And suddenly the enormity of it hit him. I’m going to die! Even if I get to Moonbase, I’ll just be carrying the damned bugs with me. They’ll infect the whole base, tear apart everything. Kill everybody.

That’s what Greg’s been after, all along! Not just me, but everything I stand for. He wants to wipe out Moonbase altogether!

Paul sat there inside his failing suit, blinking at the vision of Moonbase, everything he had worked for, everything he wanted, being utterly destroyed.

Strangely, the realization calmed him. He knew what he had to do now. There were no other options, no excuses, no escape clauses. It was finished.

At least I’m close enough to reach them with the suit radio, he thought.

Jinny Anson was at the communications desk when he called in.

“We’ll send a team up to get you!” she said when Paul told her where he was.

“No!” he snapped. “I’m infested with nanobugs and you can’t run the risk of bringing them into the base. They’ll kill all of you.”

“But what can we do? We can’t just leave you out there. “You’ll…’ Jinny’s normally chipper voice faltered, went silent.

“It’s too late to do anything for me. Call Kris Cardenas in the San Jose division and get her to come up here and personally lead a decontamination team to clean up this mess.”

“But what about you?”

Paul said, “Get my wife on the line for me. Private link. No eavesdropping.”

Paul could not see Joanna’s face, but he pictured it in his mind. She was beautiful. Whether she loved him or not didn’t matter now. Whether she placed Greg before her husband didn’t matter, either. Not any more.

“Where are you, Paul?” her voice asked. “Why can’t we establish a visual?”

“I’m out in a tractor, at the summit of the ringwall.”

He waited for her reply. “You’re on your way back to the base, then?”

“I was,” Paul answered. “BurI’m not going to make it”

The three seconds stretched, sketched. Then, “What do you mean? What are you talking about? How long can you stay outside?”

“For the rest of my life,” he said. “The nanobugs are in my suit. They stopped their activity while I was in sunshine, it was too hot for them. But they must’ve chomped away on my suit while I was in the tempo and I can’t bring them into the base; they’ll eat up everything.”

Joanna was already talking before he finished, “You can’t just stay out there until you run out of air! They’ve got to get you, save you!”

“There’s no way to do that,” Paul said. “If I go down to the base I’ll be killing everybody there.”

“No, Paul! No!”

“Listen to me. Be quiet and listen!” he shouted into his helmet microphone. “It’s all up to you, now. You’ve got to keep it all together. Don’t let them shut down Moonbase because of this. This isn’t an accident; we both know that. Don’t let Greg or anybody else use this as an excuse to shut down Moonbase.”

He waited for her response. “I understand,” Joanna said at last. From the sound of her voice, she was fighting for self-control. I’ll… take care of everything.”

“Good,” he said, feeling suddenly bone-weary, exhausted physically, emotionally.

“Paul, isn’t there anything…?”

“I wish there was. I didn’t want it to end like this.”

That long wait again. Then, “I love you, Paul. I love you.” Joanna broke into sobs.

“I love you too, Jo. I guess you’re the only woman I’ve ever really loved.”

Instead of waiting for more from her, Paul snapped off his radio. No sense dragging it out, he said to himself. We’ve said all we have to say. There’s nothing left for either of us now but pain.

He got up from the tractor seat and clambered down to the ground. Walking to the edge of the narrow trail he looked down once again at the pitiful heaps of rubble that marked Moonbase.

Like Moses on the pissin’ mountain, Paul thought. I can see the promised land but I’ll never get to live in it.

He thought again of what Moonbase could become, someday. He saw a future that beckoned, with humankind spreading across this new frontier and heading outward for new worlds. A future that would never happen if Moonbase was destroyed.

Paul sighed. “If it is to be,” he said softly, “it’s up to me.”

With a sudden, quick move he yanked open the visor of his helmet.

SAVANNAH

It had been two days since Joanna last slept. Most of that time she had spent on the videophone with Kris Cardenas in San Jose, making arrangements for a team to be sent to the Moon to deactivate the nanomachines that had killed her husband and the two other men.

And she made other arrangements, as well.

“I want to know who allowed those killer machines to be mixed in with the other nanobugs,” Joanna said, as implacable as an ocean tide.

Cardenas’ image in the phone screen nodded somberly. “I’ve already started an investigation. That kind of stupidity verges on the criminal.”

“It is criminal,” Joanna said. “But I don’t intend to press charges or bring the law into this. I just want to know who those people are.”

“You won’t press charges?” Cardenas brightened.

“No. I want them transferred to Moonbase, once we find out who they are.”

Cardenas blinked her cornflower blue eyes. “Why would you send mem to Moonbase?”

Grimly, Joanna replied, “So they can see the consequences of stupidity. So they can live in a place where one little mistake, one moment of stupidity, can kill you.”

“How long will they have to stay?”

Joanna shook her head. “Until my husband comes back to life.”

She still had not slept when she had her meeting with Greg.

Joanna had decided to meet her son at the house, rather than the office. She sent two hefty security guards to escort him to the meeting.

Greg looked subdued when he stepped into the living room, flanked by the two uniformed men. Joanna dismissed them and told her son to sit on the sofa, facing her.

“You killed Paul,” she said, once she was certain that they were alone.

Greg evaded her eyes. “Suppose I did. What of it? It’s over and done with. You can’t bring him back and that’s that.”

Joanna studied her son. He seemed tense, but the fury that had exploded in him now was gone, spent, dissipated.

“What do you intend to do now?” Joanna asked calmly.

Greg cocked an eyebrow. “Take my rightful place as president and CEO.”

“Really?”

He leaned forward intently, suddenly flushed with prospects for the future. “Don’t you see, Mom? Now it’s just you and me, the way it ought to be. We can run everything together, just the two of us. It’ll all work out, you’ll see.” He even smiled that same old boyish smile at her.

“But there’s not just the two of us,” Joanna said.

Greg pulled back from her slightly. “What do you mean?”

“I’m carrying Paul’s baby. Paul’s son.”

“Oh, that.” Greg flapped one hand in the air dismissively.

“You don’t care anymore?” Joanna asked, caught unprepared for his casual attitude. “A few days ago you wanted me to abort it.”

“I was foolish,” Greg said. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Really?”

“By the time he grows up enough to join the corporation I’ll be ready to retire,” Greg said.

Be careful, Joanna told herself. He knows how to play on your feelings.

“Greg, you’re a murderer.”

For an instant she saw fear in his eyes. But then his smile returned. “Are you going to turn me over to the police?”

“I’m getting the names of the people who allowed those killer machines to be sent off to’the Moon. They’ll implicate you to save themselves.”

“So you are going to hand me to the police, after all.”

Joanna shook her head. “I should,” she said. “But I can’t. I can’t hurt you more than you’ve already been hurt.”

“I knew it!” he said triumphantly. “It’s going to be just the two of us! I knew it would work out this way!”