Ben Bova - The Silent War

Those were the thoughts tumbling through his mind when Victoria Ferrer came up to his table and said:

“You’re Dr. Levinson? I’m Vicki Ferrer.”

Something in the back of his mind told Levinson he should get to his feet, that’s the polite thing. But all he could do was gape at this splendidly beautiful woman standing before him. Ferrer wore a dress of some gold metallic stuff that gleamed in the candlelight and clung to her enticingly.

The waiter held her chair as she sat down, smiling at Levinson. He felt breathless.

Dinner was like some romantic dream. Vicki did the ordering while Levinson simply stared at her, entranced. As they worked their way through the several courses, each accompanied by a special wine, Levinson found himself telling her the story of his life. It sounded plain and dull and boring to him, but she seemed vitally interested in every word.

“And you actually have programmed nanos to process the ores from asteroids?” she asked, her wide brown eyes gleaming with respect, maybe even fascination, he thought.

He went into details about it, but inevitably ended with the disappointing information that the rock rats refused to use his process because they considered it too dangerous.

“It’s not really dangerous,” Levinson insisted. “I mean, it could be, but I could work out procedures for them that would bring the risk down to a manageable level.”

“I’m sure you could,” said Vicki, reaching for the sauterne that had been served with dessert.

“But they’re not interested in it,” Levinson said unhappily.

“Aren’t they?”

“No.”

She leaned slightly closer to him. “Then why has Pancho Lane ordered her people at Ceres to go ahead with nanoprocessing?”

Levinson blinked at her. “She what?”

“Astro Corporation is preparing to use nanomachines to mine asteroids.”

“But that’s my work! I published it! I mean, I’ve got it to the journal and—”

“I’m sure Astro will pay you a royalty of some sort,” Ferrer said. “Probably a pittance, just to avoid a lawsuit.”

Levinson felt as if someone had stabbed him in the heart.

Ferrer reached across the table and touched his hand. “Lev, how would you like to work for Humphries Space Systems? How would you like to be in charge of a whole operation out in the Belt?”

“Me?”

“You. You’re the man we want, Lev. You’ll be in charge of nanoprocessing operations at the salary level of a senior executive.”

He didn’t even bother to ask how much money that meant. He knew it was astronomically more than a laboratory scientist made.

“I’d be very grateful if you said yes, Lev,” Victoria Ferrer told him, her voice a whisper, her eyes lowered shyly.

He nodded dumbly. She smiled her warmest at him. Levinson walked on air all the way back to his quarters, with Vicki at his side. She allowed him to give her a fumbling peck on the lips, then left him standing there in the corridor, slightly drunk with wine, more intoxicated with thoughts of being in charge of a major corporate operation and maybe even having this beautiful woman fall in love with him.

He watched her walk down the corridor, then turned to his door and fumbled with the electronic combination lock. Finally stumbling into his apartment, he told himself, This was just our first date. It went pretty damned well. I think she really likes me.

Victoria Ferrer rode the powered stairs down to her own quarters, a quiet smile of accomplishment playing across her lips. We’ve got him, she said to herself. Martin will be pleased.

Douglas Stavenger’s youthful face was frowning with a mixture of anger and dread as he paced slowly down the length of the factory. Like most lunar manufacturing facilities, Factory Eleven was built out on the surface, open and exposed to the vacuum, protected against the constant rain of micrometeoroids only by a thin dome of honeycomb metal.

“Not much to see, actually,” said the factory manager, waving a gloved hand toward the vats where microscopic nanomachines were constructing spacecraft hulls of pure diamond, built atom by atom from carbon soot mined out of asteroids.

Stavenger was wearing one of the new so-called “softsuits” of nanomachined fabric rather than the cumbersome space suit of hardshell cermet that the factory director wore. The softsuit was almost like a pair of kiddie’s pajamas, even down to the attached boots. It was easy to pull on and seal up. The nanomachines held almost-normal air pressure inside the suit without ballooning the way older fabric suits did when exposed to vacuum. Even the gloves felt comfortable, easily flexed. A transparent fishbowl helmet completed the rig, with a small air recycler and even smaller communications unit packed into the belt that went around Stavenger’s waist.

“How’s the suit feel?” the factory director asked. Her voice sounded a bit uneasy, edgy, in Stavenger’s earplug.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll bet I could do handsprings in it.”

The woman immediately said, “I wouldn’t advise that, sir.”

Stavenger laughed. “Please call me Doug. Everybody does.”

“Yes, sir. I mean, uh, Doug. My name’s Ronda.”

Stavenger knew her name. And her complete dossier. Although he had not held an official position in Selene’s government for decades, Doug Stavenger still kept a steady finger on the lunar nation’s pulse. He had the advantage of prestige and the even bigger advantage of freedom. He could go anywhere, see anything, influence anyone. And he did, although usually only in the subtlest manner.

But the time for subtlety was ending quickly. He had asked for this tour of Selene’s newest factory because it had been built to supply new torch ships for the corporations competing in the Belt: torch ships armed with powerful lasers, warships built of diamond hulls constructed by nanomachines.

They’re killing each other out in the Belt, Stavenger knew. He also knew that sooner or later, one way or the other, the war would come to Selene. What he didn’t know was how to prevent it; how to stop the fighting.

“How many orders for ships do you have?” he asked the factory manager.

“Six,” she replied. “Three from Astro and three from HSS.” She hesitated a beat, then added, “Funny how the orders always come paired up. We never make a ship for one of the corporations without making a ship for the other at the same time.”

That had been Stavenger’s doing. He had exerted every gram of influence he possessed to keep both Humphries and Pancho from outproducing the other. If they want to fight, Stavenger had reasoned, it’s up to us to keep the competition equal. As soon as one of them gets the upper hand they’ll be able to dictate the prices for raw materials to us. Selene will have to pay whatever the winner asks for its natural resources. Whoever wins this war in the Belt will win control of Selene as well.

That, Stavenger was determined, would not be allowed to happen.

To the factory manager, he asked as casually as he could manage, “Suppose a third party started ordering spacecraft. Could you supply them on the same schedule you’re working now?”

He couldn’t see her face through the visor of her hard-shell helmet, but he could sense her nodding. “Sure. We’d have to set up another facility, but that’s easy to do: Just pour another concrete pad and roof it over. The nanos do all the real work.”

Stavenger nodded. “I see.”

Curiosity got the better of the manager. “But who’d be ordering more ships? Who’d this third party be?”

With a soft shrug, he replied, “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe Selene.”

The manager could not have been more surprised if Stavenger had actually turned a handspring there on the factory floor.