Ben Bova - The Silent War

At last the scene was finished, the crew clicked off their handheld cameras, and the news director turned and headed for the door.

“Edie!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know you’d come up here.”

“We’ve got to talk, Andy.”

The news director’s name was Achmed Mohammed Wajir, and although he traced his family roots back to the Congo, he had been born in Syria and raised all over the Middle East. His childhood had been the gypsy existence of a diplomat’s son: never in one city for more than two years at a time. His father sent him to Princeton for an education in the classics, but young Achmed had fallen in love with journalism instead. He went to New York and climbed through the rough-and-tumble world of the news media until a terrorist bomb shattered his legs. He came to Selene where he could accept nanotherapies that rebuilt his legs, but he could never return to Earth while he carried nanomachines inside him. Wajir soon decided he didn’t care. The Moon’s one-sixth g made his recovery easier, and at Selene the competition in the news business was even gentler than the gravity.

As they pushed through the studio’s double doors and out into the corridor, Wajir began, “If it’s about this Starlight accident—”

“Accident?” Elgin snapped. “It’s a tragedy. Seven innocent people killed, one of them a baby.”

“We played the story, Edie. Gave it full coverage.”

“For a day.”

Wajir had once been slim as a long-distance runner, but years behind a desk—or a restaurant table —had thickened his middle. Still, he was several centimeters taller than Elgin and now he drew himself up to his full height.

“Edie,” he said, “we’re in the news business, and Starlight is old news. Unless you want to do some sob-sister mush. But even there, there’s no relatives left to cry on camera for you. No funeral. The bodies have drifted to god knows where by now.”

Edith’s normal cheerful smile was long gone. She was dead serious as they walked along the corridor past glass-walled editing and recording studios.

“It’s not just this one terrible tragedy, Andy,” she said. “There’s a war going on and we’re not covering it. There’s hardly a word about it anywhere in the media.”

“What do you expect? Nobody’s interested in a war between two corporations.”

“Nobody’s interested because we’re not giving them the news they need to get interested!”

They had reached Wajir’s office. He opened the door and gestured her inside. “No sense us fighting out in the hallway where everybody can hear us,” he said.

Edith walked in and took one of the big upholstered chairs in front of his wide, expansive desk of bioengineered teak. Instead of going to his swivel chair, Wajir perched on the edge of his desk, close enough to Edith to loom over her.

“We’ve been over this before, Edie. The news nets Earthside aren’t interested in the war. It’s all the way to hell out in the Asteroid Belt and it’s being fought by mercenaries and you know who the hell cares? Nobody. Nobody on Earth gives a damn about it.”

“But we should make them care about it,” she insisted.

“How?” he cried. “What do we have to do to get them interested? Tell me and I’ll do it.”

Edith started to snap out a reply, but bit it back. She looked up at Wajir, who was leaning over her, his ebony face twisted into a frown. He’s been a friend for a long time, she told herself. Don’t turn him into an enemy.

“Andy,” she said softly, “this disaster of the Starlight is only the tip of the iceberg. The war is spreading out of the Belt. It’s coming here, whether we like it or not.”

“Good. Then we can cover it.”

She felt her jaw drop with surprise, her brows hike up.

“I’m not being cynical,” he quickly explained. “We can’t get news coverage from the Belt.”

“If it’s the expense, maybe I could—”

Shaking his head vigorously, Wajir said, “It’s not the money. The Belt’s controlled by the corporations. Astro and HSS have it sewn up between them.”

“There are independents.”

“Yeah, but the war’s between Astro and HSS and neither one of them wants news reporters snooping around. They won’t talk to us here and they won’t ferry us out to the Belt.”

“Then I’ll go,” Edith heard herself say.

Wajir looked genuinely shocked. “You?”

“I used to be a reporter, back in the Stone Age,” she said, smiling for the first time.

“They won’t take you, Edie.”

“I’ll fly out on an independent ship,” she said lightly. “I’ll go to Chrysalis and interview the rock rats there.”

He pursed his lips, rubbed at his nose, looked up at the ceiling. “The big boys won’t like it.”

“You mean the big corporations?”

Wajir nodded.

“I don’t really care whether they like it or not. I’ll go out on an independent ship. Maybe Sam Gunn will give me a ride on one of his vessels.”

“If he’s got any left,” Wajir muttered. “This war is bankrupting him.”

“Again? He’s always going bankrupt.”

“Seriously, Edie,” he said, “this could be dangerous.” “Nobody’s going to hurt Douglas Stavenger’s wife. There are some advantages to being married to a powerful man.”

“Maybe,” Wajir admitted. “Maybe. But I don’t like this. I think you’re making a mistake.”

Damned if it isn’t the same guy who came to see me in my office, Pancho thought as she looked at the holographic image of the handsome Nairobi executive. She was in the office of the Astro base’s director, which he had lent her for the duration of her visit to the south polar facility. Leaning back in the creaking, stiffly unfamiliar chair, Pancho saw the man’s name spelled out beneath his smiling, pleased image: Daniel Jomo Tsavo.

“Ms. Lane,” he said, looking pleasantly surprised, “what an unexpected pleasure.”

He was just as good-looking as she remembered him, but now instead of wearing a conservative business suit he was in well-worn coveralls, with the edge of a palmcomp peeping out from his breast pocket. He gets his hands dirty, Pancho thought, liking him all the more for it.

“You’re the head of the Nairobi base?” Pancho asked him.

His smile turned brighter. “After my visit with you, my superiors assigned me to managing the construction of our facilities here.”

“I didn’t know,” said Pancho.

“I suppose they thought it was cheaper to keep me here than fly me back home,” he said, self-deprecatingly.

“So you’ve been down here at the south pole all this time.”

“Yes, that’s true. I had no idea you had come to the Mountains of Eternal Light,” Tsavo said.

“Came down to check out how my people are doing here,” she lied easily, “and thought maybe I could take a peek at how you’re getting along.”

“By all means! It would be an honor to have you visit our humble facility, Ms. Lane.”

She arched a brow at him. “Don’t you think you can call me Pancho by now?” He chuckled and looked away from her, seemingly embarrassed. “Yes, I suppose so … Pancho.”

“Good! When can I come over, Daniel?”

For a moment he looked almost alarmed, but he quickly recovered. “Urn, our facilities are not very luxurious, Pancho. We weren’t expecting illustrious visitors for some time, you see, and—”

“Can it, Danny boy! I can sleep on nails, if I have to. When can I come over?”

“Give me a day to tidy up a bit. Twenty-four hours. I’ll send a hopper for you.”

“Great,” said Pancho, recognizing that twenty-four hours would give him time to check with whoever his bosses were and decide how to handle this unexpected visit.