Part 10 (1/2)

”Faure's people are in control of the commsats,” he said gently. ”Most probably they are not letting your messages get through to Earth.”

”But I've beamed calls directly to the World Court in The Hague. I've even had our own people in Savannah relay my messages to Holland. No response. Not even a flicker.”

Brudnoy shrugged his bony shoulders. ”Faure isn't going to let the World Court consider our claim of independence until his Peacekeepers have taken control of Moonbase.”

”And turned it over to Yamagata to operate,” Joanna growled.

”Yes, I suppose so.”

Fists clenched, Joanna jumped to her feet and started striding across the furniture-crowded living room. ”That little t.u.r.d! He's in with Yamagata. It's been a Yamagata operation all along, from the very beginning. They'll end up operating Moonbase under a U.N. contract and we'll be out in the cold.”

”Expropriated,” muttered Brudnoy.

”It's illegal! It's illegal as h.e.l.l! But he's going to get away with it.”

”How is your board of directors taking this?”

She glared at him. ”I've asked for an emergency meeting of the board, but they're taking their sweet time getting everybody together.”

”Perhaps-”

”They know know Doug can't live on Earth!” Joanna blurted. ”He'll be a marked man.” Doug can't live on Earth!” Joanna blurted. ”He'll be a marked man.”

”We'll be able to protect him,” Brudnoy a.s.sured her.

But Joanna shook her head. ”No, they'll get to him. Fanatics. a.s.sa.s.sins. Just because he's got nanomachines in his body. They'll kill him, sooner or later.”

”Zimmerman won't be safe from the nanoluddites, either,” Brudnoy pointed out. With a sigh, he added, ”None of us will.”

”We can't can't let them send us back to Earth, Lev! It'd be a death sentence for Doug, for Zimmerman, for all of us!” let them send us back to Earth, Lev! It'd be a death sentence for Doug, for Zimmerman, for all of us!”

”If only-”

The phone chime interrupted Brudnoy.

”Answer,” Joanna snapped.

The phone's computer voice said, ”Call from Mr Ras.h.i.+d, in Savannah.”

”Put him on!”

Ibrahim al-Ras.h.i.+d's swarthy face with its trim little beard appeared on the wall screen. To Brudnoy, the man looked like the crafty pirate chieftain of his childhood tapes.

He smiled at Joanna. ”You'll be pleased to know that the emergency board meeting is scheduled to start in ten minutes.”

Joanna sank back onto the couch beside her husband. ”Good,” she breathed. ”Good.”

TOUCHDOWN MINUS 8 HOURS 57 MINUTES.

Ras.h.i.+d hated these electronic meetings. He sat at the head of the nearly-empty board table while the walls around him displayed the images of directors who were in their homes or offices in California, London, Buenos Aires, the middle of the Pacific Ocean-and one, of course, on the Moon.

Only three of Masterson Corporation's directors lived close enough to Savannah to come to this emergency meeting in person, and one of them had to be ferried by a special medevac tiltrotor plane because he was on life support, awaiting a heart transplant.

”We have got to get the World Court to issue an injunction to stop the Peacekeepers from invading Moonbase!” Joanna was saying, her voice urgent, somewhere between cajoling and pleading.

McGruder, the old man on life support, wheezing through his clear plastic oxygen mask, said testily, ”The World Court doesn't work that way. They have no power to issue injunctions or control the Peacekeepers.”

”Only Faure can direct the Peacekeepers,” said the director from London, a well-preserved matron whom Ras.h.i.+d had pursued amorously from time to time.

”With the oversight of the General a.s.sembly,” the man from California added. ”If they don't like the way he's handling things, they can override him or even replace him.”

Fat chance, Ras.h.i.+d thought.

Tamara Bonai, sitting on her patio on Tarawa with palm trees behind her swaying in the trade wind, asked, ”But what about the news media? Couldn't we put some pressure on the UN by exposing this plot to the media?”

Ras.h.i.+d said, ”Most of the world's media has been effectively muzzled by Faure. Here in the United States the media executives I've talked to tend to see this as a struggle between a giant corporation-which is bad by definition-against the poor people of the world, represented by Faure and the U.N.”

Joanna's anguished face almost filled the far wall of the board room, like a giant portrait or a hovering djinn. djinn.

”Do you mean that they're ignoring our declaration of independence?” Joanna demanded.

”Yes,” said Ras.h.i.+d, dipping his chin slightly. ”They see it as a transparent ploy of Masterson Corporation to maintain control of Moonbase and continue using nanotechnology.”

The meeting room fell silent. What Ras.h.i.+d had told his board was not entirely true, he knew. Yes, the media executives he had spoken with knew that Masterson still controlled Moonbase, despite the legal fiction that the base was owned by the Kiribati Corporation. Tamara Bonai's beauty and earnestness were not enough to disguise the maneuver that the Moonbase people had pulled to evade the nanotech treaty. But when Ras.h.i.+d had met with his friends among the news media in New York to brief them on the Moonbase situation, he had conveniently overlooked the independence angle.

And from all the communications beamed from Moonbase to Masterson corporate headquarters in Savannah, Ras.h.i.+d had carefully excised all mention of independence before sending them on to the news outlets.

Of all the members of Masterson's board of directors, Ras.h.i.+d was the least surprised to learn that Yamagata was behind Faure's grab of Moonbase. Let them have Moonbase, he thought. We still have the patents on the Clippers.h.i.+ps. Let Yamagata manufacture them with nanomachines on the Moon; we will still get the patent royalties and our costs will drop to zero. Nothing but profit for us.

And, of course, sooner or later Yamagata will want to initiate a merger with Masterson Corporation. That's when I will become wealthy enough to retire in true style.

Joanna's insistent voice snapped him out of his pleasant reverie.

”Once the Peacekeeper troops land here and take over the base we won't have a chance of stopping Faure from turning Moonbase over to Yamagata.”

”We will be compensated for the takeover,” Ras.h.i.+d pointed out.

And now we have to wait three infernal seconds for her reply, he grumbled to himself.

Joanna stared down the length of conference table at him, her eyes ablaze. ”Compensated? You mean it's all right with you if Faure screws us as long as he pays for the pleasure?”

Ras.h.i.+d's own temper rose, but he maintained his composure. ”I believe it is an ancient piece of oriental wisdom, Joanna: When rape is unavoidable, you might as well relax and enjoy it.”

Joanna stared into Ras.h.i.+d's beady eyes and battled with every ounce of self-control she possessed to keep from screaming at him.

All across the walls of her living room, the images of the board members were watching her, some sympathetic, some apathetic, a few looking tense with apprehension.

”Omar,” she said, deliberately using Ras.h.i.+d's belittling nickname, ”you might enjoy getting raped, but I don't, and I don't think the other members of this board do, either.”

Raising her voice slightly, she said, ”I move we take a vote of confidence in our chairman.”