Grow or die. Just like any living organism, any society. You either grow or you wither away and disappear.

He realized his fists were clenched as he marched along the tunnel. Passersby were giving him strange looks. Doug tried to smile at them, tried to appear relaxed. But inside he was stretched tight.

There’s going to be a split with Earth, Doug knew. This nanotech treaty is just the beginning. They must know, down there, that we can’t exist without nanomachines. It would’ve taken years to build a pipeline from the south pole, instead of months. The cost of building the power tower would have been out of sight if we didn’t have nanomachines to do the work.

How can we prevent the split? How can we keep connected with Earth, at least until we’re fully self-sufficient?

He pushed back the door to his room, forming a scenario in his mind: Okay, we establish the legalities that we’re a corporation based in Kiribati and the Kiribati government doesn’t sign the nanotech treaty. But suppose the U.N. or the World Court doesn’t accept that? Suppose they insist that we’ve got to give up our nanomachines? And we can’t, of course. Suppose they send Peacekeeper troops up here to enforce their demands!

Doug sagged onto his bunk. Jeez, we’ve got to figure out a way to prevent that from happening. But how?

Without thinking consciously about it, he flicked on the Windowall screen hanging opposite his bunk. Instantly the screen seemed to turn into a big picture window that looked out at the floor of Alphonsus. Doug stared out at the scene for a few moments, then went to his desk and pecked at his keyboard. The ’window’ showed Victoria Falls, then an underwater scene from a tropical reef. Not satisfied, Doug finally got a live view from the top of Alphonsus’ ringwall mountains that looked out across Mare Nubium.

“Magnificent desolation,” he murmured. The barren plain was empty, not a sign that a human being had ever set foot on it, except for the faint glow of a handful of red beacons that marked the sites of the old temporary shelters marching off to the sudden horizon.

If Greg looked out there, Doug thought, he’d see nothing but barren wilderness. But I see beauty. I see freedom. I see the opportunity to explore and learn and grow and build the future. How can I make Greg see it the way I do?

He was still wondering about the problem as he put on his VR helmet and data gloves, booted up his computer and linked with his afternoon class from Caltech.

ROCKET PORT

Doug always asked permission to come into the rocket port’s flight control center. It was a tiny cubbyhole burned out of the lunar rock by plasma torches back in the earliest days of Moonbase, barely large enough for two controllers sitting shoulder to shoulder at their consoles. It always reminded Doug of an old-time submarine’s command compartment, compact and crowded, jammed with equipment that hummed and glowed and gave off heat. Despite Greg’s swath of new radiators, the flight control center was stuffy and sweaty.

It even had a conning tower, sort of. There was a vertical tunnel that led up to a minuscule observation bubble, barely big enough for a person to stick his head up above the surface of the crater floor for a visual inspection of the rocket pads outside.

The controllers had never refused Doug permission to come into the center, tight though it was. Usually Doug clambered up the ladder to the observation bubble, leaving the controllers to huddle over their glowing display screens.

Traffic was seldom heavy. The lunar transfer vehicles plied the route between Earth orbit and Moonbase on a monotonously steady schedule. Rarely were there two spacecraft on the pads at the same time, even though Moonbase boasted four pads for LTVs to land on, spaced equidistantly from the observation bubble.

Standing on the narrow platform of the observation bubble, his chin barely above the crater floor’s surface and his hair brushing the transparent dome, Doug watched the lander come down slowly, silently, its dirty-white rocket exhaust splashing on the smoothed rock pad, blowing dust and pebbles that rattled against the bubble’s glassteel dome. Doug could barely see the actual touchdown, when the big ungainly lunar transfer vehicle settled on its outstretched spindly legs like an old, old man sinking into a favorite easy chair.

From below he heard the chatter of the controllers as they remotely manipulated the access tunnel to lock against the LTV’s personnel hatch. To Doug it looked like a giant gray worm blindly groping for its prey.

The spacecraft that transited between Earth orbit and Moonbase had a human pilot aboard only when they were carrying passengers. Even so, the pilot was merely a redundancy required by archaic safety regulations. The controllers landed the craft remotely, as they did all the unmanned cargo carriers.

Once the access tunnel was connected and pumped up with air Doug slid down the ladder in dreamy lunar slow motion, without touching his feet to its rungs, and landed softly behind the two controllers.

“Thanks, guys,” he said, despite the fact that they both happened to be women on this shift. Without waiting for them to reply, he ducked through the hatch and padded quickly in his softboots down the tunnel that led to The Pit, the receiving area.

The airlock’s inner hatch was just swinging open as he got there. Two men stepped over the hatch’s steel lip, both dressed in me olive green coveralls of the mining and manufacturing group. The next, another man, wearing the pumpkin orange of the science and exploration group, tripped over the coaming. A newcomer, Doug realized. Despite his weighted boots he stumbled and floundered, arms flailing. Doug went to him, grabbed him, straightened and steadied him.

“I’m okay,” the man said. Like most of the short-timers, he was in his twenties.

“It’s a little strange, your first time,” Doug said. “Especially after a couple days of zero-gee.”

“I’m okay,” he repeated, scowling as he pulled free of Doug’s supportive grasp.

Doug watched him walk awkwardly away, as if he were stepping on land mines. He’ll never make it here, Doug said to himself. Too uptight to accept help; probably too self-centered to give help when it’s needed.

Turning back to the hatch, he saw Bianca step carefully through, also in orange. Her round face broke into a wide grin at the sight of Doug.

“Welcome back!” Doug said, striding up to her, arms outstretched.

“Hi!” she said, shifting her travel bag so they could embrace in a welcoming hug.

Half an hour later they were in The Cave, sipping fruit punch and catching up on the months since Rhee had last been at Moonbase.

“I’m not just a grad student slave this time,” she said proudly from across the narrow table. “I’m here to do my thesis work.”

“No kidding?”

“If I don’t run into any snags, I’ll be Doctor Rhee this time next year.”

“Terrific,” said Doug.

He liked Bianca. Ever since their experience together on the first south polar expedition — which was known now as the Brennart Expedition — Doug had felt that Bianca Rhee was one of his best friends. She had come to Moonbase twice in the past six months, for a month each time. They had eaten together, joined others for parties or meals, talked endless hours about their hopes and plans for the future. Nothing more. Sometimes Doug got the feeling that Bianca might be feeling lonely at Moonbase; sometimes he thought he saw something in her eyes, in her voice, that made him feel as if she was — what? Disappointed? Sad? Uncertain?

Maybe she’s a frustrated ballerina, Doug thought, remembering her shy confession about dancing. She had never brought up the subject again, so he hadn’t asked about watching her dance.

Doug couldn’t figure it out, and didn’t feel that he wanted to probe Bianca’s psyche that deeply. Is it sex? he wondered.