stay. Otherwise we’ll have a problem.”

“Perhaps I can obtain an appointment with Tokyo University for him,” Inoguchi said. “Or Osaka. He could remain at Moonbase indefinitely and work with his colleagues through electronic links.”

“Is your husband at The Cave?” Zimmerman asked sourly.

“No,” Cardenas said, turning her attention to the old man. “He’s at the infirmary, ready to help the medics with any surgery that might be needed.”

“I sincerely hope that it will not come to that,” Inoguchi said.

“So do we all,” said Cardenas.

Claire Rossi felt as if she were in a nightmare. She moved through the crowd milling around in The Cave with nothing to do, nowhere to go, and the vision of that missile hanging over her head in the big wall screens.

“Can I buy you lunch?”