case of attack, the populace around the base could not be held hostage for the base
itself. The population of Earth at that time had been close to four and a half billion, and
there simply were no suitable land areas left that were far enough from inhabited
regions. Locating the base underwater would have posed additional complications-chiefly
in terms of communications and readiness of ships for instant takeoff-and so that
possibility was discarded as well. Since Earth was to be the seat of imperial government,
military headquarters had to be nearby-leaving as the only two alternatives either the
moon or a station in free space.
Each alternative had both its champions and its detractors. The lunar enthusiasts argued
that a space station would be far too exposed to enemy attack; on the moon, they could
be firmly entrenched and unassailable. The lunar soil, too, would provide the necessary
materials for building both the base and the fleet; any orbiting station would have to
import its materials from the moon anyway.
The proponents of an orbital headquarters countered with arguments about how much
added mobility a space station would give the fleet. They spoke of more efficient
communications between Earth and an orbiting station than between Earth and a lunar
base. Their most telling point was that battleships built at an orbital base could be much
larger than those built on the moon, because they need not be designed to cope with
gravitational conditions. Ships based on the moon would have to take off and land
against a gravity of approximately one-sixth gee; if they were made too large, they’d be
unwieldy. Ships constructed in space, with no need to land on the surface of a planet,
faced no such restrictions.
The debate between the two factions raged for more than three years. The argument
grew so heated that even now, centuries after the original squabble, there were families
who still did not speak to one another because their ancestors had been on opposite
sides of the dispute. Finally, in July of 2228, Emperor Stanley One settled the matter by
taking the best of both proposals. The strategical headquarters and command center
would be on the moon, buried deep below the surface and impregnable to all but the
most concentrated thermonuclear attack. The orbiting station would be constructed for
the superdreadnaught class of spaceship, anything too large to land on the moon itself;
there would be comparatively few of those, but they would be the elite of the fleet.
Over the centuries, the balance swung slowly in favor of Luna Base. ORB, as the space
station came to be known, was used today primarily as a shipyard and drydock,
secondarily as a center for research and testing of space weapons and armor. Most
other naval command functions were absorbed by the ever-growing lunar facility.
Luna Base was a huge, sprawling complex, far outstripping its modest beginnings. There
were seldom less than five hundred ships sitting on its landing field at any given time,
ranging in size from scouts to cruisers. It was located in the Mare Moscoviense on the
lunar far side, with the body of the moon itself shielding the base’s delicate
communications net from the harsh volume of Earth’s own radio broadcast signals.
Enormous receivers, some kilometers across, listened to the universe, keeping track of
all interstellar traffic, military and civilian, throughout the Empire. This deluge of incoming
information was interpreted by the Navy’s own computer system and eventually stored in
the Empire’s Primary Computer Complex.
Luna Base served other functions as well. The Naval Training Academy was located
there, off to one side of the Mare. The Imperial Marines’ special low-grav training center
was off in a small crater just to the west of the base. There, too, were housed the
thousands of personnel permanently billeted at the base, plus the hundreds more who
were there awaiting reassignment to new ships.
Despite the best of intentions, human population had built up around the base anyway. It
was inevitable; a project this big, employing this many people, needed administrators to
keep it running and services to fulfill its needs. All told, nearly a hundred thousand people
could be found at Luna Base at any given instant.
At this particular moment, four very special people were wandering down the labyrinthine
corridors of Level 147. They were dressed in the bright orange coveralls of maintenance
crew, but the security strips across the front of their chests gave them instant access to
most rooms within the complex. The corridors were swarming with people, as they
always were at this level, but no one paid particular attention to the four short, solidly,
built figures.
The four had planned it that way, and had worn orange uniforms specifically so they
wouldn’t be noticed. They made their livings by remaining anonymous, it could be tragic if
their faces were widely known.
They talked among themselves at a normal conversational level; amid the din of the
random conversations around them, they stood little chance of being overheard.
“I think we’re lost,” said one of the women to the man walking beside her. “Are you sure
you got the instructions right’?”
“Absolutely, and we’ve followed them to the letter,” replied the man, who was her
husband. “We left elevator tube number four at Level 147, kept the red wall on our right
and followed the blue line on the floor. The room has got to be around here somewhere.”
The man made a motion to touch the brim of his hat, and then realized he wasn’t wearing
it at the moment.
“Well, something isn’t right,” his wife said. “We’re looking for Meeting Room 147-16, and
the room numbers are going down, not up. There’s number ten, and beyond it is nine. We
must be going in the wrong direction. I think we should stop someone and ask.”
“Some superagents we’d be then,” laughed the second man from behind them. “This was
supposed to be a secret meeting, remember?”
“Well, it won’t be any kind of a meeting if we don’t get there,” said the fourth member of
the group, another woman. “If we don’t do something soon, we’ll only end up more lost
than we are.”
“Don’t worry,” the first man said lightly. “I’ve been dropping breadcrumbs behind us. If the
birds don’t eat them-ah, there it is, on the other side! Meeting Room 147-16. Once again
I’ve delivered you to the promised land.”
“I think that stint as a preacher addled his brains,” his wife confided to the other two.
“Now he thinks he’s Moses.”
The group cut across the busy traffic moving steadily past them and made it to the other
side of the corridor, where the sign on the door indicated that was the room they were
seeking. The first man reached for the button that would admit them, then hesitated. “Are
you sure he wants to see Vonnie and me, too?” he asked. “We’ve never met him and. . .”
“He asked for you both specifically. You’re not exactly what anyone would call a security
risk.”
Shrugging his shoulders, the first man pressed the button and the door to Meeting Room
147-16 slid silently open in front of them. Together, the four orange-clad figures entered
the chamber.
It was hard for them to see anything at first. The room itself was dimly lit except for the
far wall, which appeared to be a picture window overlooking the sunlit surface of Mare
Moscoviense. The view was actually a triscreen projection; six hundred meters below the
lunar surface, all they could have seen through a real window would be solid rock. The
window effect did, however, help prevent claustrophobia in people who had to work
constantly underground.
As their eyes became accustomed to the lighting, they could make out more details of
the room. A dim blue light radiated down from the ceiling tiles; the three walls other than
the one with the “window” contained computer projection screens; any information stored
in the Navy’s computers could be instantly called up and displayed on those screens-or, if
it was preferred, conferees within the room could sketch their own illustrations via
computer controls. In the center of the room was an enormous table, around which were
clustered more than a score of chairs. The top surface was again an enormous, com-
puter projection screen, on which could be simulated entire space battles and war
games.
Aside from themselves, the only other person in the room was a man standing at the far
end of the long table. He wore a conservative gray jumpsuit, which normally would have
allowed him to blend nicely into any crowd; here at Luna Base, however, where uniforms
were the rule, the man stood out as quite an exception. He was close to fifty and totally
bald-but even in the semi-darkness of this room, the fire of intelligence could be seen
burning brightly behind his eyes.
This man was Zander von Wilmenhorst, and he was one of perhaps half a dozen people