“Yet’ Brudnoy went on, almost wistfully, “my trips Earth-side grow shorter and my stays here grow longer. This is my true home. Earth is a distant dream”

With a sardonic smile, Greg said, “The food’s better on Earth”

“Quite true’ Brudnoy agreed.

“What we grow in our farm is for nutrition, not gourmet taste’ Anson snapped.

“Mostly soybeans’ said-Brudnoy. “What little variety we have comes from thjem’ Before Greg could comment, he went on, “And green vegetables, of course. We recently introduced carrots, but they aren’t doing too well”

“Everything else we have to bring up from Earthside’ Anson said defensively. “We have to go for the highest nutritional values per kilo, not taste”

“That’s obvious’ said Greg.

Looking nettled, Anson turned to Brudnoy. “He’ll fit right in here; up here ten minutes and he’s already complaining about the food”

“I can prepare for you a fresh salad’ Brudnoy said, completely serious.

“A salad?”

“After all my years of adventuring, I have become a farmer. My true calling: to be a peasant”

“I’d like to see your farm’ Greg said.

“Lev’s got a green thumb,” said Anson. “He’ll turn us all into vegetarians one of these days”

“Can’t we bring meat animals up here?” Greg asked. “Fresh meat would be good”

“Oh sure’ Anson replied sarcastically. “We’ve got the wide open prairies around here; get some cowboys and a herd of cattle”

Greg felt his face redden. “Maybe something smaller? Chickens?”

“Or rabbits’ Brudnoy said. “I remember reading somewhere that rabbits have a high ratio of protein to bone”

“Okay’ said Greg. “Rabbits”

“We have to be very careful about what we bring in here’ Anson said sternly. “This is a closed ecology and we can’t afford to endanger it”

“But rabbits—”

“Look what they did to Australia”

“Jinny, my dear’ said Brudnoy, “we would not allow them to run wild and breed at will”

“We could control them, couldn’t we?” Greg asked.

Looking completely unconvinced, Anson said, “Well, you’re going to be director. You look into it”

Turning to Brudnoy, Greg asked, “Could you look into it?”

“Certainly’ said the Russian. “I would be most happy to”

Anson’s face eased into a smile. “You’re going to be okay, Masterson. Delegating responsibility already. That’s the mark of a successful manager”

Greg couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or sincere.

“Rabbits will be the salvation of Moonbase’ Brudnoy said, with a happy grin on his bearded face. “And I have found my calling!”

“You have?” Anson asked, looking askance at the Russian.

“To feed the hungry masses!” Brudnoy said. “To end the dreariness of packaged foods. I will not be a lowly peasant. I will become the master of cuisine for Moonbase”

“A noble calling said Anson.

“Thank you!” Brudnoy said to Greg. “You have given me a new purpose in life”

And he clasped Greg in his long arms with a Russian bear hug.

“Now what can I do for you in return?” Brudnoy asked once he had released Greg from his embrace.

Gasping slightly, more with surprise than anything else, Greg stammered, “I… I don’t really know.”

“I am yours to command,” Brudnoy said. “Call upon me at any hour and I will be at your side”

With a sloppy military salute, Brudnoy turned abruptly and strode off into the crowd.

“Is he for real?” Greg asked.

Anson smiled knowingly. “Lev is as real as they come. If you need any advice about anything, ask him. He’s a lot smarter than he lets on.”

Greg nodded, not knowing how much he could believe. He looked at the party-goers, still talking and laughing and drinking.

“I didn’t know that liquor was allowed in the base,” he said.

“It isn’t,” Anson replied.

“Do you mean to tell me that there’s no alcohol in those drinks? Nobody’s popping pills or snorting anything?”

“What I’m telling you,” Anson said firmly, “is that company regulations do not allow alcohol or any other substances that impair judgment or reflexes. We’re even careful with aspirin up here.”

Greg smirked at her. “Sure. And if I tested a random sampling of your employees’ blood levels—”

“It doesn’t work that way,” she snapped. “Not here. We judge people by their performance, not by some numbers set down in a book of regulations.”

“So you wait for somebody to kill himself. And the people around him.”

“Not at all.” Anson’s voice was calm, reasoned, but benestit it there was stainless steel. “We live and work very close to one another. If somebody sees that someone is too — out of it, let’s say — to do his job, then they don’t let that person start working.”

“They report him sick?”

“They send him back to his quarters. Or her. They call for a replacement.”

“And that’s all?”

“We pay for performance here. If a person needs a replacement more than twice in a three-month span, we send him back Earthside.”

“Or her?”

“Or her,” Anson agreed. “It happens now and then, but not often enough to be a real problem.”

“And that’s the way I’m supposed to handle the situation? No matter what the company regulations say?”

Anson made a small shrug. “That’s the way things have been handled here for years. If you want to change it, that’s your prerogative. You’ll have to do your job in your own way, of course.”

“Of course,” Greg said. “But your way has been working fine, is that it?”

Anson smiled prettily. “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke.”

MOONBASE

The party showed not the slightest sign of slowing down. Greg watched, a stranger among the revelers, feeling like a pale and vapid ghost, almost invisible, noticed by the others just enough to make them feel uneasy and move away from him. Even Anson got tired of him and danced off with one of the younger men.

Terribly self-conscious and ill at ease, Greg made his way through the partying throng to the main exit from The Cave. Stepping through the airtight door into the empty tunnel outside was like stepping from bedlam into blissfully peaceful silence. It felt cooler out in the tunnel, easier to breathe.

Greg thought for a moment, then strode toward the control center. Make certain it’s really adequately manned, he told himself. Check on the status of the radiation storm, maybe talk with the astronomers back at Tucson.

The control center was quiet. The big electronic map of the base glowed in the darkened room just as it had before the flare erupted. All three positions at the U-shaped set of comm consoles were occupied. Several of the screens were badly streaked with interference, others were altogether blank. But the three communications technicians were at their jobs, sober and quietly intense.

The woman in the middle chair turned and saw Greg standing over her. “What do you think-’ Then she saw the nametag on Greg’s coveralls. “Oh! Mr. Masterson, it’s you. I figured it was too soon for my relief.”

“How’s the link with Brennart’s team?” Greg asked quietly.

“Something coming through now,” she said, pointing to one of the working screens.

Bending over her shoulder, Greg saw a pair of spacesuited figures in brilliant sunlight pulling a tube or something from a large gray canister.

While they fiddled with the tube on the bare rocky ground, another figure in a gleaming white spacesuit with red stripes down its arms and legs walked into the picture.

“That’s it,” one of the spacesuited figures said. “The first set of nanomachines for construction—”

Suddenly the picture on the screen wavered, distorted into wild zig-zags of color, and then broke up completely. The screen dissolved into hissing streaks of black and gray.

“Switch to backup,” said the tech on the operator’s right.

The screen showed the figures in spacesuits for the briefest flicker of an instant, then broke up into electronic hash.