And there were clouds, sometimes. Invisible but quite deadly clouds.
For years he had worked to make precise predictions of solar flares. He studied the Sun until his eyes burned from staring at its seething, roiling image. He made mountains of statistical analyses, trying to learn how to forecast solar flares by matching existing data on earlier flares and making “backcasts” of them. He spun out holographic maps of the interplanetary magnetic field, knowing that those invisible threads of energy steered the radiation clouds that were thrown out by solar flares.
Nothing worked. His predictions were estimates at best. Everyone praised him and the results he was obtaining, but Zorach knew he had yet to predict a single flare. Not one, in all the years he had been working on them.
So he wasn’t surprised when one of the display screens in his cluttered office suddenly pinged. Turning to it, he saw nothing unusual to the unaided eye. But the alphanumerics strung along the bottom of the screen told him clearly that a new solar flare had just erupted.
A big one, he saw. Big and nasty. He knew the automated system was already sending warnings to every human habitat and outpost from Selene to the colony in orbit around distant Saturn. But he pecked at his own phone and called Selene’s safety office to make certain they started bringing everybody in from the surface. It was a point of honor with him. If I can’t predict the bloody storms, he said to himself, at least I can make certain no one is killed by them.
Deep below the Moon’s surface in his private grotto, Martin Humphries had no worries about solar flares or the radiation clouds that accompanied them.
He was ambling slowly through the colorful garden in the patio outside the elaborately carved front door of his mansion, with Victoria Ferrer at his side. The heady aroma of solid beds of roses and peonies filled the air, and he felt victory was close enough almost to touch.
“We’re winning,” Humphries said happily. “We’ve got Astro on the run.”
Ferrer, walking slowly alongside him, nodded her agreement. But she warned, “This latest move of Astro’s could cut off the ore shipments coming in from the Belt.”
Humphries disagreed with a wave of his hand in the air. “Drones attacking our automated freighters? I’m not worried about that.”
“You should be. This could be serious.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Humphries sneered. “This fiasco with that Starlight vessel has brought Pancho’s little scheme out into the open.”
“But they could strangle your profits if—”
“I’m going to get rid of Astro’s drones at one stroke,” Humphries said confidently.
Ferrer looked at him questioningly.
“Set up a meeting for me with Doug Stavenger.”
“Stavenger?”
“Uh-huh. Once Stavenger has his nose rubbed into the fact that Astro’s controlling those birds from inside Selene, he’ll close down their operation.”
“He will?”
“Yes indeed he will,” said Humphries, smiling broadly. “He’s made it clear to me and that little guttersnipe that he doesn’t want any fighting in Selene. No fighting anywhere on the Moon.”
“But does that mean he’ll demand that Astro close down its control center for the drones?”
“Damned right he will. And he’ll make it stick, too.”
Ferrer was silent for a moment, thinking. Then, “Pancho will just move the control center off the Moon. Put up a space station.”
“And we’ll blast it to smithereens.” Humphries clapped his hands together. “I only hope the damned greasemonkey is aboard when we wipe it out.”
Ferrer thought it over and had to admit that her boss was correct. HSS mercenaries had scored major victories over Astro forces in the Belt. Astro had sprung a surprise with their drones attacking HSS freighters as they approached the Moon, but Humphries was probably right in thinking that Stavenger would force them to move that operation out of the safety of Selene. Of course, zapping that independent freighter and wiping out that family didn’t help Astro’s cause. Not at all.
Yet she heard herself ask, “What about Fuchs? He’s still lurking out there somewhere.”
“Fuchs?” Humphries snorted disdainfully. “He’s a spent force. Once we’ve cleaned out Astro we can hunt him down at our leisure. He’s as good as dead; he just doesn’t know it yet.”