Ben Bova - The Silent War

I should be testing the softsuit I brought with me, she said to herself. Yet she answered silently, You know what they say about test engineers: more guts than brains. I’ll wear a softsuit when they’ve been in use for a year or two. Momma Lane didn’t raise any of her daughters to get themselves killed trying out new equipment.

She was being conducted on a quick walk through the small forest of gleaming white towers that reached up into the bright sunlight. Their wide, circular tops were dark with solar cells that drank in the Sun’s radiant energy and converted it silently to electricity. They look like great big mushrooms, Pancho thought. Then she corrected herself. Nope, they look more like giant penises. She giggled inwardly. A forest of phalluses. A collection of cocks. Monumental pricks, all standing at attention.

“As you can see,” the base director’s voice rasped in her earphones, “another advantage of the power towers is that the solar cells are placed high enough above the surface so they’re not bothered by dust.”

It took an effort for Pancho to control her merriment. “You don’t need to clean ’em off,” she said, trying to sound serious.

“That’s correct. It saves quite a bit of money over the long run.”

She nodded inside her helmet. “What about damage from micrometeoroids?”

“The cells are hardened, of course. Deterioration rate is about the same for the ground arrays around Selene.”

“Uh-hmm.” Pancho seemed to recall a report that said otherwise. “Didn’t the analysis that—”

A new voice broke into their conversation. “Ms. Lane, ma’am, we have an incoming call for you from the Nairobi base at Shackleton.”

“Put it through on freak two,” she said.

It was voice only, but she recognized Tsavo’s caramel-rich baritone. “Ms. Lane, Pancho, this is Daniel. I’m sending a hopper over to your facility within the next half-hour. Please feel free to visit us whenever you’re ready to.”

Grinning, delighted, Pancho answered, “I’ll get over there soon’s I can, Danny.”

“You know that a solar storm is approaching,” he said. Pancho nodded inside her helmet. “Yup. I’ll get to you before it hits.”

“Fine. That’s wonderful.”

Pancho cut her inspection tour short, apologizing to the base director, who frowned with undisguised disappointment.

Sure enough, there was a Nairobi Industries hopper standing on its spindly little legs, waiting for her at the launchpad. It was painted a vivid green with the corporate logo—an oval Masai shield and two crossed spears—stenciled just below the glassteel bubble of the cockpit.

She dashed to the room that the base director had given her for her quarters, picked up her still-unopened travel bag, and headed out toward the pad. She called Jake Wanamaker on her handheld to tell him where she was going and why. Then she buzzed her security chief and asked him why in the name of hell-and-gone he hadn’t been able to locate Lars Fuchs yet.

“I want him found,” she insisted. “And pronto.”

At that moment, Lars Fuchs was huddled with his three crew members in a narrow, shadowy niche between one of the big electrical power converters and the open-shelved storehouse that he used as his sleeping quarters.

“This is where you live, Captain?” Amarjagal asked, in a whisper that was halfway between respect and disbelief.

“This is my headquarters,” Fuchs replied evenly. “For the time being.”

Nodon said, “You could move in with me, sir. There is no need for you—”

“I’ll stay here. Less chance of being discovered.”

The three Mongols glanced at one another, but remained silent.

Over the weeks since Fuchs had gone underground he had learned the pattern of the maintenance robots that trundled along the walkways set between the machinery and storehouses in Selene’s uppermost level. It was easy enough to avoid them, and he swung up into the higher tiers of the warehouse each night to spread his bedroll for sleep. It was a rugged sort of existence, but not all that uncomfortable, Fuchs told himself. As long as he kept his pilfering of food and other supplies down to the bare necessities, Selene’s authorities didn’t bother to track him down. From what Big George had told him, it was easier for the authorities to accept a slight amount of wastage than to organize a manhunt through the dimly lit machinery spaces and storehouses.

The one thing that bothered Fuchs was the constant humming, throbbing that pervaded this uppermost level of Selene. He knew that Selene’s nuclear power generators were buried more than a hundred kilometers away, on the far side of Alphonsus’s ringwall mountains. Yet there was a constant electrical crackle in the air, the faint scent of ozone that triggered uneasy Earthly memories of approaching thunderstorms. Fuchs felt that it shouldn’t bother him, that he should ignore the annoyance. Still, his head ached much of the time, throbbing in rhythm to the constant electrical pulse.

He had chosen this site for his headquarters because he could commandeer the big display screen that had been erected on one side of the storehouse shelving. It had been placed there to help the occasional human operator to locate items stacked in inventory. Fuchs used its link to Selene’s main computer to study schematics of the city’s water and air circulation systems. He was searching for a way into Humphries’s mansion. So far his search had proved fruitless.

“The man must be the biggest paranoid in the solar system,” Fuchs muttered.

“Or the greatest coward,” said Amarjagal, sitting on the walkway’s metal grating beside him, her sturdy legs crossed, her back hunched like a small mountain.

Nodon and Sanja sat slightly farther away, their shaved skulls sheened with perspiration in the overly warm air. This close together, Fuchs could smell their rancid body odors. They have showers in their quarters, he knew. Perhaps they’re worried about their water allotments. Fuchs himself washed infrequently in water tapped from one of the main pipes that ran overhead. No matter how careful he was he always left puddles that drew teams of swiftly efficient maintenance robots, buzzing officiously. Fuchs feared that sooner or later human maintenance workers would come up to determine what was causing the leaks.

“Every possible access to his grotto is guarded by triply redundant security systems,” Fuchs saw as he studied the schematics. “Motion detectors, cameras, heat sensors.”

Nodon pointed with a skinny finger, “Even the electrical conduits are guarded.”

“A mouse couldn’t squirm through those conduits,” said Sanja.

“The man is a great coward,” Amarjagal repeated. “He has much fear in him.”

He’s got a lot to be afraid of, Fuchs thought. Then he added, But not unless we find a way into his mansion.

No matter how they studied the schematics, they could find no entry into Humphries’s domain, short of a brute force attack. But there are only four of us, Fuchs reminded himself, and we have no weapons. Humphries must have a security force patrolling his home that’s armed to the teeth.

Nodon shook his head unhappily. “There is no way that I can see.”

“Nor I,” Amarjagal agreed.

Fuchs took in a deep, heavy breath, then exhaled slowly, wearily. “I can,” he said.

The three of them turned questioning eyes to him.

“One of you will have to change your job, get a position with Selene’s maintenance department.”

“Is that possible?” asked Amarjagal.

“It should be,” Fuchs replied. “You’re all qualified technicians. You have identity dossiers from Astro Corporation.”

“I’ll do it,” said Nodon.

“Good.”

“And after Nodon begins working for the maintenance department?” Amarjagal asked.