Ben Bova - Test of Fire

Alec grunted. “How can you taste anything? It burns the taste buds off your tongue.”

“It’s strong, all right.” Joanna stared down at her cup for a moment, then smiled up at Alec. “I had no idea you were so strong. You handled that miner as if he were a toy.”

With a shrug, Alec answered, “Spend as many hours in the centrifuge as I do and you’ll get strong, too.”

“You really are dedicated,” she said softly.

He didn’t know what to answer to that one.

Joanna was watching him, her large almond-shaped eyes almost as dark as his mother’s.

“Doesn’t anything interest you,” she asked, a smile toying at her lips, “except the mission to Earth?”

“A lot of things interest me. But the mission comes first.”

“Oh. I see.”

“The life of the whole community depends on this mission,” he said gravely. “If we don’t get those fissionables, and soon, we’ll be in irreversible trouble.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “And that’s why you’ve been so… inaccessible?”

The games they play, Alec thought to himself.

Think of me before anyone or anything else. But he knew that he played the same game himself.

“I’m in training, Joanna. Facing a full Earth gravity is like carrying six times your normal weight. Half the people here can’t stand it, their bones have become too brittle. And then there’ve been the classes in military tactics, logistics, all the planning…”

“You’ve been involved in those classes since we all were children,” Joanna said.

“Yes,” he said, “and it’s paid off. Did you know that the Council’s adopted my plan for the mission? I worked it out with old Colonel Dunn, all the details, the men and equipment, the timing — everything. They accepted it over Kobol’s plan.”

“No, I didn’t know. That’s wonderful.” But her voice was flat, plainly uninterested.

“I’ve even studied the old tapes of Earth’s weather… rainfall and temperature changes, things like that.”

“But what about you?” Joanna asked. “What do you want out of all this?”

“Me?” Suddenly he was puzzled. “I want to lead the mission.” There was more to it, of course, but he had no intention of discussing that with anyone.

“But why? What’s the reason… your own personal reason?”

Alec did not answer. He couldn’t.

Joanna made an impatient huffing sound. She turned squarely to him, kneeling, sitting on her heels. “Alec, what do you want? Why is the Earth mission so, so… all-encompassing for you? Is it because of your father/ what he did? Or is it to keep your mother secure as Chairwoman of the Council, or what?”

He edged away from her. “It’s not for my mother, and it’s certainly not for my father. It’s for me. I’m going because I want to go. It’s my life.”

“You enjoy risking your life.”

“Don’t get so personal,” he said. “It’s not polite.”

Her mouth was a determined thin line. “Alec, don’t give me any of that politeness crap. We’ve known each other since we were toddlers and I want to know why you’re so anxious to throw your life away. It frightens me!”

“I’m the man best qualified for the job. Nobody in the community, from Kobol on down, has scored as high as I have in all the physical and mental tests. I enjoy doing what I’ve been trained to do…”

“And she trained you,” Joanna said. “She’s brainwashed you.”

Alec jumped to his feet. “I think you’d better leave, Joanna. Either you don’t understand or you don’t want to.”

“No, Alec. It’s not either of those. I do understand… better than you do. I want to see you living your own life, not hers. Why should you throw yourself away for her career, her revenge?”

“Get out! ” Alec shouted.

Defeated, Joanna got to her feet and went to the door. She opened it, turned her head toward Alec briefly and smiled sadly at him. “You poor fool.”

He was almost asleep when his mother finally returned home. For hours he had lain on the air mattress in his own cubicle, the lights off, staring at the hand-woven tapestry that concealed the water tank and fuel cell, listening to the mattress sigh every time he moved, trying to turn off his mind, become a blank, a cipher, a nothing. But every time he shut his eyes, he saw that miner’s leering face. It shifted and melted into the pictures of his father that he had seen. His father, who had left the Moon the day he had been born.

“You’re sleeping?”

Alec’s eyes snapped open. His mother was standing in the doorway, framed by the light from the main room.

“No.” He reached up and flicked on the overhead lights. She looked very tired.

Watching her as she stepped into his cubicle and took the chair next to his bed, Alec could see why every man in the settlement desired her. Lisa Ducharme Morgan was an enchantress, a dark beautiful sorceress. Compared to her, Joanna and the other girls his own age were pale and insubstantial.

But Lisa was a cool beauty, a distant Diana or Artemis, perfectly attuned to the task of governing this tiny hothouse of transplanted humanity.

“I heard about your roughnecking,” she said quietly. “What were you trying to prove?”

“That you’re not a whore,” he answered, and immediately regretted it.

But she didn’t even blink. “Oh, that again? Another little benefit we have to thank your father for.”

“Has the Council voted?” he asked.

“No.” She shook her head wearily. “The debate drags on. Kobol’s people are trying every trick they can play—even claiming that you’re too emotionally unstable to lead the mission. I wouldn’t be surprised if that fight wasn’t arranged deliberately.”

Alec thought it over briefly. “It could have been,” he admitted.

She leaned toward him, suddenly blazing with intensity. “Then can’t you understand how important it is for you to hold your temper? You broke every social rule we have today; how do you think the Council members will react to that? Save your anger for the real enemy, or you’ll ruin everything for both of us!”

With an effort, Alec kept his voice level. “All I want to know is when the Council will vote, and whether or not I will win.”

She stared at her son for a long moment. Alec looked back steadily into those endlessly deep, infinitely dark eyes. His own eyes.

“The vote will be tomorrow morning. I think we will win.”

“Then I’m going to Earth.”

“Yes. Just as your father did,” she replied bitterly.

Alec snapped awake the next morning like the sudden step from darkness into full sunlight up on the Moon’s surface. He dry-bathed quickly and pulled a black jumpsuit over his trim frame. His mother was already dressed and waiting for him in the apartment’s main room. She handed him a cup of hot soybrew.

“I’ve decided to bring you with me to the Council meeting,” Lisa said.

He took a burning sip of the brew. “Kobol’s going to be there?”

“Of course.”

Alec watched her primp her thick, wavy hair in front of the room’s only mirror. The blue-gray suit she wore was simple, even severe, from its high Chinese collar to the loose-fitting slacks that ended in foot slippers. Still, when she raised her hands over her head that way… when she walked and her hips swayed rhythmically… Alec heard all the whispered gossip again, all the taunting shouts from childhood. He could feel his face burning. He clamped his teeth tightly together.

Lisa turned to him. “You needn’t look so grim. I told you that we’ll win the vote, and we will. Now come along.”

The Council chamber was purposely kept austere.