Ben Bova - Test of Fire

He took the bottle and pulled the stopper out of it. Funny, spongy thing. Cork? he wondered.

Somewhere he had heard about the substance.

Very carefully, conscious for the first time in months of Earth’s six-fold gravity pull, he half filled the two glasses with bright red wine.

It tasted marvelous. Smooth and warm and warming.

He put the glass down firmly on the table. “It’s not the only world we’ve got, Angela. There’s an entirely different world, where all this insanity of raiders and killing doesn’t exist.”

“The lunar settlement,” she said.

“Right. Civilization. Where you don’t have to carry weapons all the time and worry if you’ll make it through the night.”

“But we have that here!” Angela said. “That’s what Douglas has built for us here.”

“Yes… by force, by war, by betraying the people who trusted him.”

Her eyes flashed, but she caught herself and changed the subject. “Tell me more about the lunar colony. What’s it like up there?”

With an effort, Alec pushed his own smoldering anger aside. “It’s peaceful. Polite. People can be ! human beings instead of jungle animals. You don’t have this heavy gravity pulling on you all the time. You can sail in the aerogymn and dance all the ballets ever written.”

“Ballets?” Angela looked puzzled.

Never heard of them, he realized. “Up on the surface,” Alec went on, “you can see real beauty. I mean, it’s beautiful here on Earth, of course, wild and unpredictable and all… but on the Moon, watching the sunrise takes a whole day. And the stars… and Earth itself, hanging there blue and beautiful. You can go for a thousand klicks in any direction and never see another person, alone, just by yourself, with the whole universe hanging up there and watching you…”

“It sounds lonely.”

“No, it’s beautiful. Watching the ice vents outgas right after the perigee quakes. There’s just enough sulfur dioxide in the rocks to tint the’ vapor pink—the stuff puffs up and out like a ghost escaping from its grave.”

Angela shuddered. “That doesn’t sound beautiful to me.”

“Wait ’till you see it.”

“I’ll never see it,” she said. Sadly.

“Yes you will. I’m taking you there, remember?”

“No…”

He hunched forward in his chair. “God, you’re beautiful. Let’s go to bed.”

She didn’t look surprised. “There’s more to it than that, Alec.”

“What?”

“If Douglas finds out…”

He pulled back from her. “He means more to you than I do.”

“No, it’s not that,” she said. “Alec… I don’t mean anything to you. Not really. You can screw me one minute and try to trick me the next.”

“You did the same damned thing!”

“Because I knew that’s what you were doing! You didn’t fool me, not for one minute.”

“Then why did you go to bed with me?”

Her voice rising, “Because you saved me and I was scared and you were kind—no, you killed those two… oh, hell! I don’t know. I did it because I wanted to.”

“And you don’t want to now.”

“Yes, I do want to.”

It took a moment for Alec to realize what she had said. Then, leaning back in his chair, he wondered aloud, “Then what are we arguing about?”

Angela shook her head. “You don’t understand any of it, do you? Not a bit of it.”

But she got up from the table and took him by the hand and led him into the bedroom.

The first light of dawn woke Alec. He lay with Angela’s soft warmth beside him, her head cradled in his arm, and watched the day slowly brighten through the bedroom window. The sleeping bag was spread lumpily over them.

“Are you going to stay?” Angela asked very quietly.

“Huh? I thought you were sleeping.”

She smiled at him. “I’ve been thinking for the past couple of hours.”

“With your eyes closed?”

“Are you going to stay here… at the base, I mean?”

“Do I have a choice? I’m a prisoner.”

Pushing away from him slightly, she said, “Oh, that. You don’t have to worry. Douglas just wanted you to come here without any fuss. He wouldn’t stop you from leaving. He does love you, you know.”

“The hell he does.”

“Don’t be a fool. Of course he does.”

Then why did he leave us? Alec demanded silently. What kind of love is that?

“Well?” she asked.

“What?”

“Are you going to stay here?”

“Would you come with me if I left?” he countered.

“No. I couldn’t.”

“Because he needs you more than I do.”

She laughed. “Don’t be silly. Douglas doesn’t need me. He doesn’t need anybody except one person.”

“Who’s that?”

“You.”

He huffed. “Don’t be funny.”

Angela sat up and pulled her knees up to her chin. The cover slid down to her ankles, and Alec shivered; not from the room’s chill, but from the curve of her smoothly fleshed back and hip.

“Look,” she said, “What you don’t…”

“I’m looking,” he murmured.

She intercepted his reaching hand. “Not now. You’ve got to realize a few things. Douglas is an old man…”

“Fifty-five. That’s not old.”

“It is when you’ve lived the way he has,” Angela said, completely serious. “He needs help. Your help. That’s why he brought you here. He was overjoyed that you made it all the way here from Oak Ridge. He bragged about how you got through the summer on your own.”

“I’ll bet.”

“He wants you to join with him, help him bring the lunar settlement and his own territory here together. If the two of you can work together you can build a real civilization that links the Earth and the Moon. But if you fight…”

“Listen to me,” Alec snapped. “He ran out on us. Not just on my mother and me, but on hundreds of men, women and children who depended on him, trusted him. He’s stolen the fissionables that we need. Without them we’ll all die. He won’t let us have them.”

“Yes he will!” Angela insisted. “If only you’ll agree to help him.”

“Help him make himself into another Genghis Khan? He can rot first.”

“You just don’t understand!”

“Wrong! I understand far more than you do. Far more.”

She shook her head. “No, Alec, you’re wrong. You’re all wrong about so many things.”

Instead of answering, he got to his feet. The bare floor was cold.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Back to my own quarters.”

“Not yet.” She slid one hand up the side of his leg. He turned and sank to his knees on the mattress.

“You don’t have to go now,” Angela said, almost in a whisper. “And stop pouting. What’s going on between you and your father has nothing to do with what’s going on between you and me.”

Doesn’t it? he demanded in his mind. Aren’t you doing this to make me stay here, to get me to join forces with him?

But although he thought it, Alec did not say anything as Angela pulled him back into the warmth of the bed again.

It was easy to slide into the routine of daily life at the base.

The leaves fell steadily from the trees, the grass turned brown and brittle. The wind came always from the north or west, cold and sharp enough to cut through the heaviest of coats. The sky turned gray as the days shortened. The Sun did not climb far above the horizon and the Moon seemed to have disappeared from the cloudy night skies. One titanic rainstorm stripped away the last of the leaves, blew off roofs and tore limbs from the bare trees. Alec’s quarters stayed dry, although the heat and electricity went out for several days.

Angela’s house was flooded to a depth of ten centimeters in the cellar.