Moonrise (64 page)

“This is your doing, isn’t it?” Greg snapped.

“My doing? What?”

“Bringing Anson here.”

“Jinny Anson?” Doug looked genuinely surprised. “She’s aboard this ship?”

Greg waved a finger in Doug’s face. “Don’t play innocent with me, Doug. I know what you’re doing, you and your Operation Bootblack.”

“I didn’t know Jinny Anson was coming here until this moment,” Doug said evenly.

“You’re a liar!”

Joanna’s breath caught in her throat. Greg stood red-faced before his half-brother, slightly taller but much slimmer. Doug seemed stunned by the accusation, his face frozen with shock, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.

“That’s quite enough,” Joanna said, stepping between them. “I won’t stand for you two fighting like this.”

But Doug smiled and stepped back, his hands relaxing. “Honestly, Greg, I’m just as surprised as you are that Jinny’s come here. As for Operation Boot
strap
, okay, we’re trying to make Moonbase profitable without costing you any cash flow. It’s all to your benefit, really.”

“Really?” Greg sneered.

“Really,” said Doug as pleasantly as a springtime breeze.

The airlock hatch’s signal chime interrupted them. Joanna and her two sons turned to the heavy metal hatch as the indicator light on its panel turned from red to amber and one of the mission controllers came hustling into the reception area. She was a petite, almost frail-looking young woman, wearing the gray coveralls of the transportation division. Why do they give the heaviest jobs to the smallest kids? Joanna wondered. The hatch had to be swung open manually, and even though there was a pilot and co-pilot on this flight, standard procedure was for one of the controllers to be on hand to open the hatch from this side, if necessary.

It wasn’t necessary. As soon as the indicator light went
from amber to green, the heavy metal hatch swung open. Joanna felt a slight stir of air in the reception room; the air pressure on the other side of the hatch had not exactly matched the pressure on this side.

The pilot pushed the hatch all the way open, grinning at the mission controller. “See,” he said, “there
is
a reason for carrying us up from Earth orbit, after all.”

“Then you ought to get paid as a doorman,” said the controller.

He wasn’t all that much bigger than she, Joanna realized. The pilot’s eyes widened when he recognized Greg. “Hey,” he said to the controller, “don’t talk that way in front of the boss.”

Greg forced a smile for them as they passed him on their way to the flight control center. They didn’t recognize Joanna, apparently; at least the pilot didn’t.

Then Jinny Anson stepped through the hatch. Right behind her came Kris Cardenas and, finally, the lumbering form of Wilhelm Zimmerman.

For an awkward moment no one knew what to say. Greg looked like a smoldering volcano, Doug seemed nonplussed, and Joanna herself wondered what was going to happen.

Then Zimmerman broke the silence. “We seek asylum,” he said with great dignity.

“Let me get this straight,” Greg said. “You’re seeking political asylum? Here at Moonbase?”

“You are now under the legal jurisdiction of the nation of Kiribati, is that not so?” Zimmerman asked.

“Legally, yes,” said Greg.

“So! We seek asylum. Me from Switzerland, she from Canada.”

The six of them sat around the circular conference table
in Greg’s office, where Greg had taken them immediately after their arrival. Joanna sat between her two sons, facing Anson across the table. Cardenas’s and Zimmerman’s luggage was still at the reception area, out at the rocket port.

“I don’t know if it’s political asylum or what,” said Kris Cardenas, “but we want the freedom to continue our research—”

“And our teaching,” interrupted Zimmerman.

Cardenas nodded. “And our teaching.”

“And you can’t do it Earthside?” Doug asked.

“Not once this treaty goes into effect,” said Zimmerman heavily. “All research on nanotechnology will be banned. Teaching also.”

Joanna saw the despair in his fleshy face. She had never considered how the nanotech treaty would affect researchers like Zimmerman and Cardenas.

Greg steepled his fingers before his face and looked at Anson. “Jinny, don’t tell me you’re seeking asylum, too.”

She grinned mischievously. “Nope. I just wanted to talk to you—and Mrs. Stavenger—about getting transferred to someplace where my husband can teach without the New Morality on his back.”

“What does he teach?” Joanna heard herself ask.

“English literature,” Anson replied. “Specializes in Marlowe—the Elizabethan, not the detective.”

No one laughed.

“Why don’t we invite him here?” Doug asked.

“Here?” Greg demanded. “To Moonbase? We can’t afford to carry nonproductive people here. What would we do with an English lit professor?”

“Start a university,” said Doug.

“What?”

Gesturing toward Zimmerman and Cardenas, Doug said, “We have two of the world’s greatest nanotech researchers, don’t we? Let Jinny’s husband teach English lit from here. Bring up a few other teachers and researchers. Moonbase can start its own university and people will pay good money to study here.”

“But the transportation costs,” Joanna pointed out.

Doug gave her a patient smile. “Mom, I’m studying at Caltech and the Sorbonne and the American University in
Rome—all without leaving Moonbase. People on Earth can study with our faculty the same way.”

“Electronically.”

“Virtual reality, when you need it,” said Doug.

Greg seemed intrigued despite himself. “You mean we could make a profit out of a university?”

“Of course!” said Zimmerman. “We can make this miserable collection of caves into a great intellectual center!”

Greg turned to his mother questioningly.

Joanna leaned close enough to whisper into his ear, “Don’t fight it. Take the credit for it.”

He smiled and thought, As long as Kiribati doesn’t sign the U.N. treaty, I can start the university here and transfer it to the islands when I close Moonbase.

Melissa had easily eluded Rashid’s attempts at romance during their first dinner together in his tent. She had talked nothing but business, and learned more about the rumors of building a new type of Clippership out of diamond, using nanomachines. Rashid, ardently wanting to impress her, had blithely laid out everything he had heard about the scheme at her feet.

His reward was a brief kiss goodnight and the vague promise of delights to come.

Melissa dared not report back to General O’Conner or her cohorts at the Urban Corps headquarters in Atlanta. The only communications links on the storm-ravaged atoll belonged to Masterson Corporation; she wasn’t prepared to take the risk of being overheard.

Instead, she tried to think out a plan of action for herself. The nanotech scheme had to be stopped, preferably nipped in the bud. Greg Masterson must be behind it, she reasoned. He always was fascinated with nanotechnology. Another reason to ban it everywhere.

If they actually succeeded in making this breakthrough in spacecraft manufacturing with nanotechnology it would be a body blow to the U.N. treaty. Greg could sit up there at Moonbase and build spacecraft and make billions. These people here in Kiribati would get rich. Then they would start using nanomachines to manufacture other things: automobiles, perhaps; aircraft, certainly. Who knew what else?

The nanotech treaty would be a shambles, a mockery. All because this little island nation could be bribed into resisting the will of the people, the mandate of God.

All because of Greg, she knew. He’s sitting up there, above us all, laughing at us. Laughing at me. I’ve got to stop Greg, Melissa told herself. I’ve got to tear him down from his throne in the sky. I’ve got to wipe out Moonbase.

Her only tool, she realized, was Rashid.

He invited her to dinner the next night, but she refused. Again the following night, and she refused again. But by the third night, Melissa had done enough research into Rashid’s own personal and corporate life so that the beginnings of a plan had started to form in her mind. When he oh-so-casually asked her if she would like to keep him company during dinner, she accepted.

His answering smile pleased her.

In place of candles, Rashid’s tent was lit by battery-powered fluorescent lamps. His table was still meager, supplies had to be flown in from Hawaii, yet Melissa could see the effect he was trying to create: a romantic dinner for two, alone from the rest of the world.

Instead of the usual slacks and shirt, Rashid wore a flowing white robe with gold embroidery, and a cloying musky cologne that made Melissa’s nostrils twitch. She half expected to hear reedy Middle Eastern music; instead, the background was the rhythmic beating of the surf against the reef out beyond the island.

“And how is your wife today?” Melissa asked coyly as they sat at the folding table facing each other.

Rashid smiled blandly. “I’ve been much too busy to speak with her today. I’ll call tomorrow.”

Nodding understandingly, she asked, “Moslems are allowed four wives, aren’t they?”

He seemed pleased that she knew. “The Koran allows four, yes. But the laws of the United States make polygamy illegal.”

With a slight frown, Melissa said, “Secular law shouldn’t be placed above religious law. Don’t you agree?”

“In this case, I agree wholeheartedly!”

Melissa looked down at her dinner, a prepackaged meal heated in the portable microwave oven. We might as well be
aboard an airliner, she thought. The natives who had returned to the island were catching fresh fish in the lagoon, although the papaya and mango and other fruit trees had been stripped by the typhoon’s winds, if not flattened altogether.

Rashid did not offer wine; neither of them imbibed. Instead they drank clear water produced by the desalinization plant that had finally gone into operation.

Slowly, as they ate and chatted, Melissa brought the subject around to Moonbase.

“I just don’t understand how the corporation can risk so much of its resources on a totally unproven scheme,” she said.

“Unproven?”

“The idea of manufacturing Clipperships with nanomachines,” Melissa said. “Nanotechnology isn’t really that reliable. It’s dangerous, in fact.”

“They use nanomachines at Moonbase all the time.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, “but only for the simplest of tasks, like taking oxygen out of the regolith. When it comes to trying to build the mass driver, they’re having trouble, aren’t they?”

Rashid’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re very well informed.”

“I am your assistant,” said Melissa. “It’s my job to know what you need to know.”

“Yes.”

“And it worries me,” she went on, “that your whole standing in the corporation hangs on this crazy scheme. How on earth did you ever agree to be part of it?”

His brow knit more deeply. “I really had no choice. I was transferred here on the orders of Joanna Stavenger.”

“Isn’t she Greg Masterson’s mother?” Melissa asked innocently.

“Yes. And he’s the director of Moonbase.”

“But you’re his superior. He reports to you in the corporate chain of command.”

His nostrils flaring slightly, Rashid muttered, “Not for long, I imagine. He’ll be sitting on the board of directors before I do, no doubt.”

“Because of his mother?”

“Why else?”

“But she’s retired, hasn’t she? She’s living up at Moon-base, too.”

“She’s still on the board of directors. And still very powerful.”

Melissa took a sip of water, then asked, “So because of this woman you must risk your career?”

Stiffening, Rashid replied, “I wouldn’t put it just that way.”

“But suppose Kiribati decides one day to sign the U.N. treaty? What happens then?”

“That won’t happen.”

“No one expected New Zealand to sign the treaty, but they did. What if Kiribati does, too?”

Rashid puffed out a breath. “The whole scheme collapses like a house of cards.”

“And yet you have the key to the corporation’s salvation in your hands, don’t you?”

“I do?”

“Fusion power,” said Melissa. “The secret of the stars, brought to Earth.”

“Ah, yes! Fusion. Yes, I had great hopes for it.” His face darkened again. “Before I was assigned to the Kiribati Manufacturing and Entertainment Corporation.” He pronounced the words with clear disgust.

“And what’s happening with the fusion development program?” Melissa asked.

“Nothing. It’s dead in the water. If the corporation would only put some funding behind the effort …”

She reached across the table to put her hand on his. “Why don’t you move in that direction?”

“I can’t,” he said. “I’ve got to get this miserable resort complex up and going.”

“Wouldn’t the board back you, if you made a strong presentation about the benefits of fusion energy?”

Rashid blinked at her several times as he stroked his trim dark beard. “With Quintana gone,” he muttered, “the balance of power on the board is rather shaky.”

“Moonbase has always been such a marginal operation,” said Melissa eagerly. “Why not cut it entirely and devote our resources to developing fusion? That way there won’t be any problems with the U.N. treaty to worry about, and you
can end this farce of a resort complex here in these godforsaken islands.”

“But the fusion generator requires helium-three.”

Melissa waved an impatient hand. “One trip to the Moon per year could scoop up enough helium-three to run a hundred fusion generators. You don’t need a permanent base on the Moon for that.”

“Are you certain?”

She nodded. “Make fusion work and you can forget about Kiribati.”

Rashid laughed shakily. “I could go home to Savannah.”

“You could be elected to the board of directors!”

“And solve the world’s energy problems.”

“You could become the most powerful man in the corporation,” Melissa urged. “The most powerful man on Earth!”

He laughed again, stronger. “I could live in a Moslem nation, where a man is allowed his proper number of wives.”