Ben Bova - Test of Fire

The rock walls were unfinished, bare, as rough as the day the chamber had been blasted out of the virgin lunar stone. There were no decorations at all, nothing in the room except the big circular table and chairs, and a single viewscreen hung in the corner opposite the chamber’s only door.

Most of the Council members were already seated around the circular table. Lisa swept in regally, extending her hand to the men nearest her chair, smiling her hello to the others. She allowed Alec to hold her chair for her, then directed him to a chair almost exactly across the table, which had been set up for him beforehand.

“I thank you for the courtesy of allowing me to invite Alec to join us this morning.” Lisa smiled sweetly to the Council.

Alec kept his face blank as he took his chair. It was not polite to use your position for a point of personal privilege, but it would have been even more impolite for a Council member to object to Lisa’s request. But how will this affect their voting? he wondered to himself.

Several Council members nodded to Alec. He knew them all, of course. Nine men, six women.

But three of them were still missing: Kobol and his two closest allies.

“That’s the chair your father used to sit in,” said the fat old fool next to Alec.

“We saved it for you. Perhaps in a few years you will grace the Council with your membership.”

Alec nodded curtly. He did not trust himself to say anything.

Kobol arrived at last and all conversations stopped. Flanked by his two henchmen, he stood for a moment at the door and looked straight at Lisa. She returned his gaze without wavering.

Then his eyes flicked away and he went to his chair.

Alec watched him, and knew that Kobol wanted the Council chairmanship, wanted to rule the lunar settlement, and especially wanted Lisa. And Alec felt a special brand of hate for Kobol. The man was his mother’s age. Tall and spare, his bony face looked cadaverous to Alec. Deepset eyes that were almost impossible to see under their graying, shaggy brows. His teeth were large, too prominent, horsy. He had worn a bushy mustache as long as Alec had known him. At first, Alec had thought it was to show that he wasted no extra water or power on shaving. More recently, though, Alec had come to the conclusion that Kobol’s mustache was there to divert attention from the fact that he was going bald.

As he sat at the Council table, at Lisa’s right, he said in his reedy, nasal voice, “Sorry to keep you waiting. Let’s get on with it.”

Lisa allowed a slight smile to flicker across her lips. “We resume the adjourned session of yesterday,” he said for the microphone link to the central computer file. “The question before the Council is, who will command the upcoming expedition to Earth. The nominees are Councilman Martin Kobol and Citizen Alexander Morgan. Arguments have been heard and a motion for a vote was tabled at the conclusion of yesterday’s meeting.”

She glanced around the table. “Are there any questions before we vote on the motion?”

“I have a question,” said Councilman LaStrande. He looked like a wizened old gnome to Alec, diminutive, a scraggly beard sprouting from his chin, his eyes huge behind thick glasses.

Lisa acknowledged him with a nod.

LaStrande pushed his chair back and stood up.

Jabbing a gnarled finger at Alec, he said, “Citizen Morgan is a very talented and capable young man. Everyone agrees on that. But he is young. Too young, I fear, to lead an expedition of such critical importance…”

“But the Benford expedition of…”

LaStrande cut him down with an imperious gesture.

“Let’s not waste our time by arguing about previous expeditions!” His voice filled the room.

“Some have been successful, some have not. I might point out that Morgan’s own father is responsible for the most disastrous expedition of them all, which is the direct cause of the crisis in which we now find ourselves.”

Alec seethed in silent fury. So LaStrande has gone over to Kobol’s side. Did my mother count this in her calculations about the vote?

Lisa fixed LaStrande with a cold gaze. “Surely you’re not suggesting that my former husband’s actions should bar my son from assuming his rightful duties as a citizen?” Her voice was razoredged.

“Of course not,” LaStrande replied smoothly, “but the Council must consider that every action has a cause. We are critically short of fissionable fuels. Why? Because twenty years ago Douglas Morgan led an expedition Earthside and refused to return here. Refused! ”

“But he sent the nuclear fuels we needed,” said the fat man next to Alec, his voice a placating whine.

LaStrande nodded. “Of course he did,” he replied, dripping sarcasm. “And five years later, he was pleased to allow us to have a little more of the fissionables we need to remain alive. And then a third time, five years after that, he doled out a bit of nuclear fuel to us. But nothing since then. He has refused to send us any further shipments of fissionables, despite all our efforts and entreaties. For the past five years he has held us hostage to his renegade ego. And for the past five twitching years we have sat here politely discussing what we should do, while our fuel reserves dwindle toward zero.”

The Council members mumbled to each other and shifted nervously in their seats.

“Morgan is still down there Earthside, turning himself into some sort of barbarian emperor and thumbing his nose at us!” LaStrande’s powerful voice rang against the rock walls of the chamber.

“He knows how desperately we need those fissionables. He knows we will all die without them. But does he care?”

“No!” several Councilmen shouted.

“And now we’re expected to follow the lead of his wife, and send his whelp down there? To help us obtain the lifeblood we need? Or to help further Douglas Morgan’s schemes for setting up an empire on Earth that will eventually kill us all?”

Several Council members pounded the table and roared their approval of LaStrande’s attack.

Kobol sat back, idly tugging at his ear, saying nothing and looking inscrutable behind his mustache and thick eyebrows.

Alec burned with anger. He clenched the arms of his chair, coiled inwardly and was ready to leap to his feet to shout them down. But then he looked at his mother.

She sat there silent and unmoving, an ice-queen, waiting for the fools to shout themselves out. Only her eyes were alive, and they blazed with cold fury.

The Councilors’ shouting raggedly tapered off to a few scattered mumbles, then went dead. The chamber became absolutely silent.

Then, in a voice that Alec had to strain to hear, Lisa said, “Councilman LaStrande, your concern for our future and well-being has led you beyond the bounds of politeness and common sense. Surely you don’t believe that the offenses of the father taint the son—and the wife, as well.”

LaStrande blinked his watery frog’s eyes at her.

“I, eh… I merely wanted the Council to, em, to consider all the facts of this matter.”

“Including,” she countered, steel-hard, “the fact that I have lost a husband. Renounced him, years ago. Including the fact that my son, my only child, has been raised without a father, and feels all the taunts and sick little innuendos that you have so rashly brought into this debate. Including the fact that my son has volunteered to head this dangerous expedition so that he may prove to all the foul-mouthed and petty-minded fools in this community that he is his own man, not a duplicate of his traitorous father! Include those facts in your considerations, Councilors. Include them all!”

They all sank back in their chairs, as if pushed by the force of Lisa’s words. LaStrande sat down and studied the table top before him. Kobol smiled wanly and crossed his legs.