‘You were in the army?’ Doug prompted.
‘Special Forces.’
‘How long?’
‘I did a four-year hitch.’
‘Why did you leave?’
‘Got a better offer.’
Doug tapped on his keyboard and Gordette’s personnel file came up on the wall screen to his left.
‘What kind of a company is Falcon Electronics?’
‘Small,’ said Gordette. ‘They did customized electro-optical rigs, stuff like that.’
‘You were with them almost nine years?’
‘Right.’
‘And then you got a job with Masterson Corporation and came to Moonbase.’
‘Right.’
Leaning back in his chair, Doug asked, ‘How do you like it here?’
Gordette thought for a moment. ‘Not bad. Most of the people here are smart, civilized.’
‘Civilized?’
‘There’s not much of a color problem here. Not like back in the States.’
Doug felt shocked. ‘You had race problems?’
Gordette smiled again, but this time it dripped acid. ‘There’s no black man on Earth doesn’t have race problems.’
‘I’m part black,’ Doug said. ‘My father-‘
‘I know all about it. But your skin is white enough, and you got enough money, so it doesn’t matter to you.’
Doug felt as if he were battering against a solid steel barrier. Not that Gordette seemed hostile; he simply offered nothing. It was like talking to an automaton. And yet there was something going on behind those unwavering eyes. The man wasn’t stupid, Doug judged. He’s just sitting there, looking at me. As if he’s studying me.
Lev Brudnoy stuck his head through Doug’s open door and broke the tightening silence. Moments later, Jinny Anson, Professor Zimmerman and Kris Cardenas joined the conference.
As they carefully, meticulously, went over every inch of Moonbase’s layout, equipment and supplies, Doug watched Gordette. The man said nothing, but seemed entirely focused on their discussion. He listened intently, hands clasped in front of his face as if in prayer. Every now and then, though, Doug caught him looking directly at him. Gordette never looked away. He simply stared at Doug, face utterly impassive, eyes boring into Doug as if he were taking X-ray photographs.
‘So we can button up and wait for ’em to run out of air,’ Anson said, waving a hand at the schematic diagram of the base that filled one whole wall of Doug’s office.
‘Suppose they blow out the main airlock?’ Brudnoy asked. ‘What then?’
Anson’s normally perky expression paled slightly. ‘Why would they do that?’
‘They want to take over the base,’ Brudnoy replied.
‘Yeah, but they wouldn’t want to kill us! Not if we’re just sitting tight inside.’
‘Blowing the main airlock wouldn’t necessarily kill us, would it?’ Cardenas asked.
‘No,’ said Anson. ‘It’d just open up the garage. All the tunnels would still be sealed off-‘
‘Corridors,’ Doug corrected.
‘Whatever.’
‘Still,’ Brudnoy said, ‘if they blast out the main airlock that would surely mean that they are prepared to blow their way through any of the other airlocks and hatches in the base.’
‘It would mean they’re ready to kill us,’ Doug agreed.
Zimmerman, sitting alone on the couch by the door, pointed out, ‘If they blast open the main airlock we would have to surrender. There would be no other option.’
‘Not unless we can breathe vacuum,’ Anson admitted.
Doug turned to Gordette and again the man was staring at him. ‘What do you think, Bam? What does your military experience tell you?’
Without the slightest hesitation, Gordette replied, ‘The Peacekeepers are trained to accomplish their mission with as little bloodshed as possible. They won’t blow any airlocks. Not at first, anyway.’
‘You mean we could sit inside and wait ’em out?’ Anson asked.
Gordette shook his head.
‘What would you do,’ Doug asked, ‘if you were heading up this Peacekeeper mission?’
Getting slowly to his feet, Gordette walked to the wall map and pointed to the thin lines that represented the buried power cables that led from the solar farms into the base. ‘I’d cut your electrical power lines, here, here, and here.’
‘The solar farms,’ murmured Brudnoy.
‘Without electricity this base goes down the tubes.’ Gordette made a diving motion with one hand.
‘We have the backup nuclear system,’ Anson said.
‘They know that,’ Gordette replied flatly. ‘They’ve got as good a map of this base as you do.’