“The solar flare that you predicted has not come,” said the head chief. He was old for Nippon One, in his forties. His belly was beginning to round out, although his face was still taut and his eyes piercing.

“Sir, it will come,” Miyoko said flatly. “It is only a question of time.”

“How much time?” the chief demanded. “We have kept everyone inside. The work that must be done on the surface is suspended because of this flare that was supposed to erupt. It’s been more than twelve hours now! Twelve hours of lost work! How much longer must we wait?”

Miyoko took a small breath before answering, “I do not know, sir.”

“But you are our astronomer! It is your job to know!”

“Sir, no one can predict the eruption of a solar flare with such precision. The configuration of magnetic field lines that I saw when I first issued the warning was typical of an imminent flare, one that would burst out in twenty-four hours or less.”

“Twelve hours have gone by,” said the chief. With a glance at the digital clock on his desk he added, “Twelve hours and eighteen minutes.”

Miyoko felt like a small mouse trembling between the paws of a very large cat. “Sir, I can only report to you what my instruments show. Any other astronomer in the world would have reported exactly the same as I did. It is unfortunate that the Sun is not cooperating with us.”

The chief settled back in his chair and rubbed his stubbled chin. “The Americans are apparently not afraid of your flare. Our reconnaissance satellite shows them working very busily on their base.”

“But they must know!” Miyoko blurted.

“Or they know better.”

Miyoko clamped her lips shut.

The chief stared hard at her. “It is a great problem. Do I send the surface crews back to work or not? It is most inefficient to have them sitting cooped up in here when they should be working on the surface. Yet…”

“Sir, may I make a suggestion?”

He nodded assent.

“When the flare actually erupts there will be at least an hour before the heavy particle radiation begins to build up. If the surface crews are willing to accept the first burst of relatively light radiation, it should be possible to get them inside to safety before the truly dangerous radiation builds up.”

Immediately the chief said, “Tell me about this first burst of relatively light radiation.” Miyoko could detect no trace of sarcasm in his words.

She said, “When the flare erupts it throws out a burst of high-frequency radiation — mostly ultraviolet and x-rays. This arrives in our vicinity within eight point three minutes, since it travels at the speed of light.”

“How serious is this radiation?”

“To a person already protected by a spacesuit it is not dangerous. In Tokyo the radiation from space averages about four-tenths of a rad per year. On the Moon’s surface it is closer to twenty-five rads per year. The initial burst from a solar flare will increase this dose by a factor of ten.”

“H’mmm,” said the chief. Miyoko thought he was trying to hide the fact that he did not know what a rad was, nor how dangerous it could be.

“When the flare’s plasma cloud arrives, however,” she went on, “the radiation will increase to more than a thousand rads in a few hours. Worse than the radiation dose at Hiroshima.”

That startled the chief. “Worse than Hiroshima?”

“Yes.”

“But the first pulse is not so bad?”

“The surface crews can be brought inside after the first pulse hits,” Miyoko said again.

“We have a full hour before the heavy radiation builds up?”

“At least an hour, sir.” She hesitated a moment, struggling with her own conscience, then added, “In truth, sir, we have no way of knowing whether the heavy radiation will strike us at all, even after the flare bursts forth. The plasma cloud that carries the radiation may miss us entirely.”

“Miss us entirely? Is that possible?”

“Yes, sir. But we have no way of predicting that quickly enough to save men working on the surface. That is why we must get them all inside once the flare erupts.”

The chief sat muttering to himself for several moments. Then a slow smile of understanding spread across his normally-scowling features.

“This is like predicting the path of a typhoon, isn’t it? You know the storm is approaching, but you cannot tell exactly where it will strike.”

“Yes, sir.” Miyoko jumped at his analogy, feeling a rush of relief. “Very much like a, typhoon. An invisible typhoon that cannot be felt, but can kill a person just as swiftly.”

MT. WASSER

“What’s the latest word on this flare?” Brennart asked.

Killifer pushed his little wheeled chair away slightly from the comm console. “No word. The flare hasn’t appeared yet”

The two men were alone in the comm cubicle. Brennart was on, his feet, towering over the seated Killifer. Every other member of the expedition was out digging, even the ostensible communications technician. Brennart knew the mission schedule was in a shambles but he would sort that out and get things going properly again as soon as this flare threat was over.

“What does Moonbase say about it?” he asked Killifer.

His aide made a sour face. “They say the flare ought to have popped by now. Could pop any minute. They just don’t know.”

“With that and five dollars I could buy a cup of coffee.”

“They also say,” Killifer added caustically, “that their regular astronomer is here in the boondocks with us, instead of at her instruments at the base.”

Brennart glowered. “That was Stavenger’s idea, bringing her along with us.”

Killifer said nothing, but his sardonic smile spoke volumes.

“We can’t just sit here and wait for a flare that might not even happen,” Brennart muttered.

Nodding, Killifer said, “Oh, by the way, Moonbase reported that Yamagata sent up a recce satellite six hours ago. It’s in a very eccentric polar orbit”

“With its longest dwell time right over us,” Brennart guessed.

“Right.”

“Damn! They’ll be sending a team down here to make a claim on the mountain before we can.”

“I don’t see how—”

“They could drop a kamikaze crew on the other side of the mountain and use hoppers to get up to the top,” Brennart growled angrily. “Stick a sheet of solar panels up there and claim first use. Then we’re screwed.”

“But aren’t they just as worried about the flare as we are?”

Brennart looked down at his aide with a withering expression. “You don’t know what kamikaze means, do you?”

“Something from history, isn’t it? Last century?”

“Right. History.”

Killifer sat on the uncomfortable little chair and craned his neck to look up at his boss. Brennart liked to be known for making decisions, but now he seemed hesitant, caught on the horns of a dilemma, hung up with uncertainty.

“If only we knew when the flare will erupt,” he muttered, kneading his right fist into the palm of his left hand.

“Or if it will erupt at all,” Killifer suggested.

Brennart whirled on him. “If? You think the whole thing might be a false alarm?”

“I don’t know. I’m not an astronomer.”

“The goddamned astronomer’s out here digging ditches instead of at her post with her instruments!”

Killifer shrugged. “Douggie wanted her along.”

“The flare should have erupted by now, if there’s going to be one,” Brennart thought out loud.

“Even if the flare does come, isn’t there a couple of hours before the radiation really gets serious?” Killifer knew the answer to his question.

“Yes, that’s right,” Brennart said.

“Enough time to get down off the mountain, using our hoppers?”

Brennart stopped his frustrated kneading and sat on the chair next to his aide. “We could jump up to the summit of Mt. Wasser, plant the flag and start the nanobugs working on the power tower, and get down again .before the radiation buildup even begins.’”