She may be getting married, Greg thought, but she really intends to come back here. I wonder if her future husband understands that?

“That’s the only way to make this rat’s nest really profitable,” she insisted. “Cut the umbilical from Earthside. Moonbase has got to become self-sufficient.”

“Even if you have to go out and scoop volatiles from comets?”

“Hey, don’t knock it. Even teeny little comets spew out thousands of tons of water vapor and other volatiles per hour.”

“I understand—”

“Less than the cost of imports, once we get the program started. It’s the design and test phase that soaks up the money. Operations should be cheap: just the cost of the fuel and the teleoperators in the command center. Peanuts.”

“How soon do you see this happening?”

She picked at her salad. “Not for years, of course. Maybe ten or more. Too far out for the corporate five-year plan.”

Greg shifted gears again. “When is the mass driver going to be finished?”

She was ready for that one, though. Probably expected it ’When the freakin’ corporation bumps its priority up closer to the top. We’re not getting much support from Savannah on it, y’know.”

“Why not?”

“Rocket fuel’s cheap enough. The nanomachines produce enough aluminum and oxygen; we don’t need an electrical slingshot.”

“A mass driver would reduce launch costs by a factor of ten or better,” Greg said. Then he added, “It should have been completed years ago.”

Anson scowled across the little table at him. “Sure it should, but with practically no corporate support we have to stooge it along on our own resources.”

“Even using nanomachines, it’s going so slowly?” Greg asked. It sounded accusatory and he knew it.

“Nanomachines.” Anson snorted. “Some people think they’re like a magic wand. Just throw in some nanomachines and poof! the job’s done for you, like the shoemaker’s elves.”

Despite himself, Greg smiled at her. “It doesn’t work that way?”

“Building something as complex as a mass driver is a tough job, even with nanomachines,” she said. “Freakin’ job’s turned into a nanotechnology research program. We’re learning a lot about how to develop the little critters; we’re producing a helluva lot of research papers and graduate degrees. But the mass driver’s more than a year behind schedule.”

“I know,” said Greg.

“It’ll get done,” she promised. “But not on the schedule set up in Savannah.”

“Can you do it entirely out of lunar materials? Even the superconducting magnets?”

“Yeah, sure. And we don’t need superconductors. We dropped that in favor of cryogenic aluminum magnets. Keep ’em cool and they’re almost as good as superconductors.”

“But they draw some current, don’t they?”

Anson shrugged. “Not much. And electricity’s cheap here. We just set up a few extra acres of solar cells. Keep the magnets shaded from the Sun and the liquid nitrogen stays cold. That’s another advantage we’ve got here.”

“Realistically, when do you think the mass driver will be up and working?”

She looked up at the rock ceiling, thinking. “Maybe during your year,” she said. “More likely, not until the next director replaces you.”

“That’s not very good, is it?” Greg criticized.

Anson sighed — almost a huff — and returned her attention to what was left of her soyburger. Then she looked up, her face sad.

“Look,” she said, “I know there’s great things just waiting to be done here. Tremendous things! But I’m leaving. I’m just an employee and I’ve had to stay strictly within the limits the corporation’s set for Moonbase. You can do a helluva lot better, I know.”

“I didn’t mean—”

Tears were welling in her eyes. “Don’t you think I can see what Moonbase can be, if we really dig in and give it our best? I’m supposed to squeeze a profit out of this place, not plow the profits back in to make it self-sufficient. That’s for you to do. That’s why your mother’s sent you up here, isn’t it?”

Greg realized his mouth was hanging open with surprise. Is that why Mom’s sent me here? No. It was my idea to come here; she was against it. Or was she, really? Has she been manipulating me all along? Does she think that a few months up here will turn me into an advocate for Moonbase?

Before he could formulate an answer for her, Anson’s personal computer chimed. She tapped the comm button and they both heard:

“Word just came up from Tucson. The plasma cloud will engulf cislunar space in less than two hours. Radiation levels will exceed four hundred rads per hour for at least twenty-four to thirty-six hours.”

Anson acknowledged the message, then looked at Greg again. “You’re in luck. Nothing’s going to be moving on the surface for a while. There’ll be a flare party starting before long. Hope you brought your dancing shoes.”

MT. WASSER

Doug heard Killifer’s voice in his earphones, “Word just came in from Moonbase. Radiation cloud’s due in less than two hours.”

“Radiation cloud?” Doug blurted.

Brennart’s spacesuited figure straightened up the way a man does when he’s been slapped in the face. “How much less than two hours?” he demanded.

“Unknown. Less than two hours is the best they can give us.”

“What radiation cloud?” Doug asked.

“Solar flare,” said Brennart.

“A flare?” Rhee’s voice sounded shocked, scared. “Why wasn’t I told about it?”

“Why?” Brennart snapped. “Could you stop it?”

“But—”

Ignoring her, Brennart asked Killifer, “How’s the digging?”

Killifer replied, “Coverage complete on shelters one and two. About half done on three and four. Tunnels are all complete, but they’re not deep enough to be safe without additional rubble on them.”

Brennart sighed. “All right, get as much done in the next hour as you can, then get everybody inside. We’re going to deploy the nanomachines and then return.”

“Right.”

Doug turned to look at Greenberg and Rhee, who had just opened the canister in which the nanomachines were stored. Inadvertently, his glance took in the Sun, hanging low above the worn, rounded mountain peaks. His heavily-tinted visor blocked most of the glare, but still the Sun’s mighty radiance dazzled him.

“We’ve got to get back to shelter right away,” Rhee was saying. “Flares are dangerous!”

“Don’t panic,” said Brennart. “We’ve got an hour, at least.”

Doug was trying to remember how much radiation a flare put out. Enough to kill, he knew.

“Get this on tape!” Brennart ordered. “It’s the reason we’re here.”

Dutifully, Doug walked around the slippery rock summit until the Sun was at his back, then aimed the vidcam at Rhee and Greenberg. Bianca was gripping the big canister in her arms as if she were hugging it, while the nanotech carefully slid a long narrow metal tube from its interior. Brennart stepped into the picture to explain what they were doing. And get the credit for it, Doug thought.

The nanobugs they were using here were of a special type, designed to work in the blazing heat of unfiltered sunlight. They would extract silicon, aluminum and trace elements from the mountain’s rock and use them to build a tower of solar panels that would be in sunshine perpetually. The tower would provide continuous electrical power for the machines down in the darkness of the ice fields that would grind up the ice, liquify it, and pump it back to Moonbase.

The equipment to extract the ice and pump water would be sent by a follow-up expedition. So would the nanomachines to build the pipeline. Brennart’s task was to determine if there was enough ice in the south polar region to be worth the investment — and to make certain that Moonbase established an unshakable legal claim to the territory.

Thus Doug taped the first step in starting the nanomachines’ construction of the power tower. Legal precedence. He grimaced as he squinted through the vidcam’s eyepiece. If Brennart was correct, Yamagata was also providing a witness to their claim, with their recce satellite.