FILE: GREGORY MASTERSON III

The subject is a twenty-eight-year-old male in good physical health. He is deeply disturbed and potentially violent, although like many schizophrenics he can cloak his misapprehensions and delusions with extremely logical and plausible-sounding rationalizations. He is in private care at the home of his mother. Deep hypnotherapy is recommended, together with chemosuppressants to regulate his mood swings.

After two years of hypnotherapy the inescapable conclusion is that the primary focus for the subject's neurosis is the morbid fear of losing his mother. Although the Freudian concept of an Oedipus Complex has long been discredited, the subject sees his mother as a symbol of safety and well-being, hence an object of intense desire. While this desire is primarily connected to his fear of loss of maternal protection, there is also decidedly a sexual component involved.

The subject is now thirty-five years old and freely able to admit that he has harbored murderous rages against the men with whom he was forced to share his mother's affection: i.e., his father and his step-father, both of whom are now deceased. Even in deep hypnotherapy sessions he evades any mention of his seven-year-old half-brother who, quite obviously, has also taken a share of his mother's attention and affection.

SAN JOSE

"I don't like the looks of this," said Kris Cardenas.

She was standing on the roof of the two-story nano-technology building, her chief of security beside her, watching the stream of picketers being whipped up into an angry mob.

At the security chiefs earnest suggestion, she had sent most of the working staff home when the mob began to gather outside the main gate. She hadn't really believed him when he warned her there was going to be trouble; now, hours later, she realized that she hadn't wanted to believe.

From up on the roof, with the warm wind at her back, she couldn't hear what the woman with the bullhorn was telling the picketers, but by the way they surged around her and roared incoherently every few minutes Cardenas knew she was working them up into a frenzy.

And more demonstrators were arriving, cars and minivans and even busloads of them.

"This is organized as all hell," Cardenas muttered.

Her security chief scanned the growing crowd with electronically-boosted binoculars, his mouth set in a grim line.

"Take a look," he said, looping the strap of the binoculars around Cardenas' neck. Then he fished a palm-sized phone out of his shirt pocket.

"Got those fire hoses ready?" he asked into the phone.

Cardenas searched through the placards that bobbed drunk-enly in the sea of bodies. Professionally printed, she saw.

NANOTECH IS THE DEVIL'S WORK

NANOBUGS TAKE JOBS FROM REAL PEOPLE

NANOTECH KILLS!

Jesus, she thought, this isn't just one gang of nut cases. They've got organized labor, religious zealots—it's a coalition of pressure groups.

"Look!" the security chief shouted.

Cardenas lowered the binoculars to see where he was pointing. A black pickup truck was speeding across the nearly empty parking lot, straight for the crowd. The people parted like the Red Sea, on cue she thought, and the truck raced straight up to the main gate of the wire security fence and crashed through. One of the uniformed guards was knocked down as the truck roared by without slowing, jounced over the circular plot of flowers in front of the building's front entrance and smashed into the glass doors of the building's lobby.

The crowd poured through the open fence, roaring like a white-water river.

"Get the fire hoses on 'em!" the security chief screamed into his phone.

Cardenas' legs felt rubbery. If that truck had been filled with explosives it would've killed us all!

Streams of high-pressure water were spraying the oncoming crowd, knocking people off their feet, pushing them back away from the shattered entrance to the building. But other groups were skirting around the sides of the building, flanking movements. Cardenas knew that the back doors and the loading gates were not protected as well as the front entrance.

She shook herself. It's a battle now, she realized. A battle to save the labs.

They lost the battle. Police helicopters eventually arrived to evacuate Cardenas and the few remaining security people from the roof. The building was gutted: lab equipment smashed, computers professionally destroyed by magnetized wipers that jangled disk memories into useless hash, offices torn apart

The news headlines that evening concentrated on the three demonstrators who were injured by the streams from the fire hoses. Masterson Aerospace 'was going to be sued for police brutality and excessive force? The security guard who died as a result of being hit by the pickup truck was hardly mentioned at all.

 

FILE: GREGORY MASTERSON III

It has become possible—and even desirable—to transfer at least part of the subject's feelings for his mother to a desire for security and self-esteem through success in the world of business and commerce. Therefore he has been encouraged to restart his career in Masterson Aerospace Corporation and to establish his own residence near his place of employment.

At age forty, this sublimation procedure is proceeding with apparent proficiency, although careful watch must be maintained since the subject is intelligent enough to know what his therapists desire and to parrot the responses they wish to observe—even under hypnotherapy.

However, his relationship with his twelve-year-old half-brother has apparently stabilized. The subject spent the Christmas holidays at home with his mother and sibling. Post-holiday interviews and testing showed no outward manifestations of hostility, although latent resentment is of course still present.

It has been four years since the subject's last hypnotherapy encounter. As expected, his success in the corporate world has enabled him to build a new structure of self-esteem. His sexual feelings for his mother have not been eradicated, of course, but now he is able to usefully channel such feelings into accomplishment and respect from his peers. Although he still has some difficulties in forging relationships with peers, it is recommended that all therapy sessions be discontinued, and the subject merely visit this practitioner on a semi-annual basis.

Two years of semiannual visits have convinced this practitioner that the subject can function adequately in society. He is still something of a 'loner," and will undoubtedly need more time to adjust his feelings toward women who might be sexual partners, but it is apparent that he is now a competent, even quite extraordinarily competent, fully functional adult. His relationship with his mother is, at least outwardly, quite normal. His relationship with his eighteen-year-old half-brother, while strained, is apparently no worse than most family relationships under similar circumstances.

MOONBASE

Douglas Stavenger visited Moonbase for the first time on his eighteenth birthday.

His mother had been against it. She would not say why, but Doug knew her reason. His father had died on the Moon before he had been born. It was an accident, as far as Doug knew, a freak accident involving nanomachines that had been improperly programmed.

"That was eighteen years ago," Doug pleaded with his mother. "And besides, I won't be using nanobugs. I just want to see Moonbase with my own eyes."

Joanna offered him a trip around the world, instead. But Doug insisted on Moonbase.

Not that he had quarrelled with his mother. Doug never quarrelled. Since elementary school he had made his smiling way through bullies among the students and the faculty alike, never fighting, never raising his voice, never losing his temper. He seemed to lead a charmed life. Everything came his way, seemingly without his needing to raise even a finger. People wanted to please him.

It wasn't merely the fact that he was extremely wealthy. Everyone he knew came from wealthy families and most of them were miserably unhappy, absolutely no fun to be with. Like his brother Greg. Half-brother, actually. No matter how hard Doug tried, ever since childhood Greg had been a dark, sullen shadow across his life. He saw his half-brother only rarely, yet the room chilled when Greg was in it. Doug could feel the tension pulling between his mother and her other son. There seemed to be some deep, dreadful secret between them, a secret that neither of them chose to share with him.

Doug accepted it as a fact of his life, something that hac always been there. Someday he would find out what it was why his mother add half-brother were so guarded and uptight In the meantime, he had his own life to live.

Doug got along well with almost everyone simply because he thought farther ahead than the rest of them, and saw options that no one else considered. He was very bright and very adventurous. He had inherited his father's compact, solid build and quick reflexes, his mother's intelligence and endurance.

Captain of his prep school's fencing team, shortstop on the baseball squad, Doug also discovered the thrills of jetbiking. When his mother objected he smilingly turned his fancy to rocket-boosted gliders that surfed the stratosphere's jet streams. He took risks, plenty of them, but only after he had calculated all the odds and convinced himself that the risks were survivable. He knew he sometimes worried his mother, but he did not think he was foolhardy.

Still he did well enough academically to win acceptance by the top universities. His mother chose the University of Vancouver, where Kris Cardenas now headed the nanotechnology department. He accepted her decision, with the proviso that she allow him to visit Moonbase.

"Just for a few days," he urged. "A weekend, even,"

Reluctantly, she gave in.

Doug had visited Masterson's factories in Earth orbit He had experienced zero gravity before. But in preparation for his Moonbase jaunt he spent a week in Houston, at the corporation's lunar simulator, teaching himself how to walk in one-sixth gee without stumbling and bouncing and making a fool of himself.

He was prepared for everything to be expected at Moonbase. Everything except meeting Foster Brennar

His visit was something like a command performance. The son of the corporation's board chairwoman was given a thorough tour of the base.

"Moonbase is built into the flank of the mountainous Ringwall of the crater Alphonsus," his tour guide recited. She was a sloe-eyed brunette with a soft Savannah accent, an assistant to the base director. Like all the other base personnel, she wore a utilitarian one-piece zippered jumpsuit. The only differences in clothing Doug could see were the color codes that marked the four main departments. Her coveralls were sky blue, for management. So were his.

"The base consists of four parallel tunnels," she continued as they walked along. "The tunnels have been carved out of the basaltic rock of the ringwall mountain by plasma torches—"

"You didn't use nanomachines to dig out the tunnels?" Doug asked.

The young woman blinked at him as if coming out of a trance. "Nanomachines? Uh, no… nanobugs are only used out on the crater floor, to harvest hydrogen out of the regolith and, um, to process regolith silicon into solar cells for the energy farms."

"Then these tunnels were burned out of the mountain by plasma torches? That must've been something to see!"

She nodded, frowning slightly as she tried to pick up her interrupted recitation. Once she remembered where she'd been stopped she resumed, "Living quarters, offices, laboratories and work stations have all been carved out of the rock…"

She walked Doug through each of the four tunnels, opening almost every door along the way. Junior technicians and engineers took time off from their normal duties to show him every laboratory, every control station, the intricate plumbing of the plant where water was manufactured out of lunar oxygen and hydrogen, the humming pumps of the environmental control center where oxygen was combined with nitrogen imported from Earth to make breathable air at normal pressure, the hydroponics farm where food crops—mostly rows of soybeans—were grown under precisely controlled conditions, even the waste processing center where precious organic chemicals were extracted from garbage and excrement for recycling.

"When do I go outside?" he asked his guide after several hours of trudging through the underground faculties.

"Outside?'She looked alarmed.

"Yes," he said pleasantly 'I want to see what it's like out on the surface."

It took some doing. Apparently the word had been sent up from Savannah to be especially careful with their young visitor, to take no chances with his safety. But the word had also been to show him whatever he wanted to see, and treat him with every courtesy. So his tour guide referred Doug's request straight to Moonbase's safety chief and the chief spent fifteen minutes trying to talk Doug out of a surface excursion.

"You can see anything you want to on the monitors at the control center," the chief said. He looked quite old to Doug, a little gray mouse of a man who had once been a little dark mouse of an astronaut.

"I could do that back on Earth," Doug replied gently, standing relaxed in front of the safety chiefs desk. "I've come a quarter of a million miles; I don't want to go back home without putting my boot prints on the lunar surface."

Wishing that the kid would go away, or at least sit down like a normal person, the chief answered, "Oh. I see." He ran a hand through his thinning, close-cropped iron gray hair and took a deep sighing breath. At last he said, "Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to let you walk around a bit on the crater floor."

Doug broke into a pleased grin.

"With somebody escorting you, of course," added the chief.

The safety chief personally led Doug out to the garage where the tractors were housed and maintained. It looked like a big cave to Doug, which is what it had once been. The garage was fairly quiet; most of the tractors were out on the surface, working. Only off in a far comer was there a knot of technicians tinkering with a pair of the spindly-wheeled machines.

"That's the main airlock." The chief pointed to a massive steel hatch, big enough to drive a fully-loaded tractor through. Off to one side Doug saw a row of spacesuits hanging on a rack, with a row of gas cylinders standing behind a long bench.

Somehow the bench didn't look strong enough to support a man's weight; its legs were frail and spaced too far apart. Then Doug grinned to himself and realized that a two-hundred pound man weighed only thirty-four pounds here.

They selected a spacesuit for Doug from the rack of suits waiting empty by the airlock. Although all the suits were white, they looked grimy and hard-used, their helmets scratched and pitted. It took an hour for Doug to suit up and then prebreath the low-pressure mix of oxygen and nitrogen that the suits used. The safety chief explained the need for prebreathing in minute detail, eloquently describing the horrors of the bends, despite Doug's telling him that he understood the situation.

A taller figure already suited up clumped toward them in thick-soled boots. His visor was up, so Doug could see the man's face and piercing electric blue eyes. His spacesuit looked brand new, sparkling white with red stripes down the sleeves and legs, like a baseball uniform.

"Oh, Foster, there you are," said the chief. "This is Douglas Stavenger."

With the breathing mask still clamped over his lower face, Doug got up from the bench where he'd been sitting and extended his gloved hand. The spacesuited man was almost a full head taller than he.

"Foster Brennart," he said, in a surprisingly high tenor voice. Then he turned to the safety chief. "Okay, Billy, I'll take it from here."

Foster Brennart! thought Doug. The greatest astronaut of them all! The first man to traverse Mare Nubium in a tractor; leader of the first mission across the rugged uplands to visit Apollo 11's Tranquility Base; the man who rescued the European team that had gotten itself stranded inside the giant crater Copernicus.

I'm pleased to meet you," Doug managed to say from inside his breathing mask. It was like saying hello to a legend. Or a god.

Brennart shook Doug's hand without smiling, then reached behind the bench to take one of the breathing masks resting atop the gas cylinders and held it to his face.

"It's okay, Billy," he said to the chief through the mask. I'll take him out as soon as we're done prebreathing. You can go back to your office now."

The little man nodded. "Right. See you in an hour or so."

Doug realized it was the chiefs way of telling Brennart to make their surface excursion a short one.

"Or so," said Brennart casually.

As the safety chief walked hurriedly toward the hatch that led back to the offices and living quarters, Brennart asked Doug, "How much longer do you have to go?"

Feeling confused, Doug asked, "Go where?"

"Prebreathing."

"Oh!" Glancing at the watch set into the panel on his suit's left forearm, Doug said, "Twelve minutes."

Brennart nodded inside his helmet. "That ought to be enough for me, too."

"Only twelve minutes?"

"I've been outside all day, kid. There's not enough nitrogen in my blood to pump up a toy balloon."

The time crawled by in silence with Doug wanting to ask a half-million questions and Brennart standing over him, holding the plastic breathing mask to his face, sucking in deep, impatient breaths.

At last Doug's watch chimed. Brennart pulled his mask away and slid his visor down, then helped Doug to take off his mask and fasten his visor shut.

"Radio check," Doug heard in his helmet earphones. He nodded, then realized that Brennart couldn't see it behind the heavily-tinted visor.

"I hear you loud and clear," Doug said.

"Ditto," said Brennart. Then he took Doug by the shoulder and turned him toward the personnel hatch set into the main airlock. "Let's go outside," he said.

Doug's heart was racing so hard he worried that Brennart could hear it over the suit-to-suit radio.

SAVANNAH

The years had been kind to Joanna Masterson Stavenger. Eighteen years older, she still was a handsome, vibrant woman, her hair had always been ash blonde, she joked, so the gray that came with chairing the board of directors of Masterson Aerospace Corporation hardly even showed. She had put on a few pounds, she had undergone a couple of tucks of cosmetic surgery, but otherwise she was as lithe and beautiful as she had been eighteen years earlier.

I'm not ready for nanotherapy yet," she often quipped, even when assured that exclusive spas in Switzerland were quietly using specialized nanomachines that could scrub plaque from her arteries and tighten sagging muscles without surgery. Such therapy was impossible almost anywhere else on Earth; public fear of nanomachines had led to strict government regulation.

Yet she remained close to Kris Cardenas, even after the former head of Masterson's nanotech division had left the corporation in frustration at the red tape imposed by ignorant bureaucrats and the increasingly violent public demonstrations against nanotechnology. Cardenas had accepted an endowed chair at Vancouver and from there won her Nobel Prize.

Joanna's office had changed much more than she in the eighteen years since she had become Masterson Aerospace's board chairperson.

There was no desk, no computer, no display screen in sight The office was furnished like a comfortable sitting room, with small Sheraton sofas and delicate armchairs grouped around Joanna's reclinable easy chair of soft caramel brown. The windows in the corner looked out on the shops and piers of Savannah's river front. The pictures on the walls were a mix of ultramodern abstracts and photographs of Clipperships and astronomical scenes.

At the moment, the room's decor was a cool neocolonia classicism: muted pastels and geometric patterns. At the toucl of a button the hologram systems behind the walls could switch to bolder Caribbean colors or any of a half-dozen other decoration schemes stored in their computer memory The pictures could be changed to any of hundreds catalogued in electronic storage or be transformed into display screens Even the room's scent could be varied from piney forest tc springtime flowers to salt sea tang, at Joanna's whim.

Sitting comfortably in her chair, Joanna could be in touch with any part of the Masterson corporation, anywhere in the world or beyond.

But her mind was on her sons. Greg was getting along well enough, running the corporation's Pacific division out in the island nation of Kiribati. It wasn't exile so much as one more test to see if he really could function, really could build a halfway normal life for himself. So far, Greg was doing fine. But she always found herself using that term so far wherever Greg was concerned.

It was her younger son, Douglas, who worried her. Joanna realized that Doug was at the age where he sought a quest, a way of proving his manhood. Naturally enough, he looked to the Moon.

An adventurous eighteen-year-old never thinks that pain or injury or death can reach him. When she found that he was planning to jetbike all the way to Seattle she absolutely forbade it.

"Come on, Mom," Doug replied with his father's winning smile. "I'll be all right. What can happen to me?"

During his first visit to Vancouver she learned that he had taken part in a power surfing jaunt to Victoria. "What could have happened to me?" he asked when she phoned, appalled at the risks he blithely took on.

She hoped that attending the university, under Cardenas's tutelage, would calm Doug down. Lately he had taken to flying rocket-boosted soarplanes. "Riding the jet stream!" he chirped happily, all eagerness and enthusiasm. "What a blast!"

And now he was at Moonbase, celebrating his eighteenth birthday a quarter-million miles from home. From her.

How like his father Doug was, she thought. The same burning drive, the same restless urge to break new ground, to push the edges of the envelope. He had his father's radiant smile and quick wit. His skin was lighter than Paul's had been: a smooth olive complexion, with blue eyes that sparkled youthfully.

Paul must have been just like that at eighteen, Joanna realized; impatient to prove himself. Willing to take on risks because he doesn't think for an instant that he could be harmed. The impervious confidence of youth.

And now he's on the Moon, just as Paul was. Why? she asked herself. What is it about that harsh unforgiving country that draws men like that?

Joanna had never told Doug all the details of his father's death. Nor anyone else. As she pictured her younger son's eagerly beaming face, she was wondered again if she had been right to keep the truth from him.

Moonrise

ALPHONSUS

The outer airlock hatch swung open at last and Doug stepped out onto another world.

He forgot about the pounding of his heart, forgot about Foster Brennart standing beside him, forgot about everything except the eerie grandeur that now stretched before his hungry eyes.

He forgot about making bootprints in the lunar dust. If Brennart said anything, he didn't hear it. If he himself spoke or made any sound at all he was unaware of it. His whole being filled with the vision of the lunar landscape: stark, somber, silent. The ground before him was flat, pockmarked with little craters, glaring brightly in the unfiltered light of the Sun. The mountains that marched off to the sudden horizon on either side of him looked somehow soft, rounded, old and tired. Easy to climb, Doug thought. Their folds and slopes made shadows that were impenetrably dark, utter blackness side-by-side with the bright glitter of their sunlit flanks.

The horizon was sharp as a knife edge, cutting off the world where it met the infinity of space. Gray and black, Doug saw. The Moon was a hundred shades of gray, from gleaming bright almost-white to the somber charcoal of the pitted ground beneath his booted feet And black, shadows darker than the deepest pits of Earth, and the even blacker expanse of endless space. An uncompromising world, Doug thought: brilliantly bright in sunlight or unconditionally dark in shadow, sharp and clear as the choice between good and evil.

The only touches of color Doug could see were the dayglo-painted tractors working silently at their tasks: bulldozers scraping up the regolith, backhoes piling the dirt into waiting trucks, which carried it to a small man-made hill. That's where the nanomachines extract oxygen and hydrogen from the regolith, Doug told himself. On Earth they'd be roaring and grunting, their gears would be grinding away. Here on the Moon they do their jobs in perfect silence.

It's quiet here, he thought. Peaceful. A man can hear himself think.

He turned and looked out toward the horizon once again, framed by the curving ringwall mountains and dimpled almost exactly in its middle by the tips of the crater's central peaks, barely visible above the slash that separated sunlit ground from the endless void of space. Doug strained his eyes, but couldn't see any stars at all.

"I thought there'd be stars even in the daytime," he said.

"Slide up your outer visor," Brennart told him, "but be careful not to look at the Sun."

Doug did it, yet the sky remained dark and empty.

"Cup your hands around your eyes. Cut off the ground glare."

Doug pressed his cupped hands to his visor, but nothing changed.

"Give it a few seconds

And there they were! Stars appeared out of the darkness, not merely the pinpoints of light that Doug was accustomed to, but swarms of stars, oceans of stars, stars strewn so thickly across the heavens that the darkness was banished. Doug tottered as he stared out at the universe, felt himself getting dizzy.

"When I behold your heavens, O Lord," he whispered, "the work of your fingers…"

"I know that one," Brennart said. "Some psalm from the Bible, isn't it"

"Yes," Doug said.

"You're Paul Stavenger's son, aren't you?"

"You knew my father?"

"Knew him?" Brennart laughed, a high-pitched giggle. "Like the man says, we were practically hatched from the same egg. The times we had up here! And back Earthside!"

"What was he like?" Doug asked.

"You look a lot like him," saidBrennart. "Come on, I want to show you something." And he took off in long, loping, low-gravity strides across the crater floor.

As Doug followed him, the two of them galloping along like a pair of tailless kangaroos, Brennart began happily relating tales of the days when he and Paul Stavenger and a handful of others were digging the first temporary shelters of Moonbase.

"Would you believe old Billy-boy was one of us, then? A real hell-raiser, too."

"The safety chief?" Doug guessed.

"Yep. He changed an awful lot once they put him behind a desk. You're never going to see me vegetate like that!"

They were skirting the edge of the solar energy farms now, where the ground gleamed with acre after acre of glassy solar cells. Along the far edge of the glittering field Doug could see a dark oily film; it looked alien, out of place, almost hostile. Nanomachines, he realized, working ceaselessly to convert lunar regolith into more solar cells.

"Up there…' Brennart was puffing; Doug could hear his labored breathing in his earphones.

Up ahead was a machine of some sort: a big, boxy, heavy metal contraption resting on what looked like caterpillar treads. It had once been painted white, Doug saw, but now it was streaked with smears of dusty dead gray.

"What is it?"

Brennart slowed to a walk as they approached the abandoned machine. He seemed to twist inside his suit, adjusting the bulky life-support pack on his back. "Damned LSPs never stay in place like they should," he muttered.

"What is this thing?" Doug asked again. Now that they were close enough to touch it, he saw that the machine was really massive, taller than even Brennart himself.

"This poor dumb beast," said Brennart, "is what we used in the old days to make the solar farms, before we had nanomachines to do the work."

"It must weigh fifty tons," Doug said.

Forty-two, on Earth.',

"That's a lot to lift."

"Yep. The nanobugs are a lot better. But once upon a time, my boy, this beast was the height of modern technology. A tele-operated, self-sufficient, solar powered mechanical cow. Grazed on the regolith. Took in silicon, aluminum, et cetera in its front end, digested them and put them together, and shat solar cells out its backside." : 'And that's how the first solar energy farms were made."

"More or less. Damned dumb beasts kept breaking down, of course. Nobody knew how bad a problem the dust was, back then. We spent more time repairing these stupid cows than anything else."

"Out here in the open?"

"Sure. Didn't make any sense to trundle 'em all the way back to one of the tempos? Anyway, we didn't have a garage in those days, so we'd have to work in the open one way or the other."

"What about the radiation?"

"That's why we're all prematurely gray," Brennart said. "Even your dad, although on him it looked good. He was a "handsome devil. The women flocked around him."

"Really?" Doug had never heard that before.

"I could tell you stories…' Brennart broke into a low chuckle.

"What happened to the other cows?" Doug asked.

"Scrapped them. We left this one out here and converted it into an emergency shelter."

Doug turned, frowning, and saw that the airlock in the ringwall mountains was hardly a half-mile away.

"We also use it for other purposes," Brennart added, before Doug could ask. "It's fitted out with a double bunk inside and certain other, ah… amenities."

Doug saw that someone had scrawled in luminescent red just above the machine's hatch If this van's rocking, don't come knocking.

"Oh!" he said, with sudden understanding. "This is the Moonbase Motel."

Brennart guffawed. "Pree-cisely!"

He started walking again, but at an angle away from the carcass of the mechanical cow and the glittering solar farms.

"So what're you" doing up here, kid? Why'd you come to Moonbase?"

Doug almost shrugged, but the spacesuit made it too difficult. "I wanted to see it firsthand. All my life I've heard about Moonbase, and how my father worked to make it viable. He died here."

"He let himself die in order to protect the base."

"Yeah." Doug was surprised at the lump in his throat. "Sol … I had to see the place."

"Now that you've seen it, what do you think?"

"The inside's a lot smaller than I thought it'd be," Doug replied. "But the outside…' He stretched his arms out to the horizon. "This is—well, it's terrific!"

"You like it out here, do you?"

"It's like all my life I've waited to get here and now that I'm here, I'm home."

For a moment Brennart did not reply. Then, "Are you running away from something, son, or running toward something?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are you running away from your father's ghost, or maybe trying to get away from your mother? Is that why you came here?"

Doug thought it over. "No, I don't think it's that"

"Then what?"

He hesitated another moment, sorting out his feelings. "All my life I've heard about my father and Moonbase. Now that I'm here, I can see what he saw, I can understand why he'd give his life for it."

"Why?"

Looking around at the barren landscape one more time, Doug answered simply, "This is the future. My future. Our future. The whole human race. This is the frontier. This is where we grow."

He could sense Brennart nodding approvingly inside his helmet. "That's exactly how your dad felt."

"This is where we grow," Doug repeated, convinced of the truth of it.

Brennart said, "Now let me tell you about something even more exciting."

"What?"

"The most valuable real estate on the Moon—in the whole solar system, in fact. It's down by the south pole…"

They walked side by side farther out into the giant crater's floor, out toward the area where sinuous rilles cracked the surface, Brennart talking nonstop.

"There's a mountain down there that's in sunlight all the time, twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year."

"That's the place for a solar farm!" Doug said excitedly.

"And there's fields of ice down in the valleys between the mountains," Brennart went on. "Water ice."

Doug's breath caught. He calmed himself, then asked, "That's been confirmed?"

"It's top secret corporate information, but, yes, it's been confirmed."

"Then we could—"

"Look out!"

Doug felt Brennart clutch at his shoulders and yank him backwards from the edge of the rille he was about to step over. As the two men staggered backward several steps Doug could see that the rille—a snaking crack in the ground—was crumbling along its edge, just where he was about to plant his boot.

"Didn't mean to scare you," Brennart muttered.

"What's happening?"

"I'm not sure, it might—Look!"

Thousands of fireflies seemed to burst upward, out of the rille. Glittering coldly blue and bright green, the cloud of glistening light expanded in the sunlight, twinkling, gleaming, filling Doug's vision with ghostly light. He was surrounded by the sparkling lights; it was like being inside a starry nebula or a heaven filled with angels.

Doug saw nothing but the lights, heard nothing but his own gasping breath. Tears filled his eyes.

"An eruption," he heard Brennart say, his voice filled with awe.,

"What is it?" Doug managed to whisper.

"Ammonia, methane. From down below. It seeps up through the rilles every now and then. Someday we'll mine the stuff."

The cloud grew and grew, enveloping them in its flickering light. Then it dissipated. As quickly as it had arisen it disappeared, wafted away into nothingness. The landscape went back to its dead grays and blacks.

"I've been coming up here more than twenty years," said Brennart, his voice hollow, "and I've never seen an eruption before."

Doug could not reply. He was thinking that it was an omen, a sign. My welcome to the Moon, he said to himself.

"You must lead a charmed life, kid."

"It was… beautiful," Doug said lamely.

"That it was. It certainly was."

For long moments they stood in silence, each secretly hoping a that another seepage of gas would envelope them in the colorful fireflies once again.

"I hope the monitoring cameras caught that," Brennart said at last. "The science people'll want spectra and all that."

"The cameras run all the time?"

"Right."

At last Doug gave it up. There would be no more. Strange, he thought, how sudden elation can give way to disappointment so quickly.

"Guess we should start back to the base," Brennart said. He sounded dismayed, too.

"Tell me more about this south pole business," Doug said, as much to cheer their conversation as any other reason.

"We've got to claim that territory," Brennart said, his tone brightening immediately. "I want to lead an expedition down there and…"

SAVANNAH

"There's ice down there at the pole!" Doug said, brimming with enthusiasm. "Water ice! Mr. Brennart wants to lead an expedition there and claim it for us."

"I've seen his proposals," Joanna said, feeling weary at her son's insistence. She leaned back in her reclining chair. " Brennart's deluged me, , with video presentations, reports, survey data."

"I want to go with him," Doug said.

Joanna had known he would. Of course he would. That was why she had hesitated, ever since her son had returned from his brief visit to Moonbase, bubbling with excitement about joining Brennart and trekking off to the south lunar pole. Now he sat in her office, facing her, burning with enthusiasm, hardly able to sit still as they waited for Brennart to show up. She saw Paul's features in her son's face, Paul's boundless energy and drive. And she remembered that Paul had died on the Moon.

Brennart's proposed expedition to the lunar south pole had worked its way up through the corporate chain of command and now sat on Joanna's desk. She could approve it or kill it. She knew that if she approved it, her son would stop at nothing to be included in the mission.

Misunderstanding her silence, Doug said, "Mom, all my life I've heard about my father and Moonbase. I want to carry on in his footsteps. I've got to!"

"Your freshman classes start in September."

"We'll be back by then. It's my legacy, Mom! All my life I've wanted to get to Moonbase and continue what he started."

All his life Joanna, thought: All eighteen years of his life.

"It's the frontier," he told her Excitedly. "That's where the action is."

Joanna countered, "Moonbase is a dreary little cave that's only barely paying its own way. I've come close to shutting it down a dozen times."

"Shutting it down? You can't shut it down, Mom! It's the frontier! It's the future!"

"It's a drain on this corporation's resources."

Doug started to reply, then hesitated. With a slow smile he said, "Mom, if you won't allow me to go to Moonbase, I'll get a job with Yamagata Industries. They—"

"Yamagata!"

"They're looking for construction workers," Doug said evenly. "I'll get to the Japanese base at Copernicus."

That was when Joanna realized how utterly serious her son was. Behind the boyish enthusiasm was an iron-hard will. Despite his pleasant smiling way, he was just as intent as his father had been.

"Douglas," she said, "there's much more at stake here than you understand."

He jumped to his feet, startling her. Pacing across the office, Doug replied, "Mom, if we can get water from the ice fields down at the south pole we can make Moonbase profitable. We can even sell water to Yamagata and the Europeans."

"No one's ever gone to the south pole. It's mountainous, very dangerous—"

Doug grinned at her. "Come on, Mom. Foster Brennart's going to head the expedition. Foster Brennart! He's a living legend. He's like Daniel Boone and Charles Lindbergh and Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins all wrapped up in one!"

Joanna knew Foster Brennart quite well. On the Moon Brennart had distinguished himself as a pioneer trailblazer: he had been there from Moonbase's earliest beginnings, side by side with Paul. On Earth, especially here at corporate headquarters, Brennart was a constant aggravation. He always had some wild scheme to promote, some adventure that he swore was crucial to the survival of Moonbase and the profitability of Masterson Aerospace Corporation. More often than not, his treks into the unknown cost far more than they could ever return. And he was getting wilder, more adventurous with the years. Reckless, Joanna thought. Brennart took chances that seemed outright foolish to her.

Now he was pushing for an expedition to the lunar south pole. He had been at it for nearly two years, wheedling and cajoling every time he visited Savannah. And now he had enlisted Doug in his campaign. Joanna felt simmering anger at that. Brennart had taken advantage of the eighteen-year-old's natural enthusiasm and now Doug was as frenzied as a religious convert. Brennart had made the Moon's south pole into a holy grail, in Doug's young eyes.

The trouble was, this time Brennart seemed to be right. The more Joanna studied the possibilities, the more inevitable the idea looked to her. Still, it was chancy—even dangerous.

I can't keep Doug on a leash, Joanna told herself. But it all sounds so damnably dangerous.

Doug couldn't sit still. He paced between the two little Sheraton loveseats to the window, glanced out at the cloudy afternoon, then turned expectantly toward the door.

"He ought to be here any minute," he said.

"Relax. Foster's never been late for a meeting," said Joanna. "I'm sure he'll be on time for this one."

Her intercom chimed. "Mr. Brennart here to see you," said her private secretary.

"Send him right in," Joanna said, leaning back in her chair. Doug was practically quivering as he stood by the window.

Foster G. Brennart was accustomed to dominating any room he entered. Tall, athletically lean, he had a thick mane of curly golden hair that he allowed to flow to his shoulders. His eyes were pale blue, and although they often seemed to be gazing at a distant horizon that only he could see, when they focused on an individual, that person felt the full intensity of Brennart's powerful Character.

He wore a simple sky blue velour pullover shirt and pale blue slacks. Joanna noticed that he was shod only in leather sandals; no socks.

"Foster," she said with a gesture toward Doug, "You've already met my son—"

"Hello, Doug," said Brennart, extending a long arm. "Good to see you again."

Doug was surprised by Brennart's sweet high tenor all over again. He somehow expected the lanky six-footer to sound deeper, more manly. Still, Doug smiled with pleasure as he shook Brennart's hand. The older man sat in the loveseat facing Joanna.

"I presume the subject of this meeting is the south polar expedition," he said.

"Of course," said Joanna.

"The Aitken Basin down there is most valuable real estate on the Moon," Brennart said.

"I've watched your proposal disks several times," Joanna said. "And read all the tons of material you've sent"

Turning toward Doug, still standing by the window, Brennart touted, "There's a mountain down there—Mt. Wasser—that's in daylight all the time. We can generate electrical power on its summit constantly, twenty-four hours a day. And use the power to melt the ice down in the valleys and pump the water back to Moonbase."

"We're producing enough water for Moonbase with the nanomachines," Joanna said.

"Barely," said Doug.

Brennart smiled at the lad. "At Moonbase you have to build twice the solar power capacity that you really need, because the area's in night for two weeks at a time. At Mt. Wasser we can provide electrical power constantly."

"Once you put up the solar panels," said Joanna.

"We can use nanomachines to build a power tower on the mountaintop."

"And transmit the energy back to Moonbase by bouncing a microwave power beam off a relay satellite," Doug added eagerly.

Shaking her head slightly, Joanna said, "Moonbase is only marginally profitable. This expedition—"

"Can put Moonbase solidly into the black," said Brennart

"There's enough power and enough water at the south pole to allow Moonbase to grow and prosper."

"But the cost."

"Mom," Doug said, "if we don't claim the polar region somebody else will."

Joanna started to reply, then hesitated.

"He's right," said Brennart. "Yamagata's planning an expedition, we're pretty certain. And the Euro-Russians aren't fools, they know the value of that territory."

No corporation could claim it owned any part of the Moon. No nation could claim sovereignty over lunar territory. Treaties signed almost a century earlier prevented that But, after people had actually begun building bases on the Moon and digging up lunar resources, the earthbound lawyers had to find some legal method of assuring some form of property rights. They cloaked their decisions in clouds of legalistic verbiage, but what it boiled down to was that any 'entity' (which was defined as an individual or a combination of individuals) which could establish that it was utilizing the natural resources of a specific part of the Moon's surface or subsurface was entitled to exclusive use of that territory. It was not first-come-first-served, exactly; it was the first to show utilization of a chunk of lunar real estate who could expect legal protection against others who wanted to use the same area.

"Well," said Brennart as he sat facing Joanna, "like the man says, there it is. We can reach the Aitken Basin first and use those resources to make Moonbase a real city. Think of what we can do! A year's worth of tourist income would more than pay for the expedition."

"Tourists?" Joanna snapped. Tourism destroyed Lunagrad."

"Aw, Mom, that was years ago," Doug replied. "Tourists go to the space stations, don't they? If we could build reasonable facilities for them, they'd spend their money at Moonbase."

"They could plant their bootprints where no one has ever stepped before," Brennart said. "If we built a big-enough enclosure and filled it with air at Earth-normal pressure, they could fly like birds."

"On plastic wings that we rent to them," Doug added.

Suppressing an urge to laugh* Joanna said, "That's all in the future."

"Yes," said Brennart, "but the future starts now. The resources at the south pole can make Moonbase into a true city. Or maybe Yamagata or the Europeans will get there first, and Moonbase will never be able to grow much beyond where it is now."

Joanna recognized the threat "There's only one detail that still bothers me."

Brennart leaned forward slightly and fixed his pale blue eyes on her. "And what might that be?"

Turning slightly, Joanna said, "My son, here. He wants to go along with you."

Brennart looked over at Doug and smiled broadly. "You do, eh?"

"You bet!" said Doug. "I've been spending every minute I can in lunar simulators. I can handle a tractor or a hopper and I've got the rest of the summer free."

Brennart laughed his high-pitched giggle. "You want toi come along to the lunar south pole for your summer vacation?"

Grinning back at him, Doug said, "I know it won't be a vacation. But, yes, I very much want to go."

"He wants to go so much," Joanna said, unsmiling, "that he's threatened to go to Japan and take a job with Yamagata Industries."

Sobering, Brennart said, "Yamagata's people don't give soft jobs to Americans, you know. Only the dog work, basic construction labor, stuff like that."

"I know," said Doug. "But it'll be on the Moon."

"You want to get to the Moon that bad?"

"I want to be at the frontier. I want to go places where no one's been before."

With a solemn nod, Brennart admitted, "I know the feeling."

"If I approve your planned expedition," Joanna asked, "will you take Doug with you?"

"If I say no, will you still approve the expedition?"

She looked into those ice-blue eyes, then said, "I might approve it more easily if you say no."

"I mean it, Mom," Doug said. I'll go to Yamagata."

Brennart smiled again. "I like his spirit. Reminds me of his father."

"If I approve," Joanna cut off any reminiscences, "I want Doug under your direct supervision. I want you to keep your eyes on him every moment. Both eyes, Foster."

Brennart hesitated a moment, as if marshalling his thoughts. "We'll have to find some useful task for him. There'll be no room on the expedition for anyone who can't pull his own weight."

"I can be the legal recorder," said Doug. "You don't have anyone in your group who's responsible for recording the corporation's legal claim to the polar region. I can do that for you."

Brennart rubbed his chin. "We were going to take turns recording everything with vidcams, but I suppose it makes some sense to have somebody assigned that responsibility specifically."

Joanna said nothing, but she realized that Doug had thought all this out very carefully.

Grinning, Brennart asked, "You've really put in time in lunar simulators? You're certified for tractor operation? And hoppers?"

"Nearly fifty hours!" said Doug.

With a shrug, Brennart said, "I've got no objections to your coming with us."

"Then I can go?"

Joanna sank back in her chair and closed her eyes briefly. "Yes," she said reluctantly, "you can go."

But she sat up straight again and levelled a finger at Brennart. "He's your responsibility, Foster. I don't want him out of your sight."

Brennart nodded easily. I'll treat him as if he was my own son."

"Don't worry, Mom," said Doug, almost dancing with excitement. I'll be fine. What can happen to me?"

Joanna stared at Doug, grinning from ear to ear. Just like his father. Who died on the Moon.

MOONBASE

"I hate his guts," said Jack Killifer.

"Who? Brennart?"

"Naw. Little Douggie."

"Doug Stavenger?"

"That's right," Killifer said sourly. "Mama's boy."

"How can you hate him? You haven't even seen him yet He's not due to arrive until—"

"I don't have to see him," Killifer snapped. "The little pissant's already screwed me over."

Killifer and Roger Deems were sitting in Moonbase's galley, a cavern large enough to hold the entire regular staff of fifty, plus a dozen or so visitors. At the moment, in the middle of a work morning, they were the only two people seated at the tables. A few others drifted in now and then, made their way down the line of automated dispensing machines, then headed back to their offices or workplaces.

Known to the regular Lunatics as The Cave, the galley had been carved out of the rock of Alphonsus''sringwall mountains by the same plasma-torch crews who had dug the tunnels that now served as living quarters, laboratories, offices and workshops for Moonbase.

They had left The Cave's ceiling rough-hewn, unpolished rock: hence its name. The walls were smooth, though, and the floor was planted with the toughest species of grasses that could be found on Earth. Twelve square plots of grass, forbidden to step upon, tended constantly and lovingly by the agro team, formed a green counterpoint to the tables and chair scattered across The Cave's floor.

Full-spectrum lamps spanned the rock ceiling, keeping The Cave as bright as noontime on an Iowa summer day. The Lunatics joked that you could tell how much time a person spent in The Cave by how tanned he or she was. Ceiling, walls, and the smooth rock walkways and floor beneath the tables were all sprayed with clear airtight plastic.

"Why're you pissed with the kid?" asked Roger Deems.

He was sitting across the small table from Killifer. Both men had mugs of what was supposed to be vitamin-enriched fruit juice before them. Both had laced their drinks liberally with 'rocket juice' from Moonbase's illicit travelling still.

The two men were a study in contrasts. Killifer was lean, lantern-jawed, his face hard and flinty. His light brown hair was shaved down almost to his scalp. His eyes were deepset, piercing, suspicious. Deems was large, round, plump, his dark locks curling down to his shoulders, his soft brown eyes wide.

He always seemed startled, like a deer caught in a car's headlights.

Killifer took a long sip from his mug, then placed it down I on the table. I'm supposed to be second-in-command on this expedition, right?"

"Right."

"Yeah, but Brennart's put this snotnosed Douglas Stavenger in ahead of me."

"But Douggie's only aboard as an observer," Deems protested. "And Brennart had to bring him in. Orders from Savannah!"

"Yeah, I know. Orders from Mama. She's the real pain in my ass."

"She's the boss."

"Damned bitch."

Deems tried to make light of his companion's mood. "Hey, you don't know her well enough to call her names like that."

"I know her," Killifer muttered. "How d'you think I came up here to the Moon in the first place?"

Deems blinked uncertainly.

"She sent me. Fuckin' exiled me. Five years I had to spend up here before she'd let me come back. Just because I tried to help her son."

Now Deems was very confused. "Tried to help Douggie?"

"His half-brother. Greg." With great disgust Killifer explained, "It was eighteen years ago. I was working for the San Jose division then, not much more than a kid myself. Greg Masterson—his father was the bitch's first husband—he asked me for a favor."

"What kind of a favor?"

Killifer shrugged his bony shoulders. "He wanted a sample of nanomachines. He was a big mucky-muck with the corporation, the president's son, for chrissakes. So I gave him a sample like he asked for and it turned out bad, her new husband got killed up here. And I got blamed for it."

"I didn't know," Deems said, awe in his voice.

"She said I could work on the Moon until she was ready to let me come back or she'd fire me and sic the police on me. I was too scared to realize that she couldn't rat me out without turning in Greg, too. So I spent five years digging tunnels."

"No shit?"

"No shit. By the time she was willing to let me come back Earthside I was so adapted to one-sixth gee I had to spend another six months doing special exercises to build up my muscles and bones. My heart, too."

"But you made it back okay?"

"Yeah. Except the everything I had on Earth was gone by then. My girl had married somebody else. My parents died within a couple of years. My career in nanotech—forget it!" Killifer snapped his fingers. "Nanotech was dead in the States and everywhere else except a few universities. And you don't lose five years in a field like that and then boogie back in get a university slot. I came back here. Been a Lunatic ever since, a rock jock."

"No wonder you're pissed."

Killifer leaned across the little table menacingly. "I don't want you telling anybody else about this, understand? Not a word."

"Okay, okay." Deems backed away slightly. Smoothing the front of his wrinkled jumpsuit, he said, "But it seems a shame to take it out on little Douggie."

"Who cares? He's his mother's son."

"Still…"

.'She's the one who forced Brennart to take the kid along. Stuck him on top of me."

"He's not on top of you. He's just an observer. On the org chart—"

"He's a snoop from Mama in Savannah," Killifer growled. "Little bastard's only eighteen years old and they put him in ahead of me."

"But—"

"Don't try to bullshit me, pal! He's the boss's son, for chrissakes. Everybody'll be falling all over themselves to be on his good side."

Deems shrugged. "I talked to him yesterday. He seems like a nice-enough kid."

"See what I mean?"

Looking more startled than usual, Deems shook his head in denial and disbelief.

I'll fix him," Killifer grumbled. "Put the kid ahead of me, huh? She'll pay for that. And everything else she's done to me."

Doug Stavenger knew that his mother was worried about him. She thinks I'm just a kid, he knew. She thinks an eighteen-year-old isn't smart enough to take care of himself.

But my father wasn't much older than that when he flew his first solo. And what's age got to do with it, anyway.

As soon as Doug arrived in his quarters at Moonbase—a standard cell along one of the tunnels carved out of the rock, not even as large as the smallest compartment aboard a cruise ship—he put in a call to his mother in Savannah.

At first he merely assured her that he was all right and the trip to the Moon had been safely uneventful. Soon enough, though, they began to talk about the coming expedition to the south polar region.

"I'm going to make a point of meeting everyone who's going on the mission," he was saying.

"Douglas, I don't want you taking unnecessary risks," she said sharply to her son.

Doug's image in her phone screen grinned at her as soon as her words reached him.

"Trying to sound business-like, Joanna said to her son's smiling image, "You're going along on this expedition for one reason only: to make certain that all the proper claims are made and all the legal forms filled out exactly right. That's your job. I don't want you traipsing around on some adventure when you should be tending to the legal formalities of this expedition."

His smile did not fade an iota while he waited for her words to reach him on the Moon.

"I know, Mom. Don't worry about it. Masterson Aerospace will have a full and legal claim to operate in the Basin, don't worry about it."

"We're not the only ones interested in that region," Joanna warned.

But Douglas had not waited for her reply to him. He kept right on, "And we'll be the first group there, don't worry about it. Nobody else is going to contest our rights."

"Don't take foolish risks," she said, sounding more like a worried mother than she wanted to.

This time he listened, then replied, "I'll be okay. Mr. Brennart is about as experienced as they come. He's a living legend, really. We'll be in good shape, don't worry. What can happen to us?"

But even as she promised her son that she wouldn't worry, Joanna wanted to reach out across the quarter-million miles separating them and bring him back safely to her side. She worried about Brennart. It seemed to her that the man was working too hard at increasing his reputation, taking risks needlessly.

Doug said good-bye to her at last, and she blanked the phone screen, then sank back into her caramel brown chair. It subtly molded its shape to accommodate her. In its armrests were controls that could massage or warm her, if Joanna wanted.

All she really wanted was her son safely by her side. Both her sons.

Trying to drive away her fears and apprehensions, Joanna concentrated on her work for hours. Long after darkness fell, long after the corporate headquarters building had emptied of everyone else except its lone human guard monitoring the security sensors and the robots patrolling the hallways, Joanna remained in her office, studying reports, scanning graphs, speaking with Masterson employees scattered all around the globe and aboard the corporation's space facilities in orbit.

It was almost one in the morning when she wearily got up from her chair and went to the closet next to her personal lavatory. Joanna felt growing tension as she took off her dress and stripped down to her bra and panties. She reached into the closet and pulled out the sensor suit. It hung limp and lifeless, gray and slightly fuzzy-looking, in her hands.

He always called precisely on time, and she was slightly behind schedule. Quickly, Joanna stepped into the full-body suit and pressed closed the Velcro seals at its cuffs, ankles, and running down its front. The suit felt itchy on her skin, as it always did.

Taking the helmet from its shelf in the closet, she went back to her recliner chair and sat down. As she plugged the virtual reality suit into the chair, her wristwatch announced that she had one minute to spare. One minute to try to calm down a little.

She pulled the helmet over her coiffure, but left the visor up. This must be what a spacesuit's helmet is like, she thought. Or a biker's.

The phone's chime sounded in her earphones. Joanna slid the visor down and said, "Hello, Greg."

Her son had not changed much outwardly in the eighteen years since Paul's death. Still darkly handsome, pale skin stretched over high cheekbones and strong, stubborn jaw. Eyes as dark and penetrating as glittering obsidian. Just a touch of gray at his temples; it made him look even more enticing, in her eyes.

"Hello, Mom,"he said somberly.

Even on this tropical Pacific beach he wore dark slacks and a starched shirt. His shoes and slacks will be soaked by the surf, Joanna thought, then reminded herself that Greg was actually in his own office, quite dry and probably amused at the flowered wraparound pareo and oversized mesh shirt mat she had programmed into her virtual reality costume.

They were standing on the white sand beach on the lagoon side of Bonriki. The airport was hidden by the high-rise office towers of the town, but out in the lagoon Joanna could see the floating platforms and work boats of the sea-launched rocket boosters. Almost on the equator, Tarawa lagoon was an ideal launch point for Pacific traffic into orbit. The island nation of Kiribati was getting rich on its royalties from Masterson Aerospace.

"Happy birthday, Greg," Joanna said. She embraced her son and felt his arms fold around her briefly. I'm sorry I couldn't come in person."

"That's okay," he replied, trying to smile. "VR's the next best thing."

"How are you?" she asked.

"Fine. The operation here is going very well. They're even talking about setting up an amusement park to draw in tourists."

Joanna shook her head. "That's a good way for them to lose money."

Greg laughed. "The more they blow, the more dependent they'll be on us. I'm already working out better terms for our contract renewal."

"I'm very proud of what you've accomplished here," Joanna said.

"Thanks, Mom."

Neither of them spoke of what stood between them. Greg had gone through years of intensive therapy after his maniacal rage had led him to murder. For years Joanna had watched him every day, trusting him only as far as she could see him, protecting him against the pain and pressures of the world beyond the walls of their home.

Only gradually, when it became clear that the focus of his murderous fury had abated, did she allow him to return to the real world. Greg learned to control himself, learned to calm the bitter tides that surged through him, learned even to accept the fact that he had to share his mother with his younger half-brother.

In time, Joanna allowed him to return to the corporation. Gradually, slowly, the leash on which she kept her son grew longer, more flexible, until now he lived thousands of miles away and directed an important new operation of the corporation.

Yet despite his outward calm Joanna always felt the volcano seething beneath Greg's surface. Even in the tropical tranquility of this Pacific atoll he was all tension and wary-eyed pain. Even in the relaxed mores of Micronesia he had not taken a lover; as far as Joanna could determine he did not even have a steady girlfriend, neither native nor corporate. He doesn't even have a tan, she realized. He's in his office all the time, driving himself constantly. The only time he gets to the beach is in VR simulations for meetings with me.

Joanna had kept Greg and his half-brother Douglas separated as much as possible. Over the years it began to seem almost normal that Doug would be away when Greg visited home, and Greg would not be there when Doug was. It was as if she had two different families, one son in each. There were holidays when the three of them were together, briefly, but they were always filled with tension and the fear that Greg might suddenly explode.

He never did. And Doug learned to get along with his older half-brother. It was difficult to dislike Doug; he had his father's charm. Greg could even laugh with Doug, on rare occasions.

Now, as Joanna and Greg walked ankle-deep in the gentle virtual surf of the lagoon, with the dying sun painting the towering cumulus clouds fabulous shades of pink and orange, Greg seemed lost in thought.

"What's the matter?" she asked, looking up into his somber eyes.

Greg let out a sigh, like a man in pain.

"What is it, dear?" Joanna repeated.

He stopped and turned to face her, his back to the glorious sunset. "Have I done an adequate job here?"

Joanna had to shade her eyes to look up at him. "More than adequate, Greg. You've made me proud of you."

"All right," he said. "Then I want to move up to the next challenge."

"The next…?"

"Moonbase," Greg said.

For a moment Joanna wasn't certain that she had heard him correctly.

"I want to be put in charge of Moonbase," he said, his voice calm. But she could sense the depth of his desire, even through the virtual reality interface.

"Moonbase," she repeated, stalling for time to think.

"Anson's due to rotate back to Savannah when her tour is finished," Greg said. "I'd like to be named to replace her for the next year."

Doug is on the Moon, Joanna thought swiftly. But he'll be coming back once Brennart's expedition establishes an operational facility at the south pole.

"Mom? Did you hear me?"

"Yes, of course I heard you. It's just… unexpected. You've caught me by surprise, Greg."

He broke into a cheerless smile. "That's the first time that's happened!"

"I never thought you'd want to go to Moonbase," she said.

"It's the next logical step, isn't it? A year at Moonbase and then I can move up to head the entire space operations division."

Joanna made herself smile back at him. "Director of Moonbase is a big responsibility."

His smile evaporated. "You don't trust me."

"Of course I trust you!" she blurted.

"But not enough."

"Oh, Greg—"

"I know. You've got every reason not to trust me. But it's not like I'm looking to be made CEO, or even asking for my old seat on the board of directors."

"There's going to be a vacancy on the board next year," Joanna said. "I was planning to nominate you."

If that pleased him, Greg did not show it 'Mom, I want to earn my way. Moonbase is always tottering on the brink of collapse. I want to spend a year there and make the tough decision."

"The tough decision?"

"To close it down, once and for all."

"You, can't do that!"

"Somebody has to," he snapped. "We can't let Moonbase keep draining the corporation, year after year."

"But it's making a profit…"

Greg's expression turned sour. "You know that's not true, Mom. Oh, sure, the bookkeeping shows a small profit, but when you figure in all the seed money we've put in for research that's off the bqpks and all the other hidden costs, Moonbase is an expense we can't afford."

Joanna drew in her breath. That's what he's really after. He wants to kill Moonbase. He wants to put an end to Paul's dream.

"Let me put in a year up there," Greg insisted. "I'll do my best to find a way to make the base really profitable, without bookkeeping tricks. But if I can't, after a whole year, then I'll recommend we close the operation for good."

"Do you think you can make that decision?"

"After a year of hands-on management up there, yes."

"What do you see as a potential profit-maker?" Joanna asked. "If anything."

"I don't know!" he said, agitated. "They've been using nanotechnology up there. Maybe we can turn Moonbase into a nanotech research center."

"We've been through this before, Greg," Joanna objected. "The public resistance to nanotechnology is too strong. People are frightened of it. The San Jose labs were trashed. We even had to close down the nanofactory in Austin because of the public pressure."

"Yes, yes, I know," Greg said impatiently. "And I heard the Vice President's speech last week, too."

"He's asking for a U.N. treaty to ban all nanotechnology all over the world!" Joanna said.

"He'll be president after November," said Greg gloomily. "He's certain to win!"

"A man like that in the White House."

With a sardonic smile, Greg said, "He won't be the first ignoramus to get there."

"But he's violently opposed to nanotechnology; he's making it a religious issue."

Joanna did not add that the deaths on the Moon caused by 'runaway' nanomachines were still prime ammunition for the anti-nanotech Luddites. She did not have to.

"Ambitious politicians always play to the peoples' fears," Greg replied impatiently. "Since when do we let that determine corporate policy?"

Joanna shook her head. "It's like the fear the public had of the old nuclear power plants. It's irrational, but it's very real. It generates political power, more power than we can challenge."

"I don't agree."

"We can't invest major resources in nanomanufacturing, Greg. We haven't even been able to put medical nanoproducts on the market, and they've been proved to save lives. The government, the public, the media - they've stopped us every time we've tried."

Greg countered, "But maybe if we do it in space… on the Moon or in orbit. Everybody's afraid of nanobugs getting loose and running wild, so we do it all in space where they can't get loose."

"But what will they build? What can you make in space that we can sell here on the ground?"

"I don't know," Greg admitted. "Not yet. That's why I want to spend a year at Moonbase, to see what they can do."

Joanna stared at her son. He was serious, intent, perhaps even confident. Even though she was afraid of his unconscious desires, she couldn't refuse him.

"If you can find a product that could make Moonbase profitable," Joanna said slowly, "or even if you have the strength to recommend closing the base—you'll have earned your place on the board of directors."

"You mean you'd nominate me?"

She could see all the hope, all the need in him. He's been through so much, Joanna thought. But another part of her mind asked. Can you really trust him? Do you dare to let him shoulder so much responsibility? Can he handle it without breaking down?

"Let me talk with a few people," she temporized. "In the meantime, I'll see about getting you the Moonbase job."

"That's the best birthday present you could give me," Greg said.

Doug is at Moonbase, Joanna reminded herself. I don't want them both up there at the same time.

"I love you, Mom."

Joanna felt sudden tears blurring her vision. "I love you too, Greg."

She knew that she meant it with every fiber of her being. She hoped that Greg meant his words, too. Yet she was always—afraid that he still didn't understand what love really was.

He had been so sick, so terribly mixed up. He had never seen a loving relationship in his home until I met Paul, and then…

Joanna shut her eyes inside the VR helmet and refused to cry. This is a step in Greg's recovery, she told herself. I can't refuse to let him go to Moonbase.

Then she realized, If we close Moonbase it will be the end of all Paul's dreams. Greg will be killing him all over again. And I'll be helping him.

MOONBASE

It was easy for experienced Lunatics to spot newcomers to the Moon. They walked funny. Unaccustomed to the one-sixth lunar gravity, they stumbled or even hopped when they tried to take a step.

But not Doug Stavenger. Even though he had already been to Moonbase once, briefly, he left Savannah a week early and spent the time at the main Masterson space station, in orbit around the Earth, living in the wheel that spun to simulate lunar gravity. So when he arrived at Moonbase he did not need weighted boots. Once in a while he forgot himself and went soaring off the floor when he merely wanted to take a long stride. But by and large he fit into the underground life of Moonbase quite smoothly.

Until he ran into the linear football game.

It was almost midnight. Although most of the offices and labs were closed for the night, the tunnels remained as brightly lit as always. Doug had spent the evening in the workshop that Foster Brennart had converted into his office, going over details of the expedition. Brennart was a stickler for detail; he seemed to know every part and piece and item of equipment that had been assembled for the trek to the south pole. He could account for every gram of food, oxygen, water, even the aluminum chips that were used as fuel for the expedition's rocket craft

Doug was determined that he would know as much about the expedition as Brennart did; especially the people. He copied all the personnel files and now, carrying the microdisks in his coverall pockets, he was heading for his own quarters and some sleep before setting out to meet each person slated to go on the expedition.

He heard shouting from down the tunnel. And scuffling. A fight?

The tunnels curved slightly, and had emergency air-tight hatches every twenty yards that remained open unless the sensors detected a drop in air pressure. Stepping through one of the open hatches, Doug jogged along the tunnel until he saw a half-dozen men and women tussling, pushing, kicking—and laughing.

"Outta the way, tenderfoot!" one of the group hollered as he kicked a small round object in Doug's direction. It was flat and black, like a hockey puck. As it skittered toward him, Paul saw that it was the plastic top from a container.

It bounced off a wall and the whole gang of men and women raced after it.

"Watch out!" yelled a young Asian woman, short and stocky, grinning toothily.

The commotion boiled right into Doug. They were all young people, he saw, not much more than his own age. The coveralls they wore were mostly the pumpkin orange of the science and exploration group, although there was a medical white and even a management blue among them, the same as Doug's own jumpsuit. One of the guys brushed past him, pushing him into the rock wall.

"Linear football," the young woman gasped, by way of explanation. Then they were past him, kicking the black plastic lid down the corridor.

Doug trotted after them. The game seemed to have no rules. Everybody tried to kick the lid; they all scrambled to reach it, pushing and elbowing and laughing every inch of the way. Somebody kicked it into the slight niche of a doorway and they all whooped wildly. In an instant, though, the game continued down the tunnel.

Doug followed them and before he knew it he was part of the game, too. It became obvious that the object was to kick the lid into a doorway. There were no teams, though; it was all against each. And the scorekeeping was casual, at best.

"That's eight for me!"

"The hell it is!"

"You've only got six."

"No, eight."

"What's the difference? Are we playing or doing arithmetic?"

The tunnel ended at the closed hatch that led into the main garage, where the surface tractors were stored and serviced. The six men and women collapsed against the walls and slid to the floor, panting, sweating, all grins. Doug sank into a crouch with them.

"You're Doug Stavenger, aren't you?" asked the Asian woman.

He nodded, trying to catch his breath.

One of the young men puffed, "For a tenderfoot…you run … pretty good."

Doug said, "Thanks."

After a few minutes, one of the women said, "Hey, it's past midnight already. I've got to be on the job at oh-eight hundred."

"That's where you sleep, isn't it?"

"A comedian, yet."

Slowly, laboriously, they clambered to their feet and started trudging back toward the living quarters.

"I'm Bianca Rhee," the Asian woman said. Built like a fireplug, she barely came up to Doug's shoulder. "The brilliant and beautiful Eurasian astrophysicist."

Doug must have gaped at her, because she laughed out loud. Soon they were talking like old friends as they walked along the tunnel.

"Doesn't anybody complain about the noise you guys make?" Doug asked. "People are sleeping on the other side of some of those doors."

"Oh, we wake them up, I guess. But the game moves past them so fast that by the time they're really awake we've moved down the tunnel."

"Nobody's ever complained?"

"Oh, sure. But we don't get up a game every night."

They walked in silence for a while. "You're an astrophysicist, you said?"

Bianca nodded. She had often used that 'beautiful Eurasian' line to see what kind of reaction it would cause. In truth, her beauty was not physical. Short, thick-waisted, with a face as round and flat as a pie pan, Bianca was the daughter of a Korean-American father and Italian-American mother. She claimed that she grew up on sushi parmigiana.

She was bored with the astronomical work she was doing at Moonbase. It was strictly routine photometry, using the wide-field Schmidt telescope to make painstakingly accurate measurements of the positions of galaxies. Adding another decimal point or two to the details. The kind of work that they stick graduate students with, while the major players get to do the exciting stuff, like scoping out black holes in galactic cores or searching for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Her work was so routine that she had set up a computer program to run the telescope and catalogue the results, and began to spend her time calculating how to build a giant telescope using liquid mercury for its mirror. And—when she was sure no one else could see her—practicing ballet in the low lunar gravity.

But suddenly, with Douglas Stavenger walking beside her, she got another idea.

"You know," she said, "I could use your help."

"Mine?"

"I'd like to come along on Brennart's expedition."

Doug stopped walking and looked at her. "Why?" he asked. "Why should Brennart take an astrophysicist along? What good would that do for the expedition? Or for you, for that matter?"

Bianca answered with one word. "Farside."

Before she could start to explain, he said, "You want to set up an astronomical observatory on the farside, and the expedition to the south pole can be a sort of training mission. Is that it?"

"Exactly!" She was impressed with how quickly he grasped the idea.

With a slow grin, Doug went on, "That's a pretty flimsy excuse, don't you think?"

Damn! she thought. He sees right through me. But she found herself grinning back and admitting, "True. But it's the only one I could think of."

By the time they reached her door Doug had promised he would speak to Brennart about her. Bianca wanted to kiss him, but decided it was too soon for that. Sternly, she reminded herself that this good-looking young man was five years her junior. She also remembered that men attain the peak of their sexual potency around the age of eighteen.

Doug did not seem to have any romantic intentions. So they merely shook hands, and then he headed down the tunnel toward his own quarters. She dreamed about him that night. She dreamed she was a slender and graceful ballerina and he was hopelessly in love with her.

Almost everyone in Moonbase wore utilitarian coveralls with nametags pinned to their chests. Yet even though Brennart wore a one-piece jumpsuit just as most others did, he needed no nametag. Although he belonged to the exploration and research group, he insisted on wearing pure white coveralls, clean and crisp as if they had just been laundered and pressed, and decorated with shoulder patches and chest emblems from the dozens of missions he had undertaken during his years as an astronaut and lunar explorer.

Doug Stavenger did not consciously think of Brennart as a father figure, but the older man's single-minded drive to establish a working base in the south polar region of the Moon impressed Doug forcefully.

"Do you really think Yamagata's planning an expedition to Aitkin Basin, too?" Doug asked.

"No doubt in my mind about that," said Brennart, in his sweet tenor voice. "They'd be damned fools not to."

It was the morning after the football game, and Doug's meeting Bianca Rhee. He and Brennart were hunched over a display table in Brennart's workshop/office, studying the latest satellite photos of the Mt. Wasser area.

"After all," Brennart went on, "we're going out there, aren't we? The Japanese are just as smart as we are. That's why we' ve got to get there first Like the man said, the side that wins is the one that gets there firstest with the mostest."

Doug nodded as he straightened up. Brennart's office was one of the largest rooms in Moonbase, but still it felt hot and cramped. Most of the equipment that jammed the office was already crated and ready to be loaded on the ballistic Jobbers. Doug saw a tousled cot in one corner, and realized that Brennart was sleeping in this room, too.

Brennart tapped the satellite display with a fingernail. "This is where we'll put down. Right here, at the foot of the mountain. Close as lovers in a spacesuit built for two."

Doug looked down again. "It's hard to make out details of that area. It's too heavily shadowed.''It's an ice field," Brennart said.

Doug stepped over to the end of the table and worked the keyboard. False-color infrared imagery of the region appeared over the satellite picture.

"Not ice," he murmured. "The spectrographic data shows anorthosite rock. Typical highlands profile."

Brennart straightened up and stretched his arms over his head. His hands bumped the smoothed rock ceiling. "Been coming up here more than twenty years and I still can't get used to how low the ceilings are," he muttered.

"That area might be too rough for a landing," Doug suggested. "But over here—"

"We want to be as close to the mountain as possible," Brennart interrupted. "We land where I said we'll land."

Doug looked up at the older man. There was iron in his tone. Brennart seemed totally convinced of his decision and completely unwilling to consider any alternatives.

Then he smiled down at Doug. "I know you're concerned about safety, son. So am I. Be a fool not to. Like the man said, there are old astronauts and bold astronauts, but there are no old, bold astronauts."

"Uh-huh," Doug mumbled, for lack of anything better to say.

"I'm an old astronaut, son. If the landing area looks too spooky as we approach it, I'll simply goose the Jobber a bit and land in the clear field, a little further from our goal."

Returning his smile, Doug said, "I see. Okay. I should have thought of that."

"Nothing to worry about," said Brennart. Then he added, "Except coming in second to the Japanese."

A little later, Doug asked Brennart about taking Bianca Rhee along with them.

"An astrophysicist?" Brennart seemed startled at the suggestion. "Why on earth should I take an astrophysicist along? This isn't a tourist excursion, you know."

"We have room for her," Doug said. "I've checked the logistics program and we could handle six more people, if we needed them."

"Yes," Brennart said, "but I need an astrophysicist like a nun needs condoms."

"She could be useful," Doug said.

"Doing what?"

"She's a good technician. I've looked up her personnel profile and she's qualified for electrical, electromechanical, and computer repairs and maintenance."

"I already have all the technicians I need."

"But think of the longer-range situation," Doug said.

Brennart glanced down at him. "What longer-range situation?"

"Somebody's going to build an astronomical center on the farside, sooner or later. She could help you get the experience you need to lead that mission, when the time comes."

Brennart pursed his lips. "Farside." His eyes looked off into the future.

"Farside," Doug repeated, knowing he had won Bianca a spot on the team.

They celebrated that night with as festive a dinner as could be obtained at Moonbase: prepackaged turkey with holiday trimmings, microwaved somewhat short of perfection. Bianca invited all her friends, and they pushed tables together in The Cave, careful not to tread on the semi-sacred grass.

Although there was talk around the table of a mysterious still that produced 'rocket juice," the high spirits of the gang did not come from alcohol. When at last the crowd broke up, Doug escorted Bianca to her quarters. She gave him a peck on the cheek and then swiftly went inside and slid the accordion-fold door shut.

He's too young, she told herself. Probably a virgin. No, she contradicted herself immediately. Not with those looks. But why should he be interested in you? He's the son of the corporation's chairwoman. He's young and good-looking and rich and kind and…

She stared at her image in the full-length aluminum mirror on the rock wall of her room. You used him and he was kind enough to let you do it. He's not interested in you sexually. Who would be?

Bianca did not cry. But she wanted to.

Doug was too keyed up to go back to his quarters and go to sleep. Instead, he jogged up the tunnel to the main garage and asked the security guard on duty for permission to go up to the surface.

The garage was quiet and shadowy, tractors parked in precise rows along the faded yellow lines painted on the rock floor, barely visible in the dim nighttime lighting.

The guard cocked a doubtful eye at him, then checked Doug's record on his display screen.

"You've been here three days and you've already spent six hours on the surface?"

"Yes, that sounds about right," said Doug.

"You some kind of scientist?"

Shaking his head, Doug said, "No. Not yet, at least."

"Says here you're okay to go out alone," the guard said, still dubious. "But you stay inside camera range, understand? If I've gotta wake up a team to go out and find you, your ass is gonna be in deep glop. Understand?"

"Understood," said Doug, grinning. Obviously the guard thinks I'm some kind of freak, going out alone in the middle of the night. Even though it's full daylight outside.

Doug went down the row'of lockers where the surface suit hung like empty suits of armor, looking for one his size. Afte he got it all on, Doug spent an hour reading through the logistics list for the expedition on his hand computer whil he pre-breathed the suit's low-pressure mix of oxygen and nitrogen. Finally the security guard came out of his cubicle long enough to check out the suit's seals and connections.

"Your suit malfunctions, it's my ass," he muttered. Once he completed the checklist, though, he pointed Doug to the personnel airlock and said cheerfully, "Okay kid, now you're on your own."

Through the sealed visor of his helmet Doug said, "Thanks for your help."

The guard simply shook his head, obviously convinced this strange young visitor was crazy, even though his record said he was qualified for solo excursions on the surface.

The massive steel hatch for the vehicles was tightly closed; Doug used the smaller personnel airlock set into the rock wall beside it and stepped into the brilliant glare of sunlight. The cracked, pockmarked floor of Alphonsus stretched out before him all the way to the strangely close horizon. The worn, rounded ringwall mountains slumped on both sides like tired old men basking in the sun.

Doug smiled. "Magnificent desolation," he muttered, remembering Aldrin's words. But he did not see desolation in this harsh lunar landscape. Doug saw unearthly beauty.

And more.

He paced out across the dusty crater floor, carefully counting his steps, knowing that the safety cameras were watching him. At one hundred paces he stopped and turned back to face the cameras, the airlock hatch, Moonbase.

Off to his left the ground was scoured bare and blasted by rocket exhausts. The expedition's four ungainly-looking ballistic Jobbers stood on the base's four landing pads, the most visible mark of human habitation. The base itself was barely discernible. Just a few humps of rubble marked the various airlocks. Most of the base was dug into the mountain wall, of course.

Mt. Yeager. Doug looked up to its summit, gleaming in the sunlight. More than twelve thousand feet to the top, Doug knew. I'll have to climb it before I go back home.

He turned a full circle, there alone on the crater floor except for the automated tractors patiently scooping up regolith sand and the distant glistening slick of the tiny, invisible nanomachines quietly building new solar cells out of the regolith's silicon and trace metals.

Doug saw the future.

Where I'm standing will be just about a tenth of the way along the main plaza, Doug said to himself. The plaza floor will be dug in below the surface, of course, but its dome will rise more than a hundred feet over my head. We'll plant it with grass and trees, get it landscaped with walking lanes through the shrubbery and even a swimming pool.

It'll be a real city, he thought. With permanent residents and families having babies and everything. We'll set up a cable car system over Mt. Yeager, out to Mare Nubium. That'll be easier than trying to tunnel through the mountain, especially in this gravity. We'll have to move the rocket port further out, but we'll connect it with tunnels.

For more than two hours Doug paced out the structures he visualized, the city that Moonbase could become. We can do it, he told himself. If I can get Mom to agree…

Then reality intruded on his dream. "Mr. Stavenger, this is security. You've been outside for two hours. Unless you have some specific duties to perform, standard regulations require that you return to the airlock."

Doug nodded inside the helmet of his spacesuit. "Understood," he said. I'm coming back in."

But he brought his dream with him.

BRUDNOY

They had disconnected all the life-support tubes and wires. Lana Goodman knew she was dying and she was tired of fighting it. She was nothing but a shell of a creature now, fragile, shrivelled, each breath a labor.

Lev Brudnoy sat at her bedside in Moonbase's tiny infirmary, his expressive face a picture of grief. Behind him stood Jinny Anson, gripping the back of Brudnoy's chair with white-knuckled intensity.

"You know the one thing I regret?" Goodman's voice was a harsh, labored whisper.

Brudnoy, tears in his eyes, shook his head.

"I regret that you never made a pass at me, Lev."

For once in his life, Brudnoy was stunned into silence.

"You came on to just about every other woman in Moon-base," Goodman wheezed, "except me."

Brudnoy gulped once and found his voice, "Lovely woman," he said softly, "I was too much afraid of being rejected. You have always been so far above me…"

Goodman smiled. "We could have had some times together."

"Never in my wildest fantasies could I hope that you would be interested in a foolish dog like me," Brudnoy muttered, letting his head sink low.

"You're a good old dog, Lev. No fool."

He spread his hands. "I'm nothing but a peasant I spend all my time in the farm now."

"I know," Goodman whispered. "The flowers… they cheered me up."

"The least I could do."

"I want you to bury me in your farm," Goodman said.

"Not return to Earth?"

"This is my home. Bury me here. In the farm. Where what's left of me can do some good."

Brudnoy turned toward Jinny Anson. "Is that allowed? Is it legal?"

I'm a witness," Anson said. "I'll see that the forms are properly filled out."

"In the farm." Goodman's voice was so faint now that Brudnoy had to bend over her emaciated form to hear her. "Always did believe in ecology. Recycle me."

Then she sighed and closed her eyes. For a moment Brudnoy thought she had fallen asleep. But then the remote sensors started shrilling their single note.

A doctor appeared at the foot of her bed. Brudnoy struggled to his feet, a big lumbering man, weathered but still handsome, slightly paunchy, his shoulders slumped and his hair graying. There seemed to be new lines in his face every year; every day, he sometimes thought. A ragged gray beard covered his chin.

He felt Anson's hand on his arm as he shambled out of the infirmary, leaving behind its odor of clean sheets and implacable death.

The tunnel was bright and cheerful, by contrast. People strode by as if nothing had happened on the other side of the infirmary's doors. Young people, Brudnoy realized. All of them younger than I. Even Jinny.

"Well," he said, trying to straighten up, "now I'm the oldest resident of Moonbase. I suppose I'll be the next to go."

Anson smiled up at him. "Not for another hundred years, at least."

"At least," Brudnoy murmured.

"Come on, let me buy you a drink. We could both use some rocket juice."

"You?" Some of the old playfulness sparkled in Brudnoy's sky-blue eyes. "You, the base director? You speak of illegal alcoholic drinks?"

Anson grinned wickedly at him. "What kind of a director would I be if I didn't know about the still? Besides, I won't be director much longer. My relief is due in another two weeks."

She led Brudnoy to her own quarters, where she uncovered her stash of 'rocket juice' a gallon-sized thermos jug she kept under her bunk. She and Brudnoy had shared that bunk more than once; but that was years ago.

Now, as they sat on the springy wire chairs that Anson had made from scrap metal, Brudnoy sipped the homebrew thoughtfully.

"Is it legal?" he asked.

"The booze? Of course not. But as long as people don't drink during their work shifts, there's no sense trying to find the still and knock it apart. Damn little else to do for entertainment around here."

Brudnoy shook his head. "I meant Lana's request to be buried in the farm."

Anson said, "As long as I'm in charge here we'll honor her last request. There's probably some relatives back Earthside; if they want her they'll have to get a court order."

I'll see to the burial, then," Brudnoy said.

"How soon?"

I'll talk with the medical people. Tomorrow, I imagine, would be good enough."

I'll be there. I'll get the word out, a lot of the old-timers will want to come."

"Old-timers," Brudnoy echoed. "Yes, that's what we've become."

Anson quickly changed the subject. "How's the farm doing?"

"Lunar soil is very rich in nutrients," Brudnoy said. "What we need is more earthworms and beetles."

She took a sip of her drink, then replied slowly, "We've got to be very careful about introducing any kind of life forms here. That's why I brought that team of biologists up here. I don't want any runaway populations of any kind."

Brudnoy sipped also. "Your biologists spend more time at my little farm than I do."

"That's what they're paid to do."

"All I wanted was to grow some beautiful flowers."

"Yeah, but we should be growing more of our own food."

"Someday." He winked mischievously. "Once we have enough worms and beetles."

"Ugh," said Anson.

"How long will you be Earthside?" he asked.

Anson took a breath. "I don't think I'll be coming back, Lev."

"No? Why not?"

"I'm going to get married," she said. "Would you believe it?"

"You mean you've been carrying on a romance Earthside? For how long?"

Two years now."

"Two years! And you never told me."

"You're the first one I have told," Anson said. "It's time for me to settle down. No more gypsying. He's a university professor with two daughters from his first marriage. Very stable guy."

"Well… good luck." Brudnoy said it with enormous reluctance.

"Thanks." She took a larger swallow from her cup. "I just wish this Brennart trip had started sooner. Hate to leave while they're out on their own."

"Who will your replacement be?"

She shook her head. "Should be O'Rourke."

Brudnoy made a sour face.

"He's good at his job," Anson said.

"Yes," Brudnoy said. "And about as much fun as a flat rock."

Anson laughed. "He's not a high-flier, that's for sure."

"Perhaps you should stay until the expedition returns," Brudnoy suggested.

"No can do," said Anson. I've got a husband to catch."

"Ahhh," Brudnoy sighed. "Too bad. We used to have such good times together."

"Well," she said, drawing the word out languidly, "we have two weeks before I have to leave."

Brudnoy's brows shot up. "But you're about to be married!"

"For old times' sake," Anson said, leaning toward him. "Besides, I don't want to be out of practice."

It was more than an hour later when Brudnoy finally left her quarters. Out in the tunnel, blinking in the overhead lights, he smiled to himself. For an old dog you performed rather well. But then he saw that the people striding along the tunnel all looked so young. So fresh. When Jinny leaves I'll be the only old dog left here. He realized that there were hardly any people left in Moonbase that he knew very well. All the old friends have gone, Brudnoy said to himself.

He felt very old and tired as he walked slowly toward the farm.

"We leave tomorrow," Doug said happily.

Even from a quarter-million miles away, Joanna could see his excitement. She leaned back in her embracing leather chair and studied her young son's smiling face.

"The expedition shouldn't take longer than two weeks," he was saying, not waiting for her to reply. "We've got the nanobugs all set, all the equipment's checked out. Of course, we're carrying supplies for a month, just in case. And we can always be resupplied by rocket Jobber

As he prattled on eagerly, Joanna wondered if it would be wise to tell him about Greg now or wait until he was safely back from the polar expedition.

"… so this time tomorrow we'll be at the south pole," Doug finished.

"Your brother's coming up to Moonbase," Joanna heard herself say. "He's going to be the new director when Anson leaves."

Then she held her breath for three seconds until her words reached him.

Doug's eyes widened slightly. "Greg? The new director?"

"Yes," said Joanna. "He asked for the position and I think he's earned it"

She could see the wheels spinning in Doug's head. "He's coming up here to close down Moonbase, isn't he?"

No sense trying to lie to him, she thought. "He's going to spend the coming year trying to find some way to make Moonbase truly profitable. But if he can't, then, yes, we'll have to shut it down."

Doug's smile had faded but not disappeared. He seemed to be mulling over the possibilities. "If we can come up with a profitable product, then he'll keep the base open?"

"Yes, of course."

In the three seconds it took for her reply to reach him, Doug seemed to brighten. "Clipperships are still the corporation's most valuable product, aren't they?"

"They're just about our only profitable product," Joanna admitted. "And the Windowalls, of course."

But Doug didn''twait for her answer. He went on, "Then why don't we start to build the next generation of Clipperships here at Moonbase?"

"That's foolishness, Doug," she said. "Why build the ships on the Moon when we can build them perfectly well at our plants here in Texas and Georgia?"

He waited, grinning, as if he knew what she would say. Then he replied, "Because here we can build them out of pure diamond, using nanomachines."

"Diamond?"

"Diamond is lighter, stronger than any metal alloy," he said, without pausing. "We can build Clipperships that will outperform anything you can make on Earth, at a fraction of your manufacturing costs."

"Using nanomachines," Joanna murmured. Then she thought aloud, "But to make diamond you need carbon. There isn't any carbon on the Moon, is there?"

"Not much," Doug admitted. "Nowhere near enough. We'll have to snag one of the Earth-crossing asteroids and mine it for carbon."

"Mine an asteroid?"

Doug rolled right along, hardly drawing a breath. "We can convert one of the transfer ships to make a rendezvous with a carbon-bearing asteroid. There's plenty of them in orbits that come close to the Earth/Moon system; no need to go out to the asteroid belt, that's 'way out past Mars."

"Do you really think you can build Clipperships out of diamond?" Joanna asked.

When her question reached him, Doug replied easily, "Why not? It's just a matter of programming nanomachines."

"And a diamond ship will be better than the ones we're manufacturing now?"

Doug waited patiently, then answered, "They'll be lighter, much stronger, capable of carrying heavier payloads with the same rocket thrust, safer, more durable. What else can you ask for?"

"Cheaper to manufacture," Joanna replied.

He nodded once he heard her response. "Not only cheaper to manufacture, but the aerospace lines will be willing to pay more for them, since they'll perform so much better than today's ships."

Despite herself, Joanna felt almost breathless at the sweep of Doug's vision. "We could use nanomachines to manufacture other things, too, couldn't we?"

"Aircraft," Doug said.

"Automobiles!"

"Houses," Doug added, grinning hugely.

"All by using nanomachines for manufacturing," said Joanna.

"Masterson Corporation could become the biggest, most powerful company in the solar system."

Joanna felt the same excitement her son did. But then she remembered the realities. "People are afraid of nanotechnology, Doug. There are powerful forces opposing it"

His cheerful grin didn't shrink by a millimeter when he heard her doubts. "But don't you see, Mom? This will show everybody that nanotechnology works! It'll knock the opposition flat!"

"And it will save Moonbase," Joanna said.

"Right!"

If it works, Joanna thought If the nanoluddites don't prevent us from doing it If Greg doesn't try to stop his brother from trying.

BALLISTIC VEHICLE 1

The liftoff wasn't exactly silent. When the rocket ignited Doug could feel a surge of vibration in his bones that rumbled in his ears almost like sound. Still, the lack of thundering noise made Doug feel slightly eerie. And of course the thrust he felt was minuscule compared to a Clippership liftoff from Earth.

The excitement of the previous night's conversation with his mother hadn't worn off, exactly. The thought of going out to capture an asteroid and then using its carbon to build Clipperships out of diamond still tingled in the back of Doug's mind. But that was for the future. This flight to the Moon's south pole was now.

He had spent an hour in the main airlock, big enough to accommodate full-sized tractors and dozens of people, prebreathing the oxygen-nitrogen mixture that they would be using throughout the expedition. Moonbase ran on 'normal' air: almost eighty percent nitrogen and twenty oxygen, with traces of carbon dioxide and water vapor, all at 14.7 pounds per square inch, almost exactly like the clean dry atmosphere of a desert region on Earth. The surface suits still worked at five psi, with a 72/28 ratio of oxygen to nitrogen.

Moonbase safety regulations called for prebreathing the spacesuit mix for an hour before going outside, to get the excess nitrogen out of the blood stream and prevent the bends.

Now, strapped into the bare metal seat in the ballistic lobber, his suit buttoned up tight, Doug felt weird as the rocket engines blasted them off the floor of Alphonsus in almost total silence.

The lobbers were modified versions of the transfer spacecraft that shuttled passengers and freight from Earth orbit to the Moon. There was nothing aerodynamic about them, since they never flew in an atmosphere. They were utilitarian assemblies of silvered tankage, rocket engines, bulky cargo containers, pressurized personnel pods, and spindly legs that jutted out from the four corners of the spacecraft's main platform.

Doug felt the rockets' vibration through the metal frame of the vehicle; it was almost sound, like a thunder so distant and faint you wonder if you've heard anything at all. The spacecraft rose quickly enough; Doug could see through the transparent bubble of the passenger pod the slumped mountains of the ringwall whiz past and then nothing but the darkness of space. But there was hardly any palpable acceleration, none of the heavy forces that pushed you down in your seat when you lifted off from Earth.

And then all sense of thrust disappeared. The vibration ceased, too. Engines have cut off, Doug knew. We're coasting on a ballistic trajectory now, like an artillery shell.

His suit helmet cut off his view of Bianca Rhee, sitting beside him. There were four others crowded into the plastiglass bubble of a passenger module, plus Brennart and Killifer up in the cockpit module. The eight other expedition members were in the second lobber. The other two rocket vehicles carried only cargo; unmanned, they were guided remotely.

"How do you like it?" he asked Bianca.

Her voice in his helmet earphones sounded strained. "If I could walk, I'd do it."

Doug laughed. "This is a lot easier than walking. And safer."

"It's the free-fall," said Bianca. "Makes my stomach want to turn inside out."

"Well, try to relax. We'll be back on the ground in about half an hour."

"Can't be too soon."

The spacecraft tilted forward a few degrees, enough so that they could look down at the cratered mountains sliding below them, dwindling as the lobber headed for the peak of its ballistic trajectory. Bianca groaned aloud.

"Isn't that Tycho?" Doug said, tapping a gloved finger against the plastiglass canopy. "Over there, near the horizon."

The crater was unmistakable: big and sharp, with bright rays of debris streaking out of it for hundreds of miles. One of the newest big craters on the Moon, Doug said to himself. Not even a billion years old.

"Tycho," Bianca said, awed. "Wow, I've never seen it so close."

"It' beautiful, isn't it?" said Doug.

"Sure is."

She leaned over until her helmet visor was touching the canopy's plastiglass. Doug knew that Tycho marked the midpoint of their half-hour flight. He hoped it would keep Bianca fascinated long enough to make her forget about barfing.

Foster Brennart sat up in the Jobber's cockpit, a separate and smaller bubble that projected out to one side of the lobber. Jack Killifer was in the co-pilot's seat. Panels of instruments and controls surrounded them at waist height. Above the panel the bubble was clear plastiglass.

Killifer took a wire from one of the pouches in his spacesuit's belt, plugged it into an access port in the side of his helmet, then plugged the other end into the similar port in Brennart's helmet. Now they could talk to one another without using their suit radios, which might be overheard.

"Smooth liftoff," Killifer said.

If Brennart was flattered by the praise, his tone failed to show it. "Check the other craft, see how their takeoffs went."

"Right"

Killifer dutifully called the second ballistic craft as he checked the instrument readouts for the two unmanned vehicles.

"No problems. Just like four tennis balls," Killifer said to the expedition commander.

"Tennis balls?" Brennart sounded puzzled.

"That's where the term Lobber comes from, Foster. These ballistic birds go like a tennis ball that's been lobbed up in the air." He gestured with his gloved hand. "Up, up, up, and then down, down, down."

Brennart was silent for a few moments. "Never played tennis," he said at last. "Never had the time."

"I used to, a little," said Killifer. "Back when I was in California."

The memory ached in his gut. Nanotechnology had not expanded much in the eighteen years since he'd been forced out of the field. Still, he told himself, I could' ve been an executive, a rich man, a leader in the field. I could have taken Cardenas' spot when she left the corporation. Instead, here I am, a quarter-million miles from anything worthwhile, second-in-command on a loony expedition to the ass end of nowhere. With Joanna Stavenger's son stuck into the pecking order ahead of me.

Deftly, Brennart fired the attitude control jets, just a slight puff to tilt the craft enough so they could see the ground sliding by far below them. Rugged mountains, peppered with craters.

"No one's ever set foot on that territory," Brennart said. "Not yet."

Killifer grunted. He was still thinking about his younger days in California.

"We've only begun to explore the Moon. There's a whole world waiting for us to put our bootprints on it," said Brennart.

Killifer smiled inside his helmet. "Wasn't this expedition your idea?"

"It certainly was," Brennart answered immediately. "It took the better part of two years to convince Mrs. Stavenger to let us go. It wasn't until I showed her that Yamagata's preparing an expedition that she finally gave her okay."

"That's what I thought."

Brennart turned toward him. In the spacesuit it required him to move from the waist, torso and shoulders, so he could look at his second-in-command. What he saw was the reflection of his own helmet in Killifer's visor.

"You know how hard I worked to convince her. Of course this expedition is my idea. Who else's?"

"Nobody," Killifer replied. "Only…"

"Only what?"

"Why'd she send her kid along?"

"Douglas?"

"Yeah."

"He's like a kid with a new toy, all excited about being on the Moon and working with me," Brennart said happily.

"Oh," said Killifer. "Yeah."

It only took a couple of seconds for Brennart to ask, "Why, are you worried about the kid?"

"Not about him." Killifer put just the slightest stress on the word him.

"Who, then?"

"Aw, nobody. Forget it. I'm just being a geek."

"What do you mean?" Brennart insisted. "What's eating you?"

"It's just that—well, do you think the Stavenger woman would send her son up here just to do a job that any brain-dead clerk could do?"

Brennart did not answer for a while. Then, "Why else?"

Killifer took a breath, then, with apparent reluctance, he answered, "Well… maybe, I don't know…"

"What?" Brennart demanded.

"Maybe she wants him to get the credit for your work. Her son, I mean."

"Get the credit?"

"Once we've established legal priority and we set up the power tower and everything," Killifer said in a rush, 'he'll get all the credit with the board of directors. And the news media. You do the work but he'll be the hero."

"That's crazy," Brennart snapped.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"How could he get the credit for what I do? I'm the mission commander. I'm in charge."

"Yeah, I know."

"He can't take the credit away from me. That's impossible."

"Sure," said Killifer.

Brennart lapsed into silence. After a few moments he muttered, "So that's why he was so hot to get up here with me."

"Maybe it's not him," Killifer said. "Maybe it's all his mother's idea'.

"Either way," Brennart growled. "Either way."

Killifer smiled behind his helmet visor. He thought he could see smoke rising from his commander's spacesuit.

Joanna cast a knowing eye over the guests who filled her spacious living room. The party was going well; she could tell that with her eyes closed: the chatter of conversations and laughter filled the room and spilled over into the hallway and the library, as well. The clink of ice cubes added a background counterpoint.

Joanna had been nursing the same tall fluted glass of champagne for almost an hour now. Gowned in a magnificent silver and taupe brocade jacket over a filmy chiffon skirt, she searched the crowded room. Men in immaculate white dinner jackets, women in glittering jewels and the latest fashions. But the one man she wanted to find was nowhere to be seen.

Slowly she made her way through the crowd, chatting briefly with a couple here, smiling as she passed a group there. Across the hallway and into the library she went. Still no sight of Quintana. He wouldn't have left so early, she thought, especially without saying good night to his hostess.

Through the French windows of the library she saw a solitary figure out on the patio, the gleam of a cigar smoldering in the dark Georgia night. Quintana. Still smoking, despite all the laws against it.

Joanna slipped through the open doorway and approached Quintana, her high heels clicking on the patio tiles.

"What you're doing is illegal, Carlos," she said softly, smiling as he turned toward her.

He smiled back. "In Mexico we have much more freedom."

"You also have much more pollution. And cancer."

Quintana waved his long, slim cigar. "The price of freedom. Will you call the police?"

Laughing, Joanna said, "No. But I'd prefer that you throw that thing away."

"It's barely started." Quintana examined his cigar like a man admiring a fine work of art. "But for you, beautiful one, I make the sacrifice." He let the cigar drop to the patio floor and ground it out with the heel of his highly-polished shoe.

Even in the shadows of the night Joanna could see his gleaming smile. Carlos Quintana was the kind of man for whom the word dashing had been coined. A mining engineer who parleyed intelligence and daring into a considerable fortune, he was a champion polo player, a yachtsman of note, and a key member of Masterson Aerospace's board of directors. Handsome, suave, he had the kind of classic Latin male good looks that would remain virtually untouched all his life. No one knew his true age; the guesses ran from forty-five to seventy.

"My party bored you?" Joanna asked as they strolled side by side toward the garden. Overhead a sliver of a Moon was rising and stars glittered in the dark sky.

"No, I just felt the need for some nicotine," Quintana said. "And I knew that as soon as I lit up you would come running at me with a fire extinguisher."

"You're hopeless," she said, laughing again.

"On the contrary, I am a man filled with hope." His voice was soft, gentle, easy to listen to.

Joanna arched a brow at him. "Hope springs eternal?"

"Why not? The world is young, the night is beautiful, and I adore you."

"I'm not young, Carlos. Neither are you."

"I feel young," he said. "You make me feel rejuvenated."

Joanna wished she could say the same to him. Instead, she changed the subject 'I'd like your advice about something, Carlos."

"Anything."

"You know my son Greg?"

"I've met him once or twice."

"It's time to appoint a new director for Moonbase."

He hesitated only a heartbeat 'I thought that decision has already been made."

"I'm reconsidering it. Greg has asked for the job."

"Ahh."

"What do you think about it?"

This time Quintana's hesitation was considerably longer. "There are several people on the board who would like to close Moonbase."

"I know."

"You've always fought to keep it going, even though it's a drain, financially."

"Moonbase is in the black," she said firmly.

"Barely," Quintana answered easily. "And when you consider all the little extras that somehow get put into the pot…' He sighed. "Joanna, you know I support you unstintingly, but if we did an honest bookkeeping job, Moonbase would be in the red."

"Perhaps," she murmured.

"So you want to send your son there to make certain we keep it going."

"Quite the contrary, Carlos. Greg wants to spend his year there deciding whether or not to shut the base down."

"Really?" In the darkness she couldn't see his brows rise, but she heard it in his voice.

"He wants to make a thorough, unbiased assessment of the base's prospects and then make a recommendation to the board, one way or the other."

It was several moments before Quintana replied, "Well, he's certainly got the qualifications, based on the work he's done with the Pacific division."

"Yes, I think so too."

"Would he really recommend closing the base? And if he did, would you agree to it?"

Now Joanna hesitated. But she finally said softly, "Yes, to both."

"Isn't he a little old for Moonbase? Most of the personnel we send there are quite a bit younger."

"He's forty-six."

Quintana glanced up at the crescent Moon, just clearing the sycamore trees. "There's always seemed to be—some sort of shadow on his history. Some scandal or something that everyone knows is there, but no one knows what it is. A family disagreement?"

Tensing, Joanna answered, "You might say that"

"It must have happened before I joined your board of directors."

"Yes. A long time before."

"That's why he's been kept off the board and away from headquarters all these years?"

"I think," Joanna said, "that it's time to put all that in the past. As you say, it's family history and it doesn't necessarily involve the corporation at all."

"Doesn't necessarily involve the corporation?" Quintana's voice was filled with questions.

"Carlos, I'm his mother. I think I know Greg's limitations and his capabilities. I think he can handle the Moonbase job. But I might be too emotionally close to be seeing clearly."

"I understand," Quintana replied. "I think I am too emotionally close to you to render an unbiased judgment."

"But if you can't help me, who can I turn to?"

He sighed again. "Joanna, I have always considered your intelligence to be of the highest order. Do what you think is best. I will certainly back you on the board, whatever you decide."

"Thank you, Carlos," Joanna said. But she was thinking that unqualified support was no real help at all.

MT. WASSER

"There it is! Look!" Doug cried out.

Turning awkwardly in her spacesuit to follow his pointing hand, Bianca Rhee saw a tall, wide pinnacle of rock jutting up into sunlight from the rugged shadowed mountain range below their ballistic lobber.

"That's Mt. Wasser?" she asked,

"Got to be," Doug said, nodding inside his helmet. He studied the sunlit jut of rock carefully. Slightly taller than Everest, Mt. Wasser just happened to be situated so close to the south pole that its uppermost reaches were always in sunlight.

And down below, in those shadows, there're fields of ice, Doug knew. Areas that are always in shadow, where the temperature is always at least a hundred below zero. Water, covered with dust from the infalling meteoroids, kept frozen in the cryogenic dark.

Water and sunlight. The two most important resources of the Moon. Water for life. Sunlight for electrical power. Brennart is right, Doug told himself. That's the most valuable real estate on the Moon, down there. He felt the excitement building in him all over again.

In the Jobber's cockpit, Brennart was scanning the readouts on his panel displays.

"What are the others doing?" he asked Killifer.

"Right on track. Following us like nice little puppies."

"Superb." Brennart's gloved fingers flicked along the control panel. "Okay. We're going in."

The lobber tilted back to its original vertical orientation.

Killifer punched up the camera view of the ground on the main display screen.

"Awful dark down there," he muttered.

"Infrared," Brennart snapped.

The image on the display screen did not change much: still dark, with vague suggestions of shapes looming in the shadows.

"Braking in ten seconds," Killifer read from the flight plan display.

"I know."

"Altitude twenty."

"I know!"

Killifer realized that Brennart was jumpy. They both peered hard at the camera display.

"Lights," Brennart ordered.

Too high to do much good," Killifer muttered, but he turned on the powerful lamps that had been installed on the underside of the lobber's main platform.

Brennart's gloved thumb hovered over the keypad that would override the rockets' firing. The shadowy ground was rushing up toward them. Killifer could see a jumble of shapes glittering in the reflected light of the landing lamps.

"Boulders!" he yelped. "Big ones."

Smoothly Brennart ignited the main rocket thrusters. Killifer felt a sudden surge of weight, but before he could even take a breath it disappeared and they were falling again.

"Goldman!" Brennart called into his helmet microphone. "Jump the boulder field. Follow me!"

"Following," came Goldman's voice in their earphones, professionally unperturbed.

"Reset the braking program," Brennart commanded.

Killifer tapped the keyboard. "Reset."

The camera view showed a smoother stretch of ground beneath them. Still a great deal of rocks strewn across the area, but they were smaller, less dangerous.

The hard stony ground rushed up at them, stopped momentarily, then came at them again. The image on the display screen blurred; rocket exhaust, Killifer knew. Then he felt a thump and the familiar sensation of weight returned.

"We're down' he said to Brennart And realized he was sweating inside his suit . "Number two?" Brennait called into his helmet mike.

"Hundred-twenty… seventy… touchdown. We're about fifty meters off your left rear. About seven o'clock in relation to your cockpit."

Both men turned in their seats but could not see the second spacecraft from their position.

"The drones," Brennart said.

The two unmanned vehicles were programmed to follow Brennart's craft at a preset distance, and to land a hundred meters on either side of it

Killifer glanced at the radar display. "Coming in now," he said, pointing to the blips their beacons made.

They could see one of the robot craft descending, its braking rockets winking on and off against the dark shadows of the mountains.

"Override!" Brennart snapped. "It's coming down in the boulder field."

But it was too late. The unmanned lobber touched one of its outstretched legs on a boulder almost as big as the vehicle itself. The other three landing pads were still a good ten meters above the ground. The attitude-control thrusters tried to keep the vehicle from tipping over for several wobbling, twitching seconds, but they gave out and the spacecraft tilted, tilted and finally struck the ground with a soundless crash. Killifer saw the landing legs crumple and the cargo pods split open; an oxygen tank blew apart in a silent burst of frost-glittering chunks.

From the passenger module, Doug saw the crash. His first reaction was, My God, that could've been us! Then he wondered how much equipment they had lost.

"Well, we're down safely, at least," he said to the others in the bubble.

They muttered replies, voices hushed, subdued.

"I think my telescope was in the pod that broke open,"

Bianca said worriedly. I'll have to go over and see if it survived the crash."

By the time the six of them unstrapped from their seats and wormed through the hatch to stand on the ground, Brennart was already striding toward the crashed craft. Everybody's spacesuit was basically white, although some of them had been used so hard they were gray with imbedded lunar dust. But Brennart was easy to spot, even in a suit. His was sparkling new, gleaming white, and had red stripes down the arms and legs. For recognition, he had said.

Doug followed Brennait and his second-in-command, Killifer. He caught up with them as they reached the edge of the wreckage. It was impossible to see their faces, behind their heavily-tinted visors, but Brennart clearly radiated disgust, fists clenched on his hips.

"See whose equipment's on this ship and get them to check out this mess," Brennart commanded. "Determine if any of it's still usable."

"Right," said Killifer.

"Is there anything I can to help?" Doug asked.

Brennart wheeled and leaned down slightly to read the name tag printed on the breast of Doug's suit.

"Oh. Doug. I suppose you're going to remind me that you wanted to land farther out aren't you?"

Surprised at the sarcasm in the older man's voice, Doug said, "No sir, it hadn't entered my mind."

"No," Brennart said. "Of course not"

"Were any of our life-support supplies on this ship?" Doug asked.

Brennart huffed. "Of course there were! The only question is how much of it have we lost. Jack, check it out"

"Right," said Killifer.

"What can I do to help?" Doug asked again.

"Just keep out of the way," Brennart snapped. "Like the man said, leave the real work to the professionals." Then he started walking back toward the first spacecraft, leaving Doug puzzled and feeling more than a little hurt

The base that Yamagata Industries established at the beautiful and prominent crater Copernicus, on the Sea of Rains, was called Nippon One. Admittedly, this was an unimaginative name of no intrinsic grace, and would be changed to something more poetic in time. For now, however, its utilitarian nature mirrored the character of the base itself. Nippon One was small, crowded, and unlovely: little more than a collection of huts buried beneath protective regolith rubble, much as Moonbase had been nearly twenty years earlier.

The worst part of serving at Nippon One was the lack ol water for bathing. Even with nanomachines to ferret out atoms of hydrogen imbedded in the regolith and combine them with lunar oxygen, water was scarce and precious. Yamagata engineers had developed an ultrasonic device which, they claimed, cleaned the skin more efficiently than detergent and water. Nippon One's inhabitants complained that its ultrasonic vibrations gave them headaches, its vacuum suction sometimes plucked hair painfully from one's body, and it did nothing to relieve the body odors that made lunar living so unpleasant.

Still, it was a great honor to be assigned to serve at Nippon One, even if only for a few months. Yamagata's brightest young men and women eagerly sought lunar postings; this new frontier was the key to rapid advancement up the corporate ladder.

Miyoko Hornma was the daughter of an old and honored Japanese family. Trained in astronomy and mathematics, she was determined to prove to her elders that a woman can add luster to the family name, just as a man can. She had jumped at the chance to work at Nippon One.

That was four months ago. Now, sitting in a cramped cubicle, feeling sweaty and filthy in fatigues that she had been wearing for several days on end, all she truly wished for was a steaming hot bath and just a bit of privacy.

She was checking the telescopes sitting up on the surface of Mare Imbrium, a chore she did daily, patiently studying the images they showed on her display screen as she ran each instrument through its checkout procedures to make certain that it was operating within its designated parameters. Her mind was wandering, though, to thoughts of home and comforts that she would not know for another two months.

Sitting next to her, close enough to touch shoulders, was Toshihara Yamashita, one of the communications technicians, headphone clamped to his ear.

"Have you heard the news?" Toshi asked. "The Americans have sent an expedition to the south pole."

That jolted Miyoko out of her reverie. "No!" she said.

"It's true. The chiefs are trying to decide if we should put up a reconnaissance satellite to watch them."

"But we're sending a team to the pole, aren't we? I've heard about the preparations for weeks now."

"The Yanks have beaten us to it," said Toshi. "Somebody's head will roll."

"Have they gone to the Bright Mountain?" Miyoko asked.

"Where else?"

"Ah, that's too bad. Now they'll set up a base there, won't they?"

"Of course. That's what we wanted to do."

"And there's water ice there, too," Miyoko murmured. "Now the Americans will claim it all."

Toshi leaned back in his spindly chair, shrugging. "If the ice fields are big enough we can send a crew out there and stake our own claim. Maybe there's enough for more than one."

Miyoko felt doubtful. "Even if there is, the Americans will want it all, they're so greedy."

Laughing, Toshi replied, "We would too, if we got there first."

"I don't believe-' The image on Miyoko's screen suddenly caught her eye. Glancing down at the monitor displays, she saw that she was looking at a real-time image of the solar x-ray telescope.

"Look at that," she said.

Toshi glanced at the screen. "At what? It looks like a bunch of noodles, all twisted together."

"That's a sunspot field," Miyoko said. "It's gaining energy very rapidly. Ill bet there's going to be a solar flare eruption within a day or so."

"So what?" Toshi said carelessly. "We're safe down here."

"Yes, of course.. But no one should be out on the surface if the flare's plasma cloud reaches the Moon." Toshi's face grew serious. "The Americans." 'Someone should warn them." 'They have their own observers, don't they?" 'Yes, I think so. Still…"

"You'd better let the chiefs know. Let them decide what to do."