“The VMs will have a tough time.”
“What about your sister-in-law? If we go up there…”
And thinking of Glenda, he felt a great comfort. “She’ll figure it out. But maybe we should…maybe I should show you where this cave is…”
He lost sight of that particular objective over the coming days.
They buried Louise. Out by the pool next to the others. They wrapped her in a sheet, and put some photographs of the kids in with her, and also one of her watercolors, and Lenny said something about her even though he didn’t know her, the usual things: good mother, good wife, all-around decent person, and, god-damn it, they would make the Tarsalans pay for this. This last bit came in a sudden outburst that shook Lenny’s body from head to toe.
What was so strange about it was the heat, over a hundred and ten degrees, as if after triggering a short nuclear winter the phytosphere was now rebounding with a long and lethal summer, true to his prediction, even though they were well into October now.
And when Fernandes and Rostov broke the earth, it was like dust, as moistureless as talc, so that it blew away into the tinder-dry forest in little brown puffs, like so many fleeing ghosts.
33
Gerry stood next to the comlink in the mayor’s office. Around him were Ian, Mitch, Ira, Stephanie, and the mayor’s assistant, Damian. Hulke sat in front of the comlink, his face masked in his usual self-immolating grin. On the monitor Gerry saw Kafis’s face and, in the background, he caught a glimpse of another Tarsalan, this one checking something on another screen. It was this other Tarsalan that bothered Gerry. What was he doing? What was he checking? Was it game over for their little conspiracy, even before it had properly begun?
“Council has voted to accept your…uh…solution,” said Hulke, with not even the slightest quaver in his voice, as if his nerve had been hardened by years at the blackjack table. “We would like to invite you and your entire delegation to a celebration dinner in the Nectaris Council Chamber tonight at eight. My advisors and I think our new partnership should be marked in a special way, and so we’re bringing out of stores the finest cuisine still left in our inventory—I should tell you, Kafis, that the cuisine on the Moon is world-renowned. We of course expect you to make a speech, and I myself will make a speech as well.”
“You’ve taken an excellent first positive step, Mayor. My delegation will be eager to meet with your people. The Moon has turned a new page in its history.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more, Kafis.”
The communication ended. The mayor turned to Gerry. “How was that?”
“What was that other one doing in the background?”
“I imagine he was there to stop me from reading Kafis too easily. It’s an old poker trick. Always have people in the background for distraction purposes. That’s why I had Damian right next me.”
“What do we do now?”
“We let the caterers get to work.”
An hour later, Gerry, Stephanie, and Ian stood by the railing above the Council Chamber. Dining tables had been moved in, and caterers in white shirts, black pants, and black bow ties scurried around arranging artificial gardenias as centerpieces. Ian stood apart from Gerry and Stephanie, but kept glancing at Stephanie, lifting his chin from time to time and clenching his jaw, peering at her as if she were the strangest woman he had ever seen.
“I hope this works,” said Gerry.
Stephanie put her hand on his shoulder. “They’ll be arriving in an hour. Why don’t we get dressed?”
Gerry went back to his hotel room, put on a white blazer, a purple T-shirt with the NCSU logo, and his pair of baggy corduroys, the most stylish clothes he had brought to the Moon. He then went back to the Council Chamber. Drinks were served. People and Tarsalans sat. Speeches were made. And one by one, over the next half hour, humans inconspicuously left the hall. Some brave souls, equipped with hidden breathers, stayed, as a complete disappearance of all humans would make the Tarsalans suspicious. But at last, the big pressure doors closed, and oxygen thinned gradually, and at first the Tarsalans were none the wiser. But when they finally figured out what was going on, it was too late; they couldn’t get out. They upbraided the humans who had remained inside the Council Chamber, but by this time those humans had strapped breathers to their faces and barricaded themselves behind some tables.
In any case, there was nothing the Tarsalans could do to harm the brave humans, because they were too oxygen-deprived to do much of anything. Gerry watched everything on a monitor. He felt guilty. He didn’t like to trick people. Or Tarsalans. At one point, Kafis loosened his collar, as if that would help.
Gerry found the gesture pathetic, and wanted to assist Kafis in some way.
When ninety percent of the Tarsalans were subdued, oxygen was slowly pumped back into the Council Chamber—but it was combined with halothane, an inhalational anesthetic brought over from the Aldrin Health Sciences Center. Those not yet knocked out were rendered unconscious in a matter of seconds.
Nectaris Security moved in, faces masked with breathers, and cuffed every member of the Tarsalan delegation, then began moving them to detention. Gerry sighed. As much as he hated lying, he was relieved by how smoothly the whole operation had gone.
Gerry lived in his Computer Assisted Pressure Suit for the next three days, cramming a month’s worth of training into the space of seventy-two hours, thanks to AviOrbit’s ingenious CAPS software.
He was out on the Moon’s surface with Ian and Mitch, and they were anchoring a singularity drive mock-up to the ground. His boots bit into the surface with bear trap–like crampons—what he would have to wear when he walked around in the negligible gravity of Gaspra.
He fired a T-bolt through a brace with his pneumatic drill, the gray dirt puffed beneath him. The T-bolt, easily the size of his arm, penetrated the surface and latched the mock-up to the Moon, even as his monitor told him his crampons had increased their pounds per square inch tenfold—what they would have to do if he wanted to stop his pneumatic drill from shooting him off the surface of Gaspra, where the escape velocity was no more than a few scant miles per hour.
“Anchor seven secure,” he said.
“Say it with more enthusiasm, buddy. We’re going to the asteroid belt.”
“I feel like a Roman senator on the Ides of March.”
“Why does he talk like that, Ian?” said Mitch, who was getting ready with anchor eight.
“Bud, they got what was coming to them,” said Ian.
“I don’t like how we had to lie to them. What are all these other worlds going to think of us once they find out what we did?”
“That Malcolm… he’s a Fast Eddie, isn’t he?” said Ian.
“I’m ready to secure anchor eight,” said Mitch.
“Go ahead, little guy.”
“They’re going to think we’re monsters,” said Gerry.
Another voice cut through their suit radios: Ira, speaking from control. “Could we cut the crap? We’re on a tight schedule.”
“Relax, Ira,” said Ian. “The CAPS will babysit us through the whole thing. You’ve taken the magic and
mystery out of suicide missions.”
“They walked right into it, didn’t they?” said Gerry.
“Hulke’s got a superb poker face,” admitted Ian.
“Yes, but the Tarsalans are supposed to be smart.”
“The Tarsalans were desperate. They wanted to believe what they wanted to believe.”
Gerry shook his head. “In other words, they still haven’t figured out that we’re willing to risk our own survival for the sake of our principles.”
“You think they would have learned that by now. It’s been nine years.”
“We should offer them a concession,” said Gerry.
Ira’s voice came over the radio: “Like you said, Ger, they walked right into it. It serves them right. And let’s
