Moonwar (Ben Bova) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

Moonwar by Ben Bova

War is an evil thing, but to submit to the dictation of other states is worse… Freedom, if we hold fast to it, will ultimately restore our losses, but submission will mean permanent loss of all that we value… To you who call yourselves men of peace, I say: You are not safe unless you have men of action on your side.

—Thucydides

Once we have lived through the rapid changes that are now marking our transition from the third to the fourth phase of history, from a period of diversification to one of unification, we shall be squarely faced with a number of serious problems…

It has been shown by many social experiments that man cannot control every facet of life. All we can do is to try to isolate the factors that are the keys to the entire structure, and to work on them. These are basically: the conservation of natural resources; power-production; population-control; the full utilization of brainpower; and education. The details of the social structure will fall into place automatically as the end product of all these forces; as they always have done…

Political unification of the world is not the first necessary step. By the time it has become possible without turmoil, it will also have become unnecessary.

—Carleton S. Coon

PROLOGUE: MOONBASE CONTROL CENTER

“L-1’s out.”

The chief communications technician looked up sharply from her keyboard. “Try the backup.”

“Already did,” said the man at the console beside her. “No joy. Every frequency’s dead.”

The third comm tech, seated at the console on the chief’s other side, tapped one keypad after another. His display screen showed nothing but streaks of meaningless hash.

“They did it,” he confirmed. “They pulled the plug.”

The other controllers and technicians left their own stations and drifted tensely, expectantly toward the communications consoles. Their consoles flickered and glowed, untended. The big electronic wall screen that displayed all of Moonbase’s systems hung above them as if nothing unusual was happening.

The chief pushed back her little wheeled chair slightly. “They did it right when they said they would, didn’t they?”

“That’s it, then,” said the male comm tech. “We’re at war.”

No one replied. No one knew what to say. The knot of men and women stood there in uneasy silence. The only sounds were the low humming of the electronics consoles and the soft whisper of the air-circulation fans.

“I’d better pipe the word up to the boss,” the chief technician muttered, reaching toward her keyboard. She started to peck at the keys.

“Shit!” she snapped. “I broke a fingernail.”