Part 2 (1/2)

His mother raised an imperious brow. ”I told you, don't worry about the board.”

”Or Ras.h.i.+d?”

”Or Ras.h.i.+d either,” Joanna riposted. Turning slightly toward her husband, she added, ” Ras.h.i.+d's a man with real delusions of grandeur.”

”Okay,” said Jinny Anson. ”Then I'll run the base and you, Doug, you can run the war.”

”Thanks a lot.”

”Somebody's got to-”

”Hold it!” Doug snapped. The message icon on his left screen was blinking. Urgent message. And he saw that a cardinal red dot had cleared the swarm of low-orbit satellites around the Earth and was heading outward.

”Message,” Doug called out in the tone that the computer recognized. His voice trembled only slightly.

”A crewed s.p.a.cecraft just lifted from the military base on Corsica,” a comm tech's voice said. ”It's on a direct lunar trajectory.”

”Peacekeeper troops,” Doug said.

”Must be.”

They all turned toward Doug.

”So what do we do now, boss?” Jinny Anson asked.

TOUCHDOWN MINUS 114 HOURS 35 MINUTES.

”Five days,” Doug said to the woman's image on his screen. ”They'll be here in a little less than five days.”

Tamara Bonai frowned slightly, nothing more than a faint pair of lines between her brows. But on her ethereally beautiful face it seemed a gross disfigurement. Her face was a sculptor's dream, high cheekbones and almond eyes; her skin a light clear teak; her long hair a tumbling cascade as l.u.s.trous and black as the infinity of s.p.a.ce.

Like Doug, she was seated behind a desk. Her life-sized image on the wall in front of him made it look as if Doug's office opened onto her office on Tarawa: lunar rock and smart walls suddenly giving way to Micronesian ironwood and bamboo.

”When I visited Moonbase,” she said, ”the trip took only one day.”

”We brought you up on a high-energy burn,” said Doug. ”The Peacekeepers are coming on a minimum-energy trajectory.”

It took almost three seconds for his words to reach Earth and her reply to get back to his office at Moonbase. Usually Doug relaxed during the interval but now he sat tensely in his padded swivel chair.

Bonai smiled slightly. ”The Peacekeepers are trying to save money by taking the low-energy route?”

Doug forced a laugh. ”I doubt it. I think they want to give us as much time as possible to think things over and then surrender.”

Her lips still curved deliciously, Bonai asked, ”Is that what you will do: surrender?”

”No,” said Doug. ”We're just about self-sufficient now. We can get along without Earth for a long while.”

If she was surprised by Doug's answer, it did not show on her face. Doug wondered if anyone was eavesdropping on their conversation. It was being carried by a tight laser beam, but still the tightest beam spread a few kilometers across over the four-hundred-thousand-kilometer distance between the Earth and the Moon. The island of Tarawa was tiny, but still big enough for Ras.h.i.+d or someone else to pick up the beamed signal.

”You are prepared to fight Peacekeeper troops?” she asked.

”We're not going to surrender Moonbase to them.”

She seemed genuinely worried. ”But they will have guns ... other weapons. What weapons do you have?”

”There isn't even a target pistol in all of Moonbase,” Doug admitted. ”But we've got some pretty good brains here.”

Once she heard his words, she shook her head slightly. ”You can't stop bullets with words.”

”Maybe we can,” Doug said. Not waiting for a response from her, he went on, ”We're going to declare our independence and apply to the General a.s.sembly for admission to the U.N.”

Her delay in responding to him was longer than three seconds. At last Bonai said, ”It's my fault, isn't it? You're in this trouble because I bowed to the U.N.'s pressure and signed the nanotech treaty.”

”You did what was best for your people,” Doug replied. ”You did what you had to do.”

Masterson Corporation had owned and operated Moonbase from its beginning as a set of half-buried shelters huddled near the mountain ringwall of the giant crater Alphonsus. Nanotechnology made it possible for the base to grow, and begin to prosper.

Virus-sized nanomachines scoured the regolith of Alphonsus' crater floor, extracting oxygen and the scant atoms of hydrogen that blew in on the solar wind. Once ice fields were discovered in the south polar region, nanomachines built and maintained the pipeline that fed water across more than a thousand kilometers of mountains and craters. Nanomachines built solar cells out of the regolith's silicon, to supply the growing base with constantly increasing electrical power. Nanomachines had built the ma.s.s driver that launched payloads of lunar ores to factories in Earth orbit.

And nanomachines took carbon atoms from near-Earth asteroids and built Clippers.h.i.+ps of pure diamond, Moonbase's newest export and already its princ.i.p.al source of cash flow. Diamond Clippers.h.i.+ps were not only the world's best s.p.a.cecraft; they were starting to take over the market for long-range commercial air flight on Earth.

The United Nations' nanotechnology treaty banned all nanotech operations, research and teaching in the nations that signed the treaty. Seven years earlier, when it became clear that the United States would sign the treaty-indeed, American nanoluddites had drafted drafted the treaty-Masterson Corporation had set up a dummy company on the island nation of Kiribati and transferred Moonbase to the straw-man corporation. As long as Kiribati did not sign the treaty, Moonbase could legally continue using nanomachines, which were as vital to Moonbase as air. the treaty-Masterson Corporation had set up a dummy company on the island nation of Kiribati and transferred Moonbase to the straw-man corporation. As long as Kiribati did not sign the treaty, Moonbase could legally continue using nanomachines, which were as vital to Moonbase as air.

But the day after Tamara Bonai, chief of the Kiribati council, reluctantly signed the nanotech treaty, the U.N.'s secretary general-Georges Faure-personally called Joanna Stavenger and told her that Moonbase had two weeks to shut down all nanotech operations, research and teaching.

Exactly two weeks later, to the very minute, all communications links from Earth to Moonbase were cut. And now a s.p.a.cecraft carrying U.N. Peacekeeper troops had lifted from Corsica on a leisurely five-day course for Moonbase.

”You have no idea of how much pressure they put on us,” Bonai said, her lovely face downcast. ”They even stopped tourist flights from coming to our resorts. It was an economic blockade. They would have strangled us.”

”I'm not blaming you for this,” Doug said. ”I only called to let you know that we're declaring our independence. As an independent nation that hasn't signed the nanotech treaty, we'll be able to keep on as we have been, despite Faure and his Peacekeepers.”

She almost smiled. ”Does that mean that you will continue to honor your contracts with Kiribati Corporation?”

Moonbase marketed its diamond Clippers.h.i.+ps and other exports to transportation companies on Earth through Kiribati Corporation.

”Yes, certainly,” Doug said. Then he added, ”As soon as this situation is cleared up.”

”I understand,” she said. ”We will certainly not object to your independence.”

Doug smiled back at her. ”Thanks, Tamara. I knew I could count on you.”

The three seconds ticked. ”Good luck, Doug,” she said at last.

Thanks again. I think we're going to need all the luck we can get.”

TOUCHDOWN MINUS 114 HOURS.

Kind of a shame, the mercenary thought. They're pretty nice people, these guys I work with. The women, too. But I won't be hurting them. It's the leaders I'm after. The Brudnoys and Jinny Anson and the Stavenger kid.

Nodding as if reaffirming his mission, he went back to his work. Got to finish this job, he told himself. Can't leave anything undone. No loose ends; no mistakes.