Ben Bova - Moonrise
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Annotation
Former astronaut Paul Stavenger is driven by his vision of colonizing space. His dream becomes a reality with the creation of a viable, flourishing, nearly self-sufficient community at Moonbase. But Paul has made an implacable enemy; one who will carry his vendetta to the frontiers of space.
Moonrise
by Ben Bova
by Ben Bova
We have power, you and I, But what good is that now? We would build a new world if we only knew how.
Jacques Brel PART I: Destiny
MARE NUBIUM
Magnificent desolation.
Paul Scavenger always spoke those words whenever he stepped out onto the bare dusty surface of the Moon. But this time it was more than a quotation: it was a supplication, a prayer.
Standing at the open hatch of the airlock, he looked through his tinted visor at the bare expanse of emptiness stretching in every direction. Normally the sight calmed him, brought him some measure of peace, but now he tried to fight down the churning ache in his gut Fear. He had seen men die before, but not like Tinker and Wojo. Killed. Murdered. And he was trying to get me. The poor bastards just happened to be in his way.
Paul stepped out onto the sandy regolith, his boots kicking up little clouds of dust that floated lazily in the light lunar gravity and slowly settled back to the ground.
Got to get away, Paul said to himself. Got to get away from here before the damned bugs get me, too.
Twenty miles separated this underground shelter from the next one. He had to make it on foot. The little rocket hopper was already a shambles and he couldnt trust the tractor; the nanobugs had already infected it. For all he knew, they were in his suit, too, chewing away at the insulation and the plastic that kept the suit airtight.
Well, he told himself, youll find out soon enough. One foot in front of the other. Ill make it on foot if I make it at all.
Twenty miles. On foot. And the Sun was coming up.
Okay, he said, his voice shaky. If it is to be, its up to me.
The sky was absolutely black, but only a few stars showed through the heavy tint of his helmets visor. They stared steadily down at Paul, unblinking, solemn as the eyes of God.
Turning slightly as he walked, Paul looked up to see a fat gibbous Earth, blue and gleaming white, hanging in the dark sky. So close. So far. Joanna was waiting for him there. Was Greg trying to kill her, too? The thought sent a fresh pang of fear and anger through him.
Get your butt in gear, he muttered to himself. He headed out across the empty plain, fleeing death one plodding step at a time. With all the self-control he still possessed he kept himself from running. Youve got to cover twenty miles. Pace yourself for the long haul.
His surface suit held the sweaty smell of fear. He had seen two men die out here; it had been sheer luck that the berserk nanomachines hadnt killed him, too. How do you know they havent infested the suit? he asked himself again. Grimly he answered, What difference does it make? If they have, youre already dead.
But the suit seemed to be functioning okay. The real test would come when he stepped across the terminator, out of the night and into the blazing fury of daylight. Twenty miles in that heat, and if you stop youre dead.
He had calculated it all out in his head as soon as he realized what had happened in the shelter. Twenty miles. The suits backpack tank held twelve hours of oxygen. No recycling. Youve got to cover one and two-thirds miles per hour. Make it two miles an hour, give yourself a safety margin.
Two miles an hour. For ten hours. You can make that Sure you can.
But now as he trudged across the bleak wilderness of Mare Nubium, he began to wonder. You havent walked ten hours straight in Christ, not since the first time you came up here to the Moon. That was twenty years ago, almost Twenty pissing years. You were a kid then.
Well, youll have to do it now. Or die. Then Greg wins. Hell have murdered his way to the top.
Even though it was still night, the rugged landscape was not truly dark. Earthglow bathed the rolling, pockmarked ground. Paul could see the rocks strewn across the bare regolith, the rims of craters deep enough to swallow him, the dents of smaller ones that could make him stumble and fall if he wasnt careful.
Nothing but rocks and craters, and the sharp uncompromising slash of the horizon out there, like the edge of the world, the beginning of infinity. Not a blade of grass or a drop of water. Harsh, bare rock stretching as far as the eye could see in every direction.
Yet Paul had always loved it. Even encased in a bulky, cumbersome surface suit he had always felt free up here on the surface of the Moon, on his own, alone in a universe where he had no problems at all except survival. Thats what the Moon gives us, he told himself. Brings it all down to the real question, the only question. Are you going to live or die? Everything else is bullshit. Am I going to live or die?
But then he thought of Joanna again, and he knew that there was more to it. Would she live or die? Was Greg crazy enough to kill her, too? Its more than just me, Paul realized. Even here, a quarter-million miles from Earth and its complications, he was not alone. Even though there was not another living human being not another living thing of any kind this side of the mountains that marked the Alphonsus ringwall, Paul knew that other lives depended on him.
Joanna. Mustnt let Greg get to Joanna. Got to stop him.
He stopped, puffing hard. The visor of his helmet was fogging. A flash of panic surged through him. Have the nanobugs gotten to this suit? He held up his left arm to check the display panel on the suits forearm, trembling so badly that he had to grasp his wrist with his right hand to steady himself enough to read the display. Everything in the green. He tapped the control for the air-circulating fan in his helmet and heard the comforting whine of its speeding up.
Okay, its still working. The suits functioning okay. Settle down. Keep moving.
Turning to see how far hed come from the underground shelter that Greg had turned into a death trap, Paul was pleased to see that its gray hump of rubble was just about on the horizon. Covered a couple of miles already, he told himself.
His boot prints looked bright, almost phosphorescent, against the dark surface of the regolith. In a couple thousand years theyll turn dark, too; solar ultraviolet tans everything. He almost laughed. Good thing Im already tanned.
Paul started out again, checking his direction with the global positioning system receiver built into the suits displays. He hadnt had the luxury of timing his exit from the shelter to coincide with one of the GPS satellites passing directly overhead. The only positioning satellite signal his suit could receive was low on the horizon, its signal weak and breaking up every few minutes. But it would have to do. There were no other navigational aids, and certainly no road markers on Mare Nubiums broad expanse.
The other shelters had directional beacons planted in the ground every mile between them. And they were no more than ten miles apart, all the way to the ringwall. Greg had planned it well; turned the newest of the temporary shelters into his killing place.
He plodded on, wishing the suit radio had enough juice to reach the tempo he was heading for, knowing that it didnt Theres nobody there, anyway, he thought Its just a relay shelter. But it ought to be stocked with oxygen and water. And its radio should be working.
Suddenly, with an abruptness that startled him, Paul saw the horizon flare into brilliance. The Sun.
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