Moonbase by Ben Bova

Author:Ben Bova [Bova, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7953-0903-8
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 1996-07-24T16:00:00+00:00

Moonbase Director’s Office

“Melissa? Here?” Greg stiffened at the news. “What does she want?”

Joanna was too nervous to sit down. “She wants to see you.”

“But why?”

“Who knows? She says she’s here to ask our support for Rashid’s fusion program.”

“You don’t think that’s the truth?”

Joanna glared at her son. “Do you?”

Greg leaned back in his desk chair and stared at the ceiling. The bare rock seemed lower than usual, heavier, inching down to crush him.

“You’re going to have to see her,” Joanna said.

“Yes,” he said, feeling the desperation creeping into his bones. “Yes, I suppose I will.”

“Would you like me to be with you when you do?”

What to answer? Greg wondered. I can’t tell my mother that I’m afraid to see Melissa by myself. But I am! I don’t want to see her, I don’t want to be anywhere near her. She’s bringing me nothing but pain, I know it, I can feel it.

“Well?” Joanna insisted.

“Yes,” Greg blurted. “I think it would be better if you were present when I talked with her.”

“Good. I do, too.”

—

Doug didn’t forget about Melissa, but he relegated her presence at Moonbase to a corner of his mind. He had more important things to do.

He brought Bianca and Lev Brudnoy to his room and imaged on his Windowall the LTV sitting on its pad.

“She’s a beauty,” Doug said, beaming at the picture on the screen. “Only been used for seventy-two flights; practically new.”

Brudnoy scratched at his beard. “I’ve always wondered why Americans tend to personalize their machinery. It looks like any other LTV, to me.”

Bianca was more practical. “Okay, how long are we going to let it sit out there?”

“I’ve requisitioned a dome for it,” said Doug. “The machine shop’s putting it together now.”

“So we put up the dome over the landing pad?”

“No, that’d interfere with the rocket port operation too much. We put up the dome a half-mile away from the pad and tow the LTV to it.”

“We’re going to work on the ship in spacesuits?” Brudnoy asked.

“No, the dome will be pressurized.”

“But we’ll need suits to get to and from, won’t we?” asked Bianca.

Doug admitted it with a shrug. “Can’t be helped. There’s no space inside the base to work on it.”

“The main garage? Is the ceiling high enough?”

“I checked. Ceiling’s okay, we can just about squeeze her in, but there’s not enough room for the LTV when all the tractors are inside.”

“But at least half of them are left outside, usually,” said Brudnoy.

Shaking his head, Doug told them, “I know. I asked Greg about it, but he just scrolled up the regulations on his screen. The main garage’s got to be able to house all the tractors in an emergency.”

“What kind of emergency?” Brudnoy asked.

“Solar flare,” Bianca and Doug answered in unison.

“So your technicians will have to spend an hour getting into spacesuits and then walk or ride half a mile past the rocket port to work on our LTV,” said Brudnoy.

“They can work in their shirtsleeves once they’re inside the dome,” Doug pointed out.

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