Back to the Moon (35 page)

Medaris looked at her, then sighed as if she were the source for every problem known to all mankind. But he opened up the SAREX. “All right, High Eagle. You win.” He keyed a greeting and waited. Nothing happened. “There's no response. Go look at the earth.”

“Why?”

“Just do it, High Eagle. Tell me what you see.”

Penny relented, went to the flight deck, looked, and returned. “It's still there,” she said.

“What hemisphere did you see?”

“I saw Africa.”

“That's what I thought. SAREX requires a straight line of sight. We'll have to wait until the planet rotates.”

“When will that be?”

“About ten hours.” He put his thumbs in his ears, wiggled his fingers, and stuck his tongue out at her. “We should still be around as long as your spinal cord doesn't grow scales and start chasing us around the shuttle.”

Penny made a face back at him. “Very funny, Medaris.”

He shrugged. “We do the best we can with the material we've got.”

Ten hours later, as promised, Jack tried the SAREX again, Penny hovering over his shoulder. A message came back. MEC was there. “It's all yours,” he said, moving aside.

She entered her message, requesting retransmittal to her sponsoring pharmaceutical lab. MEC answered immediately.

WILL FORWARD. EXCITING STUFF.

The next message that came was not for her but for Medaris.

HOUSTON HAS GONE SILENT. NO NEWS FROM PERLMAN. CECIL CHECKED IN. SAID NOT TO WORRY.

Jack replied.

TOO LATE TO WORRY. ALL WELL HERE AND ON TIMELINE. MOON IS GROWING LARGER BY THE MINUTE. WISH YOU COULD SEE IT.

BRING A PIECE OF IT BACK FOR US.

YOU GOT IT.

SHIRLEY'S REPORT

Catoctin Mountains, Maryland

It had been the devil's worst time trying to track him down, but Shirley finally found the vice president. Vanderheld had gone off on a field trip into the mountains of Maryland, looking for some kind of rare bird. She found him in a pretty green meadow scalloped between two forested hills. Breathlessly, she told him all she'd learned at the Lunar Curatorial Lab.

“I believe I told you it wasn't necessary to continue your research on Medaris,” the Veep said, grimacing. He had his hand in the small of his back. He'd hurt it tripping over a log, he'd said.

“I went on my own time using my own money, sir,” Shirley said.

“And so you discovered Medaris is going after helium-3,” Vanderheld said. “I've heard that already. Interesting information but it doesn't change much. He still hijacked a shuttle.”

Shirley took a deep breath, knowing, no matter what their relationship might be, she was about to overstep her bounds. “Sir, I think you must help the people aboard
Columbia
and help this Dr. Perlman, wherever he is. I believe he and Jack Medaris are trying to do something wonderful for this country.”

Vanderheld limped over to a rock outcropping and took a load off. He lifted the straps of both of the heavy cameras over his head, set them gently beside him. “All right, Shirley,” he said. “Let's hear your reasoning.”

Shirley explained all that Koszelak had said at the Lunar Curatorial Lab, how the fire beads of
Apollo 17
held helium-3, how it could be used in a fusion reactor. Then she told him about her research on Perlman, how he had published the results of his last test with the helium-3 he'd managed to get off the old
Apollo
rocks. “Fusion energy is so clean, that's the wonderful part,” she said with the breathless energy of a convert. “Fossil fuel will become obsolete, all those dirty oil fields and coal mines. And fusion energy can be made to be cheap. Just think of it, sir, the advantages will accrue to poor people with access to cheap energy. Sir, fusion is going to provide for nearly everything you've fought for all your life!”

Vanderheld listened, his eyes closed against the bright afternoon sun. When she'd finished, he kept his eyes closed for a minute, his brow furrowed in thought. “It saddens me,” he said, finally, “that you seem to have forgotten the World Energy Treaty, Shirley. WET will do all that you give fusion credit for. There will be a board and I will be on it, and I will make certain that no decision is made on energy that does not take into account the poor and the downtrodden. I am going to make certain that the provision of energy everywhere across the planet is fair and equitable. This I will do without introducing a dangerous new energy form into the world.”

“But, sir, fusion is nonpolluting. It's—”

Vanderheld held up his hand. “That's what they said about fission energy too. Just a few by-products. It turned out it was plutonium. A trace of plutonium can kill millions. I fear you've fallen prey to the fusion propaganda machine.”

“No, sir, I studied a hundred different independent sources,” she said, hoping she sounded braver than she felt. “Sir, I know you worked hard on WET but I think this could be even better. The way I see it is that we may be about to embark on a new age of peace and prosperity. No more wars for oil, no more pollution, energy for all, even the poorest of nations. I think that's wonderful. I was certain you'd think it was wonderful too!”

Vanderheld slowly shook his head back and forth. “No. You're wrong. Fusion using helium-3 from the moon will introduce an age of nations vying against nations for this new gold in this new world. There may very well be war in space.”

“You expect there to be a war for the moon?” Shirley asked, shaken. “Who will be the combatants?”

Vanderheld looked up into the sky, squinting. “To start, Russia, China, Europe, Japan, India, Great Britain, the United States, all the spacefaring nations. Great Britain, I expect, would throw in with us. How the other countries would divide themselves up I'm not certain. Japan would be inclined toward us, maybe. We've treated them pretty shabbily the last few years. China and Russia would be tempted to work together, but, based on their traditional animosity toward one another, that might prove to be a difficult alliance, might even spark a war between them. Europe would probably try to go it alone but eventually they'd have to choose between us or the Russians, neither choice particularly palatable to them. France, for one, has spent trillions on thermonuclear energy. Fusion energy would destroy that investment overnight. The world structure would be knocked into a cocked hat. The results would probably be quite bloody.”

“Sir, I think you're wrong,” Shirley said. “I see competition, sure. Mankind is at its best when it's moving out, striving to gain advantage. But war? Space is too big a place for war. I think we'll stop looking inward, recognize that all our worries about Social Security and people wearing helmets on ski slopes and all this internal bickering would be a thing of the past. Great strides would be taken that wouldn't be abided during normal times, strides that would advance all areas of technology and science.”

Vanderheld's eyes turned sorrowful. “You are indeed a dreamer, Shirley,” he said softly, kindly. He waved his hand, sighed. “What is it you want me to do?”

“I got a call from Professor Koszelak. Shuttle Mission Control is closed down. The shuttle is at the moon. Let me go to Houston, get Mission Control fired back up. Let's not let Americans get killed up there. Let's help them bring us this new gold.”

Vanderheld nodded, started to get up, then slumped back down. Shirley went to help him. “No, I'm fine,” he said. He struggled to his feet. “I just get stiff. Go on with you, Shirley. Go help your gold hunters. I think you got smitten with this Jack Medaris while you were out there. Am I off the mark?”

Shirley hadn't thought of it that way. As she had so often learned, the vice president could see right through her. It made her happy. They were back in synch. “You could be right, sir. Could you sign this?” She produced a document from her briefcase. “It authorizes me to reopen the SMC.”

Vanderheld laughed, stretched out his hand for the piece of paper, searched his shirt pocket for a pen. “You are something, Shirley Grafton,” he said. “A cheerleader for a new paradigm in a new world.”

PENNY'S LOG (2)

Columbia

We are more than 100,000 miles out as I write this. We are slowing now, only going a little less than 4,000 miles per hour. Two days ago, when the Big Dog engine pushed us out of earth orbit, we were going 25,000 miles per hour. We are in the influence of three magnets, Medaris says, the sun, the earth, and the moon. It is earth that is slowing us, the weaker pull of the moon only just now being felt. It will cause us to speed up again later today.

Medaris called Virgil and me to the cockpit after lunch. We would need a slight midcourse correction, he said. Virgil put Paco in his box and then came back up and lay down on the deck and grabbed foot-loops. I strapped myself in beside Medaris, in the pilot's seat. When Big Dog fired, there was just a bump and it was over. Medaris pulled out all his nav stuff again, putting the laptop through its paces, and checking the star trackers. Finally, he announced that we were back into the hands of Isaac Newton and precisely on course.

We still can't see the moon. Yesterday, I was starting to feel an affection for it. I dread it now as we begin to fall into its sterile embrace. I look back at the warm earth and find no solace there either. It seems I am happy only on my Armstrong Sea.

Penny climbed over the pilot's seat, settled down into it. She had left Paco's hairbrush attached to the forward panel. Jack was in the commander's seat, reading a book and keeping one eye on the computer display. He sniffed the air as she turned to fly back out of the cockpit. “You smell good,” he said.

He'd said it as if it was a surprise. Penny remembered the time when they'd first been in orbit and she was still in stinky diapers. Perhaps that was why he'd said it. It was another slam in her direction. “Go to hell, Medaris,” she snarled.

He frowned. “What for?”

“I smell good. Thanks,” she said sardonically.

“No, really,” he said sincerely. “You do. Sort of like”—he cocked his head, sniffed—”like sage, I think.”

“Sage? You're saying I smell like a tumbleweed?” Penny considered slapping him. This was going too far.

“No, sage is sort of like fresh grass, I think. With a tang. All women seem to have a distinctive odor.... Are you wearing something?”

“No.” She eyed Jack critically. “Do you go around smelling women? Is that how you get your kicks? And women have an odor? An
odor
? God, what a geek you are!”

Jack shrugged. “Sorry.”

“You're a jerk, Medaris.”

He went back to his book. “Remind me not to ever try to compliment you again about anything.”

“I will,” she said, pulling over the seat and soaring off. She couldn't resist having the last word. “And if you ever need to know how to give a compliment, Medaris, ask me. I will try to teach you.”

“I'd like to teach you....” Jack grumbled, trailing off.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, dear.”

MET 7 DAYS AND COUNTING . . .

THE DOOMSDAY COMMAND

Farside Control

Starbuck proudly watched his Farside software engineers working, diligently calling up each weapon, interrogating it, studying its health and status. Besides the BEMs a weapon known as the Homing Overlay Experiment (HOE), a fifteen-foot-diameter umbrellalike web of metal strips, a powerful radar, and a battering-ram attitude, was stationed at the fuzzy boundary behind the moon. HOE had proved difficult to bring up. Starbuck's suspicion was that a transistor located in its communications transceiver was operating intermittently, probably due to the intense heat and cold inflicted on all the devices in the Farside orbit. HOE had worked over Kwajalein Island in the Pacific several times in the 1980s against
Minuteman
intercontinental ballistic missiles fired from California. If it had worked then, Starbuck was certain it could work again. He had his engineers assigned to it search the drawings and tinker with the software to look for alternate routes for the current.

The BEMs had proved almost savage in their demeanor. “Have a look,” the BEM lead invited Starbuck. “I asked them for health and status. They transmitted routine parameters and then I got this.”

The screen read:

letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego

lover

Starbuck peered at the screen through his half glasses. “What do you make of it?”

“It wants to be let loose to find something and then kill it. BEMs are like tigers. They've got this killing instinct.”

“Does it repeat itself indefinitely?”

“No. It stops there at
lover
for an hour at a time and then starts up again. I went back and looked at the code and there's nothing there that would cause this. This is a load that went up without documentation.”

Starbuck frowned. “Documentation's not worth a shit on most of this stuff. SDI was pushing us so hard, I had to let everybody get on with it, figuring we'd go back and do the paperwork later. God only knows what's missing. The guy who did this last piece of code managed to kill himself in a hang glider. He was a crazy sonuvabitch. You got any idea what's going on during that hour of
lover?”

“Yeah.” The lead wore jeans and a T-shirt, the standard uniform of the Silicon Valley warrior. He keyed in a command, bringing up a string of code. “Take a look. I had a hunch and dropped down in the comm mode and found this.”