Cagarin thrust out his lips in a pouting expression. “I will remain awake with you.”
Rurik made a condescending smile. “If that is the penance I must endure.… We are supposed to have two monitors anyway.”
Now, at their end of the world party, six workers had gone to the zero-G command center at the hub of the Kibalchich’s torus. Inside, they had turned the largest external dish antenna toward Earth and begun making calls.
One of the communications engineers tapped into the microwave transmission bands, and together they spent hours trying to call friends they had known. No one answered. They called numbers at random. They laughed and drank and tried again, but the joke had worn thin by the time they finally broke through to a still-functioning recording in French. No one had the slightest idea what it said.
“Someone must still be alive! We know the War could not have been completely devastating.”
Rurik answered tiredly, “The electromagnetic pulse from the detonations would be sufficient to destroy most communications substations. Perhaps the equipment is out of commission. But some will still be intact. Have faith.”
They continued without success. None of the lines seemed to be working, or else no one felt like answering. “Just like the phone system back in Vladivostok!” one of the men muttered.
They proposed a toast to their commander, but found they had run out of things to drink. Bumping and floating, they made their way to the lift platforms that would carry them back out to the main torus. Rurik moved to follow them.
Turning back, he looked around the command center, where he spent so much of his time. A cylindrical holotank filled the center of the room, surrounding the station axis.
Switching off the vision recorder, Rurik recorded a terse warning in the holotank. In a day or so, when the station was quiet and deserted, he would broadcast the message to the three other colonies on their own ConComm channels, then he would shut down the unit on this end.
“We of the Kibalchich hereby sever all ties with other survivors on Earth’s space colonies. Do not attempt to contact us; we wish to remain isolated.”
It sounded childish and silly to Rurik, but he knew Cagarin would approve. It would keep the other colonies away for a while, at least, and it would give him time alone.
Plenty of time to do what he had to do.
Chapter 11
CLAVIUS BASE—Day 10
“All right, guys, this isn’t going to be like working on Orbitech 2. Don’t get cocky on me.” Clifford E. Clancy surveyed the five space-suited engineers crowded in the base airlock chamber.
“Tomkins wants us to bring back everything that isn’t welded to the Miranda’s hull. That includes the power pile, if it isn’t too hot. We’ll be taking both six-pack rovers out, so we’ve got plenty of room. Any questions?”
Clancy left his channels open, but waited only a beat. His people were never too shy to ask questions. They had worked well enough together on the massive Orbitech 2 construction project.
“Okay, folks, let’s go sightseeing.” Clancy activated the airlock that opened out to the Moon’s stark surface. A faint hiss indicated that the last of the trapped air had out-gassed. Behind them, the mound that covered the base entrance looked like any other hillock in the lunar wasteland.
Clancy much preferred the broad, shining girders and massive wheel of Orbitech 2, the most glorious man-made object in the solar system. By contrast, Clavius Base seemed a bunch of tunnels for ground squirrels to hide in.
Clancy heard only breathing on the comm-links; he couldn’t see any expressions behind the gold-mirrored faceplates. Something was definitely wrong if his people weren’t ribbing each other. “Teamwork communication,” he always called it—the informal, friendly attitude that turned them into a real team instead of a bunch of workers with the same job assignments.
He had thought that giving the crew a chance to go outside and get away from the base might let them work off some steam. Clancy himself wanted to see space again, even if it was only overhead and not the full 4 pi.
He could take only five out of the two hundred construction engineers transferred down from the L-4 site. But it gave at least some of his people a chance to do something worthwhile. And the salvage operation would provide a new story for the daily ConComm broadcast. The rest of the crew could watch and stop twiddling their thumbs for a while. After all, they were a construction team—not a bunch of “Lunatics” like the other Moon colonists.
Clancy began a low whistle into the comm-link, a tune his grandfather used to sing to him. After a faltering start, the others picked it up over the communication channels. Hi ho, hi ho! It’s off to work we go! They even seemed to march along with the tune. Clancy allowed himself a grin. Silence broken. Mission accomplished.
Outside the base, Clancy led his salvage crew out onto the pressed gravel walkway. They followed the path to the two six-pack vehicles sitting on the fused-rock parking area. Stars wheeled overhead, burning with a brilliance that seemed enhanced against the heavy lunar shadows. Still nothing like the awesome drowning sensation of open space, though—here, the ground gave him a frame of reference.
Two weeks ago, they had been up sealing the framework of the second industrial colony, floating by themselves, watching blueprints turn into reality. And then they had all been ordered to return to Clavius Base, to cool their heels while Orbitechnologies Corporation and its consortium of European investors worked out the details to shuttle the crew home. With world tensions heating up, the main contractors thought it best to back away, to hold their breath and wait a few weeks. Clancy hated to see the big project brought to a standstill. He had kept everything close to schedule up until then. What did Earth politics have to do with the peace and silence of L-4?
He’d had a very narrow view of things before the War. Now Orbitech 2 was going to be on hold for a lot longer than a few weeks.
Clancy sniffed inside his helmet. Dirty socks. Why does this suit always smell like dirty socks? No matter how much he cleaned, rubbed, and soaked the tape-wrapped phenolic, he couldn’t get rid of the smell. It had never bothered him out in the “open air” at L-4, working and living in the suit eighteen hours every day of the week. A person could get used to nearly anything after that much time. But once he’d been stranded at Clavius Base with the rest of the engineers, he began to notice it.
At first he ignored the smell, trying to convince himself that it wasn’t there, that he’d get used to it if he wore his suit more often. But it didn’t work. Probably psychosomatic. And if he didn’t watch out, somebody would send him to a shrink. Psychiatrists! He didn’t trust scientists who couldn’t give hard answers.
The gravel path swung hard to the right, bringing them out of the curtain of shadow and into sunlight. His visor darkened instantly, reflecting half of the unpolarized light away from his eyes. Suddenly, the shadows all around them looked like a bottomless black maw. He could read the fluorescent letters of the crew members’ names across their chests.
“Homann and Wooster, come with me. The rest of you take the other six-pack and follow. Shen, you drive today.”
“Right, boss man,” she answered.
“There you go, Cliff, making points with the ladies again.” Homann’s Arabic accent was barely noticeable.
Shen snapped back, “Open your faceplate, Petey, and I’ll give you a big fat kiss!”