Moonbase - Moonwar Part 21

For a moment he was silent, then Nick chuckled softly in the darkness. "So that's it, then. You're worried that I won't make an honest woman of you."

"I never tried to-"

He smothered her lips with a kiss. "Listen to me, Claire darling. I love you. I love our baby, too. I'm going to marry you... if you'll have me."

She wrapped her bare arms around his neck and pulled him down to her. "I love you, Nick. I'm mad about you."

After a few moments he caught his breath and said, "So there'll be no more talk of abortion, right?"

"Right."

He fell silent for several heartbeats. Then he murmured, "I wonder if there's anybody here in Moonbase who can perform a wedding?"

Doug sat on the table's edge up at the front of the cafeteria until even Kadar ran out of steam. Only a handful of people were still in The Cave. Most had left long ago.

Edith was still by her minicams, recording every word of Kadar's monologue. Doug walked slowly over to her as the astronomer at last climbed down from the table and headed for the double doors to the corridor.

"You're a glutton for punishment," Doug said as she clicked off the two cameras.

Edith grinned. "He seemed to enjoy being recorded. He played to the camera for the last half-hour or so."

"Is any of that stuff useful to you?"

She started to dismount the minicams. "Maybe," she answered over her shoulder. "A couple of sound bites, add a few clips of the artist's renderings of what the Farside base will look like."

"Artist's renderings?"

"You do have drawings of the facility, don't you? Architect's sketches?"

"Computer graphics."

"Fine," said Edith. "Perfect."

Doug helped her to collapse the tripods, then hefted them both in one hand.

"I borrowed those from your photo lab," Edith said.

"Oh. I thought you smuggled them into the base beneath your Peacekeeper's uniform."

She gave him a searching look. "For a guy who's staring disaster in the face, you're pretty chipper."

"Must be the company," Doug said.

He walked with her, still gripping the folded tripods, toward the double doors. The Cave was empty now, except for them and Bam Gordette lingering by the doors.

"Now which way is the photo lab?" Edith asked. "I still get a little lost in these tunnels."

"Corridors," Doug corrected. "We call them corridors. And I'll take these back to the photo lab. No need for you to walk all the way there; it's 'way past your own quarters."

"You mean that teeny little monk's cell you gave me?"

"It's as s.p.a.cious and luxurious as any compartment in Moonbase, almost."

I'll bet your quarters are bigger."

Doug felt his cheeks coloring. "Well, yeah, but I'm a permanent resident-"

"And the big cheese."

"Your quarters are just as good as any part-timer's. Better than most, in fact."

"Really?"

She's teasing me, Doug realized. And I'm enjoying it.

Gordette held one of the doors open for them and they pa.s.sed out into the corridor.

"Thanks, Bam," Doug said.

Gordette nodded without saying a word. Doug walked along the corridor with Edith, toward her room, and forgot about him and everyone else.

"Tell me about the nan.o.bugs," Edith said. The corridor lights were turned down to their overnight level. It made the bare stone walls seem somehow softer, less austere.

"The ones we used to scare off the Peacekeepers?"

"No. The ones in your body."

Doug looked into her bright green eyes. She's a news reporter, he reminded himself. Her interest is in a story, not in you as a person.

"I took a really bad radiation dose, about eight years ago. Got caught out in the open during a solar flare. My mother brought Professor Zimmerman up here, and Kris Cardenas, too. But Zimmerman was the one who pumped me full of nan.o.bugs."

"They saved your life."

"More than once," Doug said.

"And they're still in your body?"

He nodded. "Zimmerman turned me into a walking experiment. The bugs he put in me are programmed to protect my cells against infection or any other kind of damage."

"And they just stay inside you? Do they reproduce?"

"According to Zimmerman, they rebuild one another when they wear down or become damaged themselves."

"Can you feel you feel them inside you?" Edith asked, grimacing at the thought. them inside you?" Edith asked, grimacing at the thought.

Doug laughed. "No more than you can feel your white blood corpuscles or your alveoli."

"My what?"

"The air sacs in your lungs," Doug said. "Here's your door."

"The Moonbase Hilton," Edith said.

"Is it really that bad?"

She tapped out her combination on the electronic lock. "See for yourself," she said, sliding the door back and motioning him into the room with a sweeping gesture.

Doug propped the tripods on the wall outside the door and stepped into Edith's quarters. It was a standard compartment, roughly ten square meters, maybe a little more. A bunk with built-in dresser drawers, a desk and chair, a sling chair made of lunar plastic, a table that folded into the wall with two stools beneath it, an empty built-in bookcase.

"You've got your own bathroom," Doug said, pointing to the half-open door. "You've got nothing to complain about."

"The shower turns off just when I'm getting relaxed," Edith said.

He shrugged slightly. "That's automatic. Water's not scarce, exactly, but we don't play around with it."

"And then those air blowers come on."

"Electricity's cheap. And the heat is recycled."

"It ain't the Ritz."

"You'd feel better if you had some of your personal things with you."

She agreed with a rueful nod. "I did come kind of light, didn't I?"

Doug went to the wall panel at the head of the bunk and turned on the display. The far wall showed a camera view of the crater floor.

Edith gaped. "Hot spit!"

"Didn't anybody tell you about the smart walls?"

"Well, sure, but I didn't know you could see outside. It's kinda like a window, isn't it?"

Doug pulled one of the stools over to the bunk and began to show Edith how to work the electronic display.

She sat on the edge of the bunk and watched views of the bleak, harsh lunar landscape. Then he started showing videos from Moonbase's library: educational stuff, mostly, although he rippled through a menu of entertainment vids.

"And we have all the university courses available. Some of the lectures are fascinating; they're all ill.u.s.trated of course, multi-media."

Gradually Edith's attention wandered from the wall screen to Doug. She saw an intense young man, so strong within himself that he didn't even realize the aura he radiated. He's only twenty-five, she told herself. You're d.a.m.ned near ten years older. Well, seven, at least. So what's age got to do with it? another part of her mind answered. You've bedded enough old farts. Maybe robbing the cradle would be fun.

But not tonight, Edith decided firmly. You'd be giving him totally the wrong impression if you flopped in the sack with him tonight.

Doug let his hand drop from the wall panel and turned to face her. "Well, there's a couple of hundred choices available. And that's even with Earthside communications blacked out."

"You can't get anything from Earth?" Edith asked.

"They're not transmitting to us. Even the commercial commsats have gone dark."

"That's pretty d.a.m.ned rotten."

"All's fair in war."

"Still... what harm would it do to let you see commercial TV?"

Doug smiled. "It might do us all some good to be without commercial TV for a while. Improve our minds maybe."

"Thanks a lot!"

"I didn't mean news broadcasts," he apologized quickly.

"No, you're right. News is just as bad, almost."

"I'm sure you're a top-flight serious journalist," he said.

He was sitting inches away from her. She could touch his knee merely by moving her leg slightly. Don't do it! she warned herself.

Doug could smell her perfume: like the flowers Lev grows in the farm. She certainly is beautiful, with those big green eyes. But she's an important news reporter back Earthside. She probably thinks I'm just a kid. Or worse, a freak stuffed with nan.o.bugs.

Yet Doug saw her strange half smile, as if she were waiting for him to say something, do something.

"I'm not contagious, you know," he heard himself say, surprised at his own words.

She blinked, as if stirring from a dream. "What?"

"The nan.o.bugs. They won't contaminate you if we touch, or... er, kiss. You can't catch anything from me."

Edith laughed, softly, gently. "Shee-it, back Earthside you've got to be worried about catching all kinds of diseases from the guys you date."

Doug raised both hands. "I'm disease-free, believe me."

"You look pretty healthy."

"And you look very lovely," he said.

"I'm a lot older than you."

"Does that bother you?"

She hesitated only a moment. "No, I don't think it really does."

Doug moved next to her on the bunk and put his arms around her. Her lips felt soft and warm on his.

That voice in Edith's head was still warning her not to do this, but she almost giggled in the middle of a kiss as she answered, What's the matter, you scared he won't respect me in the morning?

What the h.e.l.l, Edith said to her voice. And then she stopped thinking altogether.

Out in the corridor, almost exactly thirty meters from Edith's door, the mercenary let his back slide down the stone wall and hunkered down on the floor.