Ben Bova - Moonrise

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Moonrise

BEN BOVA

CONTENTS

Part I Destiny

Part II Hero Time

Part III Legacy

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 couldn't 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, you'll find out soon enough. One foot in front of the other. I'll 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, it's up to me.'

The sky was absolutely black, but only a few stars showed through the heavy tint of his helmet's

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. You've 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 hadn't killed him, too. How do you know they haven't

infested the suit? he asked himself again. Grimly he answered, What difference does it make? If

they have, you're 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 you're dead.

He had calculated it all out in his head as soon as he realized what had happened in the shelter.

Twenty miles. The suit's backpack tank held twelve hours of oxygen. No recycling. You've 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

haven't 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, you'll have to do it now. Or die. Then Greg wins. He'll 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 wasn't 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. That's 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? It's 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. Mustn't 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 suit's 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, it's still working. The suit's functioning okay. Settle down. Keep moving.

Turning to see how far he'd 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 they'll turn dark, too; solar ultraviolet tans everything. He almost laughed.

Good thing I'm already tanned.

Paul started out again, checking his direction with the global positioning system receiver built

into the suit's displays. He hadn't 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 Nubium's 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 didn't There's nobody there, anyway, he thought It's 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.

He checked his watch and, yes, his rough calculations were pretty close to the actualities. In a few

minutes the Sun would overtake him and he'd have to make the rest of the trek in daylight.

Christ he thought, if the visor fogged up when it was two hundred below zero outside the suit

what's going to happen when it goes over two-fifty above, and the damned suit can't radiate my

body heat away?

A sardonic voice in his head answered, You'll find out real soon now.

The sunrise line inched forward to meet him, undulating slowly over the uneven ground, moving

toward him at the pace of a walking man.

Despite the fear gnawing inside him, Paul thought back to his first days on the Moon. The

excitement of planting boot prints where no one had ever stepped before; the breathtaking

grandeur of the rugged landscape, the silence and the dramatic vistas.

That was then, he told himself. Now you've got to make it to the next shelter before you run out

of oxy. Or before the Sun broils you. Or the damned bugs eat up your suit.

He forced himself forward, dreading the moment when he stepped from the night's shadow into

the unfiltered ferocity of the Sun.

Yet even as he walked toward the growing brightness, his mind turned back to the day when all

this had started, back to the time when he had married Joanna so that he could take -control of

Masterson Aerospace. Back to the moment when Greg Masterson had begun to hate him. It had

all been to save Moonbase, even then. Paul realized that he had given most of his life to

Moonbase. 'Most of it?' he asked aloud. 'Hell, there's a pissin' great chance I'm going to give all of

it to Moonbase.'

SAVANNAH

They had spent the afternoon in bed, making love, secure in the knowledge that Joanna's husband

would be at the executive committee meeting.

At first Paul thought it was only a fling. Joanna was married to the head of Masterson Aerospace

and she had no intention of leaving her husband. She had explained that to him very carefully the

first time they had made it, in one of the plush fold-back chairs of Paul's executive jet while it

stood in the hangar at the corporation's private airport

Paul had been surprised at her eagerness. For a while he thought that maybe she just wanted to

make it with a black man, for kicks. But it was more than that. Much more.

She was a handsome woman, Joanna Masterson, tall and lithe, with the polished grace that comes

with old money. Yet there was a subtle aura of tragedy about her that Paul found irresistible.

Something in her sad gray-green eyes that needed consolation, comforting, love.

Beneath her veneer of gentility Joanna was an anguished woman, tied in marriage to a man who

slept with every female he could get his hands on, except his wife. Not that Paul was much better;

he had done his share of tail chasing, and more.

Screwing around with the boss's wife was dangerous, for both of them, but that merely added

spice to their affair. Paul had no intention of getting emotionally wrapped up with her. There were

too many other women in the world to play with, and an ex-astronaut who had become a

successful business executive did not have to strain himself searching for them. The son of a

Norwegian sea captain and a Jamaican school teacher, Paul had charm, money and an easy self-

confidence behind his gleaming smile: a potent combination.

Yet he had stopped seeing anyone else after only a few times of lovemaking with Joanna. It

wasn't anything he consciously planned; he simply didn't bother with other women once he

became involved with her. She had never taken a lover before, Joanna told him. 'I never thought I

could,' she had said, 'until I met you.'

The phone rang while they lay sweaty and spent after a long session of lovemaking that had

started gently, almost languidly, and climaxed in gasping, moaning passion.

Joanna pushed back a tumble of ash-blonde hair and reached for the phone. Paul admired the

curve of her hip, the smoothness of her back, as she lifted the receiver and spoke into it.

Then her body went rigid.

'Suicide?'

Paul sat up. Joanna's face was pale with shock.

'Yes,' she said into the phone. 'Yes, of course.' Her voice was steady, but Paul could see the

sudden turmoil and pain in her wide eyes. Her hand, gripping the phone with white-knuckled

intensity, was shaking badly.

'I see. All right. I'll be there in fifteen minutes.'

Joanna went to put the phone down on the night table, missed its edge, and the phone fell to the

carpeted floor.

'He's killed himself,' she said.

'Who?'

'Gregory.'

'Your husband?'

Took a pistol from his collection and . . . committed suicide.' She seemed dazed. 'Killed himself.'

Paul felt guilt, almost shame, at being naked in bed with Hier at this moment. 'I'm sorry,' he

mumbled. Joanna got out of bed and headed shakily for the bathroom. She stopped at the

doorway for a moment, gripped the doorjamb, visibly pulled herself together. Then she turned

back toward Paul.

'Yes. I am too.' She said it flatly, without- a trace of emotion, as if rehearsing a line for a role she

would be playing.

Paul got to his feet. Suddenly he felt shy about getting into the shower with her. He wanted to get

to his own condo. 'I'd better buzz out of here before anybody arrives,' he called to Joanna.

'I think that would be best. I've got to go to his office. The police have been called.'

Searching for his pants, Paul asked, 'Do you want me to go with you?'

'No, it's better if we're not seen together right now. I'll phone you later tonight.'

Driving along Savannah's riverfront toward his condo building, Paul tried to sort out his own

feelings. Gregory Masterson II had been a hard-drinking royal sonofabitch who chased more, tail

than even Paul did. Joanna had sworn that she had never had an affair before she had met Paul,

and he believed her. Gregory, though, he was something else. Didn't care who knew what he was

doing. He liked to flaunt his women, as if he was deliberately trying to crush Joanna, humiliate

her beyond endurance.

Hell, Paul said to himself, you should talk. Bedding the guy's wife. Some loyal, trusted employee

you are.

So Gregory blew his brains out. Why? Did he find about Joanna and me? Paul shook his head as

he turned into the driveway of his building. No, he wouldn't commit suicide over us. Murder,

maybe, but not suicide.

As he rode the glass elevator up to his penthouse condo, Paul wondered how Joanna's son was

taking the news. Gregory Masterson III. He'll expect to take over the corporation now, I'll bet.

Keep control of the company in the family's hands. His father nearly drove the corporation into

bankruptcy; young Greg'll finish the job. Kid doesn't know piss from beer.

Paul tapped out his code for the electronic lock, stepped into the foyer of his condo, and headed

swiftly for the bar. Pouring himself a shot of straight tequila, he wondered how Joanna was

making out with the police and her husband's dead body. Probably put the gun in his mouth, he

thought. Must be blood and brains all over his office.

Feeling the tequila's heat in his throat, he walked to the big picture window of his living room and

looked out at the placid river and the tourist boats plying up and down. A nearly-full Moon was

climbing above the horizon, pale and hazy in the light blue sky.

A sudden realization jolted Paul. 'What are they going to do about Moonbase?' he asked aloud. 'I

can't let them shut it down.'

NEW YORK CITY

Paul flew his twin-engined executive jet to New Yoik's JFK airport, alone. He hadn't seen Joanna

in the three weeks since Gregory Masterson's suicide. He had phoned her and offered to take

Joanna with him to New York, but she decided to go with the company's comptroller in her late

husband's plane. This board meeting would decide who the new CEO of Masterson Aerospace

would be, and Paul knew they would elect young Greg automatically.

He also knew that Greg's first move as CEO would be to shut down Moonbase. The corporation

had run the base under contract to the government for more than five years, but Washington had

decided to stop funding Moonbase and 'privatize' the operation. Masterson Aerospace had the

option of continuing to run the lunar base at its own expense, or shut it all down.

The chairman of the board was against keeping the lunar operation going, and Greg was hot to

show the chairman and the rest of the board that he could cut costs. Paul had to admit that

Moonbase was a drain on the corporation and would continue to be for years to come. But

eventually .. . If only I can keep Moonbase going long enough to get it into the black.

It's going to be tough once Greg's in command. Impossible, maybe. He spent the entire flight to

New York desperately wondering how he could convince Greg to give Moonbase a few more

years, time to get established well enough to start showing at least the chance of a profit

downstream.

It's the corporation's future, he told himself. The future for all of us. The Moon is the key to all

the things we want to do in space: orbital manufacturing, scientific research, even tourism. It all

hinges on using the Moon as a resource base. But it takes time to bring an operation like

Moonbase into the black. Time and an awful lot of money. And faith. Greg just doesn't have the

faith. He never has, and he probably never will.

Paul did. It takes a special kind of madman to push out across a new frontier. Absolute fanatics

like von Braun, who was willing to work for Hitler or anyone else, as long as he got the chance to

send his rockets to the Moon. It takes faith, absolute blind trusting faith that what you are doing is

worth any price, any risk, worth your future and your fortune and your life.

I've got that faith, God help me. I've got to make Greg see the light the way I do. Somehow. Get

him to listen to me. Get him to believe.

JFK was busy as always, the traffic pattern for landing stacked twelve planes deep. Once he had

taxied his twin jet to the corporate hangar and climbed down the ladder to the concrete ramp, the

howl and roar of hundreds of engines around the busy airport made Paul's ears hurt.

As he walked toward the waiting limousine, suit jacket slung over one arm, the ground suddenly

shook with a growling thunder that drowned out all the other sounds. Turning, Paul saw a

Clippership rising majestically on its eight bellowing rocket engines, lifting up into the sky, a

tapered smooth cone of plastic and metal that looked like the most beautiful work of art Paul had

ever seen.

He knew every line of the Clippership, every detail of its simple, elegant design, every

component that fit inside it A simple conical shape with rockets at the flat bottom end, the

Clippership rose vertically and would land vertically, settling down softly on those same rocket

exhaust plumes. Between takeoff and landing, it could cross intercontinental distances in forty-

five minutes or less. Or make the leap into orbit in a single bound. Everything seemed to stop at

the airport, all other sounds and movement suspended as the Clippership rose, thundering slowly

at first and then faster anil faster, dwindling now as the mighty bellow of its rockets washed over

Paul like a physical force, wave after wave of undulating awesome noise thai blanketed every

frequency the human ear could detect anc much more. Paul grinned and suppressed the urge to

fling a salute at the departing Clippership. The overpowering sound of those rockets hit most

people with the force of a religious experience. Paul had converted four members of the board of

directors to supporting the Clippership project by the simple tactic of bringing them out to watch

a test launch. And hear it And feel it.

Laughing to himself, Paul ducked into the limousine dooi that the chauffeur was holding open.

He wondered where the Clippership was heading. There were daily flights out of New York to

Tokyo, Sydney, Buenos Aires and Hong Kong, he knew. Soon they would be adding more cities.

Anywhere on Earth in forty-five minutes or less.

The Clipperships had pulled Masterson Aerospace out of impending bankruptcy. But Paul knew

that he had pushed for them, fought for them, was willing to kill for them not merely because they

made Masterson the leader in the new era of commercial transport. He went to the brink of the

cliff and beyond for the Clipperships because they could fly into orbit in one hop, and do it more

cheaply than any other rocket vehicle. The Clipperships would help to make Moonbase

economically viable. That was why Paul rammed them past Masterson's board of directors -

including the late Gregory Masterson II.

The Clipperships would help Moonbase to break into the black, if Greg Masterson III didn't kill

Moonbase first.

But as the cool, quiet limousine made its way out of the airport and onto the throughway,

crowded with the world's most aggressive drivers, Paul realized that the Clipperships meant even

more to him than Moonbase's possible salvation. He had made the Clippers a success, true

enough. But they had made a success of him, as well. Paul's skin was no darker than a swarthy

Sicilian's, but he was a black ex-astronaut when he started at Masterson, all those years ago. With

the accent on the black. The success of the Clipperships had elevated him to the exalted level of

being the black manager of Masterson's space operations division, in Savannah, and a black

member of the board of directors.

And the black lover of the dead boss's wife, he added wryly to himself.

Paul had never liked New York. As his limo headed through the swarming traffic along the

bumpy, potholed throughway toward the bridge into Manhattan, Paul thought that New York

wasn't a city, it was an oversized frenetic anthill, always on the verge of explosion. Even twenty

years after the so-called Renaissance Laws, the place was still overcrowded, noisy, dangerous.

Electricity powered all the cars, trucks and buses bound for Manhattan. Old-style fossil-fueled

vehicles were not allowed through the tunnels or over the bridges that led into the island. That

had cleaned the air a good bit, although hazy clouds of pollution still drifted in from New Jersey,

across the Hudson.

Police surveillance cameras hung on every street corner and miniaturized unmanned police

spotter planes were as common in the air as pigeons. Vendors, even kids who washed windshields

when cars stopped for traffic lights, had to display their big yellow permits or be rousted by the

cops who rode horseback in knots of threes and fives through the crowded streets.

Yet the streets still teemed with pitchmen hawking stolen goods, kids exchanging packets of

drugs, prostitutes showing their wares. All that the Renaissance Laws had accomplished, as far as

Paul could see, was to drive violent crime off the streets. There was still plenty of illicit activity,

but it was organized and mostly non-violent. You might get propositioned or offered anything

from the latest designer drugs to the latest designer fashions, fresh off a hijacked truck. But you

wouldn't get mugged. Probably.

Still, the limo had to thread its way across the ancient bridges and along the narrow, jampacked

streets. The windshield got washed - partially - four different times, and the chauffeur had to slip

a city-issued token through his barely-opened window to the kids who Splashed the brownish

water onto the car.

He must use up the whole tank of windshield cleaner every trip, Paul thought as the limo inched

downtown, wipers flapping away.

At one intersection a smiling trio of women tapped on Paul's window, bending low enough to

show they were wearing nothing beneath their loose blouses. Kids, Paul realized. Beneath their

heavy makeup they couldn't have been more than fifteen years old. A trio of mounted policemen

watched from their horses, not twenty yards away.

Paul shook his head at the whores. I've gotten this far in life without killing myself, he thought.

The girls looked disappointed. So did the cops. Then the traffic light went green and the limo

pulled away.

By the time he got to the corporate offices in the Trade Towers, Paul needed a drink. The walnut-

panelled board room had a bar and a spread of finger foods set up in the back, but neither a

bartender nor waitress had shown up yet. Paul did not see any tequila. He settled for a beer,

instead.

Paul had always been one of the early ones at board meetings, but this time apparently he was the

first. The opulent room was empty, except for him. Glancing at his wristwatch, Paul saw that the

meeting was scheduled to start in less than fifteen minutes. Usually more than half the directors

would be already here, milling about, exchanging pleasantries or whispering business deals to one

another, drinking and noshing.

Where is everybody? Paul wondered.

He paced the length of the long conference table, saw mat each place was neatly set with its built-

in computer screen and keyboard.

He went to the long windows at the head of the conference room and gazed out at the towers of

Manhattan, thinking how much better it was on the Moon, where all a man had to worry about

was a puncture in his suit or getting caught on the surface during a solar flare. He craned his neck

to see JFK, hoping to catch another Clippership takeoff or, even more spectacular, see one

landing on its tail jets,

'Paul.'

Startled, he whirled around to see Joanna standing in the doorway, looking cool and beautiful in a

beige miniskiited business suit. He hadn't seen her since the day of her husband's suicide.

'How are you?' he asked, hurrying toward her. 'How've you been? I wanted-'

'Later,' she said, raising one hand to stop him from embracing her. 'Business first'

'Where's everybody? The meeting's scheduled to start in ten minutes.'

'It's been pushed back half an hour,' Joanna said, 'Nobody told me.'

She smiled coolly at him. 'I asked Brad for a half-hour delay. There's something I want to discuss

with you before the meeting starts.'

'What?'

Joanna went to the conference table and perched on its edge, crossing her long legs demurely.

'We're going to elect a new president and CEO,' she said. , Paul nodded. 'Greg. I know.'

'You don't sound happy about it'

'Why should I be?'

'Who else would you recommend?' she asked, with that ssame serene smile.

'Greg doesn't know enough to run a corporation,' Paul said, keeping his voice low. But the

urgency came through. 'Okay, we're not supposed to speak ill of the dead, I know, but his father

nearly drove this company into the ground.'

'And you saved it

Paul felt uncomfortable saying it, but he agreed. 'I had to practically beat your husband over the

head before he saw the light'

Every major airline in the world began clamoring for Masterson Clipperships, once Paul pushed

the project dirough its development phase. Yet Gregory Masterson II had almost

ruined Masterson Aerospace, despite the Clippership's success. Maybe because of it, Paul how

thought.

And his son was eager to follow in his father's mistaken footsteps.

'He wants to shut down Moonbase,' Joanna said quietly. 'He told me so.'

'You can't let him do that!'

'Why not?' she asked.

'It's the future of the company - of the nation, the whole goddamned human race!'

She sat on the edge of the conference table in silence for a moment, her eyes probing Paul. Then

Joanna said, 'The first order of business in today's meeting will be to elect me to the board to fill

Gregory's seat.'

'And then they'll elect young Greg president and CEO,' Paul said, surprised at how much

bitterness showed in bis voice.

"They'll have to have nominations first'

'Brad's going to nominate him.'

'Yes. But I intend to nominate you,' said Joanna.

He blinked with surprise. A flame of sudden hope flared through him. Then he realized, To show

there's no nepotism.'

Joanna shook her head. 'I know my son better than you do, Paul. He's not ready to head this

corporation. He'd ruin it and himself, both.'

'You mean you really want me to be CEO?'

'I want it enough,' Joanna said, slipping off the table to stand before him, 'that I want us to get

married.'

Paul's insides jolted. 'Married?'

Joanna smiled again and twined her arms around Paul's neck. 'I like being the wife of the CEO. I

just didn't like the CEO very much. With you, it will be different, won't it? Very different'

Paul's mind was racing. CEO. Married. She doesn't love me, not really, but if we're married and

I'm CEO we can keep Moonbase going until it starts making a profit but she's probably only

doing this so Greg can grow up some and then she'll want to turn the corporation over to him

sooner or later.

Joanna kissed him lightly on the lips. 'Don't you think marriage is a good idea? Like a corporate

merger, only much more fun.'

'You'd marry me?' Paul asked.

'If you ask me.'

'And nominate me for CEO?'

'You'll be elected if I nominate you.'

She's right Paul realized. If she doesn't back her own son the rest of the board will turn away from

him. Hell, I'm one of the corporation's leaders. Saved the outfit from bankruptcy. Making them all

rich with the Clippership profits. Half of 'em would be afraid to vote against a black man; afraid

it'd look like discrimination. And I could protect Moonbase from Greg and Brad. I could keep

them from shutting it down.

'Okay,' he said, surprised at the tightness in his throat. 'Will you marry me?'

Joanna laughed out loud. 'How romantic!'

'I mean - well, will you?'

'Of course I will, Paul. You're the only man in the world for me.'

Paul kissed her, knowing that neither one of them had used the word love.

MARE NUBIUM

The edge of the sunlit day came up to meet Paul with the inevitability of a remorseless universe.

One moment he was ii shadow, the next in full glaring sunlight. The sky overhead was still black

but now the glare reflecting from the ground washec away the few stars that he had been able to

see before.

A pump somewhere in his backpack gurgled, and the air fan in his helmet whined more

piercingly. He thought he heard metal or plastic groan under the sudden heat load.

Paul looked down and, sure enough, the ground was breaking into sparkles of light, like a whole

field of jewels glittering for hundreds of meters in front of him. The sunshine triggered

phosphorescence in the minerals scattered in the regolith's surface layer. The effect disappeared

after a few minutes, but plenty of the earliest workers on the Moon had actually thought they'd

found fields of diamonds: the Moon's equivalent of fool's gold.

There was real wealth in the regolith, but it wasn't gold or diamonds. Oxygen. The opiate of the

masses. Habit forming substance; take one whiff and you're hooked for life.

Cut it out, Stavenger, he railed at himself. You're getting geeky in your old age. Straighten up and

concentrate on what you're doing.

He plodded doggedly ahead, but his mind wandered to the first time his eyes had opened to the

grandeur of the Moon. At the planetarium, he remembered. Couldn't have been more than ten or

eleven. The videos of astronauts walking on the Moon, jumping in low-gravity exhilaration while

the lecturer told us that one day we kids could go to the Moon and continue the exploration.

Levitt, Paul remembered. Old Dr. Levitt. He knew how to open a kid's mind. The bug bit me

then, Paul realized. He had gone up to the lecturer after the show and asked if he could stay and

see it again. A round-faced man with a soft voice and big glasses that made his face look like an

owl's, Dr. Levitt turned out to be the planetarium's director. He took Paul to his own office and

spent the afternoon showing him books and tapes about space exploration.

Paul's father was away at sea most of the time. His classmates at school were either white or

black, and each side demanded his total loyalty. Caught between them, Paul had become a loner,

living in his own fantasy world until the bigger dream of exploring the Moon engulfed him. He

haunted the planetarium, devoured every book and tape he could find, grew to be Dr. Levitt's

valued protege and, eventually, when he reached manhood, his friend. It was Lev who secured a

scholarship for Paul at MIT, who paved the way for his becoming an astronaut, who broke down

and wept when Paul actually took off from Cape Canaveral for the first time.

Paul was on the Moon when the old man died, quietly, peacefully, the way he had lived: writing a

letter of recommendation for another poor kid who needed a break.

I wouldn't be here if it weren't for Lev, Paul knew. Even if I die here, I'll still owe him for

everything good that's happened in my life.

He knew it was psychological more than physical, yet with the Sun pounding on him Paul felt as

if he had stepped from an air-conditioned building onto a baking hot parking lot. Some parking

lot, he told himself as he pushed on. The dusty, gray regolith looked like an unfinished blacktop

job, pockmarked and uneven. Mare Nubium, he thought. Sea of Clouds. The nearest body of

water is a quarter-million miles away.

Still, it did look a little like the surface of the sea, the way the ground undulated and rolled. A sea

that was frozen into rock. I guess it was a sea once, a sea of red-hot lava when the meteoroid that

carved out this basin slammed into the Moon.

How long ago? Three-and a half billion years? Give or take a week.

He plodded on, one booted foot after another, trying not to look at the thermometer on his

forearm displays.

His mind started to drift again.

I never told her that I loved her, Paul remembered. Not then Guess, I was too surprised. Marry me

and I'll make you CEO She never said she loved me, either. It was a business deal.

He almost laughed. Marriage is one way of ending a love affair, I guess.

But Greg didn't laugh about it. Not then, not ever. I don' think I've ever seen him smile, even. Not

our boy Greg.

BOARD MEETING

The other board members filtered into the meeting room in twos and threes. Greg Masterson

walked in alone, his suit a funereal black, the expression on his face bleak. He was a handsome

man of twenty-eight, tall and slim, his face sculpted in planes and hollows like a Rodin statue. He

had his father's dark, brooding looks: thick dark hair down to his collar and eyes like twin

gleaming chunks of jet.

But where his father had been a hell-raiser, Greg had always been a quiet, somber introvert. As

far as Paul knew, he might still be a virgin. He had never heard a breath of gossip about this

serious, cheerless young man.

Reluctantly, feeling guilty, Paul made his way across the board room to Greg.

'I'm sorry about your father,' he said, extending his hand.

'I bet you are,' Greg said, keeping his hands at his sides. He was several inches taller than Paul,

though Paul was more solidly built.

Before Paul could think of anything else to say, Bradley Arnold bustled up to Greg and took him

by the arm.

"This way, Greg,' said the board chairman. 'I want you to sit up beside me today.'

Greg went sullenly with the chairman of the board. Arnold was the whitest man Paul had ever

seen. He looked like an animated wad of dough, short, pot-bellied, wearing a ridiculous silver-

gray toupe that never seemed to sit right on his head; it looked so artificial it was laughable.

Eagerly bustling, he led Greg up to the head of the table and sat the younger man on his right

Arnold's face was round, flabby, with hyperthyroid bulging frog's eyes.

Sixteen men and three women, including Joanna, sat around the long polished table. Paul took a

chair across the table from Joanna, where he could see her face. The symbolism of Arnold's

seating Greg next to him was obvious. Paul waited to see how the board would react to Joanna's

less-than-symbolic nomination.

Arnold played the meeting for all the drama he could squeeze out of it. He began by asking for a

moment of silence to honor the memory of their late president and CEO. As Paul bowed his head,

he glanced at Melissa Han, sitting down near the bottom of the table.

Silky smooth, long-legged Melissa, with skin the color of milk chocolate and a fierce passion

within her that drove her mercilessly both at work and play. Most board members thought of her

as an affirmative action 'twofer:' black and female. Or a 'threefer,' since she represented the

unions among the corporation's work force. Paul knew her as a fiery bed partner who was furious

with him for dropping her in favor of Joanna.

She had been sleeping with Gregory Masterson before Paul, everyone knew. That was how she

got on the board of directors, they thought. Now, as Paul glanced her way, she did not look

terribly grieved. Instead, she glared angrily at him.

Arnold next asked for a vote to accept the minutes of the last meeting, then called for reports

from the division heads while the board members fidgeted impatiently in their chairs.

When it came to Paul's turn, he gave a perfunctory review of the Clippership's profits and the firm

orders from airlines around the world. Paul referred to them as aerospace lines, even the ones that

were not doing any true business in orbit, because the Clipperships spent most of their brief flight

times far above the atmosphere. "The way to make money,' Paul had told every airline executive

he had ever wined and dined, 'is to keep your Clipperships in space more than they're on the

ground.'

Ordinarily, at least a few of the board members would ask nit-picking questions, but everyone

wanted to move ahead to the election of the new CEO.

Almost everyone.

'What's this I hear about your people making giant TV screens up there in the space station?'

asked Alan Johansen.

He was one of the newest board members, a handsomely vapid young protege of Arnold's with

slicked-back blond hair and the chiselled profile of a professional model.

Surprised, Paul said, 'It's still in the developmental stage.'

'Giant TV screens?' asked one of the women.

'Under the weightless conditions in orbit,' Paul explained, 'we can make large-crystal flat screens

ten, fifteen feet across, but only a couple of inches thick.'

'Why, you could hang them on a wall like a painting, couldn't you?'

"That's right,' said Paul. 'It might make a very profitable product line for us.'

'Wall screens,' said Johansen.

'One of our bright young technicians came up with the name Windowall.'

'That's good!' said Johansen. 'We should copyright that name.'

Bradley Arnold turned, slightly sour-faced, to the corporate legal counsel. 'See that we register

that as a trade name.'

'Windowall, right,' said the lawyer. 'How do you spell it?'

Paul told him.

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MoonriseBENBOVACONTENTSPartIDestinyPartIIHeroTimePartIIILegacyWehavepower,youandI,Butwhatgoodisthatnow?WewouldbuildanewworldifweonlyknewhowJacquesBrelPARTI:DestinyMARENUBIUM'Magnificentdesolation.'PaulScavengeralwaysspokethosewordswheneverhesteppedoutontothebaredustysurfaceoftheMoon.Butthistimeitwas...

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Ben Bova - Moonrise

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