Ben Bova - Moonwar

Whirling, she saw Nick O’Malley, big, lumbering redhead, grinning down at her.

“Nick! Why aren’t you in the control center?”

“They let me out to eat now and then,” he said, sliding an arm around her waist. “Come on, I’ll buy you the best soyburger in town.”

He kept up a cheerful patter as they picked up trays and made their selections from the stainless steel dispensers. Once they were seated at a table for two off in a far corner of The Cave, O’Malley dug into his burger.

But Claire found she had no appetite. “I can’t eat anything,” she said, sliding her plate away from her.

O’Malley pushed it back. “Hey, you’re eating for two, you know. Got to keep up your strength.”

She looked up at the wall screen, with the missile hanging there like the ringer of death pointed at them.

“They’re going to kill us all, aren’t they?” she said, her voice choking in her throat.

O’Malley clutched her hand. “Nobody’s going to get killed. We’re safe and snug in here.”

“Don’t try to kid me, Nick. Without electrical power we’re done.”

“If they nuke the solar farms—and that’s an if, mind you -Doug will surrender and the Peacekeepers will come in without firing a shot. Nobody’s going to die in defense of Moonbase, don’t you worry.”

“You’re certain?”

O’Malley’s florid face turned solemn. “Listen, Claire darling. I’m stationed in the control center, running the dust. I’ll be right beside Stavenger. If he doesn’t surrender I’ll clout him on the head and take over. I’ll surrender for him, if I have to.”

Claire tried to smile for him, but she wondered if her husband really had the strength to do what he promised.

“We’ve got a second-stage burn!” the comm tech yelped.

Wicksen jerked with surprise. “What?”

“Second-stage burn,” she repeated. “They held off on it until they made their midcourse correction. Accelerated by a factor of two, at least. Computer’s chewing on the numbers.”

“How much time do we have?” Wicksen asked, feeling frightened for the first time.

“Looks like… forty-two minutes.”

“By all the saints in heaven,” Wicksen muttered. “All right, thanks for the bad news.”

Banging the suit-to-suit key on his wrist pad, Wix called out, “New data. We’ve got forty minutes, max.”

The four spacesuited figures all turned toward him.

“I know it’s not enough time,” Wicksen said. “Power up the magnets. Check out all the connections. I’ll slave the pointing system to the control center’s radar plot.”

“Better warn the base they’re gonna get browned out,” one of his assistants said.

“Right,” said Wicksen, running as fast as he could in the cumbersome spacesuit to the jury-rigged set of pointing magnets.

This has got to work the first time, he said to himself. It’s got to! If there’s a saint in heaven who can cancel Murphy’s Law for a few minutes, now’s the time to do it.

It was as close to prayer as Wicksen had ever come.

Jack Killifer fidgeted nervously in the kitchen of Joanna Brudnoy’s house. The closer he got to his goal, the more jittery he felt.

Stop it! he commanded himself. Calm yourself down.

He wasn’t afraid to kill Joanna Brudnoy, nor her Russian feeb of a husband. It was getting away with it that worried him. Sure, his ID in the Masterson files had been artfully faked. Anybody looking for his picture or prints in the computer would get a totally artificial set of pixels. Nobody was going to trace him that way.

It was the other security personnel that worried him. They knew his face. Even with the moustache and change in his hair color, they’d be able to identify him.

General O’Conner’ll take care of me, he tried to assure himself. The Urban Corps had plenty of resources. They could provide him with a complete alibi, show the police that Killifer had been on assignment in Tacoma or Timbuktu, all neatly filed in their computer records.

They had outfaced Interpol, for God’s sake, when the international investigators had come asking about Tamara Bonai’s death. Thanks to O’Conner’s people, Killifer had an iron-clad alibi and Doug Stavenger’s identification had been tossed aside. The cops didn’t trust virtual reality evidence, anyway: too easy to fake or spoof.

But why did O’Conner insist on me doing this alone? Killifer asked himself again and again.

‘God’s work has to be done by God’s people, Jack.’ the general had told him. ‘It would be wrong to bring in an outsider. Wrong, and dangerous. The fewer people know about this, the better off we are.’

He wouldn’t have to bring in outside people, for crap’s sake, Killifer growled to himself. He could get a dozen Urban Corps volunteers or people from one of the other New Morality groups. Shit, they’ve knocked off hundreds of people over the past few years. Why do I have to take on Joanna Brudnoy alone?

Because you’re the one who wants to do her, the answer came to him. O’Conner doesn’t give a fuck about Joanna; this is your vendetta, not his. That’s why he won’t give you any support, any backup.

Okay, he told himself, trying to steady his trembling hands. She’s in the bedroom with her old man. You’re the only security guard inside the house, except for Rodriguez monitoring the security cameras down in the servants’ quarters. You just go upstairs and pop her. The husband, too. Maybe they’re screwing and you can get them both with one shot. He almost laughed at the thought.

But what then? Killifer had rehearsed his moves a thousand times in his mind, but it still didn’t come out right. Rodriguez won’t hear the shots, he’s too far away, too many walls between him and the bedroom.

Okay. Once you leave the bedroom Rodriguez can see you on the security cameras. So you go back to the kitchen and out to the garage, just like you’re doing your regular rounds. Only, you get into your car and get the fuck out of here before he figures out that they’re dead up in the bedroom.

And then what? Drive straight to Atlanta, he told himself. Straight to Urban Corps headquarters and General O’Conner. Let them hide your car. Stick close to the General, make sure he’ll protect you if the cops or Masterson’s security people come after you.

That’ll work, he tried to assure himself. It’ll be okay. O’Conner’ll have this killing on me, but I’ll have something on him, too: his helping me to get away with it.

Grimacing, he slid the heavy machine pistol out of the oiled holster at his hip and popped its magazine. Fully loaded, ready to go. He slid the magazine back into place, then worked the action with a metallic click-dick, jacking a round into the firing chamber.

Making certain the safety was off, Killifer carefully slipped the pistol back into its holster, then pushed himself up from the kitchen table and started off toward Joanna Brudnoy’s bedroom.

The astronomical telescope’s view showed the incoming missile pointing at them, more and more of a nose-on view as it sped to its target in the crater Alphonsus. Doug watched the display screen almost as if hypnotized.

“For what it’s worth,” came a man’s voice from beside him,’the dust containers are all in place.”

Turning, Doug saw Nick O’Malley’s muscular form sitting beside him. The man seemed much too heavy for the little wheeled chair; it looked as if the chair would collapse under him at any moment.

“Back from The Cave so soon?” Doug asked.

O’Malley nodded. “Nobody’s got much of an appetite just now.”

Doug saw Gordette standing a few paces away. “Bam, when’s the last time you took a break?”