MOONBASE

As soon as Greg reached Anson's office she scooted around from behind her desk and led him on a half-run back to the control center. She soared along the tunnel on ten-foot leaps while Greg bounded along after her awkwardly, hopping and stumbling despite his weighted boots.

Too much happening now to pipe through my desktop," she called over her shoulder as they hurried along the tunnel. "I need to see everything that's going down."

Greg was puffing as he skidded to a stop at the control center's airtight door. Anson slid it open and went through without waiting for him.

She rousted one of the comm techs out of his seat, then took in all the working screens in a swift scan of the U-shaped console assembly.

Tower holding steady?" she asked, punching up a multicolored graph on the screen directly in front of her.

The woman seated in the middle chair nodded, headset clipped across her close-cropped hair. "Fading slowly, but within allowable limits. Power team's already brought the nuke on-line, just in case solar cell degradation exceeds allowable."

"Good," snapped Anson, her attention already turning elsewhere.

Greg had forgotten that there was a standby nuclear power generator buried halfway across Alphonsus. With the high-energy protons of the radiation storm beating up on the solar cells spread across the crater floor, the nuke had to be able to provide electricity without fail or they'd all quickly choke to death.

"All right now," Anson was saying, "where's that freakin' Yamagata lobber?"

The chief tech tapped on her keyboard and Anson's main screen suddenly showed an image of the Moon with a single red dot winking, slightly northwest of Alphonsus's position.

"That's the radar plot from L-l," said the comm tech. "She's got a nice bright beacon on her."

Anson grinned fiercely. "Show me our visual horizon."

A thin yellow circle appeared on the Moon's image, centered on Alphonsus. The blinking red dot was well within it.

"Hot spit!" Anson yelped. "We can get the big'scope on her."

"The telescopes are all working on preprogrammed routines—"

"Screw the astronomers! This is important. I've got to see if that lobber's crewed or not."

With a sigh of reluctance the chief tech began tapping on her keyboard again.

"Humpin' astronomers're all down in The Cave, anyway," Anson said, to no one in particular. "They can complain to me tomorrow."

"Here it is," said the technician.

Greg bent over Anson's chair to see her main screen better. It showed a smear of streaks, then slowly the streaks settled down into the pinpoint lights of stars. And at the center of the image was the big metal spider of a ballistic rocket, a lobber.

The image enlarged. Greg saw bulbous tanks and other shapes wrapped in reflecting foil. And a single bubble of what looked liked plastiglass glinting in the sunlight

"Crew module," Anson said. "I knew it! Yamagata's sending a team to the pole."

"In this radiation storm?" Greg couldn't quite believe it

Without turning toward him Anson bobbed her head. "In this storm. They're probably wearing specially armored suits. Yamagata's people are smart, not suicidal."

"Maybe the radiation level's gone down," Greg thought out loud.

With a short, sharp laugh, Anson said, "I don't think so."

And she pointed to one of the screens on the far side of the U.

Greg saw an image of the Earth, half day lit, half in shadow. But something was wrong with the picture: flickering streaks of pale colors were messing up the image of the northern hemisphere.

"That's the northern lights you're seeing," Anson explained.

Shifting glowing pale greens and reds, Greg saw. "It can't be the aurorae," he objected. "They're too far south—almost in Florida, for God's sake."

Anson looked up at him smugly. "Still think the radiation level's gone down?"

Greg stared at the screen. Northern lights glowing all the way down to Florida, just about. It must be a monstrous flare, he realized.

Anson yanked a telephone handset from the console desktop and punched a single number. "Security?" she said into the phone. "Pull Harry Clemens out of The Cave right away and tell him to bring his best team with him. Meet me in my office in three minutes."

She slammed the phone down and fairly leaped out of her chair. "We've got to get a comm link with Brennart right away," she said to Greg, "and that means launching a shielded minisat."

She made a dive for the door, calling over her shoulder, "Come on, Greg! We don't have a second to spare!"

Working out on the frontier is nothing more than inventing new ways to get killed. Brennart's easy tone belied the truth of his words, Doug thought He's lived with this kind of danger so long that he's accustomed to it Maybe he's even become dependent on it

"Question is," Brennart was saying, "what can we do back up at the summit there to preserve our legal claim?"

And he turned his spacesuited figure toward Doug.

Stalling for time to think, Doug said, "You're assuming that Yamagata's going to try to dispute our claim, is that it?"

"Of course," said Brennart 'Always assume the opposition will make the move that'll hurt you the most. That way you're never surprised, always prepared."

Doug saw the reflection of his own helmeted figure in the blank visor of Brennart's suit He tried to imagine the expression on the older man's face. He's enjoying this, Doug thought. This is how he gets his kicks. And Doug had to admit that it was exciting, hanging your butt out on the line, seeing how far you dared to go.

"Sov young Mr. Stavenger," Brennart called out, "what can two of us do up there at the top of the mountain that will satisfy the Earthside lawyers?"

"If we could set up some kind of solar cells," Doug mused, "and connect them back down here—even just a few kilowatts…' He had no details to back the bare idea.

Brennart's cyclops figure turned toward Greenberg, sprawled in his cumbersome spacesuit on the bunk closest to the toilet.

"Well, Greenie, what about it? Can we jigger your nanobugs to produce solar cells without the rest of the power tower to hold them up?"

"Sure," answered Greenberg, "if I had a laboratory and a couple weeks to reprogram them. Not here, though."

A gloomy silence filled the shelter.

Bianca Rhee broke the quiet. "What about the cargo ship that crashed? Didn't it have a power system? Maybe we could cannibalize it"

"Fuel cells," Brennart said gloomily. "Not solar panels. They were destroyed in the crash, anyway."

"What pieces of our equipment do have solar cells?" Doug asked.

He could sense Brennart shaking his head inside his helmet. "Nothing much. We knew the base camp down here would be in shadow all the time. The nanobugs were supposed to build the solar tower up on the summit for our electrical power."

"You mean there's nothing?"

"A few portable radio units with standard solar batteries. But they run on milliwatts; you can't get away with pretending they're providing power for the base."

"Wait a minute," Rhee said. "Why do we have to use the summit for a power station? Why can't we set up a monitoring station up there?"

"Monitor what?" Brennart asked.

"Solar flux," said Rhee. "I've got the instrumentation for it"

"What good—"

"We can set up an astronomical station at the summit," Rhee said, excitement raising her tone a notch. "That'd be a legitimate use of the area, wouldn't it?"

Doug said, "Sure, why not? We could even claim we're making measurements to determine how much electrical power we could generate with solar cells."

They both turned to Brennart. "Pretty thin," he muttered.

"But it'll hold up until we can get replacement nanomachines to actually start building the power tower," Doug countered.

"You're sure?"

"Nothing's sure where lawyers are involved," Doug said. "But it's the best idea I've heard so far."

Brennart muttered, "Lawyers," as if it was the vilest word he could think of.

"The Yamagata lobber's landed."

Anson stared hard at her desktop screen. It was split in half: the right side showed the frenzied activity of Clemens' launch team as they laser-welded extra sheets of shielding around a grapefruit-sized minisatellite. Behind them a rocket booster stood impassively, little more than a squat tube crammed with powdered aluminum and liquified oxygen. Once the armored minisat was mated inside its nose cone the booster would be winched up the surface and fired toward the south pole.

The chief communications technician's worried face filled the left side of Anson's desktop screen.

"Landed?" Anson snapped. "Where?"

"On the other side of Mt. Wasser from where our people are," replied the tech. "At least, that's where L-l lost their radar transponder signal. Near as we can make it out, they put down right smack in the middle of the biggest ice field in the region."

"Shee-yit," Anson hissed.

Greg was sitting on a flimsy plastic chair alongside her desk, feeling useless as all the activity swirled around him.

Anson turned to him. "Yamagata's people are on the ice down there. Now the question is, will they try to get to the top of the mountain right away or wait for the radiation to the down?"

"What do you intend to do with the minisat?" Greg asked.

"Tell Brennart that the Yamagata team's in his back yard, what else?"

"Won't that make it seem as if we're pushing him to take bigger risks than necessary?"

Avoiding Greg's eyes, Anson replied, "Brennart's no feeb. He'll know how much risk he can handle."

"Can the minisat operate in this level of radiation?"

"The satellite's only got to work for a few minutes," Anson said. "Just long enough to tell Brennart that the Japs are in his lap. He's got to know that! It's vital."

Greg wondered what Brennart would do with the information. It's just going to put more pressure on him, Greg thought. Might push him to take risks he wouldn't ordinarily take. Doug is out there with him. This might put Doug in even more danger than he's in already.

Greg felt frozen inside, not daring to let his true emotions show, even to himself.

"I think my ribs are broken," said Keiji Inoguchi.

Yazaru Kara heard the pain in his co-pilot's voice. He himself had been unconscious for at least several seconds. The landing in the mountainous darkness had been a disaster. Their craft had touched down on what had seemed like smooth ice, but somehow the craft had tumbled at the last moment and come crashing down on its side.

Now, as the two men sat still strapped into their seats, bundled in their heavily armored spacesuits, Hara thought how like a dream the crash had been. Everything had happened so slowly, gracefully almost, like a kabuki dancer's delicate movements. But the pain was real. His head throbbed and he tasted hot salty blood in his mouth.. He could hear Inoguchi's ragged, shallow breathing in his Helmet earphones. Every breath must be an agony for him, Hara thought.

A dream of pain and darkness. A nightmare. What was it that the old lamas said 'What if this life is nothing more than a dream within a dream?" Yes, what if?

At least he didn't seem to be bleeding anywhere except inside his mouth. He had banged his head hard on the inside of his helmet, but thankfully the helmet was well-padded. Nothing broken, Hara said to himself. But if I have a concussion I'll be vomiting soon. That should be delightful, inside the helmet.

Inoguchi groaned, forcing Hara to ignore his own fears.

"Can you move your arms at all?" he asked his companion.

"Yes, a little." In the dim emergency lighting of the cockpit Hara saw Inoguchi's arms move feebly.

He tried to think. "We might as well stay where we are, Keiji," he said. "At least until the radiation goes down and the base puts a commsat over us."

"Yes," said Inoguchi, painfully. "I don't think I'll be of much help to you."

"That's all right, we'll just sit here and call for help when the satellite queries us."

"At least we don't have to worry about fire," Inoguchi said, trying to sound brave. "When I flew on Earth, fire was my one persistent fear."

Hara nodded at the man's confession, but did not reveal his own. Ever since coming to the Moon, Hara had suffered nightmares about choking to death for lack of air.

MT. WASSER

"Killifer to Brennart," Doug heard in his earphones.

"Go ahead, Jack," said Brennart. His voice sounded tired to Doug. Scratchy and strained.

"Just got a blast from Moonbase," Killifer said. "Yamagata's landed a team on the other side of Mt. Wasser."

Doug felt a jolt of shock and saw Brennart's spacesuited figure stiffen. Their communications gear was in the first shelter, where Killifer presided.

"Play it for me," Brennart commanded.

Over the suit-to-suit frequency Doug heard, "Anson to Brennart. Yamagata lobber has landed on the far side of Mt. Wasser from your position. Definitely a crewed ship. They're obviously going to try to make a claim for the area. Foster, the safety of your team is of primary importance, as you are aware. But I thought you should know about this move of Yamagata's. As soon as the radiation drops to an acceptable

Harsh ragged static drowned out her words.

"That's all we got," Killifer said.

Brennart huffed. "That's plenty."

"There's another message, though," said Killifer. "Piped in parallel with Anson's."

"What is it?"

"It's for Mr. Stavenger."

"For me?" Doug blurted. Brennart said nothing.

"Doug, this is Greg." Doug was astonished to hear his brother's voice. "I'm at Moonbase. I'll be taking over the director's slot when Anson leaves. I don't want you to take any unnecessary chances out there. Do you understand me?

Play, it safe and come back alive."

Doug felt embarrassed. "My brother," he mumbled to Brennart and the others. "Half-brother, actually."

"He'll be the director pf Moonbase in a few days," Brennart said, his voice flat,

"I had no idea," said Doug.

A dead silence fell upon the bare little shelter. The four of them sat on the bunk edges, the only places to sit, staring at each other like a quartet of cyclops.

"We've got to get back to the mountaintop before the Japanese do," Brennart said at last

"Do you think they'd try it while the radiation's still so high?" Doug asked.

"They sent the team here while the radiation flux is pretty damned near maximum," Brennart pointed out. "They must have hardened suits."

"And equipment," Greenberg chimed in.

"And we don't," said Rhee.

Doug turned to face Brennart. "What should we do?"

For a long moment Brennart said nothing. Finally, "You said that legally we need two people at the summit?"

"That's only if we intend to keep a team there. The minimum number is two," said Doug. "That's what the Moscow Treaty calls for."

"But if we're just going to set up a monitoring station?" Rhee asked.

Doug spread his gloved hands. "As long as the station can function automatically it doesn't matter how many people are used to set it up."

"All right, then," Brennart said. I'll go alone."

"You can't!" Doug snapped.

Brennart planted his fists on the hips of his spacesuit. "Do I have to remind you, Mr. Stavenger, that I'm in command here? Even if your brother's going to be my boss in a few days, I'm still in charge of this team."

Trying to keep his voice light, Doug replied, "We all know that, sir. I simply meant that the radiation out there will kill you before you could get the job done."

"Maybe," Brennart admitted. "But the job's got to be done."

"You have to kill yourself for the corporation?" Rhee asked.

Brennart turned toward her. "Like the man says, everybody dies, sooner or later. Do you think my life would be worth much if Yamagata gets to claim this whole territory?"

"That's crazy," Rhee said.

While Brennart and Rhee argued, Doug went to the shelter's computer terminal and called up the medical file.

"It's my job," Brennart was saying. "My responsibility."

Rhee said, "Oh, I get it. Machismo." Her voice dripped loathing.

"No," said Brennart. "It's very practical. I get paid for results. If Yamagata takes this territory I might as well be dead, professionally."

And he doesn't have any other life, Doug realized, tapping out numbers on the screen. Rhee might despise the idea, but for men like Brennart this is a way of life. It's all they've got. The time in-between missions is waiting time, limbo, useless. Call it machismo or stubborness or even stupidity, but it's the hard-headed ones like Brennart who got the job done. My father must've been like that, Doug thought. He died rather than endanger the rest of the people in Moonbase.

"The question is," Doug said—for himself as much as for Rhee and the others, "is the claim to this region worth risking your life over?"

"Let's stop this right here," Brennart said. "Somebody's got to get back up that mountain and I've decided that I'll do it. End of discussion."

"Wait," Doug said.

"I said end of discussion' Brennart growled.

"But I think there might be a way we can get this job done at much lower risk."

"How?"

Pointing to the numbers on the screen, Doug said, "I've just calculated the exposure doses, based on the background data in the medical file and a rough estimate of the time needed to get up to the mountaintop again."

Brennart came across the shelter and leaned over Doug's shoulder to peer at the screen.

Doug said, To get this job done, somebody's got to find the astronomical equipment, load it onto the hopper, refuel the hopper, jump up to the summit, set up the equipment, and then fly back down here! Right?"

"Right."

"Okay, here's my estimate of the times involved for each task."

"Pretty rough estimates."

Smiling inside his helmet, Doug said, "It's the best I could do. I've tried to include the shielding our suits provide—"

"It adds up to more than a lethal dose," Rhee saw. Greenberg got off his bunk and joined the rest of them, but said nothing.

"But what if we break the job down into its component tasks and let different people handle each task?" Doug suggested.

"What of it?" Rhee asked.

Working the keyboard as he spoke, Doug said, "That way, each individual gets only a fraction of the radiation exposure that one person would get if he tried to do the whole job by himself. See?"

"Whoever flies the hopper up to the mountaintop still gets a big dose," Rhee pointed out.

"But it's not a lethal dose," said Doug. "At least, that's what the numbers show."

"If everything goes exactly as you've plotted it," Rhee countered.

"No, it won't work," Brennart said. Doug could sense him shaking his head inside his helmet. "I can't ask people to take that kind of risk."

"But look at the numbers," Doug insisted. "We can do it!"

"Those numbers are shakier than a nervous guy with palsy in an earthquake," Brennart grumbled.

"You'll be killing yourself otherwise," Doug said. "That's the one really solid number we've got If one man tries to do the whole job, he gets a lethal dose. No doubt about it."

Brennart rested his gloved hands on the thighs of his suit.

"Listen up, people. I've taken risks like this before and lived through them. Truth is, I don't really give a damn if I live or die. I've had a full life and I've got nothing much to look forward to except retirement. Like the man says, I'd rather wear out than rust out."

"More machismo," Rhee muttered.

"Bianca," Doug asked, "where are your astronomical instruments?"

She hesitated a moment. "I carried them into the shelter as soon as it was put up. Before we got the order to help with the digging."

"Which shelter?" Brennart asked.

"The first one."

"Okay," Doug said. "So you could go to shelter one and get your hands on the instruments."

"Sure."

"Isn't the second hopper right outside that shelter?"

"About fifty yards from the airlock," Brennart said.

"So Killifer or somebody else could dash outside and load the instruments onto that hopper. No need to refuel the one we've already used."

I'll do it," Greenberg said, surprising Doug. I'll go with Bianca and load the instruments. It'll only take a couple of minutes and then I've got an excuse to stay in shelter one. Let one of those guys pull on a suit and sit out here for a while."

"Good," said Doug, turning to Brennart. "Then you and I can hop up to the summit—"

"You're not going," Brennart said.

I've got to," Doug answered firmly. "The numbers prove it. Two people can get the job done before the exposure adds up to a lethal dose. One can't."

"You are not going," Brennart said, emphasizing each word. I'm not going to risk my future boss's brother."

"Half brother," Doug said.

I'm not going to risk either half of you," replied Brennart.

Doug grinned inside his helmet. He made a joke. Good!

"Besides," Brennart went on, "I made a promise to your mother."

Doug jumped on that "You promised not to let me out of your sight. How can you keep that promise if you go up to the mountaintop without me?"

Brennart was not amused. "Don't split hairs with me, kid. I can't allow you to take that risk."

Very seriously, Doug replied, "And I can't allow you to go by yourself."

"Stavenger, I'm the commander here. I order you—"

"Besides, I can pilot the hopper if I have to," Doug said, actually enjoying the excitement.

"This is getting weird," Rhee said. "Now we've got two macho flangeheads."

"I'm not going to let you take the risk," Brennart repeated firmly.

I'm not going to let you kill yourself," Doug answered.

Brennart got to his feet and loomed over Doug. "Now listen—"

"A dead body doesn't constitute a legal claim," Doug said.

"What?"

"If you die up on the mountaintop before you get the instruments set up the corporation won't be able to make a legal claim to the area," Doug said.

Tapping the numbers on the screen, Doug added, "And if you try to do this all by yourself you're going to die."

For a moment there was silence in the bare little shelter. Doug heard nothing but his own breathing and the faint whir of the air fans in his suit.

Then Brennart broke into a low chuckle. "All right, you're dead-set on risking your neck. We'll do it your way."

Rhee repeated, "Two macho flangeheads."

Greenberg said nothing.

"I don't know about you," said Jinny Anson, "but I could use a few hours' sleep."

Greg realized he had been awake more than twenty-four hours straight. The last six hours he had spent in Anson's office, anxiously watching, waiting for some word from Brennart's group. Nothing had come through, and the radiation from the solar flare was still lethally intense up on the surface.

I'll go down to the control center, I guess," he said.

Anson got up from her desk chair. "Don't you want to catch a few winks?"

Shaking his head, Greg replied, "I'm too keyed up to sleep."

"Go back to the party, then."

"Is it still going on?"

With a grin, she leaned across her desk and stabbed at the keyboard. The display screen showed The Cave still jammed with dancing, drinking, chatting, laughing party-goers.

"They'll stay at it till the radiation level starts to decay."

Greg felt his brows knitting into a frown. "They'll be in some shape for working, won't they?"

Anson stiffened slightly. "The party breaks up when the radiation starts going down. It takes several hours, at least, before the radiation's low enough to go out on the surface. They'll be ready for work by then."

Greg almost admired her. She could be a tigress when it came to defending her people.

"Okay, maybe I'll drop in at the party. I'll stick my head in at the control center first, though."

"Whatever," said Anson. She headed for the door, thinking, What this guy needs is to get laid.

Greg followed her out into the tunnel. Anson walked off toward her quarters; Greg went the other way, toward the control center.

He was surprised to see Lev Brudnoy there, hovering morosely in his faded, stained coveralls over the three technicians working the comm consoles. There were two men and one woman sitting at the consoles, none of them the same as the crew he had seen several hours earlier. Nearly half the screens were still blank or so streaked with interference that they were useless.

"What are you doing here?" Greg asked, realizing how tactless it was as he spoke the words.

Brudnoy made an elaborate shrug. "I worry."

"Me too," Greg admitted."

"I understand that a Yamagata Vehicle has landed near Brennart's team."

"Yes," said Greg, feeling slightly annoyed that this guest, this… farmer, knew as much about the situation as he did. Probably a lot more.

Brudnoy read his face. "There are very few secrets hi Moonbase, my friend."

"Really?"

"We are too small, too crowded to keep secrets," Brudnoy said. "It's a good thing, I think. Governments back on Earth, they thrive on secrecy. Not here. Here we are like a mir, a village; everyone knows everyone."

"And everyone knows everybody else's business," Greg added.

Brudnoy smiled charmingly. "Within limits."

"Such as?"

Brudnoy placed a hand on the shoulder of the technician sitting nearest him. For example, even if I knew who this lout of an electronics man was sleeping with these days, I would not broadcast the news. It would be impolite."

"And damned dangerous," said the tech, glaring up at Brudnoy with mock ferocity.

"Like a village," Greg muttered.

"Yes, like a village," said Brudnoy. "You probably think of Moonbase as a subdivision of your corporation, with its organization chart and its lines of authority. Please throw that image out of your head. Think instead of a village. People come and go, it is true, but the social structure remains the same. In your country you call it a small town, I think."

"Winesburg, Ohio," Greg said, almost sneering.

"Oh no!" Brudnoy answered immediately. "I read that decadent work when I was first studying your language. No, not like Winesburg. More like Fort Apache—without the Native Americans."

Greg blinked with surprise. "Fort Apache? Who's our John Wayne, then?"

"Why, Brennart, of course. And you will be the stiff-necked commandant of the fort, if you pardon a personal reference."

Greg automatically glanced down at the three technicians, to see how much of this they were taking in. All three of them were bent intently over their screens, which made Greg think they were listening to Brudnoy for all they were worth, despite the headsets clamped to their ears.

"You think I'm stiff-necked?" Greg asked coldly.

"Of course. Everyone is when they first come to Moonbase. It takes time to adjust to our village mentality, our small town social structure."

Greg relaxed only slightly. "Fort Apache," he repeated.

"An outpost on a vast and dangerous frontier. That's what we are." Brudnoy seemed to relish the concept.

"Message coming in from Tucson," interrupted the chief technician. "Voice only. Radiation levels beginning to decrease slightly around Venus''sorbit. We can expect the storm to end in five to ten hours."

"Great!" Greg almost wanted to grab Brudnoy and hug him. Instead he said to the chief tech, "How can we get the word to Brennart?"

The technician shook his head. "There's nothing working in polar orbit right now."

"What about the armored satellite they sent up?"

"Crapped out in the radiation. We don't know if it even got its message down to Brennart."

"Can't you reactivate it?"

"It's dead."

"Then we've got to send up another one."

Another head shake. "By the time we could get the last satellite hardened and launched the radiation levels'll be getting low enough for Brennart's people to figure it out for themselves."

"Dammit," Greg snarled, "I want a commsat put up!"

Unperturbed, the technician said, "Only the base director can authorize that." Then he added sardonically, "Sir."

Greg turned to Brudnoy. I'll have to wake Anson up."

Now Brudnoy shook his head. "I wouldn't do that, my friend. She would not appreciate it."

Greg wanted to push past him and storm down the tunnel to kick Anson's door down. He wanted to tell Brudnoy in no uncertain terms that he was the next director of this base, not some snivelling technician or fanner afraid of incurring Jinny Anson's wrath. I'm Joanna Masterson's son, goddammit, he wanted to shout. I'll run this whole corporation one of these days.

But he said nothing. He fought it down and remained quiet. It was a struggle; he felt certain that Brudnoy could see the inner battle raging in his eyes.

Brudnoy reached out and grasped his arm lightly. "I understand your impatience and your desire to inform your brother of the good news. But the technician is right. Even if we started this instant, by the time we got a commsat over the pole the radiation would already be dying and they would know it for themselves."

"Yeah," Greg said, not trusting himself with more than one syllable at a time. "Right."

"But it's crazy," Killifer said.

Brennart's voice came over the comm console's speaker. "Sure it's crazy, Jack," he said lightly. "But it's vital to the success of this mission. We've got to go."

"You and Stavenger," said Killifer. Deems and two of the women were crowded behind him as he sat in the tiny comm cubicle. He could feel their breaths on the back of his neck. And smell them.

"We'll need your help. Greenberg and Rhee are coming to your shelter to pick up the astronomical equipment and load it onto the hopper."

"Okay."

"Jack, I need you to check out the hopper, make certain it's ready for flight."

"You want me to suit up and go outside?" Killifer asked. "With a zillion rads out there?"

"Doug's done some rough calculations on the exposure levels. You should be all right"

"Yeah, sure."

"I can't order you to do it," Brennart said. "I'm asking you to."

Killifer grimaced. Yeah, sure, he can't order me. But if I don't I'll be broken down to tractor maintenance or cleaning toilets.

"Okay," he said. I'll suit up."

"Thanks, Jack!" Brennart's voice sounded sincerely grateful.

Killifer turned in the little chair and got slowly to his feet. "Rog," he said to Deems, "you take over here."

"You're going outside?" Deems' normally startled expression had graduated to outright fear.

"That's right," Killifer said sourly. "You're gonna see the fastest friggin' checkout of a hopper in the history of the solar system."

The women made room for him to pass and head up the shelter's central aisle toward the airlock and the spacesuits. Brennart wants to be a big-ass hero and I've gotta risk my butt for him. Will I get any of the credit? Shit no. He's the superstar; I'm down in the noise. Nobody'll even know I was here.

Him and the Stavenger kid, Killifer fumed as he began to pull on the leggings to his spacesuit. The two of 'em. He tugged on his boots and sealed them closed. Then a new thought struck him.

The two of them. Going up to the mountaintop in the hopper, in all this radiation. What if they don't make it back?

For an instant he felt a pang of remorse about Brennart, but then he thought, friggin' butthead wants to be a hero, what better way is there than to die up there on top of the mountain?

As Doug lifted the uncrated spectrometer onto the platform of the hopper that stood outside Shelter One, he noticed that the radiation patch on his sleeve had already turned bright yellow.

This is going to be hairy, he thought We'll both get enough radiation to put us in the hospital.

The telescope was already on the hopper's metal platform, a man-tall tube supported on three Spindly legs.

A stocky spacesuited figure toted a telemetry transmitter with its solar power panels folded up like the wings of a bird and shoved it onto the hopper's platform. Doug jumped up onto the metal mesh decking and started lashing down the instruments securely.

"Is that you, Bianca?" he asked the spacesuited figure.

"No, it's not Bianca." Killifer's voice.

Surprised, Doug asked, "What're you doing out here?"

Clambering up onto the hopper to help with the tie-downs, Killifer's voice rasped, "I'm out here getting my cojones fried because you talked Brennart into being the big hero, that's why I'm here."

"I didn't talk—"

"Fuck you didn't," Killifer snapped.

Doug's usual reaction to hostility was to try to laugh it off. But he knew it wouldn't work with Killifer.

"Look," he said while he tied down the instruments, "I checked out your file and I understand why you're sore at me."

"You went into my personnel file?"

"I went into everybody's files, everybody who's on this expedition."

"Who the fuck gave you authority for that?"

Doug was tempted to reply that his mother had given him the authority. Instead he answered mildly, "It's part of my job."

"The hell it is."

"I saw the order transferring you to Moonbase and all your appeals."

Killifer grunted as he lashed down the equipment on the deck.

"The transfer was signed by my mother. Your appeals were all bucked up to her and she rejected them."

"That's right."

"What on Earth did you do to get my mother so pissed at you?" Doug asked. "She practically exiled you up here;"

"None of your friggin' business."

"Whatever it was, it wasn't fair," Doug said, without looking up from the straps he was locking down. "I wish there was some way I could make it up to you."

Killifer stopped working and straightened up. "Yeah. Sure you do."

"I mean it," said Doug.

"Then give me back the eighteen years she stole from me."

Doug sighed. "I wish I could."

Killifer jumped down from the deck, floating slowly to the ground. Doug noticed that there was hardly any loose dust at all for his boots to kick up.

"Okay, then," Killifer said as he headed back toward the shelter, "there is something you can do for me."

"Name it."

"Drop dead while you're up there on that friggin' mountaintop."

Safely back inside the buried shelter's airlock, Killifer slowly wormed out of his spacesuit and then ducked through the open hatch into the main section of the shelter. He saw Greenberg huddling with Martin, and Rhee standing worriedly next to the galley, munching on a protein bar. They were both happy to be out of their spacesuits after so many hours.

Once free of the spacesuit, Killifer strode past them swiftly and slipped into the tiny communications cubicle, where Deems still sat at the console. Standing behind Deems, he saw in the main screen the hopper outside where Brennart—with Doug Stavenger standing beside him—quickly ran down the hopper's abbreviated checklist.

"Ready for takeoff," Brennart said, his voice edged with tension.

"Clear for takeoff," said Deems, his own voice high, quavering.

The little hopper disappeared from the screen in a burst of white, smokey rocket thrust.

Killifer smiled to himself as the aluminum vapor swiftly dissipated in the lunar vacuum. In the leg pouch of his spacesuit was a four-inch square of reinforced cermet, the covering for the hopper's electronic controls for the liqui oxygen pump.

Bon voyage, Killifer said silently. He hadn't rubbed a magic lamp, but he felt certain that his dearest wish was about to come true.

ACAPULCO

Carlos Quintana stood before the sweeping window of his clifftop hacienda and stared out into the limitless blue of tie Pacific. White cumulus clouds were building out over the horizon, towering up into thunderheads: so beautiful to look at from a distance, so treacherous to fly through.

He held a heavy cut crystal glass of exquisite single malt Scotch in his left hand, a slim black cigar in his right.

Cancer of the lung.

The words had sounded like a death sentence at first. Cancer had taken his father, both his uncles, even his older brother. But that had all happened before Carlos had built his fortune. Now he had the money to bring a few specialists to Mexico and let them inject nanomachines into his lung.

The thought disturbed him, almost frightened him. Nanomachines had killed Paul Stavenger and several others on the Moon. Nanomachines were illegal in the United States, in Mexico, in almost every nation on Earth. They didn't always work the way they were supposed to. That's what people said. They ran amok and killed Paul, up on the Moon.

He sipped at the whisky, then inhaled a long delicious drag from the cigar. And coughed.

But we've used nanomachines on the Moon for years now. They work as designed. Maybe whatever went wrong back then has been fixed now.

Yes, he argued with himself, but the corporation's nanotech division has closed, except for the work they're doing at Moonbase. It's almost impossible to run a nanotech laboratory in the open—on Earth. And haw there's talk in the U.N. outlawing nanotechnology entirely.

As the sun slowly settled onto the ocean horizon and the dipped below it, Qujntana stood alone at the window, watchin but not seeing, alternately sipping and puffing, wondering he trusted the scientists enough to let them inject invisible machines into his body.

He knew the answer, of course. Despite his fear of nanomachines, cancer of the lung frightened him more.

The fact that he would have to break the law to receive nanotherapy never impinged on his consciousness. Neither did the fact that a few hundred thousand of his fellow Mexican would die this year of lung cancer because they were too poor to afford nanotherapy.

MT. WASSER

the jump up to the summit was smoother this time. Standing beside Brennart, Doug realized that the man had entered the distance and altitude from their first flight into the hopper's minuscule computer. Still, it took good piloting. One rather longish firing of the hopper's rocket engine and they were soaring up, up the face of the mountain, breaking into brilliant sunlight, riding as smoothly as if they were on an elevator.

Everyone else was safely tucked inside the shelters. On Brennart's orders, Rhee and Greenberg had been allowed to move into shelter one with Killifer and Deems. The two women who had been there had grudgingly pulled on their spacesuits and gone off to the fourth shelter, still only partially covered with protective rubble from the regolith.

Doug knew he should be worried about the radiation he was receiving, especially when they broke out of the shadows of the mountains and into the glaring sunlight. Yet somehow that danger seemed unreal compared to the thrill of flying up to the mountaintop again, the excitement of beating Yamagata to the claim for this rich territory.

This is fun! he told himself. We're doing something nobody else would do.

Besides, the more sober part of his mind added, I made the rad dose calculations as conservative as I could. The numbers are okay. We'll make it. We'll be all right

Their flimsy craft seemed to hover a hundred meters or so above the mountain's summit, and Doug marvelled again at Brennart's finely-tuned piloting. Without saying a word,

Brennart crabbed the craft sideways slightly and let it down almost exactly where they had landed before.

"That was terrific' Doug said with genuine awe.

Brennart peered over the console at the ground and thi hopper's broad round feet. "Missed our old landing spot by a good meter," he muttered unhappily.

Doug laughed.

"All right," said Brennart, slapping down the platform railing on his side of the hopper, "we've got to be quick now."

Doug knocked down the railing on his side and they both bent to untie the astronomical instruments. Within a few minutes Doug was setting up the telescope and spectrometer while Brennart, kneeling beside him, unfolded the solar panels of the telemetry unit and began plugging wires from its base to the instruments.

It was clumsy work. Doug felt as if he were wearing thick mittens instead of the most flexible gloves that spacesuit engineers could design. He saw that the radiation patch on his sleeve was a deep orange. Brennart's too.

"Ready to power up?" Brennart's voice crackled in his earphones.

Doug swallowed hard and nodded inside his helmet 'Ready."

The tiny display panels on the instruments lit up and the telescope swung automatically to focus on the Sun. Doug had to duck out of the way of its moving tube.

"Okay," he said. "They're working. Let's drag our butts out of here."

"Get it on tape," Brennart said. "Make our claim legal."

Fumbling with the vidcam in his hurry, Doug quickly panned across the little assembly of instruments with Brennart standing tall and unmistakable in his red-striped spacesuit beside them.

"Okay, got it," he said, tucking the hand-sized vidcam back into his thigh pouch. "Now let's get back to the shelter."

"Wait one tick," Brennart said. "I thought I saw something as we were coming in for the landing…' And he loped off toward the edge of the summit in long lunar strides, almost oaring.

"Where're you going?" Doug called, more puzzled than nnoyed or frightened.

"Come here, quick!" Brennart motioned with one long arm.

Doug tried to imitate Brennart's lunar glide and hopped lumsily to the older man's side.

"Down there. Can you see it?"

Doug peered into the inky blackness far below. "See what?" le asked.

"Lights. Like landing lights on a spacecraft."

Doug stared. Far, far below he thought he saw two tiny gleams of lights, one red, one white. But when he looked directly at them, they disappeared.

"Masterson Aerospace to Yamagata lander," he heard Brennart calling. "Can you hear me?"

That's the Yamagata lander? Doug wondered. Down there?

"Masterson to Yamagata. Do you read?"

Doug was about to turn back to their hopper when he heard in his earphones, "Yamagata to Masterson. We read you." The voice was weak, strained.

"We've just established legal claim to the mountaintop and we have a working base down at the ice field," Brennart said, gloating happily. "You boys might as well pack up and go home."

"We can't. We crashed on landing. Both injured."

Doug suddenly heard the pain in the man's voice.

Brennart's attitude changed instantly. "Does your base know of your condition?"

"No. Communications impossible in radiation storm."

"We'll try to get a team to you as soon as we can," Brennart said.

"We are protected from radiation, but one of us is badly injured and needs medical attention."

"We'll do our best," said Brennart. "Sit tight."

"That is all we can do."

Doug grabbed at Brennart's arm. "Come on, we've got to get out of here."

"We'll get help to you as soon as the radiation dies down, Brennart said. "Hang in there, guys."

"Thank you."

Without another word Brennart turned and loped back to the hopper. Doug ran alongside, almost matching his long gliding strides. They jumped up onto the platform together and Brennart slid his boots into the foot restraints and pushed the throttle forward in one motion, not even bothering to put up the railings.

But the hopper did not move.

Doug slid his boots into the foot loops and grabbed the edge of the console to support himself.

But the hopper did not move.

MT. WASSER

"Christ on a surfboard," Brennart yelled. "It's dead."

"What's wrong?"

Brennart swiftly scanned the meager control panel. "Everything's in the green, but the goddamned engine won't light."

Doug felt cold sweat breaking out on him. , "Damn!" Brennart tugged at the throttle again. Nothing happened.

"What's wrong?" Doug asked again.

Brennart turned toward him. "No time to check it out. Come on."

And he jumped off the hopper's platform. Doug followed him without questioning. Brennart was unfastening the empty 'cargo pod.

"Undo the oxy tank," he commanded. "Get it down on the ground. Fast!"

Doug found the clips that held the bulbous green tank and clicked them open, then rolled the tank off the edge of the platform into his waiting arms. Shocked at how heavy it felt, he let it slip and thump onto the rocky ground. He felt immense gratitude that it didn't burst apart.

Turning, he saw that Brennart was rolling the canister of nanobugs along the bumpy ground. He wedged it against the hopper's other side.

"Get under the platform," Brennart urged, dropping to all fours. "Come on!"

Doug dropped to his hands and knees and crawled beneath the hopper's platform, between the oxygen tank and thennanomachine canister, nearly banging his helmet on the dangling nozzle of the defunct rocket engine.

"How are we going to fix it from under here?" he asked Brennart. There was Barely room enough to turn on his side, Doug saw. They could never get onto their backs, not with the life-support backpacks they carried.

"We're not going to fix it," the older man said. "We're going to sit out the storm down here. This is our own little radiation shelter. Cozy, huh?"

"We're going to stay here?" Doug heard a tinge of fear in his own voice.

"Nothing else we can do," Brennart said calmly. "Can't poke around trying to check out the hopper's systems, not in this radiation flux. We'd be fried by the time we figured out where the malf is."

"Malf?"

"Malfunction."

"Oh."

"So we pull down as much mass as we can to shield us from the sides and we hope the platform and rocket plumbing is thick enough to shield us overhead. And we wait."

"But how can we tell when the radiation's gone down enough—"

"When we hear a satellite signal. Either our minisats will come back on the air or Moonbase'll put up a new commsat to re-establish a link with us."

Doug puffed out a breath. "And in the meantime?"

"We wait."

Stretched out prone beneath the hopper's platform with a couple of tanks and cargo pods. It didn't seem like much protection to Doug.

"Snug as two bugs in a rug," Brennart said.

"Not quite."

"Well, we're better off than those Japs. Crashed on landing. And they need medical attention."

"So will we," Doug said.

For a moment Brennart did not reply. Then, quietly, "Yeah, I suppose we will."

"What do you think happened to the hopper?" Doug asked.

Brennart's shoulders wormed slightly inside his suit 'Something simple, most likely. Radiation knocked out some primary system, like the computer control or the oxidizer pump."

"Isn't the hopper shielded against radiation?"

"Sure, but that doesn't make much difference now, does it? like the man says, this is where we're at"

They should've been back by now," Bianca Rhee said to no one in particular.

Roger Deems looked frightened, as usual, as he sat at the silent communications console.

"Shouldn't they?" Bianca turned to Killifer, standing with Greenberg behind her.

Killifer slowly nodded, looking grim. "Yeah. Something must've gone wrong."

"Can't we talk with them?" Rhee pleaded.

Deems said shakily, "Up there on the mountain, they're out of line-of-sight from our antenna, and we don't have any working commsats to relay a signal to them."

"But there must be something we can do!"

"Wait," said Killifer.

Rhee stared at him, aghast.

"That's all we can do," Killifer said, almost gruffly. "Unless you want to kill yourself, too."

"You think they're dead?"

Killifer grunted, then answered, "As good as."

"The radiation is definitely receding," the main communications technician said to Greg. "In another five or six hours it ought to be almost down to normal."

Greg nodded curtly. He'd been hearing 'another five hours' for the past six hours, at least.

"You'd better get some rest"

Turning, Greg saw it was Jinny Anson who had just entered the control center.

"You look like hell," Anson said cheerfully. She herself was fresh and bright-eyed.

"I'll wait here," said Greg

"Get to bed before you fall down and hurt yourself," Ansoi said firmly. "That's not advice, it's an order." .Greg smiled tiredly at her. "You're ordering me?"

I'm still director of this rat nest. Get your butt into you bunk. Now."

For a moment Greg wondered how far he might go in showing her who the real boss was. How far might she go? he asked himself. She'd call security and have me carried to my quarters, he realized, staring into her steady, unwavering steel-gray eyes.

"Okay," he said, his voice slurring slightly, "but you call me—"

"The instant anything happens," Anson promised.

Greg trudged off to his quarters, not certain he remembered exactly where they were. He found the door eventually and flopped fully clothed on the bunk.

He dreamed, not of Doug and the others trapped in the radiation storm, but of his mother. The two of them were in The Cave, at the flare party, dancing together.

"Did you mean what you said back in the shelter?" Doug asked.

Lying prone beside him, Brennart said, "What did I say?"

"That you didn't care if you lived or died?"

The older man hesitated a moment, then replied, "Yeah, I meant it."

Doug couldn't believe it. "Really?"

"Everybody dies, kid. Sorry I let you come along, though. You shouldn't have been involved in this."

"You think we're going to die?"

"I'm already dying," Brennart said. "Cancer in my lymph nodes."

Shocked, Doug blurted, "But how could they let you keep on working?"

With a low chuckle, Brennart said, "Because they don't know. I have my own doctor, my own physical. The corporation records are… well, doctored."

"Falsified?" Doug had never dreamed such a thing was possible.

"Friends in high places," said Brennart 'It happens when you've been around long enough." , "You really have cancer?"

"Terminal—unless the radiation treatment we're getting right now bums it out of me." He laughed sardonically.

"Cancer," Doug repeated.

"It's land of an occupational disease when you spend a lot of time up here."

"But," Doug's mind was churning, "but there are treatments. Nanotherapy could—"

"Find me a nanotherapy clinic that's still open and I'll go to it," Brennart said bitterly. "The ones that haven't been shut down by the lawyers have been burned down by the mobs."

"Even in Switzerland?"

"Switzerland, Thailand, Argentina—the only people I could find doing nanotherapy now are crooks and frauds. Black market; you pay in advance and you take what you get. Not for me."

"But my mother's talked about clinics in Switzerland."

"Your mom's a very rich woman, Doug. I don't have that kind of money. Or clout."

"I do," Doug said.

For a few moments Brennart was silent. Then he said, "I appreciate it, kid, but I think it's too late for me even with nanotherapy."

"How do you know—"

"Hey, I've had a damned good life. They'll put up a statue to me here on the Moon after I'm gone. What more could I ask for?"

"How old are you?"

"Fifty-one, in September. If I make it that far."

I'll be nineteen next January."

"Maybe not."

"Yeah."

I'm sorry," Brennart said. "I shouldn't have let you talk me into bringing you along."

I'm not sorry about'it," Doug said. He realized that he meant it truly. "I would' ve kickdd myself for the rest of my life if I hadn't come up here with you."

Brennart made a noise that might have been a snort. Or a suppressed laugh. "You know what we used to say about test pilots, back when we still used test pilots? More guts than brains."

Doug laughed out loud. "Yeah, that's us."

"That's what it boils down to. You know what you're doing is dangerous, but it's so damned inviting! Like a really nasty-looking woman you see at a bar. You know she's trouble, but you can't help yourself."

"I've never heard it put that way before," Doug said.

"Yeah." Brennart almost sighed. "You can't turn it down, so you tell yourself you can handle the danger, you're prepared for it."

"My father must've been like that"

"He was one smart turkey, let me tell you. He knew when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. Never took a chance he hadn't calculated out to six decimal places."

"I never knew him," said Doug. "He died before I was born."

"That's what impressed me about you, kid. You didn't just decide to run up this mountaintop for the glory of it. You calculated the odds, first."

"I didn't calculate on our hopper dying, though."

"Like the man says, you can't win 'em all."

Doug nodded, blinking at perspiration that was trickling into his eyes.

"If we get through this without being totally fried," Brennart asked, "what do you want to do with your life?"

"You mean the ten minutes I might have left?"

"Come on, seriously. Have you thought about it?"

"Not much."

"You ought to. A guy in your position has all sorts of opportunities open to him. You ought to start thinking seriously about them."

"I've sort of been following my father's footsteps," Doug admitted. "I've never thought about anything but Moonbase."

"You could do a lot worse," said Brennart. "Your father knew which way was up."

"I sort of thought I'd like to study architecture." It was something of a confession. Doug had never told anyone about that, not even his mother.

"Architecture?"

Shrugging inside his spacesuit, Doug replied, "Lunar architecture, you know. I want to build'a real city here."

"Oh," Brennart said. "You really have the bug, don't you?"

"Maybe it's genetic."

"No," said Brennart. "It's the frontier. It gets to you. Like Mark Twain said, "When it's steamboat time, you steam."

"Steamboat time?"

"In Twain's era the steamboat was the exciting thing. Another generation of kids wanted to be railroad engineers. Then came airplanes, and any self-respecting youngster wanted to be a pilot."

"And then came the Moon," Doug said, "and they all wanted to be astronauts."

"And now you want to be a lunar architect."

"If we get out of this," Doug pointed out.

Ignoring that, Brennart went on, "You want to build, to add something to the world. Like your dad. That's good. Everybody should leave his mark on the world."

"You've certainly left yours," Doug said. "They really will build a statue to you."

"I've had a helluva lot of fun doing it," Brennart said. "Too bad it's got to end."

"Like the man says," Doug quoted him, "everybody dies."

They fell silent again.

Eventually, Doug said, "I wish I could have had a life like yours."

With a low chuckle, Brennart replied, "You can have it, kid. It's not all that much, you know."

"But you're a real legend! You've done so much!"

"Except the one thing I really wanted."

"What was that?"

"Mars."

"You wanted to go on the Mars mission?" Doug felt stupid as he heard his own words. Of course Brennart wanted to go on the Mars mission. Who wouldn't?

"The lead American astronaut was a friend of mine, Pete Connors," said Brennart. "Pete's a good guy, but I'm a better one."

"Then why didn't they pick you?"

"Bunch of academics made the selections." Brennart said the word academics very much the way he pronounced lawyers. "I work for a dirty old profit-making corporation. Pete always stayed with the government program."

"And that's why they didn't take you?"

"That's why."

"But that's rotten! They must've been a bunch of brain-dead turds!"

Brennart laughed softly. "Pete did a good job. They got back okay."

A second Mars expedition was being put together, Doug knew. Moonbase was supplying all their oxygen and Masterson orbital factories were building spacecraft and electronics assemblies. On government contracts, for a fixed fee.

"It's a damned shame," Doug mumbled.

"Yeah. But I'll get a statue and Pete won't."

"They ought to put your statue right here, up at the summit"

"No, no! I want it at Moonbase," Brennart objected. "Nobody'll see it if you put it here."

Doug replied, "We'll run special tours to Mt Wasser to see your statue."

He could sense the older man grinning. "Make more money that way, huh?"

"Might as well."

"Why the hell not? Good thinking."

Hesitantly, Doug asked, "Is there anyone… do you have any family…

"Nope. I was an only child and I never had any kids of my own—that I know of."

Before Doug could answer, Brennart added, "I've been sterile for a lot of years. Another occupational hazard up here."

"Damn," Doug said. "It's just not right for them to shut down nanotechnology. With nanomachines in your body, things like sterility and cancer could be stopped before they started. The nanobugs would destroy cancerous tumors and rebuild tissue that was damaged by radiation."

"Maybe so," said Brennart. "But it's not going to help me."

"It's criminal to prevent nanotherapy!"

"Yeah, maybe so. But they've got their reasons, you know."

"Religious fanatics," Doug complained. "And politicians without enough spine to stand up straight. Nanoluddites."

"Now, don't go getting all righteous and indignant," Brennart said.

"Why not? What they've done—"

"Take a look at Earth. Take a good look. Going on ten billion people down there, with no end to population growth in sight."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Last thing in the world those governments need is people who live two or three hundred years. They're barely holding things together as it is, and you want them to let people extend their lifespans indefinitely? Get real."

"You don't think that the world's leaders use nanotherapy for themselves?"

"Even if they do, they can't let it out where everybody can use it. They're already up to their armpits in starving people; give 'em nanotherapy and they'll all go under."

"No," Doug said. "I don't believe that."

"Believe it, kid. You've lived in a nice comfortable cocoon all your life. The rest of the world's poor, hungry, ignorant -and violent."

Doug had no reply for that

"Who'd pay for nanotherapy, anyway?" Brennart went on. "Only a handful of people could afford it. You think the poor majority would sit back and watch the rich folks live forever? Hell no!"

"That's why they've trained down nanolabs," Doug said with new understanding.

"They'd burn down your house, with you and your mother in it, if they thought you guys were using nanotherapy that they couldn't have"

Doug thought about that. Then he replied, "Yes, I imagine they would."

"The little guys always try to bring down anybody who gets ahead of them. Greed isn't only for the rich, you know."

"You're talking about envy."

"Yeah, maybe so."

Doug thought for a moment, then, "Maybe that's what a frontier is really for."

"What?"

"To get away from the little guys, the small minds, the people who don't want any changes, any new ideas."

"The escape valve," Brennart said.

"Right. That's what the frontier is: our escape valve."

"Don't let them take it away from us, kid. We need a frontier."

Doug nodded silently inside his helmet

"How do you feel, kid?"

"Okay, I guess." It was less than the truth. Doug felt feverish; perspiration was oozing out of him, trickling along his back, down his ribs.

I'm kinda tired. Think I'll catch a few zees."

"Nothing better to do," Doug agreed.

But he could not sleep. Stretched out prone beneath the scanty protection of the flimsy hopper, he rolled over as far to his left as his backpack would allow him. That took some of the strain off his neck, but not much. Methodically, Doug checked each frequency of his suit radio. Nothing but harsh static grating in his earphones.

I'm going to die here, he told himself. He found that he was not afraid of the idea. He really didn't believe it. The idea of dying on this mountaintop, killed by radiation that he could neither see nor feel, seemed almost ludicrous to him. As if someone were playing an elaborate practical joke on him.

Sooner or later somebody's going to pop out and yell April Fool! Doug told himself.

And then he tasted blood in his mouth.

I must've bit my tongue, was his first reaction. But he knew that he hadn't. And he also knew that bleeding gums were one of the first symptoms of radiation poisoning.

Doug flicked his radio back to the suit-to-suit freak. Brennart wasn't snoring, but Doug could hear the man's steady, slow breathing. Vaguely he remembered some old astronaut telling him, when he was just a kid, "Never stand when you can sit, never pass a toilet without taking a piss, and never stay awake when you can sleep. Those are the three basic rules of long life."

Long life, Doug thought. The blood in his mouth tasted warm and salty. He turned his head to find the water nipple, took a long sip, and swished the water in his mouth. There was no place to spit it out, so he swallowed it.

That feels better, he told himself. But a few minutes later the warm salty taste of blood came back.

As soon as Greg awoke he checked with the control center. . "Radiation levels haven't started down yet, Mr. Masterson," said the young woman on his phone screen. "We expect them to start diminishing within the next hour or so."

"Thank you," Greg said tightly. Within the next hour or so. How long have I slept?

He tapped the keyboard next to his bunk and the screen showed he'd been asleep a little more than four hours. Feeling grimy, he stepped into the shower stall. But no water came from the shower head. "Christ!" he bellowed. "Doesn't anything work right around here?"

Naked, he stormed back to his bunk and pounded the keyboard. "Maintenance," he told the phone's computer.

A bored-looking kid in repulsive sickly green coveralls appeared on the screen. "Got a problem?"

"My shower's not working."

The kid glanced off to his left. "Room two twenty-three, right?"

"No shower until Tuesday. Sink Water only"

Greg raged, "What do you mean—"

"Water rules," the kid said, with the finality of unshakable regulations on his side. "Got a problem, take it up with administration."

"I'm the next director of this base!" Greg roared.

The kid was far from impressed. "Then you oughtta know the rules." The screen went blank.

Defeated but still steaming, Greg sponged himself as best as he could in the tiny stainless steel sink, pulled out a fresh pair of dark blue coveralls from his travel bag, then put through a call to Savannah.

"The radiation level will be back to normal in about an hour," Greg told his mother as he pressed the Velcro seal of his coveralls front.

And heard her saying, as soon as she saw his image on her screen, "The radiation level will be back to normal in about an hour."

Greg laughed and so did Joanna.

"They're going to be okay," he said.

This time she waited for his words to reach her before replying, "Have you heard from them yet?"

"Not yet," Greg said. "I'm going down to the comm center now. I'll have them patch you in to their transmission when it comes through, if you like."

Joanna answered, "No, that won't be necessary, just as long as you can tell me they're all right. I can talk to Doug later, when things calm down and get back to normal."

Pleased with her response, Greg said, "Okay, Mom. I'll let you know the instant we re-establish contact with them."

"Fine," she said.

But once the screen went dark again Greg wondered, Why doesn't she want to talk with Doug as soon as we make contact again? Is she worried that I'd be jealous? Or will she be making her own contact, direct from Savannah, without letting me know?

Doug's eyes snapped open. He hadn't realized he'd fallen asleep until he woke up. He had been afraid to go to sleep, he realized. Despite everything he had been telling himself, deep within him lurked the fear that once he shut his eyes in sleep he would never open them again.

Well, he said to himself, that was feeble.

He found himself lying on his right side and tried to roll back onto his stomach again. The effort left him gasping, dizzy.

I'm weak as a kitten, he said to himself.

Brennart was still asleep, stretched out beside him. Doug twisted over and looked around. It made his head swim. For several minutes he simply lay still, panting, trying to fight down the fear and nausea that rose inside him like an inexorable tide. Hang on, he demanded of himself. Hang in there; the storm must be almost over by now. Help will be on the way soon.

But not soon enough, a sardonic voice in his head replied.

His world was constrained to this metallic nest beneath the hopper, with a few containers and tanks around them. The nozzle of the hopper's main engine hung between him and Brennart like a bell in a church spire.

An old tune sprang to his mind: It's a Small, Small World. Idiot, Doug snarled to himself. You're being fried by a solar flare and you're thinking about childhood songs.

His earphones chirped.

By reflex, before he realized what it meant, Doug tapped the radio channel selector on his wrist.

"Moonbase to Brennart. Do you read?"

He heard Killifer's overjoyed voice, "Loud and clear, baby! Are we glad to hear you!"

"We're working on reactivating the minisats that the storm knocked out. We have two of them working so far."

"Great!"

"What is your condition?"

"We're all okay, except Brennart and Stavenger. They've been up at the top of Mt Wasser for. .Doug sensed Killifer checking a clock, "… almost seven hours now."

A different voice came on. "Seven hours? In the open?"

"Brennart himself? And the Stavenger boy?" It sounded like Jinny Anson's voice. Urgent Demanding. Doug didn't much like being called a boy.

"Right," Killifer said again.

"What's happened to them?" Now it was Greg's voice. Unmistakable.

"Don't know," said Killifer. "We haven't been able to contact them."

"This is Stavenger," Doug said, shocked at how weak his own voice sounded. "Can you hear me?"

"Stavenger!" Anson shouted. "How are you?"

"Alive… barely."

"And Brennart?"

"Sleeping. Or unconscious."

"We'll get help to you as soon as we can," Anson promised.

Greg came on again. "Killifer! Get somebody up to that mountaintop and bring those two back to your base camp. Now!"

"Hey, we've got a few problems of our own. Power cells are running low, our one remaining hopper needs refueling—"

"Get them as quickly as you can," Anson said. Her voice was cool, but there was no mistaking the implacable tone of her command.

"Right," said Killifer. "We're on our way."

"And shoot us a complete rundown of your own status," Anson added. "All systems."

"Doug," Greg called. "Doug, how are you?"

"I feel kind of sick, but I'm still breathing." He reached across and shook Brennart's shoulder. No response. "I mink Mr. Brennart's unconscious."

"We'll get help to you right away," Greg said.

"Good," said Doug.

Anson came on again. "Killifer, it's going to take us several hours to get a resupply lobber to you. Storm beat up our surface facilities pretty good and we'll need some time to get 'em all back on line."

"Understood," Killifer replied. "We're all okay here, except for Brennart and Stavenger."

"How long can your power supplies hold out?"

"Fuel cells are down about forty percent. We can power down if we have to, stretch 'em out till the resupply arrives."

Doug heard Greg's voice in the background urging, "You've got to send a medical team down there. Right away!"

"Stavenger," Anson called, "can you put your medical monitoring system on frequency three? We can start checking out your medical condition."

"Okay. And Mr. Brennart's, too."

"Right. Of course. But you've got to be quick. The satellite won't be above your horizon much longer."

"I understand," Doug said. "Now, which of these plugs is the medical system?"

"It's marked with a red circle."

Doug held his left arm up in the light of his helmet lamp. It brushed the underside of the hopper's platform. He squinted hard to keep his vision from blurring. Either the lamp's running down or my eyesight's going, he thought.

"Okay, found it."

"Toggle the microswitch and then press the keypad for frequency three," Anson directed patiently.

It seemed to take forever, but Doug finally got it right.

"Okay, good," Anson said. "Data's coming in."

"What about Brennart?"

"Do the same for him, if you can."

Puzzled by the if you can, Doug pushed himself closer to Brennart, found the right switch and punched frequency three on his radio keypad.

"We've only got another fifty seconds before the satellite drops below your horizon," Anson said. "Killifer, get a team up to those two immediately."

"Will do."

"We hope to re-establish a link with you in fifteen minutes."

"Right."

The contact broke up into crackling static. Doug clicked off the noise. The universe went silent, except for the sound of the suit's fans and his own breathing, it sounded ragged, labored. A wave of nausea was surging up his throat Doug fought it back. The last thing he wanted was to upchuck inside the helmet

Panting, sweating, feeling sick and dizzy, he clicked on the suit-to-suit frequency, to check on Brennart's breathing.

Nothing. Doug held his breath and listened hard. He could not hear anything at all from Brennart.

BASEL

Wilhelm Zimmerman rocked slowly in his desk chair. It creaked under his weight. He was a fat, bald, unkempt man in a wrinkled gray suit that looked as if he had been sleeping in it for a week.

The woman sitting in front of his desk looked distraught. She was well into her seventies, lifeless white hair hanging straight, skin wrinkled and brittle-looking, obviously her blood circulation was poor. Too bad, thought Zimmerman, she must have been something of a beauty once.

"I don't want to die," she said, her voice cracking.

"Neither do I," said Zimmerman softly. "No one does. And yet…' He shrugged elaborately.

"I've heard… some of my friends have told me… that it is possible to reverse the effects of aging." She looked at him piercingly, her diamond-hard blue eyes belying the hesitancy in her voice.

Zimmerman rested his hands on his considerable paunch. She wants to live. So do I.

"Madam, what your friends have told is unkind. There are no miracles."

"But… I thought that your work here at the university," she said. "What is it called? Nano-something or other."

"My research is on nanotechnology, yes," he replied. "But procedures on human subjects is absolutely forbidden. The laws are very strict. We are not allowed to deal with human patients."

"Oh!"

"In fact," Zimmerman said, "for the past several years we have worked only on non-medical aspects of nanotechnology. The animal rights movement has made even animal experiments too difficult to continue."

The elderly lady took a tissue from her tiny purse and dabbed at the corners of her eyes.

Pointing a chubby finger at the graphs on his office wall, Zimmerman said with some distaste, "As you can see, Madam, our most recent work has been on new manufacturing processes for solar panels and long-range electrical distribution lines."

"Oh my," said the elderly lady, "I haven't the faintest idea of what that means."

"For an organization called OPEC," Zimmerman explained, frowning. "To generate electricity in the desert and send it here to Europe."

The woman's eyes went crafty. "But isn't it true that you also do therapeutic work—but you're not allowed to let people know about it?"

Zimmerman shook his head hard enough to make his cheeks waddle. "No!" he said firmly. "That would be against the law. The university would not stand for it and neither would the authorities."

"But I was told—"

"Madam, you were misinformed. I am sorry, but do I look like the kind of man who would risk his career and his good name by breaking the law?"

Dubiously, she replied, "I suppose not."

For another half hour she tried to get Zimmerman to admit that he could use nanotherapy to help her. When at last she gave up and left, Zimmerman called a friend from the forensic medical department who came to his office, grinning, and lifted several excellent fingerprints from the armrests of the chair on which she had sat.

It took more than a week for Zimmerman's connections in the Swiss national police to get the information to him. The elderly woman was the mother of a bureaucrat in Berne who was in charge of monitoring all nanotherapy work in the nation.

"An agent provocateur," Zimmerman said to himself. "Next they will close down all nanotechnology work, even research, the way they've done in the United States."

He wished there was somewhere in the world where he could continue his work in peace.

MOONBASE

"It'll take at least twelve hours to get a lobber properly loaded with the supplies they need," Anson said over the din in the garage.

Tractors were starting up, the whining shrill of their electrical engines echoing painfully off the rock walls of the cavernous garage area. Men and women were scurrying across the polished rock floor; the big steel inner hatch of the airlock itself was groaning on its bearings as it slid shut for the twentieth time in the past two hours.

"They need help now," Greg insisted. "My brother's dying, for chrissake."

Anson shook her head. "No sense killing more people by going out there half-cocked."

"Can't we send a medical team right now?" Greg pleaded. "I don't care what it costs-''

Anson whirled on him. "You think I'm worried about cost?"

Greg backed a step away from her sudden fury. "What I meant was… dammit, send a medical team now. Right away! Consider that an order from the board of directors."

"I take my orders from Ibriham Rashid, in Savannah," Anson said, striding away from Greg.

He pushed past two technicians waving hand-held computers at each other as they argued.

Grabbing Anson by her shoulder, Greg said, "Send the medical team now. Don't wait for the rest of the stuff they need. Do it now! I'll take the responsibility."

Anson glared at him. "We don't have any medical staff to send! One doctor and a couple of part-time technicians, that's our medical staff. They won't be able to do anything for him down there anyway."

"But—"

"It isn't a matter of responsibility or cost or anything else except the fact that we don't have the personnel we need up here. And it takes time to fuel up a rocket vehicle, goddammit to hell and back! It takes time to bring our radars and other surface, instruments back on line after the pounding they just took."

"I know, but—"

"I can't just wave a freakin' magic wand and have a fully loaded and properly crewed lobber jump off to the freakin' south pole!"

"But you can send out a lobber as soon as the goddamned equipment is back on lines can't you?" Greg yelled back. "Get him here as soon as you can."

Anson pulled in a deep breath and stood there in the middle of the bustle and noise, staring hard at Greg. He saw her nostrils flare angrily and thought for a moment that she was going to charge him, like an enraged bull.

Instead, her shoulders relaxed slightly and she said, just loud enough to be heard over the clanging, yelling, screeching cacophony, "Yeah, you're right. I can."

Before Greg realized what she had said, she added, "And I will."

She turned abruptly and started off in a half trot, yelling over her shoulder, "C'm'on, we've got to get out to the rocket port and light some flares under some butts."

As soon as she heard Doug's voice over the satellite link, Bianca Rhee ducked out of the cramped comm compartment and raced down the shelter's central aisle to the airlock, where the spacesuits were stored. Without bothering even to think about what size she was grabbing, she pulled on the first pair of leggings she came to and plopped down on the floor to tug on the boots.

"What d'you think you're doing?"

Rhee looked up and saw Kilüfer standing over her, looking displeased.

"We've got to go up there and get them!" Rhee said, scrambling to her feet once the boots were sealed.

"You know how to run a hopper?"

"No," she said, "but you do. Come on, hurry!"

Kilüfer grunted unhappily. "That's my suit you're putting on."

"Oh!" She felt confused for a moment. "Look, there's no time for me to get out of these and into my own. We're about the same size. Use my suit."

"Plumbing's different," Kilüfer said. But he reached for Rhee's suit, hanging next to his.

"We won't be out long enough for that to matter," Rhee said. Then she added, "Will we?"

Kilüfer almost laughed.

Is he dead? Doug wondered. Brennart didn't seem to be breathing and all Doug's prodding and poking hadn't awakened the astronaut.

Maybe it's just a coma, Doug told himself. The radiation hasn't killed me, why should it kill him?

But he had to admit that he felt very sick. His head was spinning and waves of nausea made him feel weak and feverish. The bleeding in his mouth seemed to have stopped, though. Maybe I just bit my lip or something, he tried to reassure himself.

Doug didn't realize he had drifted into sleep until a sudden voice jerked him awake.

"Brennart! Stavenger! We're here!"

Someone was rolling the canister of nanomachines out of the way.

"Under here," Doug called weakly. "We're underneath the hopper."

Someone pulled him by the arms. "Careful," he heard. "Don't rip his suit." Bianca's voice? Doug couldn't be sure.

"Brennart," Doug mumbled. "Get him. He needs help."

"Like you don't"

Doug felt himself carried a short distance and then laid down on his side. He fought back the nausea that burned up into his throat. Don't vomit, he commanded himself. Not inside the helmet. . "Strap him down, I'll go get Brennart."

"Can you carry him by yourself?"

"If I need help I'll holler."

"Vidcam," Doug said weakly. "Make certain the vidcam's in my pocket."

"Don't worry about that now." Definitely Bianca's voice, he thought

"No, it's important Our legal claim. Got to have it. Otherwise Yamagata…' He had to pause for breath.

"It's okay," Bianca said. "The vidcam's there in your thigh pouch."

"You take it," Doug gasped. "Hang onto it Take care of it."

She pulled the vidcam out of his thigh pouch and held it up so he could see it. "I've got it I'll take care of it. Now relax, Doug."

Relax. The word seemed to echo in Doug's mind. Relax. Relax. There's nothing more that you can do. You've done everything you could. It's up to them now. Up to them.

The sudden pressure of takeoff startled him out of his drowsiness. Doug realized he was strapped down like a patient on a surgical table. And then the long, falling emptiness as the hopper descended back to their base camp. Got to tell them about the Yamagata team, Doug thought We've got to rescue them. They're hurt. Got to tell them about it

But the falling sensation overpowered every thought in his head and Doug held himself as rigidly as possible, forcing himself not to give in to the nausea burning up into his throat The only thing he could see was the flank of the mountain, twinkling like crystal in the sunlight gleaming so brightly that it hurt his eyes and he had to squeeze them shut

Weight returned. We've landed, Doug knew. Darkness all around him. He was being lifted again, moved.

"We're down," Bianca's voice said tenderly. "We'll have you in the shelter and out of your suit in a few minutes."

"Barf bag," Doug mumbled.

"What is it?" He sensed Bianca bending low over him, as if that would improve their suit-to-suit radio link. "What do you need?"

"Barf bags," he repeated, raising his voice as loud as he could. "Plenty of them."

Joanna sat tensely in the rear seat of the company jetcopter. Greg's face on the tiny pop-up display screen built into the seat's armrest looked tired and strained.

"He's taken a massive radiation dose," Greg was saying. "The data they're transmitting from his medical sensors aren't good."

Greg continued speaking, but Joanna ignored his words and said, "Get him back to Moonbase as quickly as possible. I'll get a team of specialists up there right away."

She saw Greg stop in midsentence to hear what she was saying. "I expected as much," he said. "Jinny Anson's already sent off a lobber to get him. It should be landing at their base camp in half an hour or so."

"Good," said Joanna. "I'm coming up there, too."

Even in the minuscule screen she could see the displeasure on Greg's face. "There's nothing you can do to help him."

Nothing you can do. The words echoed in Joanna's mind. I let this happen to Doug. The Moon killed his father and now it's going to kill him.

Misunderstanding her silence, Greg said, "We're doing everything possible."

"I'm already on my way to the rocket port," Joanna said firmly.

When her words reached him, Greg nodded wearily. "I'm not really surprised, even though I think it's a waste of your time."

Joanna bit back an angry retort and said instead, "Greg, if this had happened to you, I'd be on my way to Moonbase just as fast."

His face brightened a little. But only a little.

Joanna saw the yellow message light beside the screen start to flicker.

"Greg, I've got to end this call," she said. "I've been trying to reach Kris Cardenas all morning and she's finally returning my calls."

It seemed to Doug that he spent a thousand hours or more weaving between consciousness and a restless feverish sleep that brought him neither rest nor relief from the waves of pain and nausea that were washing through him.

But it couldn't have been all that long, because when he opened his eyes he saw Bianca Rhee still bending over lüm. And she was still in her spacesuit; only the helmet i was gone.

"How's Brennart?" Dougfcroaked. His throat was raw from i the bout of vomiting that he had surrendered to as soon as they had removed his helmet.

"He's dead," said Rhee.

Killifer's face appeared beside her, unshaven, dark circles beneath the eyes. "Poor bastard strangled on his own puke while the two of you were laying under the hopper."

"Oh no." Doug gagged on the bile burning up into his throat again. Rhee grabbed a vomit bag and pushed it into Doug's hand. He retched miserably.

When he lay back on the bunk again, his eyes were watery and he felt as if every molecule of strength had been drained out of him.

"Brennart must have been unconscious when it happened," Rhee said. "Totally out of it."

"You're lucky to be alive," Killifer said dourly. "You took a helluva dose out there."

"I would have died if Brennart hadn't rigged up a shelter for us."

"You might still die, kid," said Killifer. "You're not out of the woods yet"

Doug grinned weakly. "Thanks for the news."

Killifer walked away.

Does he blame me for Brennart's death, Doug wondered. He turned to Bianca. "What about the Yamagata people?"

"What Yamagata people?"

"The men in the lander… on the other side of the mountain."

Rhee shook her head. "Don't worry about them. You've made the claim to the mountaintop. I've got your vidcam."

"No… you don't understand." Doug tried to raise his head but the effort left him dizzy, exhausted. "They crashed. They're hurt. They need help."

Rhee's eyes widened. "They crashed?"

"We talked to them. They need medical help."

"Wait," Rhee said. I'll tell Killifer."

She disappeared from Doug's sight. He lay on the bunk, too weak to do anything else.

Bianca returned with Killifer, who looked more annoyed than usual.

"What's this about the Yamagata team?"

Doug told him. Killifer eyed him suspiciously. "You sure about this? Maybe you were delirious out there and dreamed it up."

"I'm sure," Doug said, too weary to get angry.

"Well," Killifer groused, "they've probably re-established communications with their own base. Let the Japs take care of their own; we've got enough on our hands."

"No," Doug protested. "Go get them."

Glaring, Killifer said, "Get real, kid. Why should we help the competition?"

Trying to pull together enough strength to get a whole sentence out, Doug said, "Because… if we rescue them… it wipes out any hope Yamagata might have… of making a claim… to any part of this region."

Killifer stared at him for a long moment

"Do it," Doug urged, his voice little more than a whisper. "It'll impress… management"

"Think of it as a working vacation," Joanna was saying to the tiny display screen.

Kris Cardenas looked distinctly unhappy.

Glancing up at her window, Joanna saw that the jetcopter was approaching the landing circle at the far end of the Savannah rocket port. A Clippership stood waiting on Pad Three, a thin wisp of white vapor wafting from the liquid oxygen hose connected to its LOX tank.

"Kris, I don't have time for pleading with you. My son is dying from a massive radiation dose. If you tell me there's nothing that nanotherapy can do for him, all right, I'll have to believe you. But if there's the slightest chance that you could help him…' Joanna ran out of words. For the first time in years she felt on the verge of crying.

"But I'm not the one you want," Cardenas replied. In the minuscule screen of the armrest her face still looked earnest, intent.

"Then who?"

"Zimmerman, at the University of Basel."

"I've never heard of him."

Cardenas almost smiled. "He keeps a very low profile. But he's the best there is at this kind of nanotherapy."

"Can you get him for me?" Joanna asked. "I'm leaving for Moonbase in a few minutes.'?'You mean, talk him into going to the Moon?"

Nodding briskly, Joanna said, "Offer him anything he wants. The sky's no limit."

"I don't know—"

"Get him to Moonbase," Joanna commanded. "And quickly."

Cardenas looked bewildered by the idea. I'll try."

"You come, too," Joanna said. "Both of you. And any equipment you need. I'll get my people to contact you, make all the arrangements."

I'll try," Cardenas repeated lamely.

"Thanks, Kris," Joanna said as warmly as she could manage. Then she cut the connection and immediately called Ibriham Rashid, back at the office in Savannah.

The jetcopter was settling on the ground in a flurry of rotor-blown dust and the high keening wail of its engines as Rashid's dark bearded face appeared on Joanna's screen.

"Omar, I don't have time for details. I'm leaving for Moonbase. Get Kris Cardenas and Zimmerman, at the University of Basel, off to Moonbase as soon as possible. They've got to be there in twenty-four hours or less. I'll call you from the Clippership with more. Understand?"

Rashid nodded as if he had been expecting such a call, "darkening and obedience," he said.

Bianca Rhee finally left Doug's bunk and trudged wearily to the airlock hatch. She slumped tiredly to the plastic flooring; and started to unseal her boots.

"Need help?" Roger Deems asked.

"Thanks," she said, letting him tug the boots off her.

Slowly she got to her feet and, with Deems' help, lifted the upper half of the suit over her head. Deems hung the empty torso on its rack.

"You've been wearing Killifer's suit," he said, noting the name stencilled on the chest

"Seems like I've been wearing it all my life," Rhee said tiredly.

"It's only been a couple of hours."

She started worming out of the lower half of the suit

"Do you think Doug will live through this?" Deems asked, his soulful brown eyes looking almost tearful.

Rhee shook her head slowly. "He's awfully sick. So pale, like there's no blood in him." Suddenly she wanted to cry.

"It's a shame," Deems said.

"Yeah."

Rhee finally worked her legs out of the suit and hung it on the rack. Without another word to Deems she padded in her stockinged feet to the toilet When she came out, Deems was gone. She was alone with the row of empty suits. No one could see her sobbing quietly.

After a few minutes she tried to pull herself together. The vidcam, she remembered. Doug was worried about the vidcam.

She went to the leggings she had just hung up and searched through the thigh pouches. Sure enough, Doug's vidcam was there. As she pulled it out, Rhee thought, This is what all the mess is about Doug put our legal claim on disk. This is what's killed him.

There was something else in the thigh pocket. Thinking it might be a part of the vidcam that had somehow worked loose, Rhee took it out. It was a flat square of reinforced cermet, about four inches on a side, anodized flat white on one surface, and gleaming gold on the other.

Rhee felt puzzled. This isn't part of the vidcam, she told herself. But she took it along with her, back to her bunk, where she stuck both the vidcam and the strange piece of cermet into her personal bag for safekeeping, until they got back to Moonbase.

VANCOUVER

"Do I really have to do this?" Kris Cardenas asked.

Greg Masterson's image in her desktop phone screen smiled gravely. "How long have you known my mother, Kris?"

"I owe her, I understand that. But I can't just pop off to the Moon like I'm going to the mall for groceries."

On the wall behind her desk hung the round gold seal of the Nobel Prize. The rest of the wall was covered with photographs, mostly family—husband and children who had grown to adulthood and now had children of their own. A few of the photos were not family, although each of them had Cardenas in them, together with a former President of the United States, a six-time Oscar-winning actress, a group of scientists posing before a splendid vista of the Alps.

Cardenas herself looked much younger than her fifty-eight years. Much younger. Her hair was still a sandy light brown, no trace of silver. Her bright blue eyes still sparkled youthfully. She looked as if she could spend the day surfing or skydiving or skiing down those snow-covered Alps, rather than delivering lectures to university students.

Greg's smile looked strained, she thought He was saying, "Look, Kris, we're talking about my half-brother here. Mom will kidnap you if she has to."

"But I can't do anything for him! Zimmerman is the man she wants."

For almost three seconds she waited for Greg's reply. Finally, his smile transformed itself into a knowing smirk. "Zimmerman's on his way here."

"He is?"

Greg continued, not waiting for her reply, "A Masterson Clippership lifted him and four of his assistants half an hour ago on a direct trajectory to Moonbase. They'll arrive here in about ten hours."

Dumbfounded, Cardenas asked, "How on Earth did she swing that?"

When her question reached him, Greg actually laughed. "Simplest thing in the world. She just threatened to reveal to the media that he's running a nanotherapy clinic for wealthy foreigners right on the university campus."

"Blackmail!"

"Black and green," Greg replied after the lag. "She's also making a hefty donation to his department at the university."

Cardenas said, "She hasn't offered me anything."

When Greg heard her words, he replied, "Come on up here, Kris. Bring your husband if you want. Even if it's just to hold her hand, she needs you. She's not as strong as she'd like everyone to believe, you know."

Who the hell is? Cardenas asked herself. To Greg's image in the phone screen she said, I'll get there as soon as I can."

Doug swam in and out of consciousness. He seemed to be floating, but that couldn't be. He dreamed he was drifting in the ocean, bobbing up and down on the long gentle swells of the open sea. Yet somehow he was stretched out on the desert sand, broiling in the sun, every pore sweating and Brennart lay beside him saying, "Like the man says, working out on the frontier is nothing more than inventing new ways to get killed."

When he opened his eyes Bianca Rhee was always hovering over him, gazing down at him with an expression that mixed tenderness with desperate fear.

Is this real or am I dreaming? Doug asked himself.

"We're on our way back to Moonbase," Rhee said to him at one point. "They're bringing specialists up from Earth to take care of you."

Embalmers, thought Doug. Undertakers. Bury me on the Moon, he wanted to say. And don't forget Brennart's statue.

"The Yamagata team?" he heard himself croak.

"Killifer went out to get them," Rhee replied gently, soothingly. "Moonbase agreed with you, rescuing them blocks any claim they might have tried to make."

"They're okay?"

"We don't know yet Killifer hasn't reached them, yet"

"I get all the shit jobs," Killifer grumbled.

Deems, wedged into the cramped cockpit beside him, shrugged resignedly. "Well, you're not alone, are you."

They were piloting one of the Jobbers over Mt Wasseir, searching for the crashed Yamagata ship. Killifer had been ordered to do so directly by Jinny Anson, Moonbase's director.

Two big lobbers had arrived at their south polar camp from Moonbase, filled with oxygen and other supplies, but without a single human being aboard. Killifer had to guide their landings remotely and use the expedition's remaining personnel to unload them. Instructions—orders, really—-from Anson back at Moonbase crackled along the satellite ; relay system: Get Doug Stavenger back to Moonbase immedi ately. Then go find the wrecked Yamagata lander and save its crew.

Killifer had loaded the Stavenger kid onto one of the lobbers. The astronomer, Rhee, volunteered to go with him. Volunteered hell, Killifer thought Nobody could tear the little gook from the kid's side.

The expedition was a mess, but from what Anson told him, the corporation would have a valid claim to the area as soon as Stavenger's vidcam pictures were verified. As he monitored the Jobber's automated takeoff for its return flight to Moonbase, Killifer almost hoped that the radiation had ruined the vidcam and the disk would be a blank.

What the hell, he told himself. It rankled him, though, that even if he died young Stavenger would be a fucking hero. Especially if he died.

"I'm getting a transponder signal," Deems said.

The summit of Mt Wasser was below them. Glancing down through the cockpit's transparent bubble, Killifer could glimpse the telescope and other gear that Brennart and Stavenger had left on the mountaintop.

"Show me," he said to Deems.

With the tap of a gloved finger, Deems brought up the transponder signal on the cockpit's starscope display of the deeply shadowed ground below them. The screen showed not much more than a blur, with a red dot winking at them.

"Let's take it down to five hundred and hover," Killifer said.

"That'll burn up a lot of propellant." Deems' face was covered by his helmet visor, but his voice sounded scared.

"We gotta see the ground before we set down on it," Killifer said. "Friggin' starscope sure isn't showing much. Switch to infrared."

"It's too cold down there in the dark," said Deems. "Must be two hundred below, at least."

"Switch to infrared," Killifer repeated, louder.

Silently Deems touched the keypad and the cockpit's main screen showed a false-color image of the ground below: mostly deep black.

"That must be ice," Killifer said.

"Yeah, it's absorbing the infrared."

"And the transponder signal's right in the middle of it"

"They must've landed on the ice," said Deems.

Killifer nodded inside his helmet. "Landing jets melted the ice under them and they splashed in. Dumb bastards."

"Good thing the ice isn't too deep."

"Nah, it must've refrozen as soon as they turned off then-rocket engines."

"Then they must be stuck in it"

"Yeah," Killifer said disgustedly. "And we better make sure we don't get caught in the same stupid trap."

Killifer was not primarily a pilot, although over the years at Moonbase he had trained in both lobbers and hoppers and flown them many times. But setting down in pitch darkness in totally unfamiliar territory—no wonder the Japs crashed, he said to himself.

Hovering above the ice field while Deems worriedly stared at their fuel gauge, Killifer jinked the lumbering spacecraft sideways, searching for solid ground to land on.

"Ice field's a lot bigger on this side of the mountain," he muttered.

"But they wont be able to claim it once we rescue them, huh?"

"That's the theory." The only ground the infrared display showed looked too rough for a landing, strewn with boulders; the size of houses.

The radio speaker crackled. "Anson to Killifer. Yamagata just launched a lobber from Nippon One on a trajectory for the polar region. Must be their rescue party. Where are you?"

"Looking for a place to land without breaking our asses," Killifer replied.

"It's important that you get to the Yamagata team before their rescue party does," said Anson.

"Yeah, I know. But there doesn't look like much room to put down safely. That's why the Japs crashed in the first place."

"There must be someplace!"

"When I find it I'll let you know." Killifer punched the radio off. Turning to Deems, he added, "If we can find a landing spot before we run out of fuel."

Deems said, "How about right on the edge of the ice?"

"We'll melt it, just like they did."

"Okay, but it can't be real deep there. Must be solid ground underneath." Before Killifer could object he added, "And if there's boulders big enough to give us trouble, they'd probably be poking up above the surface of the ice."

"Probably," Killifer muttered.

"I don't see any other way," said Deems. "Do you?"

Killifer stared at the polished visor of Deems' helmet. He could only make out the vaguest outline of the face inside. For a scared rabbit, Killifer though, he's getting pretty gutsy.

"Otherwise we're just going to run out of propellant jerking around, looking for a flat spot that isn't here."

Unaccustomed to bold ideas from Deems, Killifer grunted and mumbled, "Maybe you're right."

MOONBASE

It was unusual for a Clippership to land at Moonbase. Usually (the big commercial spaceliners went only as far as the space stations that hugged Earth in low orbits.

Greg watched the main display screen at the spaceport flight control center as the big, cone-shaped Maxwell Hunter settled slowly, silently on its rocket exhaust. More than a dozen others had crowded into the flight control center, too. Like a cruise liner landing in some out-of-the-way port, Greg thought. The natives go down to the dock to watch.

A flexible access tube wormed its way to the Clipper's main airlock while the ship stood on the blast-scarred landing pad, gleaming in the sunlight. Greg knew that the Clipper carried Professor Wilhelm Zimmerman and four of his top aides. Kris Cardenas was on her way to Moonbase, also. And Mom. It's going to be a busy few hours here, he said to himself.

Greg was shocked when Wilhelm Zimmerman pushed through the airlock hatch at the underground receiving area. He was grossly fat, almost as wide across his soft sagging middle as he was tall. Bald, jowly, wearing a gray three-piece business suit with the unbuttoned jacket flapping ludicrously, the first thing he did upon setting foot on the underground chamber's rock floor was to reach into his jacket pocket and pull out a long, black, evil-looking cigar.

"You can't smoke in here!" Greg shouted, lunging toward him.

Zimmerman scowled from beneath bushy gray eyebrows. "So? Then where?"

"Nowhere in Moonbase. Snicking is strictly prohibited. For safety reasons."

"Nonsense!" Zimmerman snapped. "Like the laws in Switzerland. Pure nonsense." He fished in his side pocket and pulled out a gold lighter.

Greg gently took the lighter from him. "This is a totally artificial environment," he said. "Smoking is not allowed."

Zimmerman's scowl deepened. "You drag me up here to this . . . this… cavern, you ask me to perform a miracle for you, and you deny me my only vice?" His English was heavily accented but understandable.

"I'm afraid so, Professor."

"Professor Doctor!"

"No smoking," Greg said somberly, "no matter how many titles you have."

Zimmerman looked as if he wanted to turn around and go back to the spacecraft that had brought him. But then he broke into a fleshy grin.

"Very well," he said, suddenly amiable. "Since I have no choice, I will refrain from smoking. But you can't stop me from chewing!" And he clamped his teeth on the fat black cigar.

Greg raised his eyes to the rock ceiling. "Come this way, please," he said softly, pointing to the tractor that was waiting to take them to Moonbase proper. "And be careful—"

He realized that Zimmerman was walking perfectly well alongside him. Looking down, Greg saw that Zimmerman's feet were already shod in weighted lunar boots.

His grin turning triumphant, Zimmerman said grandly, "I am not a complete… how do you say it, tenderfeet?"

"Where did you get them?" Greg asked. "I didn't know they were available on Earth."

"Mrs. Scavenger had them aboard the ship that took me here. My abductor is very kind to me."

"Abductor?" Greg asked as he helped the obese old man up into the tractor.

"You think I would come to this bunker of my own volition? I have been kidnapped, young man, by a powerful, vicious woman."

Greg gave him a wintry smile. "My mother," he said as he climbed into the driver's seat

"So?" Zimmerman looked briefly surprised. "But your name is not hers."

His smile disappeared. "She remarried after my father… died."

"Ah." Zimmerman nodded, making his jowls jiggle. As Greg put the tractor in gear and started down the long tunnel, he asked, "You have prepared the tissue samples for which I asked?"

"The medics will have them for you by the time we get to the infirmary."

"And blood—whole plasma, hemoglobin, this you have available?"

Greg shook his head. "The blood bank here is very small. We're lining up volunteer donors who have the proper ' blood type."

"We will probably have to replace his entire blood supply."

"Then we'll need more brought up from Earth," Greg said. "In the meantime, you can examine him and get started on your procedures."

Zimmerman grunted. "I will have time to wash my hands, perhaps?"

"It's my half-brother who's dying, Professor Doctor. We've got to act quickly."

"Ah," the old man said again. "Very well. The tissue samples are needed so that we can imitate them on the surface of the nanomachines. Otherwise what is still functioning of his body's immune system will attack the machines when they are injected into his blood stream."

"I see."

"You don't want his damaged immune system attacking the machines that are trying to save him."

"I understand."

"Blood transfusions immediately. By the time my associates have analyzed the tissue samples the transfusions must be complete. Then we inject the nanomachines."

"I see," said Greg.

Zimmerman lapsed into'silence, folding his hands over his ample belly and letting his-many chins sag to his chest. He seemed asleep. Mom must've had him yanked out of his bed, Greg thought. She probably would've really kidnapped him if he hadn't agreed to come up here. She's frantic over Doug. Would she be just as frantic, just as determined, if it was me in the infirmary, dying?

"Contact light," Deems said, his voice quavering slightly.

"Okay," said Killifer. "We're down." He was perspiring; cold sweat made his palms slippery, stung his eyes.

They had landed at the edge of the ice field, as Deems had suggested. The ice partially melted beneath the blast of their rocket exhaust and the Jobber's landing feet sank into a mushy cold swamp. For an instant both men had felt their vehicle; sinking, then it hit solid rock and came to a halt, tilted slightly ' but safely down.

Killifer reached into his thigh pouch for a reusable sponge-like sheet of plastic to wipe his face. He saw that Deems was doing the same. Scared shitless, Killifer thought.

"Okay," he said, after taking a breath. "Check suits. Prepare for surface excursion."

"I don't see their lights," Deems said.

"They're over the horizon, about four klicks out on the ice."

"We both going out?"

"Damned right. We'll hook a tether to the winch."

Deems said, "All right," without much enthusiasm.

Killifer stuffed his wiper back into the pouch on the thigh of his suit. Then he realized that the cermet hatch cover from Brennart's hopper was not in there. He groped in the other thigh pouch. Not there, either.

"What's the matter?" Deems asked.

"Nothing," Killifer snapped. "Let's get going."

The astronomer. Stupid little gook put on my suit when she went up the mountain to get Stavenger. She's got it!

Panic surged through him. If she understands what it means- No, he told himself. She wouldn't How could she? It's just a hunk of cermet to her. I'll have to get it back from her, though.

"You okay?" Deems' voice sounded worried in his earphones.

"Yeah. Let's get moving."

I'll have to get it back from her, Killifer told himself again. Because if she figures it out, I'm dead.

Zimmerman terrified the meager infirmary staff. Only one M.D., a very junior young woman, and three technicians who split their time between medical duties and elsewhere, the staff was meant to deal with injuries and minor illnesses. Big problems were sent Earthward, either to one of the space stations or to a hospital on the ground.

"Equipment, this is? Junk, this is!" Zimmerman bellowed when they showed him the infirmary. "It is impossible to work with Tinkertoys! Impossible!"

None of the youngsters could please Zimmerman in the slightest. He bullied them, swore at them in German and English, told them what incompetent swine they were. He cursed their teachers, their progenitors, and predicted a dim future for the human race if such dummkopfs were allowed anywhere near the practice of medicine.

When Greg tried to intervene, Zimmerman turned on him. "So? Now you are an expert, also? How can I work here? Where are my facilities that your blackmailing mother promised me? Where is the blood for transfusion? How can I perform miracles without the tools I need? Even Christ had some water when he wanted to make wine!"

"Willi, Willi, I could hear you out at the airlock."

Greg turned and saw Kris Cardenas, bright and blonde and perky, striding into the narrow confines of the four-bed infirmary.

"Kristine, liebling, no one told me you were coming here!"

Zimmerman's demeanor changed as abruptly as the dawn transforms the dark lunar night.

"Willi, you mustn't let yourself get angry at these people," Cardenas scolded cheerfully. "They're trying to help you."

"Ach, with such help a' man could die. I'd rather have Hungarians on my side."

"It's bad for your heart to get so worked up," Cardenas said, smiling sweetly. She was wearing a light blue sweater and slightly darker knee-length skirt. If Greg didn't know better, he would have sworn she wasn't much older than thirty-five.

Zimmerman's fleshy face turned puckish. "Ah, this will be like the old days, won't it? You were my best student, , always."

"And you were always my favorite professor," Cardenas returned the compliment.

With a shake of his head that made his jowls waddle, Zimmerman spread his stubby arms in a gesture of helplessness. "But look around at this place! There is not the necessary equipment! There is not the trained staff! How can I—"

Cardenas silenced him by placing a fingertip gently on his lips. "Willi, I'm here. I'll assist you."

"You will?"

"And the four people you brought from your clinic."

"Clinic?" The fat old man looked startled. "I have no clinic! My research facility at the university is a laboratory, not a clinic."

"Yes, I know," Cardenas said. "Forgive my error."

His beaming smile returned. "For you, liebling, no forgiving is necessary. Now let us get to work."

MOONBASE

"Welcome to Moonbase, mother," said Greg.

Joanna did not look haggard. Not quite. But the tension in her face was obvious. She's frightened, Greg realized. Frightened and frustrated because there's nothing more that she can do for Doug. Nothing but wait and hope that Zimmerman can perform a miracle.

"Take me to him, Greg," she said, her voice strained. "Please."

She had changed into standard lunar coveralls on the trip up, Greg saw. White, the color code for medics, rather than management's sky blue, such as he wore. And she was already wearing weighted boots.

Without another word, Greg led her to the tractor and started down the tunnel toward the main part of the base. I'm getting to be a taxi driver, he grumbled to himself.

"How is he? Is he in pain?"

"They've wrapped him in cooling blankets to bring his body temperature down as far as they dare," Greg reported. "Zimmerman and his team are programming a set of nano-machines to repair the damage to his cells that's been done by the radiation."

Joanna nodded tensely.

Glancing at her as they drove down the long tunnel, Greg added, "They're giving him massive blood transfusions, but the damage is pretty extensive, I'm afraid."

I'll give blood," Joanna said immediately. "You can, too."

Greg turned away from her. "I don't know if Zimmerman's bugs are going to be able to save him."

"If he can't, no one can," Joanna said.

"Careful!" yelped Yazaru Hara. "His ribs are broken."

"Got to get him out of the seat," Killifer said, The unconscious Japanese was dead weight made extra heavy by his bulky armored spacesuit. Killifer grasped him under his arms while Hara, turned awkwardly in his seat, lifted his companion's legs so that the American could slide him out of the spacecraft cockpit

"How long's he been unconscious?" Killifer asked, panting with the effort.

"Many hours," said Hara. "He was still breathing, though, when you arrived."

"Yeah." Slowly Killifer pulled Inoguchi's inert form through the cockpit's emergency hatch and out onto the black ice.

Deems had rigged a makeshift stretcher out of honeycomb panels from the side of the Yamagata craft. Killifer lowered the spacesuited Japanese onto it. He heard a groan from the Jap.

"He's still alive!" Hara shouted.

"Yeah," said Killifer, thinking, Great. Now we gotta carry this dead weight back over four klicks of ice. Lucky if we don't all wind up with busted bones.

"How much longer will it take?" Joanna demanded, nervously pacing up and down Jinny Anson's office.

Greg, sitting on the couch jury-rigged from scavenged spacecraft seats, shook his head. Zimmerman and his staff had been working for hours in Moonbase's nanolab. The grumpy old man hadn't even looked at Doug yet

"It takes time," Kris Cardenas said. She was sitting behind Anson's desk. Anson herself had rushed down to the control center to pipe Doug's vidcam disk to The Hague, registering Masterson Corporation's claim to the Mt Wasser region. She had graciously turned over her entire suite to Joanna, saying she could stay in smaller quarters until her tour of duty was finished and she left for Earth. In truth, she wanted to keep as far away from Joanna as she could.

"But Doug doesn't have time," Joanna said. "He's dying!"

Cardenas got up from the desk chair. I'll get back to the lab and see if I can help speed things up."

"Yes," said Joanna. "Good."

The instant the door closed behind Cardenas, Greg got up from the couch, took his mother by the hand, and made her sit down where he had been. Then he sat beside her.

"There's no sense getting yourself sick over this," he said. "You should try to get some rest"

Joanna shook her head. "How can I rest?"

"I could get something for you, to help you sleep."

"No! I…' She stopped, as if confused, suddenly uncertain of what she wanted to say, wanted to do.

I'll let you know the instant something happens," Greg promised.

"Don't you see!" Joanna blurted. "It's my fault! All my fault! I should never have allowed him to go to Moonbase. I knew he was too young, too careless." She broke into tears.

Greg put his arms around his mother and let her sob on his shoulder. "It's not your fault; it isn't. And he wasn't careless. Nobody could have predicted the flare."

"First the Moon killed Paul, now it's killed him. And it's my fault, all my fault."

Coldly, Greg said, "The Moon didn't kill Paul Stavenger. We both know that."

Joanna pulled slightly away from him. Her eyes were red, filled with tears. "I was a terrible mother to you, Greg. What happened was my fault as much as anyone's."

"Mom, that's all in the past. There's no sense dredging it up again."

"But if only I had been—"

"Stop it," Greg said sharply. I've spent years working my way through this. I don't want to hear any more about it."

Joanna stared at him, but said nothing.

"It's not your fault. None of this is. What's happened has happened. Now all we can do is wait and see if Zimmerman can save him."

But he was thinking, Would she cry over me? He tried to remember back to his own childhood, all those years, he could not recall his mother crying for him. Not once.

Joanna pulled herself together with a visible, shuddering effort. "I can't stay here," she said, jumping to her feet too hard in the unaccustomed lunar gravity.

Greg had to grab her, steady her. "Be careful, Mom! You'll hurt yourself."

"Take me to him," Joanna said.

"Doug? He's in—"

"No. Zimmerman. I want to see him. I want to find out what he's doing."

Zimmerman sat sweating on a rickety swivel chair that seemed much too fragile to support his weight He had draped an ancient lab smock over his gray suit; the coat had once been white but now, after so many years of wear and washings, it was beyond bleach.

Beads of perspiration on his lip and brow, he chewed anxiously on his black cigar, his fourth of the long, trying day. One of his assistants had thoughtfully converted a laboratory dish into an ashtray for him. It sat on the lab bench at his side, filled with the shredded and soggy remains of three earlier cigars.

On the other side of the clear plastiglass wall, his four assistants bent over lab benches. Their lab smocks looked very new, starched and pressed.

The airtight door of the nanotechnology laboratory sighed open and Kris Cardenas came through.

"How's it going?" she asked.

Zimmerman's bushy brows contracted into a worried frown. "What takes weeks in Basel we are trying to do in hours here."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Turn up the air conditioning! Must I suffer like this?"

Cardenas shrugged. "I think the temperature is centrally controlled." To her the lab felt comfortably warm; perhaps a bit stuffy. She smiled and added, "If you would lose some weight

"Camouflage," Zimmerman said, slapping his belly.

"Camouflage?"

"Do you think the politicians and their spies suspect me of working on nanotherapies when I am so gross? Hah?"

Cardenas felt her jaw drop open. "Is it that bad? Even in Switzerland?"

"I take no chances," Zimmerman said.

"Do you need anything?" Cardenas asked.

Zimmerman's cheeks waddled slightly. "No. The equipment here is surprisingly good. Not precisely what we require for medical work, but good enough, I think. We are adapting it."

"They use nanomachines here quite a bit."

"But not for medical purposes."

"No, I think not."

"How is the patient?" Zimmerman asked.

Cardenas shrugged. "last time I checked he was fairly stable. Sinking slowly, but they've lowered his metabolic rate as far as they can."

"Hmm."

The airtight door slid open again and Joanna Masterson strode through, followed by Greg.

Zimmerman scowled. "This laboratory is in use. Find yourselves—"

"This is Joanna Masterson," Cardenas said quickly.

Pushing himself up from the creaking little chair, Zimmerman clicked his heels and bowed slightly. "My abductress. The woman who has blackmailed me."

Joanna ignored his jibe. She looked at the rumpled obese old man, noting that he was several inches shorter than she.

"How soon will you be ready?" she asked.

"As soon as we can," Zimmerman said.

"Please don't play games and don't patronize me. My son is dying. How soon can you begin to help him?"

Zimmerman's tone changed. "It's a matter of programming. We are moving ahead as quickly as we can."

"Programming," Joanna echoed.

Waving a pudgy hand, Zimmerman explained, "We are adapting our little machines to seek out damaged cells and repair them. They will remove damaged material, molecule by molecule, and repair the cells with fresh material, molecule by molecule."

Joanna nodded. Greg, standing slightly behind her, folded his arms across his eftest.

"The problem is that your son has sustained massive damage. His case is very different from merely getting rid of accumulated fat cells or breaking down plaque along blood vessels."

"Can you do it?" Joanna asked.

"We will do it, Madam," said Zimmerman. "Whether we will be able to do it in time, before he is too far gone even for the nanomachines to help him, remains questionable."

"Is there anything else that you need? Any other assistants?"

"Nothing and no one that could be brought here in time."

Greg asked, "How much of a chance does he have? I mean—"

"If I had even one single week this would be no problem."

"But we've only got a few hours."

Zimmerman sighed hugely. "Yah. This I know."

Killifer clumped wearily to the comm cubicle of the buried shelter, still in his spacesuit, minus only the helmet. The young woman at the communications console rose to her feet

"You did a fine job out there," she said, eyes gleaming. "You saved two lives."

With a crooked grin, Killifer said, "I saved the corporation from any competition to their claim, that's what I saved."

The young woman smiled knowingly. "You're just being modest."

Killifer shook his head and took the emptied chair, thinking, Hey, now I'm a friggin' hero. I'll have to look her up when we get back to the base. Might be worth some sack time.

"Moonbase says the Yamagata craft has shifted its trajectory and asked for permission to land here and pick up their men."

"They're welcome to 'em. I hope they brought medics. One of them's in a bad way. Busted ribs."

As he spoke, Killifer opened the channel to Moonbase. Jinny Anson's face appeared on his screen, surprising him.

"I'm living in the control center until things settle down," Anson told him. "Mrs. Stavenger's come up here to be with her son."

"She's there? At Moonbase?"

"Yep. She's going to be pretty damned thankful to you for getting him down off the mountain, I betcha."

Like I had any choice, Killifer thought.

"And for getting those two stranded Japanese guys. Yamagata's people have been falling all over themselves thanking us."

"Really?"

"That's their way of admitting that they messed up any claim they might have made. Heads are going to roll over at Nippon One, I betcha."

Who gives a fuck? Killifer said to himself. Then he remembered, and a pang of sudden fear flared through him.

"How's the Stavenger kid?" he asked.

Anson shook her head. "Not good. The Dragon Lady's brought a team of nano specialists up here, but I don't know if they can save him. He's pretty far gone."

It took a conscious effort for Killifer to unclench his teeth. "And the astronomer? Rhee? How's she doing?"

Anson looked mildly surprised. "I don't know. She was hanging pretty close to Doug Stavenger but she ought to be back at her job by now."

Killifer nodded. I'll have to track her down when we get back to the base.

"I'm going to start breaking the camp here, soon as the Yamagata ship lands and picks up their guys."

"Right," said Anson. "The expedition didn't go the way we planned, but at least we've got a valid claim to the territory. Next time we go back, you'll be in charge."

Killifer made himself grin. "Yeah? That's great." But he knew that his newfound status as a hero and leader could be destroyed by a single small square of cermet. I've gotta get it away from her, he told himself. Got to.

INFIRMARY

"That's it?" Joanna whispered harshly. "All these hours have been spent to make something that doesn't even fill a single hypodermic?"

Standing beside her, Kris Cardenas nodded without taking her eyes off Zimmerman's bulky lab-coated form, bending over Doug's infirmary bed.

"That's all he'll need," she whispered back, "if it works right."

Doug lay unconscious, his face pallid as death, covered to his chin in cooling blankets. Another hypothermia wrap was wound around his head. Like the undergarment of a spacesuit, the pale blue blankets were honeycombed with fine plastic tubes that carried refrigerated water to keep Doug's body temperature as low as possible. Intravenous lines fed into his arms and an oxygen tube was fixed to his nostrils.

Joanna couldn't tell if her son was breathing or not. The monitoring instruments above the bed showed his life signs: their ragged electronic lines looked dangerously low to her. She glanced at Greg, standing on her other side. He stared grimly through the plastiglass window that separated them from the infirmary bed.

"Shouldn't we have a medical team to stay with him? I could bring—"

Cardenas silenced her by placing a hand on Joanna's shoulder. "Zimmerman's an M.D. as well as a Ph.D. And two of his aides are also physicians."

Zimmerman straightened up. For a moment he gazed down at the unconscious patient, then he turned and went to the door.

Stepping into the observation cubicle where the others waited, he dropped the syringe into the waste recycling can.

"It is done," he said, his voice loud enough to startle Joanna. "Now we wait."

"And rest," Cardenas said. "You look like you could use a nice nap, Willi."

In truth, his fleshy face looked ravaged.

Greg spoke up, "We should all get some sleep." Turning to Zimmerman, he asked, "How long before we see some results?"

The old man blinked his pouchy eyes. "Twelve hours. Maybe more. Maybe a little less."

"Nothing's going to happen for eight to ten hours, at least," Cardenas said briskly. "So let's all get a decent sleep."

Greg agreed. I'll get the people on duty to call if there's any change in his condition."

Joanna said, "I can sleep here, on the chair."

"No," Greg said firmly, taking her by the arm. "You sleep in your quarters, on a bunk. Doctor's orders."

Reluctantly, Joanna allowed her elder son to lead her out of the observation room and toward the suite that Anson had vacated for her. She almost felt grateful to Greg for his forceful tenderness.

Small as viruses, millions upon millions of nanomachines flowed through Doug's blood stream like an army of repair personnel eager to get to work. Blind, deaf, without the intelligence of an amoeba, they were tuned to the chemical signatures that cells emit In their world of the ultrasmall, where a bacterium is as gigantic and complex as a shopping mall, they were guided by the shapes of the molecules swarming around them.

Built to seek out specific types of molecules, they quickly spread through the enormous labyrinthine ways of Doug's failing body. With receptors barely a thousand atoms long they touched and tested every molecule they came in contact with. Hardly any of them were of interest to the nanomachines; they merely touched, found that the molecule did not fit precisely into their receptor jaws, and left the molecule behind. Like a lock seeking its proper key, each nanomachine blindly searched the teeming liquid world within Doug's wasting body.

When they did find a molecule that nested properly in their receptors, they clamped onto it and tore it apart into its individual atoms: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and the rarer metals and minerals. Then other nanomachines seized the freed atoms and combined them into new molecules, new nutrients for the cells that were damaged and dying.

Deep into the cells they penetrated, into the nucleus where the huge double spiral DNA molecules worked as templates for building vital proteins. Here was where the most crucial damage had been done. The links between the two intertwining spirals, the base pairs that were the genes themselves, had been heavily damaged by the ionizing radiation. Where the nanomachines saw a break in this vital linkage, where base pairs had been broken or mismatched, the nanomachines rebuilt the bases and linked them correctly. Like vastly complex three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles, the DNA molecules were put together properly by the busily hurrying nanomachines, much as Doug's own natural enzymes were valiantly trying to do. Together, the polymerases and the nanomachines worked frantically to repair the massive DNA molecules.

They worked with blinding speed, although time meant nothing to them. In this nanometer universe a thousandth of a second stretched like years and decades. In microseconds they repaired damaged cells and then flowed onward, seeking, testing, destroying damaged areas, rebuilding molecules for the growth of healthy new cells. DNA repair was more intricate, more demanding. It took whole tenths of seconds to repair a damaged DNA molecule. Millions of cells and DNA molecules were repaired each minute. But there were so many billions more to reach.

Killifer was not accustomed to being a hero. He was surprised to see that Jinny Anson and more than a dozen others were waiting for him at The Pit when he led his weary team out of their Jobbers. Anson pounded him on the back and insisted on taking him to The Cave for a drink. She even provided the booze.

"You did damned fine out there," Anson said, leaning back in her chair, grinning across the table at Killifer.

Unshaven, grimy, Killifer relished the glow of the rocket juice that laced his coffee. And the glow of her approval.

"Yep," Anson said, "now I can turn over the job to Greg Masterson and leave on schedule and get myself married."

Shocked, Killifer blurted, "Married?"

"The Dragon Lady wanted me to stay on until the expedition got back. So now you're back and I can head for San Antone with a clear conscience."

I'll be damned," Killifer said.

Anson's expression sobered. "Shame about Brennart, though."

"Yeah."

"What went wrong with his hopper, do you think? Why'd it die out there?"

Shifting nervously in his chair, Killifer said, "Radiation must've knocked out the electrical system. Something like ithat."

"Somebody'll have to check it out when you go back there," said Anson.

"Yeah. Right"

"But we've got the polar region, that's what's really important."

"How's the Stavenger kid?"

She shrugged. "They're working on him."

"Is he gonna pull through?"

With a shake of her head, Anson replied, "Damned if I know. They've dragooned some high-priced talent here to try nanotherapy on him, but nobody knows if it'll work."

Killifer was silent for a moment 'And, uh, the astronomer…' Don't look too anxious, he warned himself. "What's her name?"

"The Korean? Rhee. Bianca Rhee."

"Yeah. How's she doing?"

"Okay, I guess, Why're you so interested in her?"

I'm not," he said quickly. "Just—she flew out with Stavenger, I wanted to make sure she's okay."

"She's probably on duty right now. Check the astronomy dome if you want to see her."

"Yeah," Killifer said. "Maybe I will. After I clean up some."

Anson grinned lopsidedly. "Do I detect a romance?"

"Naw," Killifer said. Then wished he hadn't.

It made no difference. Anson, her mind turning toward her own marriage, said, "Don't be coy, Jack. You're a hero now. You can have your pick of the love-starved women of Moonbase, I betcha."

Killifer grinned at the idea. Yeah, he told himself. I'm a big friggin' hero. As long as nobody finds out what I did to Brennart and Doug Stavenger.

She wasn't at the astronomy dome. The place was empty. Nothing there except a half dozen display screens and a computer humming to itself.

Killifer slipped into the empty chair and used the computer to find where Rhee's quarters were. He phoned; no answer.

Maybe I can duck in there, he thought, and find the cement cover. Then when we go back to Mt. Wasser I can stick it back onto the hopper and nobody'll ever know what happened.

He headed for Rhee's quarters.

Bianca Rhee was at the infirmary, staring through the observation room's window at Doug's inert form, still swathed in the light blue cooling blankets. The medic on duty told her that Doug wasn't expected to come out of his hypothermic coma for days. But with oriental patience, Rhee sat as immobile as he was and watched over him.

The accordion-fold door was locked but Killifer got past it easily enough, using his plastic ID card to spring the bolt. Rhee's one room looked as neat as a real-estate model. Everything in place. Bed, desk, bureau: standard issue, same as every other apartment in Moonbase. The only signs of individuality were a set of framed photographs on the bureau, family from the looks of mem, and a delicate small lacquered vase with an imitation flower in it

Killifer went swiftly through the desk drawers. It wasn't there. Then the bureau. Nothing but clothes. And a pair of toe shoes, for god's sake, beat up as hell and just as smelly. The closet Not there either.

He stood for an agonized moment in the middle of the room, so small that he could almost touch its opposing walls by stretching out his arms. It's got to be in here someplace, he told himself. Where? He checked under her sink. Nothing.

Where the hell is it? She can't be carrying it around with her. Can she?

Then he saw it. So obvious that he knew she wasn't trying to hide it. She was using it as a base, beneath the flower vase. Its gold plating complimented the deep burgundy of the vase nicely. Killifer felt his pent-up breath ease out of him. Feeling enormously relieved, he slipped the cover out from under the vase and tucked it into the back pocket of his coveralls. : Cautiously, he cracked the apartment door open. Two people were coming down the tunnel, talking earnestly. Killifer let them pass, then eased himself out behind them, closed the door and heard its lock click, then walked swiftly in the other direction.

With the cermet cover in his pocket

"It's been almost twelve hours," Joanna said to Zimmerman. "Shouldn't we see some change? Some improvement?"

She and Greg, the Swiss scientist and Cardenas were in the infirmary's observation room again. A young oriental woman had been sitting there when Joanna entered, but she got up and left so swiftly that Joanna didn't even get the chance to ask her who she was. She was wearing the pumpkin orange coveralls of the scientific staff; maybe she was working for Zimmerman, Joanna thought

"There is improvement' Zimmerman said, pointing a stubby finger at the monitors above Doug's bed. "Look at his vital signs. Heartbeat is stronger. Blood pressure is almost normal. Kidney function is returning.

"But he hasn't moved," Greg said, peering through the window.

"That's to be expected," Cardenas said softly. "He's using all his energy internally."

"I believe," Zimmerman said, pulling out another long black cigar, "that it will be possible to remove the hypothermic blankets in another two hours." He chomped on the cigar with relish. "Three, at most."

"And then?" Joanna asked.

With a sloppy shrug, Zimmerman said, "And then, sooner or later he will wake up and ask for food. He will be very hungry. Very!"

"He'll be cured?"

"If that's the word you want to use, yes. He will begin to function normally again." Zimmerman grinned around his cigar.

Joanna looked from his florid, fleshy face through the window at her son. Doug will be cured! This nightmare will be over. Even Greg looked pleased, she thought.

"He'll be all right," Cardenas said to her. "The nanomachines are working inside him."

For an instant Joanna wanted to throw her arms around Zimmerman and kiss him. But she controlled herself and the moment passed. As calmly as she could, she said to him, "Dr. Zimmerman, I want to find some way to repay you. What can I do?"

"Let me go home," he snapped.

Laughing, Joanna said, "Of course. Of course. As soon as Doug regains consciousness—although I suppose you'll want to see him after he's on his feet again."

"Yes, yes. You have virtual reality equipment here. I can examine him using VR."

"But won't you want to see him in person?" Joanna asked. "In the flesh?"

Zimmerman shook his head violently, making his cheeks waddle. "I am not coming back to this cavern! Never!"

"All right. Doug can see you in Basel, then."

"That will be impossible, I fear."

"Why not?"

"A young man who is carrying millions of self-replicating nanomachines in his body would not be a welcome person on Earth. I doubt that he would be able to get past your own customs and immigration inspectors."

Feeling confused, Joanna sat down on the couch facing the observation window. "I don't understand."

Cardenas sat next to her. Zimmerman remained standing. Greg was staring at him now.

"Your son is carrying nanomachines," Zimmerman said. "He would not be permitted to land on Earth. Every nation has laws against nanomachines in the human body. They are all afraid of nanomonsters."

"But the bugs will flush out of his system once they've finished their work," Joanna said, then added, "Won't they?"

Zimmerman would not meet her eye.

Joanna turned to Cardenas. "What's he talking about?"

With a careful sigh, Cardenas said, "You know about the laws against injecting nanomachines into human patients, don't you?"

"Oh, that stupid stuff."

"It's stupid, all right, but it's still the law. If Doug still has any trace of nanomachines in his system, he'll be stopped by the immigration inspectors at any rocket port on Earth. They're terrified of nanobugs running amok and killing people."

"But—"

"May I point out," Zimmerman interjected, "that perhaps these laws are not so stupid after all. How many military establishments have supported research into nanoweapons? Nanotechnology could make biological warfare look like child's games."

"But there are laws against military applications of nanotechnology," Greg objected. "International treaties."

"Yes, of course. Those are precisely the laws that do not allow nanomachines to be injected into human patients."

"But Doug isn't going to hurt anybody!" Joanna said.

"'Still, he will be carrying these self-replicating nano-machines for as long as he lives."

"What?" Startled, Joanna snapped, "You didn't tell me that-'„"

"That," said Zimmerman, bending to put his cigar-clenched face close to hers, "is the payment I extract from you."

"Payment? What are you talking about?"

"Your son is my living laboratory, Madam; my lifetime experiment. He carries self-replicating nanotnachines within his body. Forever."

"What have you done?" Joanna cried.

"I have given your son a great gift, Madam," Zimmerman replied.

Before Joanna could say anything, Cardenas said, "You've enhanced his immune system."

Zimmerman took the soggy cigar from his mouth. "Yah, but there is more to it than that."

"What?" Joanna demanded.

Almost smirking, Zimmerman said, "Frankly, I do not know. No one can know. We have no experience with self-replicating nanomachines in the human body."

"You've turned my son into—"

"An experiment. A living laboratory," Zimmerman said. "A step toward the perfection of nanotherapy."

Before Joanna could reply, Cardenas said, "It's a great gift, really! His immune system is now so enhanced he'll probably never even catch a cold anymore."

Zimmerman nodded. "Perhaps. The machines should be able to adapt to destroy microbes and viruses that invade his body."

"But you don't know for certain what they'll do," Greg said, his voice hollow.

"They should also repair effects of aging and any injuries he might incur," Zimmerman added, still speaking to Joanna. "Your son will most likely live a long, long time, Frau Stavenger."

Greg muttered something too low for Joanna to hear.

"But mat doesn't mean he can't return to Earth," Joanna said.

"Yes it does," said Cardenas. "They'll never let him off the rocket."

"They don't have to know."

"They already know," Zimmerman said. "I have informed my colleagues and by now the authorities know."

"You informed… why?" Joanna wanted to scream, yet her voice was barely a whisper.

"I have my own fish to fry, Madam. My own agenda. Your son will be a living advertisement that nanotherapy is not dangerous and not undesirable. I will see to it that his case is broadcast all over the world. Some day, sooner or later, he will jecome the cause celebre that will lead these ignorant politicians and witch doctors to lift their ban on nanotherapy."

Feeling fury rising within her, Joanna said, "I don't want a cause celebre. I want a normal, healthy son!"

"Healthy, he will be," said Zimmerman. "Normal, never."

Trying to cool her down, Cardenas said, "Think of it, Joanna. He'll never get ill. He might never even get old! And if he's ever injured, the nanomachines will repair him."

Joanna thought of it. And turned to Greg, who stood mute and deathly pale, staring through the observation window at his half brother.

Slowly Doug woke from a long, deep dream. He had been swimming with dolphins the way he'd done when he was a kid visiting Hawaii except that the water was cold, numbingly cold and so dark that he could only sense the dolphins swimming alongside him, big powerful sleek bodies gliding effortlessly through the cold black waters. Don't leave me behind, he called to them, but somehow he was on the Moon and it was Brennart standing beside him whispering something, the secrets of the universe maybe, but Doug could not hear the man's words.

And then his eyes opened.

He saw that he was in some kind of hospital room. Moonbase. The infirmary. Low rock ceiling painted a cheerful butter yellow. A wide mirror took up almost the whole wall on one side of his bed. He could hear the humming and beeping of electronic monitors over his head.

The door opened and Bianca Rhee stepped through.

"You're awake!" she said looking happy and surprised and awed and curious, all at once.

Doug grinned at her. "I guess I am."

"How do you feel?"

"Hungry!"

Bianca's smile threatened to split her face in two. Before she could say another word, a medic in crisp white coveralls pushed through the door angrily.

"What're you doing in here?" he demanded of Rhee. "No one's allowed in here without—"

"Shut up!" Doug snapped. "She's my friend."

The man glared at Doug. "No one is allowed inside this cubicle without specific permission from the resident M.D., friend or not."

Over the next ten minutes, Doug learned how wrong the young medic was. Rhee dutifully left his cubicle, but his mother, Greg, and several strangers poured in, including a funny-looking fat older man with an unlit cigar clamped ludicrously in his teeth.

His mother fell on his neck, crying for the first time he could remember. Greg smiled stiffly. The others stared at the monitors while they checked his pulse, thumped his chest, and performed other ancient medical rituals.

"How do you feel?" everyone seemed to ask.

"Hungry," Doug kept repeating. But no one brought him anything to eat.

Gradually he began to piece it together from the babbling of their chatter. Nanotherapy. He was alive and well. And would be for a long time to come. It was a lot to take in over a few minutes. It seemed to Doug as if just a few minutes ago he was dying from radiation poisoning. Now they were telling him he would live forever, just about

"Could I just have something to eat?" he shouted over their voices.

Everyone stopped and stared at him.

"I'm starving," Doug said.

"You see?" said the old fat guy. "Just as I told you!"

INFIRMARY

Bianca Rhee came back, shyly, almost tiptoeing into Doug's cubicle after everyone else had left. He had eaten a full dinner, napped a short while, then asked for another dinner. Its remnant crumbs were all that was left on the food tray when Rhee entered and smiled happily at him.

"How do you feel?" she asked, sitting on the edge of his bed because there was no chair in his cubicle.

"Fine," said Doug with a big grin. "I feel as if I could run up to the top of Mt. Wasser in my bare feet!'"The nanotherapy is really working."

"I guess it is."

"Do you feel—different?"

Doug thought about it for a moment. "No," he answered. "Not different, exactly. Just—a little tired, but good, just the same. Like I've just won my fifth gold medal in the Olympics."

"That's wonderful," she said.

"What about you?" Doug asked. "Have you been checked over? Are you okay?"

She shrugged. "We all took more of a radiation dose than we should have, but I'm okay. No obvious medical problems."

"Obvious?"

"Oh, I might have a two-headed baby someday." She tried to laugh.

"And your chances of getting cancer?" Doug asked.

"A few percent higher."

"Oh."

"But that won't happen until I'm old and gray," she said.

"Besides, there's no history of cancer in my family."

"That's good," Doug said, but he thought, There will be now, most likely.

Then he noticed that her coveralls were sweat-stained, and there was a fine sheen of perspiration on her forehead.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked. "You're perspiring."

"Oh." Rhee looked more embarrassed than worried. "I—I was exercising a little."

"Exercising?"

She nodded, keeping her lips clamped tight This isn't the time to tell him I practice dancing, she decided. He's a nice, guy, but he'd laugh. The fat little gook in ballet slippers, pretending she's a ballerina in the low gravity of the Moon. Anyone would laugh.

So they talked about the expedition, about Brennart and what heroism was all about. Doug told Bianca that Brennart was already dying of cancer and had nothing much to lose by his daring.

She shook her head. "I still think it was a real bonkhead thing to do. Just because he wanted be a hero was no reason for you to take such a risk."

"We would've been okay," Doug insisted, "if the hopper hadn't broken down."

"Sure."

"Well, anyway, I appreciate your coming out to get us. You saved my life."

Bianca blushed. "I didn't do much. The radiation was back to normal by then."

"Still, you must've volunteered. Didn't you?"

"Well… yes, I guess I did."

"And my vidcam," Doug went on. "You saved that, too, didn't you? The corporation owes you a lot"

Her expression changed. "I didn't do it for the corporation," Bianca said, so low mat Doug could barely hear her.

"Still," he said, "you're as much a hero as anybody."

She shook her head. "Not really."

Doug sensed that something had gone slightly off track.

Bianca had been smiling and friendly up to a moment ago, but now she seemed to be almost sad, almost—disappointed.

"Tell me all about it," he said. "Tell me exactly what happened."

"It was all in a rush, you know," she said, still looking unhappy, almost bitter. "Kind of confused. Killifer was pretty nervous, really wired tight. He got pissed off because I grabbed his suit by mistake."

Doug listened as she haltingly told him what they were doing while he and Brennart were stuck underneath the hopper on the mountaintop.

"… and when you started mumbling about the Yamagata people, he didn't want to believe you."

"Killifer?"

"Right. He didn't like the idea of going out again to find them. He didn't like it all"

Doug let out a sigh. "I guess I don't blame him."

Rhee's face contracted into a puzzled frown. "And there was something semi-weird, too."

"Semi-weird?" Doug grinned at her.

"When I got your vidcam, there was another piece of something… a flat oblong hunk of ceramic or metal. I don't think it's part of the vidcam. It was all white on one side and gold on the other."

"Doesn't sound like anything from the vidcam."

"No. Besides, the vidcam looked intact to me. Maybe it was something Killifer had on him. I was in his suit, remember. Maybe he already had it in his pocket."

Curious, Doug asked, "How big was it?"

She shaped it with her hands. "Oh, just about fifteen centimeters long, I think. Maybe half that wide."

"White on one side and gold on the other?"

"I took it along with your vidcam, and then left it in my quarters," Rhee said, looking even more puzzled. "But it's disappeared."

"Disappeared?" Doug sat up straighten

"It was on my bureau yesterday, but now it's gone."

"Are you sure—"

"Of course I'm sure!" she snapped.

"I didn't mean it that way,"— he laid. "Has anybody else been in your quarters?"

Rhee shook her head. But before she could say anything, the door to Doug's cubicle slid back and Joanna stepped through. Even in ordinary blue coveralls she radiated power and decision. Zimmerman waddled in behind her, still in his rumpled three-piece suit with the lab coat thrown over it.

Rhee hopped off the bed. "I'm glad you feel so well, Doug," she said. Impulsively, she darted forward and gave Doug a peck on the cheek, then rushed past Joanna and Zimmerman and left the room.

"Who's that?" Joanna demanded.

"The woman who saved my life," said Doug.

Joanna frowned, while Zimmerman smiled bemusedly.

"Does that give her the right to kiss you?" Joanna asked sharply.

"Oh come on, Mom! It was just a friendly little smack."

"You don't have to feel obligated to somebody for doing their job," Joanna said.

Doug laughed lightly. "Simmer down, Mom. She's just a friend. I hardly even know her, actually."

Zimmerman eyed him thoughtfully. "Perhaps the nano-machines enhance your sexual attractiveness, hah?"

Doug frowned at the old man. "You must be Dr. Zimmerman, right?"

"Yah." Zimmerman clicked his heels and bowed slightly, his paunch making it difficult to go farther.

"How soon can I get out of here?" Doug asked. "I feel fine. Terrific, in fact"

Glancing at the monitors over Doug's bed, Zimmerman said, "Another few hours. There are some tests I must do. Then you get out of bed and I leave this glorified cave and return to civilization."

Joanna paced over to the other side of the bed. "Do you really feel fine?"

"Like I said, terrific. Really."

His mother looked across the bed at Zimmerman. Doug saw tears in her eyes. "You've saved him."

The sloppy old man shrugged, suddenly too embarrassed to say anything.

And Doug realized the enormity of what had happened to him. I would have died, he told himself. Under any normal circumstances I would be dead now.

He looked at Zimmerman with different eyes and saw a man of strength and vigor and the kind of passion that dares to challenge anyone, everyone who stands in the way between him and his life's work. Governments had outlawed nanotherapy. Ignorant mobs had burned nanolabs and killed researchers. But Zimmerman plugged doggedly ahead, despite all of that. Doug understood that even a fat old man can be heroic.

"You've given me life," Doug said.

"No," Zimmerman said, shaking his head slowly. "Your mother gave you life. I have merely helped you to keep it. And perhaps prolong it."

"If there's anything we can do," Joanna said stiffly, "you only have to name it."

"I have already informed you of my price, Madam."

Joanna's expression hardened. "Yes, you have, haven't you?"

"What I have already gained will be payment enough. Plus transportation back to Basel, of course."

"Of course," said Joanna. She was positively glaring at the old man now.

Doug realized that their conversation, back and forth across his bed, dealt with things he didn't know about.

"What's the price?" he asked. "What are you two talking about?"

Joanna tore her gaze from Zimmerman and looked down at her son: so young, so innocent and unknowing.

"She is referring, young man, to the fact that you will not be allowed to leave the Moon."

"For how long?" Doug asked.

"Forever," blurted Joanna.

"You are a walking nahomachine factory now," said Zimmerman. "No nation on Eartb will allow you entry."

Doug turned from Zimmerman, who looked gravely concerned, to his mother, who looked angry and fearful and almost tearfully sad.

"Is that all?" he asked. "I have to stay here on the Moon? That's what I wanted to do anyway.7

It was supposed to be Jinny Anson's going-away party. And it was supposed to be a surprise. But when Anson stepped into the darkened biolab, led by the hand by Lev Brudnoy, and they snapped on the lights and everybody yelled, "Surprise!" Anson took it all in her stride.

"You are not surprised," Brudnoy said, disappointed, as well-wishers pressed drinks into their hands.

Anson fixed him with a look. "What kind of a base director would I be if I didn't know what you guys were plotting?"

"Ah," said Brudnoy. "Of course."

She was surprised, though, when a dozen of the women started handing her wedding presents. Little things, made at Moonbase of lunar raw materials or cast-off equipment. A digital clock set to Universal Mean Time that told when lunar sunrise and sunset would be. A hotplate of cermet salvaged from a junked lander. A vial of lunar glass filled with regolith sand.

Halfway through the wedding gifts, Jack Killifer showed up and the party quickly centered around the new hero. Just as Anson had predicted, the women clustered around Jack, who had shaved and showered and put on a crisp new jumpsuit for the party.

Even as she continued to unwrap presents, Anson scanned the growing crowd for the astronomer, Rhee. No sign of her. Busted romance? she wondered. Or is the kid too shy to come to the party? She sneaks off every now and then. I thought she just wanted to be alone, but maybe she's already got a boyfriend tucked away someplace.

Not likely, Anson thought. Rhee's not much of a looker and she's too timid to go out and grab a guy for herself.

One of the lab benches had been turned into a bar. Anson wondered if the illicit still had been stashed in this lab all along; certainly they had all the right equipment for it, plumbing and glassware and enough chemical stores to plaster the whole base. The noise level climbed steadily: people talking at the top of their lungs, laughing, drinking. And then somebody turned on a music disk. The display screens along the walls all began to flash psychedelic colors and the lab quivered under the heavy thumping beat and sharp bleating whine of an adenoidal singer.

Couples paired off for dancing. Killifer seemed to be having the time of his life. Anson staggered away from the ear-splitting music, out into the tunnel where the party had spilled over.

Brudnoy was sitting on the floor with half a dozen others. Anson put her back to the wall and let herself slide down to a sitting position, careful not to spill a drop of her beaker of booze.

"You are not reigning at your own party?" Brudnoy asked. Even out here in the tunnel he had to half-shout to be heard over the music.

"Everybody's having a great time," she said.

"Are you?"

"Sure."

"Truly?"

"Yes, of course."

Brudnoy looked at her with his sad, bleary eyes. "I think you will miss us."

"Of course I'll miss you."

"Will your husband come up here with you? Brudnoy asked.

Anson shook her head. "I'm not coming back, Lev. I told you that. I'm starting a new life."

"In Texas."

"Just outside of Austin, actually," she said, straining her throat to get the words out over the party noise. "In the hill country."

"The land of enchantment, they say."

"That's New Mexico."

"Oh."

"But the Texas hill country is beautiful. Air you can breathe. Mountains and valleys and land that goes on forever. Flowers! When the bluebonnets bloom it's gorgeous. And a blue sky with white clouds. Clean and wonderful."

"Not like Moonbase."

"Not at all like Moonbase."

"And you really want to leave all this behind you?" Brudnoy made a sweep with his arm.

Anson knew he was kidding. Half kidding, at least. That sweep of his arm took in not merely this crowded underground warren of labs and workshops and cramped undersized living quarters. It took in the ancient ringwall mountains and the cracked crater floor, the vast tracts of Mare Nubium and the Ocean of Storms, the slow beauty of a lunar sunrise and the way the regolith sparkled when the sunshine first hits it, the sheer breathtaking wonder of standing on this airless world and planting your bootprints where no one had ever stood before, the excitement of building a new world, even that crazy mountain down at the south pole that's always in sunshine.

She pulled in a deep breath. "Yes, I'm really going to leave all this behind me. I'll miss you guys, but I've made up my mind."

Anson was surprised that she had to force the words past a good-sized lump in her throat.

Doug found that he could not lie idly waiting for the medics to start their tests. He asked for a computer and, once the technician on duty wheeled a laptop machine to his bed on a swing-arm table, he searched through the literature program for something to read.

Nothing appealed to him. In the back of his mind a question simmered, making him restless with pent-up curiosity. An oblong piece of ceramic or metal, about fifteen centimeters long and half as wide, gold on one side and white on the other.

There must be an inventory program, Doug told himself. He started searching the computer files for it

BIOLAB

The party was winding down. Jinny Anson had gone back inside the biolab, Lev Brudnoy at her side. Only about a dozen and a half people remained, most of them paired off into couples. The music had gone softly romantic, dancers held each other in their arms as they shuffled slowly across the cleared space behind tike lab benches.

As Anson tipped over the big cooler of fruit punch to get its last dregs into her plastic cup, Greg Masterson showed up at the door, looking somber as usual. Anson frowned inwardly. He's going to have to unwind if he expects to make it as director up here. Otherwise he's going to have a mutiny on his hands.

She giggled to herself. Captain Bligh, she thought. Who would be Fletcher Christian and lead the mutineers?

Brudnoy saw Greg, too, and made his way past the dancers and the lab benches toward him. Jinny followed the Russian, drink in hand, feeling a little annoyed. Greg's a wet blanket, he's going to rain on my parade, she thought, mixing metaphors in her slightly inebriated condition.

"Better late man never," said the Russian, smiling.

Greg's face remained somber. "Is my brother here?"

"Your brother?" Anson asked. "I thought he was in the infirmary."

"He was. He just disconnected all his monitors and walked out."

Anson glanced at Brudnoy, who looked as puzzled as she felt. "He hasn't shown up here."

Greg's frown deepened. "He's got to be someplace."

"Want to call security?"

"No," Greg said. "I don't Want to get my mother upset. She's asleep, but—"

"We can search for him," Brudnoy volunteered. "After all, this place isn't so big that he can hide from us"

"Why would he want to hide?" Anson wondered.

"Where the hell is he?" Greg growled.

Doug was prowling the tunnel that led to Jack Killifer's quarters. He had put aside his search of the computer's inventory program when the medics came in to run their infernal tests. After they left, he booted up the program again and found what he'd been looking for.

The cermet piece that Bianca Rhee had described was a cover for a hopper's electronics bay. The electronics bay held, among other items, the electrical controls for the main engine's liquid oxygen pump.

Doug's mind had leaped from one point to the next. Remove the cover and the electronics systems are exposed directly to the radiation from the solar flare. Knock out the rocket engine's propellant pump and the engine can't ignite. A dead engine keeps the hopper on the mountaintop, where the radiation will build up to a lethal level in a couple of hours or less.

He killed Brennart! And he damned near killed me. Once Doug was convinced of that, he pulled off his monitor leads, bolted out of bed and ran out of the infirmary in nothing but his flapping pale blue hospital gown.

Killifer kept the cover in his spacesuit pocket, Doug reasoned as he trotted down the nearly-empty tunnel. It was past midnight, the lighting was turned down to its late-night level. Still, the few people he passed in the tunnel stared at Doug in his loose gown and bare feet.

Bianca found the piece and thought it might have something to do with my vidcam. She kept it in her quarters and Killifer went in there and took it back. Good thing she wasn't there when he broke in; he might have killed her, too.

There it is. Doug saw J. KILLIFER stencilled on the name card beside the accordion-pleat door. He banged on the door frame and called Killifer's name. No answer. Either he's sound asleep or he's not in. Doug pulled on the door handle. Locked. He braced one bare foot on the door jamb and pulled hard. The flimsy catch gave way and the door jerked open, nearly toppling him.

Doug padded into Killifer's quarters. Empty. The bunk was a mess, hadn't been made in days, from the looks of it. The place smelled of unwashed clothes and sweat. Doug closed the door as far as it would go. He's got to come back here sooner or later. I'll wait

He didn't want to sit on the grubby tangle of the bed. There was a slim molded plastic chair at the room's desk. When Doug sat on it he realized that his hospital gown left a lot to be desired. The chair felt cold and sticky on his partly-bare rump.

He jumped up and went to Killifer's closet. Two clean pairs of olive green coveralls hung limply there, but once Doug held them up against his own frame he realized how small Killifer really was. No wonder Bianca took his spacesuit by mistake; he's not much bigger than she is.

So he waited for Killifer in his loose hospital gown, pacing up and down the tiny room in four strides. Suddenly an idea struck him. The cermet cover must be here someplace, hidden in this room. Doug started to search through the drawers of Killifer's desk.

It was the best night Jack Killifer had ever had on the Moon. There's something to this hero business, after all, he laughed to himself as he headed back toward his quarters, weaving slightly along the tunnel.

The patty had been great fun, and just like Jinny had said, there were several women falling all over him. He danced with them all, then picked the one who had snuggled the closest and walked her back to her quarters. Sure enough, she made no objection when he stepped into her place with her and as soon as he slid the door shut she was unzipping her jumpsuit for him.

When he left her quarters, Killifer thought briefly about heading back to the party, see who's still there, maybe go for a double-header. But as tie started along the tunnel to the biolab he ran into Jinny and Lev and Greg Masterson.

"Have you seen Doug Stavenger?" Jinny asked him, very serious and concerned.

"Little Douggie?" Killifer wanted to laugh but held it in. "He's in the infirmary."

"No he's not," snapped Greg. He showed no recognition of Killifer whatsoever. They hadn't seen each other in more than eighteen years, but Killifer recognized Greg instantly.

"We're trying to find him," said Brudnoy, also looking so damned sober.

Killifer ignored Greg. He wants to be a stranger, fuck him. Suddenly it all seemed awfully funny: little Douggie out on the loose. Maybe he'll fall down and break his neck. But he made a serious face and shook his head gravely. "Nope. Haven't seen him."

They hurried on past him. Killifer stood in the tunnel, blinking with thought. Douggie's not in the infirmary. They lost their little Douggie.

Then a thought hit him hard enough to snap him into sobriety. The cover! Suppose the little sonofabitch has figured it all out and he's looking for the cover. I'd better hide it, and quick.

He started running down the dimly-lit tunnel toward his quarters.

Doug almost laughed at the pathetic stupidity of it. Under the mattress. Killifer had hidden the cermet cover beneath his mattress.

Maybe it wasn't so dumb after all, Doug thought. It had taken a real effort of will to work up the strength to touch Killifer's roiled, sweaty bunk.

Doug held the cover in his hands. The murder weapon. He stepped over to the desk and placed it down on its surface, gold side up.

And the door flew open.

Killifer's eyes were so wide Doug could see white all the way around the irises. The man stared at Doug, then his eyes flicked to the gold-plated cermet cover, then back to Doug again.

"Why did you want to kill Brennart?" Doug asked quietly. "Or was it me you were after?"

Killifer slid the door shut behind him. "It was you. Brennart-' he shrugged. "Couldn't be helped."

"Couldn't… be… helped." For the first time in his life Doug felt real anger, a fury that threatened to shatter his self-control.

"He wanted to be a big-ass hero, now he is one," Killifer said. "So what?"

Before he knew what he was doing, Doug lashed out with a stinging left that snapped Killifer's head back and a hard straight right, blurringly fast. Killifer slammed back against the rock wall and crumpled to the floor, blood gushing from his nose.

Doug bent down and grabbed the front of his coveralls. Yanking Killifer to his feet, Doug cocked his right fist again.

And stopped. Killifer made no move to protect himself. His arms hung limply at his sides. Blood streamed down his chin, spattering his coveralls and Doug's hand, still gripping the coverall front.

Doug pushed him onto the bunk.

"Why?" he demanded. "Why did you do it? Why did you want to kill me?"

"Because you killed me, you snotty sonofabitch."

"Me? I never even saw you until ten days ago."

"Your mother," Killifer snarled. "She killed me. She took away everything I ever had. She exiled me to this goddamned cavern in the sky."

"I know that," Doug said. "But why? Why would she do that? What did you do to make her hate you so much?"

Killifer stared at him, wiping at his bloody nose. Slowly a crooked smile worked its way across his face.

"You don't know, do you?" he asked, grinning at Doug. "You really don't know."

All of a sudden Doug felt slightly ridiculous, standing over this beaten smaller man in a dangling hospital gown that barely covered him.

Killifer was cackling with laughter. "You don't know! You don't know a friggjn' thing about it! She never told you, did she?"

"Never told me what?"

"About your brother! She never told you what your brother did!"

"Greg?" Doug felt suddenly uneasy, as if he were teetering on the edge of a tremendous precipice. "What's Greg got to do with this?"

"He killed your old man!" Killifer roared. "He murdered your father, kid."

"That's a lie," Doug snapped.

"The hell it is. Your brother salted the nanomachines your father was using. The nanos didn't malfunction. They did exactly what they were programmed to do."

Inwardly Doug was falling off that precipice, dropping like a stone into the darkness. He heard his own voice, hollow with shock, "They were programmed to destroy the spacesuits?"

"Yeah. Your brother asked me for a sample of nanobugs that could eat carbon-based molecules. I didn't know what the fuck he wanted 'em for, but he was big shit with the corporation so I gave him what he wanted."

"You gave him—"

"Gave him the bugs that killed your old man, that's right Nobody else knew. Just your big brother Greg and me. But your mother figured it out and shipped me up here."

Feeling his legs trembling, Doug pulled up the plastic chair and sat on it. Hard. "But why would she send you here to Moonbase?"

"To get me outta the way, wise ass! She didn't want me where I might rat out her son."

"Greg."

"That's right."

"Greg murdered my father and you helped him."

"Hey, I didn't know what he wanted the friggin' bugs for. Not until after it happened."

"You were just following orders," Doug muttered.

"Right."

For what seemed like hours Doug sat there, running the story around in his head, over and over again. Mom protected Greg. She knew he'd killed my father and she protected him. And she never told me.

Never told me.

Never told me.

"So, whatcha gonna do now, kid?" Killifer taunted. "Beat the crap outta me? Kill me?"

Slowly Doug got to his feet. Killifer cringed back on the bunk, his bravado suddenly evaporated.

"Get out of here," Doug said quietly.

"What?"

"Get off the Moon. Quit Masterson Corporation. Take early retirement and go back to Earth."

"And if I don't want to…?"

Doug looked down at him. "If I see you here after tomorrow I'll kill you."

From the look in Killifer's eyes, Doug knew the man believed him.

ALPHONSUS

Doug walked alone across the floor of the giant crater, his boots stirring clouds of dust that settled languidly in the gentle lunar gravity.

He had lost track of time. For hours now the universe had narrowed down to his spacesuit, the sound of his own breathing, the air fans softly whirring, the bleak cracked, pitted ground. He passed the rocket port, where an ungainly transfer ship sat on one of the blast-scarred pads, waiting for tomorrow's launch Earthward. Past the solar farms he walked, where nanomachines were patiently converting regolith silicon and trace metals into spreading acres of solar panels that drank in sunlight and produced electricity. Off in the distance he could barely make out the dark bulk of the half-finished mass driver, a low dark shadow against the horizon.

Turning, he looked through the visor of his helmet up at the worn, rounded mountains that ringed the crater floor. Mount Yeager, he saw. And the notch in the ringwall near it that everybody called Wodjohowitcz Pass.

My father died up there. Greg murdered him and my mother covered it up, kept it even from me. Protected him, protected my father's murderer. My half-brother. Her son. He's just as much her son as I am and he murdered my father. And got away with it.

"Doug? Is that you?"

The voice in his earphones startled him. He would have turned the suit radio off, but the safety people had fixed all the suits so that you couldn't

A small tractor was approaching him, kicking up a plume of dust that looked almost silvery in the sunlight. Must be the safety guys, Doug thought. I guess I've wandered too far out for them. Broke a rule.

"Doug, are you all right?"

He realized it was Bianca Rhee's voice.

"I'm okay," he answered as the tractor approached him. Sort of, he added silently.

He stood there as the tractor pulled up and stopped in a billow-of dream-slow swirling dust.

"Where've you been?" Rhee asked, stepping down from the tractor. It was a two-seat machine with a flat bed for cargo: the lunar equivalent of a pickup truck.

"I needed some time by myself," he said.

"Oh! I'm interrupting—"

"No, it's okay. I was just about to start back anyway."

"Everybody's looking for you. Your mother's just about to roast the infirmary staff under a rocket nozzle for letting you walk off like that."

Doug looked at Rhee's stubby, spacesuited figure and felt glad that their helmet visors hid their faces. He did not want anyone to see his expression right at this moment. Nothing but an impersonal, faceless figure encased in protective plastic, metal and fabric.

"How'd you find me?" he asked.

"I like to be by myself sometimes, too."

"And you come out here?"

"No…' Her voice faltered. "I, uh, I find some cubbyhole where I'm alone and I… dance."

"Dance? By yourself?"

"Ballet," Rhee said, her voice so low Doug could hardly hear her. "You know, with an orchestra disk."

"Ballet," said Doug. "Sure! Here on the Moon it must be terrific."

I'm not very good, even in low gravity."

"How do you know, if you don't let anybody see you?"

"Every time I fall down, I know!"

Doug didn't laugh. He could tell from the tone of her voice that this was very precious to Rhee.

Softly, he said, "I hope ybu'll let me see you dance sometime, Bianca."

He waited for her reply, but she said nothing. So he said, "You're the only one in the whole base smart enough to find me."

"I checked with the airlock monitors," she said, sounding relieved. "They keep a record of everybody who goes out."

"And comes in," Doug added. The crew monitoring the main airlock didn't know that Doug was supposed to be in the infirmary. They had allowed him outside after only a cursory check of the computerized files.

"You must be feeling awfully good to come out here," Rhee said cheerfully, clambering back up to the driver's seat

And Doug realized, She must feel awfully strong about me to come out looking for me. It can't be impersonal, after all. It never is.

"Bianca," he asked as he climbed up into the tractor beside her, "how long are you going to be here at Moonbase?"

"My tour's over at the end of the month. That's when the new semester starts."

"Well," Doug said carefully, "we've got a couple of weeks to get acquainted, then."

He could hear her breath catch, over the suit radio. Then she said, "That'd be fine."

I can't tell her anything, Doug knew, but at least I can have a friend to unwind with. Somebody to help keep me sane.

"Uh…' How to say it without hurting her feelings? "You know, it's good to have a friend here. I really don't know anyone else in Moonbase."

"There's Killifer," she said lightly.

"He's leaving tomorrow."

"Really?" She sounded completely surprised.

"Really."

"Well, your brother's here now, isn't he?"

"Half brother." Doug felt his insides clench. "And I hardly know him. He's always… we've never been close."

He heard her chuckling. "What's so funny?"

"Oh, I was just thinking about some of the other women here. They'll be green with envy."

"Bianca, it isn't going to be like that."

"They'll say I'm robbing the cradle," she went on, happily ignoring him. "After all, I'm almost five years older than you."

Doug shook his head inside the helmet. "I've aged a lot since coming to Moonbase," he said. And he hoped that he could keep her as a friend without crushing her dreams.

"You never told me about Greg."

Doug could see the sudden alarm in his mother's eyes. They were having dinner together in the suite Anson had turned over to Joanna: a sparse microwaved meal of bland precooked veal that Joanna had commandeered from the stores at The Cave.

"What about Greg?" she asked, from across the round table that Anson had used for conferences in her office.

Despite the roaring emotions blazing in him, Doug still had an appetite. He chewed carefully on a thin slice of veal while his mother watched him, waiting.

Doug put his fork down and said, "Greg murdered my father."

She did not look surprised. Only tired. Suddenly his mother looked utterly weary.

"He did, didn't he?" Doug asked, keeping his voice low, not screaming out the accusation the way he wanted to.

"He was terribly sick," Joanna said. "He didn't really understand—"

"Don't lie for him," Doug snapped. "He killed my father. Killifer helped him. I know the whole story."

"The whole story? Do you? Do you know what kind of childhood Greg had? How abusive his father was to both of us? Do you know how hard he's struggled over these past eighteen years to atone for what he did?"

"Atone?"

"Greg's gone through hell and purgatory to overcome the feelings that led him to… to—"

"Murder," Doug said, uncompromising.

Tears were glimmering in Joanna''seyes but she fought them back. "That's right, murder. He killed your father. My husband. The man I loved."

"The father I never knew."

"I knew him. I loved your father."

Doug saw what she wanted to say. "But you loved Greg, too. You couldn't let your son be arrested for murder."

"He was so sick," Joanna said, suddenly pleading. "Don't you understand, he would never have done anything like that if he'd been well. He was in torment every day of his life."

"So you helped him."

"I protected him. I got him the best medical help on Earth. He worked, Douglas. He went through hell—"

"And purgatory."

She shook her head. "You just don't know. How could you? For years and years and years Greg struggled and worked to overcome his feelings. He's accomplished so much! He's come so far."

"He's come to the Moon."

"He's your brother," Joanna said.

"Half brother."

"You're both my sons. I love you both. I don't want you to hate him. That's why I never told you."

"Didn't you think I'd find out one day?"

Joanna waved one hand in the air, still clutching her fork. "One day, yes. Some day. But I didn't mink it would happen so soon."

"Is that why you kept us apart all these years? Because you were afraid I'd find out?"

"I don't know," Joanna said. "No, I don't think so. At first, when you were an infant, I worried that Greg might be jealous of you. He was in heavy therapy then and I felt it was best to keep him away from you. Later…' Her voice died away; she seemed lost in the past.

"I've told Killifer to resign and take early retirement," said Doug flatly.

"All right. Fine."

"What are you going to do about Greg?"

She looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"

"I'm stuck here at Moonbase indefinitely. Greg's the new base director."

"I can't send Greg back to Earth. It would look as if I had fired him as director before he even started."

Doug spread his hands. "So we're going to be here together then."

From the expression on her face it seemed to Doug that his mother hadn't thought about it before. She was silent for long moments.

"You're right," she said at last. I'll have to stay here, too."

"You?"

Nodding as if she had made up her mind irrevocably, Joanna said, I'll resign as chair of the board of directors and live here. For the coming year, at least."

Doug stared at her and saw the determination in her eyes. "To keep between Greg and me."

To bring the two of you together," Joanna said, almost desperately. "I love you both and I don't want you to hate each other."

"You're asking a lot."

"Don't you see, Doug? It was my fault, too. I'm his mother. Whatever Greg's done, I bear a responsibility for it."

"You didn't murder anybody."

"But I didn't stop him from doing it! I didn't raise him well enough to keep him from murder."

"That's like blaming Hitler's mother for the Holocaust," Doug snapped.

"I didn't pay enough attention to him. And when I met your father—how betrayed Greg must have felt."

"The criminal as victim," Doug muttered.

Joanna pointed at him with the fork. "Douglas, if you hate your brother for what he did, you'll also be hating me. He's my son, as much as you are, and what he did is my fault, too."

Doug felt drained, exhausted, almost the way he had felt up at the mountaintop with Brennart. My father, Brennart, even Zimmerman's leaving Tie. I can't lose her too; I can't drive

Ben Bova

Moonrise my mother away from me. She. wants to live up here, to be with me. And Greg, too, but stillX

With a slow shake of his head, Doug replied, "I don't hate Greg." He hoped it w^as true.

"Do you mean it?" his mother asked.

"It's just—all mis is new to me. I never thought—"

Joanna got her feet and came around the table to sit at the empty chair beside him.

"I love you, Douglas. I don't want to lose you. You and Greg are the only people in the world I care about."

"I know," he said. And he let her put her arms around him and hold him close. It felt awkward for a moment, but then he melted into his mother's embrace and it felt warm and safe and soothing.

Joanna could feel the tension between her two sons, crackling like an electrical spark between two electrodes of opposite polarity.

The three of them were standing in Anson's former office. Now it was Greg's office. Joanna had moved into her own quarters.

It had been a long day. They had seen Anson off and Greg had formally taken the directorship of Moonbase. Now, the little cluster of people who had crowded the office to congratulate their new boss had left. Greg stood behind his desk, Joanna at his side, Doug in front of the desk.

Even in the sky-blue coveralls that designated management, Greg looked darkly somber. Doug, wearing the pumpkin orange of the research and exploration group, seemed as bright and youthful as a freshly-scrubbed cadet. Joanna wore a flowered dress, insisting that she would not limit her wardrobe to the utilitarian jumpsuits that everyone else wore.

Doug smiled at his half-brother and put his hand out over the desk.

"I haven't had a chance to congratulate you, Greg' he said. "Best of luck as director."

Greg took his hand and smiled back. "Thanks"

"And I want you to know," Doug said as their hands separated, "that I understand what happened… about my father."

Greg turned his startled gaze to Joanna.

"She didn't tell me. Killifer did."

"Killifer?"

"He left Moonbase a couple days ago. It's all over with. Finished."

"Is it?" Greg asked. "Just like that, you find out about your father's death and you don't care?"

Doug looked toward Joanna, too, then turned back to his brother. "I care, Greg. But it's all… kind of abstract. I never knew my father. He died before I was born. Maybe I ought to be angry, furious—but I can't seem to work up the emotion."

Greg just stared at him.

"It's all in the past," Dqug said. "I don't like it, but then I guess you don't either."

With a quick glance at his mother, Greg said, "No, I'm not happy about the past."

"Then let's make the future something we can both be happy about. All of us," he quickly amended.

"Okay," Greg said guardedly. "Sounds good."

Doug caught the slight but definite stress on the word sounds.

"What do you have in mind?" Joanna asked.

Doug shrugged indifferently. "I've got a lot of learning to do. I'm signed up with the research and exploration group. We'll be going back to Mt. Wasser and building the power tower."

Greg cleared his throat and said, "Yes, I've got the mission plan on my list of action items. Top priority."

"I hope you approve it," said Doug.

"Don't worry about it," Greg replied.

Joanna watched her two sons, thinking, Maybe they can work together. Maybe they'll learn to trust one another and become as close as brothers. But I'll have to watch them. Closely. For a long time to come.

"Once we get the water flowing back here," Doug was saying, "we can start thinking about expanding the base, turning it into a really livable, town."

Greg said nothing. He was thinking, Doug knows! He knows what I did. He says he doesn't care, he says it's all in the past, but he hates me. He'll do whatever he can to destroy me. He's already challenging me. He'll want to keep Moonbase open. He'll want to be director, sooner or later. Sooner, most likely. I'll have to keep a couple of jumps ahead of him. I'll have to make certain that Mom doesn't give him unfair advantages.

I'll have to make certain that Moonbase is shut down for good. When I leave here, Moonbase will be history.