But her bright blue eyes did not sparkle.
“How does your husband feel about New Zealand?” Zimmerman asked.
She waggled a hand in the air. “A good neurosurgeon can work wherever he goes. That’s no problem.”
“And the children?”
Cardenas smiled at him. “Grandchildren, Willi.”
“No!”
“Of course. What did you expect? My oldest will be thirty in another few months.”
Zimmerman puffed hard on his stogie. “How many grandchildren are there?”
“Two, so far. My daughter’s expecting in November. That’s why I want to stay until the end of the year.”
“Well,” said Zimmerman bravely, “Christchurch is less than an hour away from here, if-you use the rocket.”
Cardenas smiled wanly. “I know. But still…”
“Yes, I know. I understand. I will miss Basel, also. The pastries. And the good beer. More than half of my staff refuse to leave Switzerland. I can’t blame them. Some of them worry about their pensions, others have family they don’t want to leave.”
“It’s not an easy choice, Willi.”
“For you and me, it is. We go where they allow us to work. As long as New Zealand doesn’t sign the verdammt treaty—”
Her phone buzzed. Only the immediate family had access to it, so Cardenas hurriedly pulled the palm-sized instrument from her shoulder purse.
“Yes? Pete?” Zimmerman watched her face relax. She was worried about her pregnant daughter, obviously. “Joanna Stavenger?” She glanced at Zimmerman. “Why in the world would I travel to Moonbase, just to examine her son? That’s ridiculous… No, I’ll call her myself when we get home.”
Her husband said more, and Zimmerman saw Cardenas’ jaw clench. “Oh no! Oh my god.”
He waited as patiently as he could, standing there in the winding garden pathway as couples and families passed them, casting frowns at his cigar, while Cardenas’ face grew whiter.
At last she folded the phone and put it back in her shoulder bag.
“Bad news?”
“New Zealand’s just announced that they’ll sign the treaty, after all.”
“No!”
“Their government is under tremendous pressure from the party that’s backed by the New Morality movement. To stay in power, they’ve decided to sign the treaty.”
Zimmerman flung his cigar butt to the brick walk and stamped on it, swearing in German. Cardenas couldn’t understand the words but she recognized the tone easily enough.
“Well,” she said, her breath fluttering, “Pete really didn’t want to leave Vancouver anyway. And the kids are all here…’ Her voice tailed off.
“The only concession you must make is to give up your career,” Zimmerman said scornfully. “That’s all.”
There were tears in her eyes. “You too, Willi. They’ve stopped us both.”
“Never! I do not stop.”
“Where are you going to go?” Cardenas asked rhetorically. “There’s only a couple of tiny nations that won’t sign the treaty and they don’t have the facilities or the trained personnel you need.”
“Where will I go?” Zimmerman grasped her by the shoulders and turned her to face toward the distant mountains. The pale curve of the Moon hung above the bluish snow-clad peaks.
“There!” said Zimmerman firmly. “I will give up wiener schnitzel. Sausage and pastries and even beer I will give up. Even cigars! But not my work. Never! I will not give up my work, even if I have to live like a cave man!”
MOONBASE CONTROL CENTER
“The first day or so when I came up here,” Greg was telling his mother, “I spent more time in this spot than anyplace else.”
“I remember,” Joanna said.
“The radiation storm.”
“You told me they had a big party going on in The Cave.”
Greg nodded as he walked along the row of consoles. Each was occupied by a man or woman; they all had earphones clamped to their heads, but there was no tension in the room, no excitement. Most of the technicians looked bored as they watched their screens.
The big electronic map of Moonbase that covered one wall of the control center glowed softly. No red lights and only a few amber ones. Everything was under control; no major problems in sight. The base was functioning smoothly.
“We haven’t had a big flare like that one since then,” Greg said. “We’re about due for one.”
Greg made his rounds of the base once each day, walking from his office out to the main airlock, then down the ladder that led to the tunnel that went past the farm, then back along the next tunnel to The Cave, and finally to the control center. The fourth tunnel was entirely living quarters, and Greg saw no need to inspect it every day, although he strolled its length at least once a week, just to check things out.
The control center was the nerve nexus of Moonbase, of course. From its consoles every electronic circuit, every valve, every pump and drop of water and whiff of air was monitored both by the base’s mainframe computer and the human technicians who constantly watched the display screens and the big glowing wall map.
Joanna was following him on this afternoon’s inspection tour, seeking a way to tell him of what Doug wanted to do without causing an explosion.
“So what did you and Doug talk about out there on the mountaintop?” Greg asked, making it sound so casual that she knew he was blazing with curiosity. Or more.
“Operation Bootstrap,” she replied honestly.
“Is he still harping on that nonsense?” Greg complained as he strolled slowly along the row of consoles. “I wish he’d grow up.”
“I think Doug—”
“Do you know what he’s doing?” Greg interrupted, a sly smile on his lips. “He and Brudnoy want to get their hands on one of our old LTVs and convert it for this idiotic asteroid mission he’s dreamed up. He’s behaving like a sneaky little kid.”
“Do you think Brudnoy’s behaving childishly, too?” Joanna asked mildly.
Instead of answering, Greg stopped and bent over one of the technicians’ shoulders to look closely at the monitor display. Joanna wondered if he actually were interested in the display or just doing it for effect.
When Greg straightened up and resumed pacing behind the seated technicians, Joanna said, “I think Doug has a good idea — it’s too good to throw away.”
“Not you too!”
She stopped, forcing him to stop too and turn to face her.
“Greg, we’ve got to move on this while we still can. If we wait, the U.N. or the New Morality or somebody might try to stop us.”
With exaggerated patience, Greg said, “Mom, look: I’ve lined up Kiribati for us. We’ll be able to continue developing nanotechnology there in the islands. You ought to be making certain that the board is solidly behind us on this maneuver.”
“Don’t worry about the board.”
“Then we can forget about this Bootstrap business, can’t we? We can forget about Moonbase altogether. We won’t need it as long as Kiribati is cooperative.”
“And how long will that be?”
“Long enough for me to build the first diamond ship,” Greg said.
Shocked, Joanna blurted, “What?”
Smiling icily, Greg said, “We have plenty of carbon on Earth, Mother. We don’t have to build Doug’s dream ships up here. We can do it in Kiribati; much more cheaply, too. And once I demonstrate the prototype to the major aerospace lines, they’ll clamor to buy them, treaty or no treaty.”
“But what about your brother? What about Moonbase?”
“Doug will have to return to Earth when I shut this base down.”
Joanna took a breath. “But Doug can’t return to Earth! They’ll kill him just like they killed Carlos!”
“He can live in the islands. We can protect him there.”
Glancing at the men and women attending the consoles, Joanna said, “Greg, we shouldn’t be discussing this here.”