Gunpowder Moon Read online

  “Gentlemen, this is Lane Briggs, my safety officer,” Dechert said, breaking the moment of silence. “That’s Vernon Waters up on the flying deck, our flight officer and the pilot during the Molly Hatchet search-and-rescue operation.”

  The group traded nods. Vernon sat in the hydraulic chair up on the deck, his arms hanging over the open banister. Dechert felt no more enthusiastic, but he had inwardly pledged to be diplomatic with this odd entourage. This was not the time to make his concerns known—and he didn’t want to say too much in the company of a reporter, much less an Administration bureaucrat and a marine who looked like one of the recon boys who would show up unannounced and uniformless at the forward operating bases of the Bekaa Valley, hang around quietly for a few days, then disappear into the desert like an evening shadow. He wasn’t sure which of the three men he should be the most worried about. His instincts told him it was Standard, but Standard couldn’t kill him with a single blow.

  “All right,” he said. “Well, Commissioner, gentlemen, if you’ll follow me to the crew mess. It’s the largest meeting room in the station and we can scrape together some food if you’re hungry.”

  He led the group toward the main hangar hatch, with Lane at his side. Speak only when spoken to, he told himself, and then not much. He glanced over at Lane again. If she could muster a little charm, she might deflect the concentration of this trio, put them off their guard a bit, but Lane remained quiet and cold as alabaster—no surprise at all. Nor would he usually care; if he and the crew had to deal with it, so could their visitors. Still, Dechert chided himself, making a mental note to talk to her later. Whoever finds the secret to summoning a woman’s power when it’s most needed will rule the universe, he thought. And he knew it wouldn’t be him.

  “Commander, if I might ask,” Parrish said, “why am I spending half my time on the Moon in quarantine, being sucked by particle sweeps and scorched by flash-burners? I’ve heard of cleanliness, but this is bordering on neurosis.”

  Dechert looked him over again. Parrish had scruffy brown hair and a thin goatee, and he wore the first set of eyeglasses that Dechert had seen in years. His journalistic instincts were apparently helping him recover from the flight over from Peary Crater, and even Lane smiled at the question, maybe remembering a day when she was so naïve. Or maybe she was just asking herself the same thing that Dechert was:

  What the hell is this guy doing here?

  “More like survival,” Dechert replied as they walked toward the mess hall. “Regolith, or moondust, is as big a danger here as radiation and rapid decompression. That’s why we divide our stations between clean rooms and dirty rooms, and why all shuttles have decontamination pods.”

  He paused at the central station hatch, which led to the heart of Serenity 1, letting the others duck through the low entrance. A pipe hissed as coolant flowed through it, and Dechert could feel the bass harmonic thrum of the fusion reactor coming up through the rubberized floor grates and into his boots. Parrish would get used to the strangeness of living on the Moon if he stayed long enough. The weeks of dull repetition followed by sudden moments of fear, the heightened sense of sound in a world of ancient silence, the preciousness of every organic material, from potting soil to urine. For now, though, the only thing Dechert needed was for him to respect it.

  “Have you seen a piece of moondust under a microscope, Mr. Parrish? It’s not the stuff you blow off your holo-cubes back on Earth. It’s spiked like a sea urchin, and it interacts very badly with any machinery or electronics it comes into contact with. It’s incredibly difficult to eradicate—been a problem for all lunar settlements since the Apollo days.”

  “Isn’t dust intrusion what killed the Russian crew on the Mare Orientale?” Captain Hale asked. Dechert had almost forgotten he was there; he had managed to slip into the back of the line, and he walked like a ghost, always outside of everyone’s peripheral vision. Dechert looked back at Hale and noticed his tan, and the deep furrows and ridges along the corners of his eyes, which were set iron gray into an otherwise unlined face. This was a man who spent a lot of time in the bush, a man who hunted. Dechert wondered how long he had been with the Air & Space Marines. That group didn’t usually have sun on their faces.

  “That’s right,” he said evenly. “It’s also what probably caused the crash of the Prospector in ’68.”

  They continued in single file through the curved, white-walled tunnels of the station, Dechert letting the group determine for themselves what sections of Serenity 1 they were passing through. He wasn’t a tour guide, and the color-coded hatches were prominent and well marked. In his glances back at the group, he noticed that Parrish took in everything—the multicolored conduits, pipes, and airshafts protruding from the spherical walls, which allowed engineers to quickly find and fix malfunctions before they became catastrophic; the sound of dripping water and controlled steam releases and machine breathing that gave the station a darkly animate quality; the confined spaces, womblike, barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side.

  Hale barely reacted to his surroundings and remained in the background, as though he already knew the specifications of the corridor he was walking through. As for Standard, he seemed too absorbed with his mission to care much about the environment. He looked at nothing, but Dechert could sense him thinking behind dark eyes that blinked too often.

  It was Standard who broke through his observations. “I thought the final report on the Prospector crash was inconclusive,” he said. “Even the early versions of the GB-4 shuttle had anticontaminant protocols.”

  “I said probably,” Dechert replied. “They never found a definitive answer for why her port thrusters froze, but foreign matter intrusion was always the prime suspect. We use continual outflow valves on our shuttles now to reduce those risks. And we have redundant thrusters on all spaceborne craft.”

  Dechert remembered the exact moment he had heard the Prospector was down. He had immediately pictured Captain John Ross Fletcher emerging from the broken craft, bruised but heroically alive. He didn’t find out that his boss was dead for another two hours, and he was forever grateful that he had stayed at Serenity 1 to oversee the rescue mission, rather than lead the team that sifted through the impact field for body parts.

  It had taken a long time to get used to the idea that his mentor had probably died because a few rocks the size of birdshot got stuck in just the wrong place at just the wrong time. There was no heroic ending to the crash, just an arrow of scored metal and burnt circuitry that stretched in a dark line across the Moon’s usually immutable surface.

  “All that’s to say,” Dechert concluded, suddenly not wanting to discuss the topic anymore, “that it’s simply station protocols, Mr. Parrish. No one ever enters a clean room without being cleared by the nano-sweeps. It’s a part of life up here that you’ll get accustomed to, and if you don’t, you’ll be heading back to Earth.”

  If he had to bet, he’d put money on the latter.

  They reached the crew mess and Dechert let them file in. The room was small and spare, with brushed-metal cabinets and walls and a long white table surrounded by chairs that had been built by a printer. It looked more like an emergency operating room than a cafeteria, a stereoscopic telescreen and a chess set pushed to the back of one of the countertops providing the only human comfort to the place.

  Dechert glared at Lane as they walked in, and she relented, helping him to get the men coffee and a tray of Louisiana-style beignets that Vernon made for the crew every Earth-Tuesday. They took their seats, and after he and Lane had put everything on the table, they ate in silence and took tentative sips of the steaming coffee, waiting for someone to begin. Dechert knew it would be Standard.

  “Well gentlemen—and ma’am,” the commissioner said, nodding at Lane with a self-conscious smile, “I think we all realize the unprecedented nature of this incident.” He looked around the rectangular table. “I wanted to provide a little downtime before having this discussion, but Commod
ore Yates wants things expedited. I’d like to begin by stating, categorically, that everything spoken in this room today is classified, and I’m going to have to ask you to sign for that.”

  He handed a Touchpad to Lane, who crossed her legs and began to scan the Administration’s confidentiality agreement, her forehead furrowing as she plumbed its bureaucratic depths. Parrish looked confused, but Standard caught him before he could protest.

  “Mr. Parrish, you can use some of what I tell you today, on deep background, to write a story. But it will be vetted by me and the Earth-Media team at Peary Crater before it is transmitted, and it will be embargoed for release at the appropriate time. Any aberration from this protocol will be deemed a violation of the SMA Secrecy Act, which is a class-one felony. There will be no off-station transmissions from anybody without prior approval until this matter is concluded. And please, nothing is to be recorded. You may take written notes.”

  Standard’s eyes did a slow round of the table again to make sure his words had been absorbed. He waited for everyone to read and sign the privacy agreement, sitting at the end of the table and drumming the fleshy parts of his fingertips on a crossed knee. Finally the pad came back to him and he nodded. He stood up and began to pace the length of the table, a coffee mug in his right hand, his left hand behind his back.

  “I think you’ll understand our need for strict information control when I’m finished. It would be one thing if a faulty valve compromised your crawler’s EVA pod. Everyone understands an accident, particularly on the Moon. But I’m afraid this wasn’t an accident.”

  He paused for effect, and Dechert realized that he had rehearsed the speech. He wanted to say to the man “no shit,” but bit his tongue while Standard continued. “I want this to be clear and unequivocal—the reason we’re here is that we’ve finished our initial forensic testing, and concluded that your mobile habitation unit, the, umm, Molly Hatchet, was compromised by an explosive device. By a bomb.”

  He spoke the last word with a hard flourish, and looked at the group for reaction. Dechert and Hale didn’t move. Lane’s eyes glowed, and Parrish looked stunned.

  “A bomb? Jesus, I thought this was a mining accident,” the young reporter said. “I thought I was sent over here to cover an accident. I mean, you’re saying someone deliberately killed an American miner on the Moon?”

  Yes, that’s what he’s saying, Dechert thought, and four billion people on Earth are about to find out as well.

  “That’s correct, Mr. Parrish,” Standard said, sitting down again and looking around the table, his chin jutting out. “Someone killed Specialist Benson, and we’re pretty sure we know who it was.”

  9

  Standard didn’t need the theatrics; he had the room. The blood in Lane’s lips went away and the bow-shaped upper part of her mouth drew itself straight. Her jaw clenched tight—Dechert could see bone pressing against her smooth cheeks. Even Hale was interested and alert now. He sat up and folded his hands together and stared at Standard. Dechert poured himself another cup of coffee and took a few deep breaths, waiting for a barrage of questions from Parrish. He had some experience with reporters during the Lebanese campaign. They asked more questions than they would ever need answers for, baiting and cajoling and waiting for a slip until they finally got a response that was worthy of quotation marks. Every story Dechert had ever read about himself seemed more interesting than the reality of the occurrence itself, and he came to the grudging conclusion that it was just the way that news-streams were sold. Hits on the headline. And now Parrish had one hell of a headline.

  But it was Lane who spoke first, and her voice was low and cutting.

  “Maybe you’d be kind enough to end the melodrama, Commissioner, and tell us what the hell you’re talking about.”

  Standard fumbled with his coffee cup. Some of the hot liquid spilled onto his thumb, which he thrust into his mouth. He cleared his throat and let his eyes wander around the table for a moment. He should see how badly Quarles gets it when she’s pissed, Dechert thought.

  “Of course, Officer Briggs,” Standard said, folding his hands together on the table and staring at his fingers with great concentration. “A team of explosives specialists brought in from LEO-1 earlier this week did a thorough examination of the mobile habitation unit.” He glanced at Dechert and then away. “Their mission was secret, so your team wasn’t alerted to the landing.”

  Just another violation of standard protocol, Dechert thought. The Administration was supposed to alert all Level-1 mining stations about shuttle landings on the Moon, whether at Peary Crater or anywhere else, so they could remain on standby in case they had to launch a rescue in their quadrant. Dechert wondered how many shuttles had come up from LEO-1 in the dark in the last few weeks, and what the hell their crews were doing out on the mare.

  “Munitions experts they are, in part, but also very specialized investigators,” Standard continued. “Captain Hale headed the team, and serves as the military liaison to the Administration for this investigation. He has . . . both military and paramilitary experience in these matters.”

  Standard looked at Hale, silently asking him to take over the briefing. Dechert wondered whether the commissioner had considered when he rehearsed his speech on the shuttle over from Peary Crater that he might be scolded by a young female safety officer on a remote mining station. The incident had clearly thrown him off his timing.

  Not Hale—he didn’t appear to notice anything amiss. He looked at Lane and Dechert. “As miners I assume you’re familiar with explosives?”

  “Yes, but most of the helium-3 mining is done with hydraulic scoops and tillers,” Lane said. “We’re more like regolith farmers than miners, Captain, although we do blast for water ice and ilmenite in the craters and mountains. Garden variety one- to fifty-kilo Cynex charges and Type-A blasting caps. No digital triggers. Solar flares tend to make those go off at the wrong time.”

  Hale nodded. “Yes, that sounds right for the Moon, and that’s part of the problem. Every explosive in our lunar stockpile is pretty conventional mining fare, Officer Briggs, from organic plastics to liquid-metal polymers. The residue we found on your mobile habitation unit was more exotic.”

  He looked at Standard again before continuing, and the administrator nodded. Hale put a Touchpad in the center of the table and typed in a command, and a shimmering orange representation of the Molly Hatchet appeared over the table like a grid-lined holographic ghost.

  “We found evidence of a small shape charge under the port clasping joint of your crawler’s EVA hatch—right here.” He touched the image and it briefly shimmered. A blinking blue dot appeared under the hatch. “Probably the size of a pill; it couldn’t be seen unless someone was looking for it. The device was very sophisticated. It had a polymeric nitrogen charge, and its triggering mechanism was designed to fire on an orbital cue.”

  “Someone is going to have to explain that to me,” Parrish interrupted. “Starting with the poly . . . starting with the explosive.”

  Dechert sat up, surprised for the first time since the meeting had begun.

  “Polymeric nitrogen is pretty cutting-edge stuff,” he said, looking at Hale as he spoke. “It’s a cubic form of nitrogen in which all the atoms are connected with single covalent bonds, like a diamond. About five times more powerful than traditional munitions. Mostly used by the militaries of large and well-financed governments, because it’s hard to manufacture.”

  “That’s right,” Hale said. “It’s handy in advanced urban warfare, to take down blast doors and bunkers with minimal concussion on missions where collateral damage and noise have to be contained. But that’s all Earth-side. No one with a permanent station on the Moon has been known to use it up here, and it wouldn’t be economically feasible to do so. Not the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, the Brazilians, or us. As for the detonator, it was programmed to pick up open-source Lunar Positioning Satellite coordinates and detonate when the Moon was at point four-three degrees of
apogee. In other words, a sophisticated way of blowing up at exactly 1900 hours, thirty seconds on December the twelfth, 2072. We have to assume that whoever set the trigger knew the Molly Hatchet would be out on the mare on a mining run at that time.”

  Standard continued to drum his fingers on his knee, more audibly now. Dechert wondered if he was tapping his feet as well. “Thank you, Captain,” the commissioner said. “The important thing, of course, is the explosive charge, which is traceable through subatomic residue. Like a DNA fingerprint, if you will. We ran our forensic samples through the DOD’s global intelligence database and found a signature.”

  He stood up and began walking broadside of the table again, his composure regained, hands behind his back.

  “The explosive came from a batch of polymeric nitrogen made by the Russian military in 2062 and stored in Turkmenistan. It was stolen a year later by thieves in a raid on a remote arms depot. You can imagine how poorly those sites are guarded. One of GI-Asia’s strike teams took down a weapons merchant in Indonesia three years later, one Abduran Amir Serkasa. He was fairly big game, but not very bright. He kept his bills of lading on an unencrypted flashfile, and his shredding program proved inadequate.”

  Standard stopped and put his palms on the table, standing over Briggs and Parrish with the foreboding of a minister.

  “Our computer forensics group restored the files. In 2066, Serkasa sold four thousand micrograms of that same polymeric nitrogen to Kowloon Pacifica, a front company run by the Guojia Anquan Bu.”

  “Excuse me?” Parrish asked.

  “The Ministry of State Security, Mr. Parrish. Chinese Intelligence.”

  Dechert had sensed this was coming, but it still left him with a hole in the bottom of his stomach. The rhetorical buildup against China in the last two months had fallen into place like the last pour of cement on a foundation, and he realized that the Administration’s bluster had just become weaponized. The Moon, arid and cold and devoid of the larger human sins that had taken so much from him, now felt hot and full of Earthly danger. Conflicting theories pulled at his mind. Could the Chinese really have done this? It made sense to a true believer like Standard, but blowing up a mobile habitation unit seemed too overt a move for them. They’re slicker than that, he thought. The Chinese kill with a small blade. They don’t bludgeon you with an axe. And if they really were going to take a stab at the jugular, why didn’t they just snapshot a missile at Serenity 1 and blow up the whole station?