“Not a problem,” said Jerry. “Wait for my signal.” It took two minutes, then Jerry said, “You’re on in ten seconds.”
Bucky counted to fifteen on the assumption that the adrenaline he was pumping was making him count too fast, and then stared into the camera that was transmitting his image back to Earth.
“This is Morgan Blackstone,” he announced, “and I am speaking to you in orbit around the Moon. I know a lot of you have decided that I’m some kind of publicity-seeking nutcase, and that, of course, Neil Armstrong was the first man to land on the Moon.” He paused for effect, then a huge smile spread across his face. “Well, I’m here to tell you that the nutcase has found proof that Sidney Myshko was the first man on the Moon, predating Neil Armstrong by more than half a year, and that Blackstone Enterprises back on Earth is about to transmit videos taken from orbit that will confirm what I said. When we finish our next orbit of the Moon, which gives the administration time to tell you that these are phony, we’ll be transmitting still photos taken from just a few feet away from the abandoned descent stages. I’ve told our team on the Moon to make sure that any identifying codes are clearly visible.” Another huge grin. “This is the publicity-seeking nutcase signing off.”
“Somebody in Washington’s not going to love you,” said Gaines with a smile as he broke the connection.
“I know.”
“Then why antagonize them so?”
“To keep them busy while we accomplish our mission,” answered Bucky.
Gaines frowned. “But we’ve already proven you were right, that Myshko and Walker really did land on the Moon . . . so what are you talking about?”
“You’re brighter than that, Ben,” said Bucky. “Use your brain.”
Gaines was silent for a moment. “I still don’t understand,” he said. “We found the descent stage. We know Sidney Myshko landed. We’ve accomplished our mission.”
“We’ve justified our mission, Ben,” said Bucky. “We haven’t accomplished a damned thing. With a little luck, that comes next.”
Gaines shook his head. “I don’t follow you.”
“Think about it. We know Myshko and Walker landed on the Moon. There’s no longer any question about it. We know that the government has kept it secret for half a century. There’s no longer any question about that, either. Now we come to the real purpose of this mission, and with luck we can accomplish it before Marcia and Phil run out of air.”
Gaines stared at him. “Boss, it was a stunt. A couple of guys who wanted to walk on the Moon. What else could it be?”
31
The population conference got off to a bad start. Everybody seemed to recognize the severity of the problem, and that in itself constituted good news. The major powers understood the threat to peace presented by uncontrolled growth. But there were vast gaps in the proposals on how to deal with the issue. Cunningham’s advisors were pushing for a combination of approaches, mostly aimed at spurring economic development. History demonstrated that population growth tended to level off with prosperity, and it did so without widespread abortions. But it meant making liberal education available, putting money and sound management into the economies and managing them rationally. No one had ever succeeded in dealing with the problem on a large scale. In fact, nation-building had at best a weak track record. Even with the unified efforts of the major powers, Cunningham couldn’t see its happening. And they were by no means unified. Some wanted, for example, simply to ignore the more desperate areas of the planet and concentrate on keeping weapons out of the hands of militants. That was another blind alley.
Later that afternoon, he’d be meeting with his conference representatives. He sighed. They needed a plan. He had nothing. And neither did they.
—
He was still agonizing when Ray showed up, looking rattled. Kim offered to get him a cup of coffee, but he passed on it. She closed the door, leaving them alone. “Bad news, looks like, George,” he said. “The networks are announcing that Blackstone is going to be transmitting pictures from the Moon. He must have found something.”
Cunningham was tired. After the frustrations of the conference, Bucky’s Moon flight just didn’t seem that serious anymore. “What did he find?” he asked.
“They’re not saying. They just made the announcement a few minutes ago. They’re going to start broadcasting in”—he checked his watch—“six minutes.”
“The son of a bitch lives to play to his audience, doesn’t he?”
“I’d say so, yes.”
He picked up the remote and turned on the TV. CBS was running a crawl stating that there was breaking news from the Moon, while three or four of their newspeople chattered about what it could be. NBC had its news anchor going on about the Myshko and speculating on whether there had really been other landings. ABC was interviewing physicist Michael Shara in his office at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Fox had a team on the ground at Flat Plains.
ABC’s Mark Cassidy broke off his conversation with Shara and looked up into the camera. “ABC has breaking news. Taking you now to the Moon—”
Shara’s bright functional office was replaced by Blackstone, seated inside the cramped spacecraft, wearing his customary self-satisfied grin. Except it had an additional dimension this time. He looked like a guy holding four aces. “This is Morgan Blackstone,” he said.
—
When it was over, Cunningham simply stared at the screen, which had reverted to Shara’s office, where the physicist and his interviewer were talking about what they’d seen. But Cunningham turned off the sound. “I don’t believe it,” he said. Laurie Banner had shown up at the office door, and the president turned toward her. “There’s no way this could be a mistake, is there?”
She made no attempt to answer but only stood shaking her head. “Mr. President,” she said finally, “you really don’t know any more about this, right?”
“No, I do not,” Cunningham said. “Of course I don’t.” He was still not certain why he’d allowed himself to get so caught up in this. He’d thought at first that he simply didn’t like Blackstone, didn’t want to see him come off as the guy who knew the truth when nobody else did, not even himself. He felt ridiculous. A president left out of the loop. He could, of course, pretend that he had known and had simply been keeping a closely held government secret all this time. He’d have to work, though, to come up with an explanation for that.
Nobody trusted the government anymore. And no matter how this played out, confidence in him was going to be undercut. Did he want to be an idiot or a schemer?
“You’re assuming the descent modules are really there,” Laurie said.
“What are you talking about, Laurie?”
“I assume all we’re going to have is pictures being sent back by Blackstone.”
Ray chimed in: “Right. It could all be a prank. Designed to elicit a statement from you. Then he yells, ‘April fool.’”
“Sure,” Cunningham said. “What are the odds of that?”
Ray looked over at Laurie. The science advisor kept her eyes straight ahead.
She had made her reputation in quantum mechanics. Cunningham had never been able to grasp precisely what that was about. Something to do with a single particle going through two holes at the same time. He’d brought her into the White House because she had a talent for explaining complicated ideas in simple English. But she’d never been able to explain the two holes. At least not to the president’s satisfaction. She’d also been a Nobel Prize finalist two years before. “What do you think?” he asked her. “Any chance of a hoax?”
She turned those dark brown eyes on him. “Physically, sure. But—” She hesitated. “I believe I’ll leave the politics to you, sir.”