The Silent War

SELENE: ASTRO COMMAND CENTER

Admiral Wanamaker had expected his intelligence officer to be excited, or perhaps worried. Instead, she looked deadly calm. And determined.

“Willie,” he said, “I can’t let you go on this mission. I’m sure you understand why.”

Tashkajian remained standing in front of his desk, her dark eyes unwavering. “This mission is my idea, sir. I don’t think I should expect others to take risks that I’m not prepared to take myself.”

Gently, trying not to injure her pride, Wanamaker said, “But I need you here, Willie. You’re my intelligence officer, and a damned good one. I can’t afford to risk you.”

Her steadfast pose faltered just a little. “But, sir, it’s not right for me to stay here while the crew dashes out to the Belt inside that radiation cloud.”

He smiled slightly. “You assured me it was perfectly safe, Willie.”

“It is!” she blurted. “But… well, you know, there’s always a chance…” Her voice trailed off for a moment, then she snapped, “Dammit, sir, you know what I mean!”

“Yes I do,” he admitted. “But you’re not going. You’ve picked a crew and the ship is ready to go out inside the radiation cloud to attack the HSS base at Vesta. You are staying here, where you belong. Where I need you to be.”

“That’s not fair, sir!”

“I have no intention of being fair. This is a war we’re fighting, not some playground game.”

“But—”

“The ship goes without you,” Wanamaker said, as firmly as he could manage. “That is final.”

“Welcome to Shining Mountain Base,” said Daniel Tsavo, beaming so widely Pancho thought she could see his molars.

He was standing at the end of the flexible tube that had been snaked out to the hopper from the airlock of the base structure.

Shifting the travel bag on her shoulder, Pancho took his extended hand, smiling back at him, and looked around. The interior of the Nairobi facility looked bare-bones, no-nonsense efficiency. Undecorated metal walls. Ribbed dome overhead. Tractors scuffed and grimy with lunar dust.

“Nice of you to invite me,” Pancho said, knowing that she had actually invited herself.

“I’m glad you got here before the solar storm strikes. We’ll be safely underground before the radiation begins to mount.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Pancho.

Tsavo led her to a pair of gleaming metal doors. They slid open to reveal an elevator.

“Most of our base is underground, of course,” he said as he gestured her into the cab.

“Just like Selene.”

“Just like Selene,” he agreed as the doors slid shut and the cab began dropping so fast Pancho’s stomach lurched.

Wanamaker had been dead-set against this visit. When Pancho had told him she was going to look over the Nairobi base, his holographic image had turned stony.

“Pancho, the head of the corporation shouldn’t walk into a potential enemy base all by herself.”

“Enemy?” Pancho’s brows had shot up. “Nairobi’s not an enemy of ours.”

“How do you know?” Wanamaker had demanded. “You’re at war, Pancho, and anybody who isn’t an ally is potentially an enemy.”

Pancho didn’t believe it.

“At least take a security team with you,” Wanamaker insisted.

“I can take care of myself.”

As Tsavo guided her along the tunnels of the Nairobi base, though, Pancho began to wonder about her bravado. The place was larger than she had expected, much larger. Construction crews in dark blue coveralls seemed to be everywhere, drilling, digging, hauling equipment on electrically powered minitractors, yelling to each other, lifting, banging. The noise was incredible and incessant. Tsavo had to shout to make himself heard. And everything smelled brand new: fresh paint, concrete dust, sprays of lubricants and sealants in the air.

Pancho smiled and nodded as Tsavo shouted himself hoarse explaining what they were walking through. Living quarters would be there, offices on the other side of that corridor, laboratories, storerooms, a big conference room that could be converted into a theater, the base control center: all still unfinished, raw concrete and lunar rock and plans for the future.

Many of the workers were Asians, Pancho saw.

“Contract labor,” Tsavo explained, his voice getting rougher with each word. “They have the experience and skills, and they are cheaper than training our own people.”

Deeper and deeper into the base they walked, down inclined ramps marked TEMPORARY ACCESS and through tunnels whose walls were still bare rock.

Jeeps, Pancho thought, this place is huge. They’re really building a city here, sure enough.

She hoped that the minibeacon her communications people had planted under the skin of her left hip would be able to send its coded signal through the rock. Jake’s put up a set of six of polar orbiting satellites to keep track of me, she reminded herself; there’d be one close enough to pick up my signal all the time. I’ll be okay. They’ll know exactly where I am.

Yet for the first time in years she found herself thinking about Elly. Pancho had always felt safe with Elly tucked around her ankle. The gengineered krait had been her faithful bodyguard. Nobody messed with her once they realized she had a lethally poisonous snake to protect her. No matter that Elly’s venom had been replaced with a strong sedative. Very few people had enough nerve to push things to the point where the snake would strike. Little Elly had been dead for more than ten years now, and Pancho had never worked up the resolve to get another such companion. Blubbery fool, she chided herself. Sentimental over a slithering snake, for cripes sake.

She tugged at the asteroidal sapphire clipped to her left earlobe. Like the rest of her jewelry, Pancho’s earrings held surprises, weapons to defend her, if need be. But damn, she thought, there’s a miniature army down here. I’d never be able to fight my way through all these bozos.

Sitting in the little wheeled chair in her office, just off the master bedroom of her home in Selene, Edith Elgin Stavenger used the three-second lag between Earth and Moon to catch up on the dossier of the woman she spoke with. For more than a week she had been chasing down executives in the news media on Earth, trying to stir their interest and support for her upcoming flight to Ceres.

Edith’s cozy office seemed to be split in two, and the head of the North American News Syndicate appeared to be sitting behind her massive, gleaming cherrywood desk, talking with Edith as if they were actually in the same room—except for that three-second lag. Edith had the woman’s dossier up on the wallscreen to one side of her own petite, curved desk.

“It’s not a story, Edie,” the media executive was saying. “There’s no news interest in it.”

The executive’s name was Hollie Underwood, known in the industry as Holy Underhand or, more often, Queen Hollie. Thanks to rejuvenation therapies, she looked no more than thirty: smooth skin, clear green eyes, perfectly coiffed auburn hair. Edith thought of The Picture of Dorian Gray and wondered how withered and scarred with evil her portrait might be. Her reaction to Edith’s idea was typical of the news media’s attitude.

“There’s no interest in it,” Edith replied smoothly, “because no one’s telling the story to the public.”

Then she waited three seconds, watching Underwood’s three-dimensional image, wondering how much the woman’s ruffled off-white blouse must have cost. Pure silk, she was certain.

“Edie, dear, no one’s telling the story because there’s no story there. Who cares about a gaggle of mercenaries fighting each other all the way out there in the Asteroid Belt?”

Edith held her temper. Very sweetly, she asked, “Does anyone care about the cost of electrical power?”

Underwood’s face went from mild exasperation to puzzled curiosity. At last she asked, “What’s the price of electricity got to do with this?”

Feeling nettled that an executive of Underwood’s level didn’t understand much of anything important, Edith replied patiently, “The greenhouse flooding knocked out more than half of the coastal power plants around the world, didn’t it?”

Without waiting for a reply, she went on, “Most of the loss in generating capacity is being taken up by solar power satellites, right? And where do you think the metals and minerals to build those satellites come from?”

Before Underwood could reply, Edith added, “And the fuels for the fusion generators that the power companies are building come from Jupiter, you know. This war is driving up their prices, too.”

By the time she answered, Underwood was looking thoughtful. “You’re saying that the fighting out in the Asteroid Belt is affecting the price of metals and minerals that those rock rats ship back to Earth. And the price of fusion fuels, as well.”

“And the price of those resources affects the ultimate price you flatlanders pay for electricity, yes.” Edith grimaced inwardly at her use of the derogatory flatlanders, but Underwood seemed to pay it no attention.

“So it costs us a few cents more per kilowatt hour,” she said at last. “That’s still not much of a story, is it.”

Edith sat back in her little desk chair. There’s something going on here, she realized. Something circling around below the surface, like a shark on the hunt.

She studied Underwood’s face for a few silent moments. Then she asked, “How much advertising is Astro Corporation buying from you? Or is it Humphries?”

Once she heard the question Underwood reddened. “What do you mean? What are you implying?”

“The big corporations don’t want you to go public about their war, do they? They’re paying for this cover-up.”

“Cover-up?” Underwood snapped, once she heard Edith’s accusation. “There isn’t any cover-up!”

“Isn’t there?”

Underwood looked furious. “This conversation is over!” Her image winked out, leaving Edith alone in her snug little office.

She nodded to herself and smiled. That hit a nerve, all right. The big boys are paying off the news media to keep the war hushed up. That’s what’s going on.

Then Edith’s smile faded. Knowing the truth would be of little help in getting the story to the public.

How to break through their wall of silence? Edith wished she knew.