“Our own economy,” he went on, “is based on the business that the miners do. With that business slumping, we’re going to be in an economic bind, and damned soon, too.”
“Worse than that,” said the Valkyrie. “It’s only a matter of time before one of the corporations— either Astro or HSS—tries to take over our habitat and make it a base of their own.” “And whichever one takes
“Or destroy us altogether.”
Big George huffed out a heavy sigh. “We can’t have any fighting here. They’ll kill us all.”
All their faces turned to him. They didn’t have to say a word; George knew the question they wanted answered.
“All right,” he said. “I’m gonna send a message to Astro and Humphries. And to Selene, too.” Silently he added, With a copy to Doug Stavenger.
“A message?”
“What are you going to say?”
“I’m gonna tell them all that we’re strictly neutral in this war they’re fightin’,” George replied. “We want no part of it. We’ll keep on sellin’ supplies and providin’ R R facilities for anybody who wants ’em, HSS, Astro, independents, anybody.”
The others glanced around the table at one another.
George went on, “But we won’t deal with warships. Not from anybody. Only mining ships, prospectors, logistics vessels and the like. We will not supply warships with so much as a toilet tissue.”
“A declaration of neutrality,” said the accountant.
“Do you think that will be enough?”
“What else can we do?”
“Arm the habitat. Be ready to fight anybody who tries to take us over.”
George shook his head ponderously. “This habitat is like an eggshell. We can’t fight. It’d just get us all killed.”
“We could armor the habitat,” the Valkyrie suggested. “Coat the outer hulls with powdered rock, like some of the warships do.”
“That’d just postpone the inevitable,” George said. “A half-dozen ships could sit out there and pound us into rubble.”
“A declaration of neutrality,” someone repeated.
“Do you think it would work?”
George spread his big hands. “Anybody got a better idea?”
Silence fell over the conference room.
George drafted his declaration over the next twenty-four hours, with the help of an assistant who had been a history major before coming out to the Belt. The council met again in emergency session, tore the draft to tatters and rewrote it extensively, then—sentence by sentence, almost— wrote a final draft that was quite close to George’s original. Only after that did they agree to allow George to send the declaration to Pancho Lane at Astro, Martin Humphries of HSS, and the governing board of Selene. George added a copy for Douglas Stavenger, and then released the statement to the news media of the Earth/Moon region.
For the next several days Big George Ambrose was a minor media attraction. Ceres’s neutrality was the first realization for most of the people on battered old Earth that there was a war going on in the Belt: a silent, furtive war taking place far, far away in the dark and cold depths of the Asteroid Belt.
For a few days the Asteroid War was a trendy topic on the news nets, even though no executive of Humphries Space Systems or Astro Corporation deigned to be interviewed or even offer a comment. Sam Gunn, the fast-talking independent entrepreneur, had a lot to say, but the media was accustomed to Gunn’s frenetic pronouncements on the evildoings of the big corporations. Nobuhiko Yamagata agreed to a brief interview, mainly to express his regrets that lives were being lost out in the Belt.
Then a major earthquake struck the California coast, with landslides that sent a pair of tsunamis racing across the Pacific to batter Hawaii and drown several Polynesian atolls. Japan braced for the worst, but the hydraulic buffers that Yamagata had built—and been ridiculed for—absorbed enough of the tsunamis’ energy to spare the major Japanese cities from extensive destruction. The Asteroid War was pushed to a secondary position in the news nets’ daily reporting. Within a week it was a minor story, largely because it was taking place far from Earth and had no direct impact on the Earthbound news net producers.
George Ambrose, however, received a personal message from Douglas Stavenger. It was brief, but it was more than George had dared to hope for.
Seated at the desk in his comfortable home in Selene, Stavenger said simply, “George, I agree that
COMMAND SHIP
Reid Gormley was a career soldier. He had served with the International Peacekeeping Force in Asia and Africa and had commanded the brilliant strike that had wiped out the paramilitary forces of the Latin American drug cartel. He was widely known in military circles as an able commander: a tough, demanding bantam cock who instilled a sense of pride and invincibility in his troops. He was also vain, cautious, and unwilling to move until he was certain he had an overwhelming superiority of force on his side.
He had come out of retirement to accept a commission with Astro Corporation. Fighting in space was new to him, but then it was new to every commander that the big corporations were hiring. The only experienced space fighters were a handful of mercenaries and renegades like Lars Fuchs. Like most of the other experienced officers who were suddenly finding new careers for themselves, Gormley was certain that a well-motivated, well-trained and well-equipped force could beat mercenaries, who were fighting only for money. As for lone renegades, well, they would be rounded up and dealt with in due time.
It took him nearly six months to bring his force up to the peak of efficiency that he demanded. Like himself, most of the men and women in this Astro Corporation task force were either retired military or younger types who had taken a leave of absence from their regular duties to take a crack at the better pay and more exciting duty offered by the Asteroid War.
Gormley stressed to his troops that while the HSS people were mercenaries, fighting for nothing more than money, they themselves were serving in the best traditions of the military, going into battle to keep the Asteroid Belt free from the dictatorship of one corporation, fighting to save the miners and prospectors scattered through the Belt from virtual slavery. It never occurred to him that Humphries’s mercenaries could say the same thing about him and his troops, with the same degree of truth.
Now he led a force of fourteen ships, armed with high-power lasers and armored with rocky debris crushed from asteroidal stone. His mission was to clear HSS ships from the inner Belt, and then take up a position near Vesta to begin the blockade and eventual strangulation of the major Humphries base.
He had no idea that he was sailing into a trap.
Nobuhiko Yamagata noted that even though it was high summer in Japan, here at the Roof of the World the monastery was still cold, its stone walls icy to the touch of his fingertips. He looked out through the room’s only window and consoled himself that at least the Himalayas were still snowcapped. The greenhouse warming had not yet melted them bare.
His father entered the small chamber so silently that when he said, “Hello, son,” Nobu nearly hopped off his feet.
Turning, Nobu saw that although his father was smiling, the old man did not look truly pleased. Saito wore his usual kimono. His round face seemed even more youthful than the last time Nobu had visited. Is Father taking youth treatments? Nobuhiko asked himself. He dared not ask aloud.
Kneeling on the mat nearer the window, Saito said, “I just learned that one of our loyal agents was assassinated, together with his wife and children.”
Nobu blinked with surprised confusion as he knelt beside his father.
