Paul explained what he was trying to do, and Wojo’s apprehensions.
Goodman put the film down and turned her full attention to him. “I don’t know the details, but I’ve heard a lot about nanotechnology. Mostly wild claims by enthusiasts and equally wild predictions of disaster by opponents.”
Spreading his hands, Paul said, “Well, that’s what I’m faced with: either the salvation of Moonbase or a disaster. I’d like your opinion on which to expect.”
“Most of what I’ve read about deals with the medical applications,” Goodman said, threading the film into the developing machine.
“Medical?”
“You know, an old lady like me gets interested in nano-machines that can keep the estrogen flowing.” She winked broadly.
“Oh,” said Paul. “I get it.”
More seriously, she asked, “If these nanomachines don’t work, are you going to close down Moonbase?”
“I don’t want to do that,” Paul said.
“I don’t want to go back Earthside,” said Goodman. “So maybe I’m not as unbiased in this matter as you think.”
Scientists! Paul fumed inwardly. They never give you a straight answer. Always hedging everything with all kinds of qualifications and escape hatches. He remembered a professor of economics who complained that the government always looked for ‘one-armed’ advisors: those who wouldn’t qualify everything by saying, “On the other hand…”
“Look,” he said, “all I want is your honest opinion about’twhether or not it’s safe to try this demonstration.”
Goodman looked up at him. “Twenty miles out on the other side of the ringwall?”
“Twenty-five miles, actually. The site is twenty miles out on the mare from Tempo Nineteen.”
“That should be far enough,” Goodman said. “If anything does go wrong, it shouldn’t affect us here.”
That was what Paul wanted to hear.
But before he could thank her, Goodman said, “Let me think about it, though. Ask some people I know about it. If I come up with any problems, I’ll let you know.”
“We’re leaving tomorrow morning,” Paul said.
“Who’s going with you?”
“Wojo.”
Goodman grinned maliciously. “Good. He’s a cantankerous old brute.”
“You two don’t get along?”
“I’ve been chasing his bod for months now, and he keeps eluding me. I think he’s scared of me.”
“Wojo?”
“Maybe he’s still a virgin.”
Paul stared at her for a stunned moment, not knowing whether she was serious or joking.
“Life’s not easy up here for a horny old lady,” Goodman said, with only the slightest of smiles. “Lots of nice young men, but they look on me like their grandmother. Wojo’s more my age.”
“Yeah,” Paul said weakly. “I suppose he is.”
Then he beat a hasty retreat, leaving Goodman grinning at his departing back.
TRACTOR FOUR
Paul was surprised to see Hi Tinker suiting up in the preparation chamber next to the airlock.
Three walls of the cubicle were lined with spacesuits standing on racks like displays of medieval armor. Helmets rested on shelves just above the empty suit torsos, boots on the plastic flooring next to the leggings.
Tink was already in his leggings and boots when Paul came in. He was an amiable Canadian from Toronto, lean and lantern-jawed, with a dry sense of humor and a maddening propensity for puns.
With a lopsided smile he told Paul, “Wojo’s outside already, checking out the tractor.”
“Good,” said Paul, going to the medium-sized suits.
“These nanomachines really worry him, you know.” Before Paul could reply he went on, “You might say the bugs are bugging him.”
Paul ignored the pun. No sense encouraging the man. “What’re you suiting up for?” he asked, stepping into the leggings of the newest-looking suit he could find in his size.
I’m going with you”
“You are?”
Tinker nodded. “You can use a third set of hands to set things up, and I want to scout the territory out on the mare for a telescope site.”
“What’s wrong with siting a telescope here, inside the ringwall?”
“Too much radio chatter in here. I’ve got a grant from Caltech to look into developing a major radio telescope facility up here. It’ll need someplace nice and quiet in the radio frequencies. A dome away from home.”
Why wasn’t I told about this? Paul asked himself. Tinker was a consultant, not a regular corporate employee. He came up to Moonbase every three months to check out the astronomical equipment that the base operated for a consortium of universities. Still, Paul thought, if he’s won a grant from Caltech I should have been informed.
Then he realized that he was the CEO now, too far above the ranks to be involved in such details. The thought stung him. Paul wanted to know every detail about Moonbase.
Aloud, he said, “Farside would be the best place for radio quiet.”
Lifting his suit’s torso over his head, Tinker wormed his arms into its sleeves and popped his head up through the metal ring of its collar.
With a grunt that might have been part laugh, he said, “You know that, and I know that, and even Wojo knows that But find me a university that’s got the money to build a base on the farside.”
“What about the consortium?” Paul asked.
Tink shook his head sadly. “Not even the entire International Astronomical Union can raise that kind of cabbage. When it comes to finances, astronomers are at the end of the line.”
Paul nodded, realizing that Tinker didn’t make puns about his work. Be thankful for small mercies, he thought.
The two men checked out each other’s suits and backpacks, then Paul followed Tink through the airlock and out onto the surface of the crater Alphonsus.
“Magnificent desolation,” Paul murmured, as he always did when he went outside.
The tired, worn ringwall mountains rose above them as far as the eye could see. Alphonsus was so wide that Paul could barely make out the tops of the peaks at the center of the crater poking above the horizon. The crater floor, cracked and rilled, seemed as dead and untouched as the first time Paul had landed here. Except for the humps of rubble marking the buried modules of the base and the angular metal framework of the oxygen plant off to the right. The ground was welted with bright cleated trails that the tractors left.
As Paul stood there, though, he saw what Moonbase could become: a whole city, domed and covered with protective rubble, to be sure, but a real city of thousands of people with open spaces beneath its wide dome and green trees and plants and grass, soaring pillars and winding footpaths and broad windows so you could look outside and see the solar energy farms and the factories open to vacuum and the spaceport where ships landed and took off on a regular schedule.
“We’re ready whenever you are, boss-man.”
Wojo’s voice in his earphones startled Paul out of his daydream. Turning, he saw the man standing by the tractor hatch. Wojo’s spacesuit looked hard-used, grimy, its helmet scratched and dulled.
“Yeah,” he said tightly. “Let’s get going.”
It was considerably less than comfortable sitting squeezed together in the tractor’s cab inside their cumbersome space-suits, but Paul knew that a stray meteoroid could crack the canopy and the cab would lose its air in seconds.
The tractor’s cab was a bubble of tempered plastiglass, pressurized to the same five pounds per square inch as the spacesuits, so that in an emergency the occupants could slam down their visor helmets and go to their suit life-support systems without needing time to prebreathe low-pressure oxygen to avoid the bends.
The underground shelters also ran at five psi, for the same reason. The ‘air’ that the Moonbase inhabitants breathed with seventy-two percent oxygen, twenty-eight percent nitrogen. The oxygen came from the lunar regolith; until they drilled successfully for ammonia the nitrogen had to be carried up from Earth.