Part 49 (1/2)

”You can't fight them! You don't have any weapons.”

Again the agonizing wait. Doug said, ”We don't have any guns, that's true enough. But we're not beaten yet.”

”Doug, what are you thinking of? You can't fight an armed battalion of trained Peacekeeper troops! You'll get yourself killed! You'll destroy Moonbase!”

He hadn't waited for her response. He was saying, in a calm, carefully measured tone. ”I can't tell you what we're planning, Mom, because even a tight laser link spreads enough for some snooper to eavesdrop. But we're not going to obediently open our hatches and let the Peacekeepers take over Moonbase.”

”Doug, they'll kill you!”

He smiled at her words. ”If we surrender and have to return Earthside, I'm a dead man anyway.”

Joanna started to reply, then realized that her son was right. He had nothing to lose by fighting for Moonbase.

”Naw, I don't mind working the night s.h.i.+ft,” Killifer was saying. ”At least I'll be indoors, under the roof, if it rains.”

The security chief looked slightly uneasy. ”I don't usually put newcomers inside the house,” he said, ”but Jonesie's come down with some virus and we need a replacement for him right away.”

”It's okay,” Killifer repeated, trying hard not to sound eager. I'll take his s.h.i.+ft.”

”You already did you regular s.h.i.+ft; I don't like asking you to double up.”

Killifer shrugged as carelessly as he could. ”Four to midnight is easy. I wouldn't go to sleep until after midnight, anyway.”

The chief swivelled back and forth slowly in his desk chair, making it squeak slightly, eying Killifer as if he weren't certain he was doing the right thing. Killifer sat in front of the little desk, doing his best to appear nonchalant.

Then he got an inspiration. ”I get overtime pay for this, don't I?”

The chief visibly relaxed. ”Yeah, sure. Time and a half.”

Killifer nodded as if the money was his reason for agreeing to the extra s.h.i.+ft so readily. ”Double s.h.i.+ft isn't so bad,” he said. ”It's only for a few days, right?”

”Yeah,” said the chief. ”Until Jonesie comes back.”

”I'd just be spending my pay in some bar or someplace,” Killifer said. ”This way I make plastic instead of spending it.”

”All right,” the chief said, still uneasy. ”Go downstairs and change into a regular uniform. You work with Rodriguez. He monitors the screens, in here, and you sit in the kitchen until she and her husband go to bed. Then you patrol the rooms once every half-hour. Check all the windows and doors. Except the master bedroom; just make sure their door's shut tight. Pay particular attention to the sliders that go out to the pool deck.”

”Right.' Killifer nodded.

”Remember, she doesn't like to see us. Stay in the kitchen until they go up to the master bedroom.”

”What about the butler?”

”He'll go to bed after they do,” said the chief.

”Okay. Good.”

Again the chief hesitated. Killifer could feel his pulse throbbing in his ears as he sat facing the man across the pathetic little metal desk.

At last the chief said, ”All right. Go downstairs and get into your uniform.”

Killifer got up from his chair slowly, turned and went to the office door.

”And thanks for filling in,” the chief said. Reluctantly.

”Nothing to it,” Killifer replied over his shoulder. He pulled the door open, then added, ”I can use the extra plastic.”

The b.a.s.t.a.r.d suspects something, Killifer said to himself as he stepped out into the hallway. Not enough to turn me down, but this doesn't sit right with him.

Then he grinned as he clattered down the metal spiral staircase. What the h.e.l.l! Let him worry all he wants to. I'm in the house for two to three nights and she's home with her creaky old man. Once the butler goes to bed I'll scope out the house and figure out the best way to get to her and then get away. s.h.i.+t, they'll be paying be paying me to do it. Overtime. me to do it. Overtime.

NANOLAB.

Keiji Inoguchi was surprised by Professor Zimmerman's call. He hurried to the nanolab, eager to accept Zimmerman's invitation before the crusty old man changed his mind.

”I am most honored that you have asked me to visit your laboratory once again,” he said, after he had bowed to the professor.

Zimmerman dipped his chin in acknowledgement. ”I am asking for more than a visit, my friend. I need your help.”

Inoguchi sucked in his breath. ”My help? In what way can I help you?”

Zimmerman led the j.a.panese scientist back into the bowels of his lab. They walked past rows of computer screens and gray, bulky cryogenic tanks beaded with moisture, Zimmerman in his usual gray suit, grossly overweight, dishevelled, looking distracted and unhappy; Inoguchi in an immaculate white turtleneck s.h.i.+rt and sharply-creased slacks, lean and eager, his eyes snapping up every piece of equipment as if they were cameras.

Hands jammed in his trouser pockets, Zimmerman said heavily, ”I am relegated to a.s.sisting my former student, Professor Cardenas.”

”Yes?”

”She has asked me to prepare nanomachines capable of repairing wounds inflicted by gunshot or shrapnel-flying metal from explosions.”

”And you want me to a.s.sist you in this?” Inoguchi asked.

”I realize you represent the United Nations and are not to take part in the fighting,” Zimmerman said. ”But for medical work perhaps you are allowed to use your skills, yah? For humanitarian reasons.”

”Of course,” Inoguchi said without an instant's hesitation. ”Humanitarian purposes come before politics and other considerations.”

Zimmerman stopped in front of a lab bench that supported a ma.s.sive metal sphere connected to a desktop computer by hair-thin fiber optic cables.

”My staff,” Zimmerman gestured to the sphere.

Inoguchi understood immediately. ”Your processors.”

”Yah,” said Zimmerman, lowering his bulk onto a spindly-looking stool. ”Now we must teach them to build other nanos that will seal wounds quick, before the patient bleeds to death.”

”Can you do this?”

The old man nodded slowly. ”Yah. I have already done it once. Now I must do it again-in a day or so.”

Inoguchi grinned at the professor. ”We have much work to accomplish, then.”

Colonel Giap did not relish being under Faure's direct supervision. The man is a politician, what doeshe know of military tactics? Giap asked himself. I should report to General Uhlenbeck, through the normal chain of command. Instead I must bear with this politician questioning every breath I draw.