Moonbase - Moonwar Part 38

She began to giggle. "Yep, guess so."

Doug reached for her gloved hand and pressed it to the visor of his helmet. "That's the best I can do right now. But we ought to be coming up on a tempo pretty soon."

"Tempo?"

"One of the old temporary shelters. We keep them stocked with emergency supplies. We can go inside and get out of these d.a.m.ned suits for a while."

"Uh-huh. And what about Gordette?"

She heard his sharp intake of breath. "Gordette," Doug said, all the laughter gone. "I had almost forgotten about him."

"Doug, if we're going to have to surrender anyway to the Peacekeepers or Yamagata or whoever, why are we chasing after Gordette?"

It took several moments before he answered, "Because I don't want to surrender to them, Edith. Deep inside me I'm still hoping for a miracle."

"What kind of a miracle?"

"I wish I knew."

DAY FORTY-THREE.

Grand Cayman Island had been a haven for tax-weary investors for more than a century, the Switzerland of the Caribbean, a home away from home for money that was to be hidden, laundered, or otherwise kept out of the sight of the tax collectors of the world.

Still a Crown Colony of the British Empire, the tiny flat island-a few minutes' flight from Cuba, less than an hour from Miami-possessed more banks than hotels, more financial offices than brothels, more citizens in business suits than beach wear.

Yet the beaches were lovely, Joanna thought as she and Lev strolled along the concrete walk from her hotel to the restaurant where she had been told the meeting would take place. It's a shame we won't have the time to go snorkeling or enjoy the suns.h.i.+ne.

The street was lined with restaurants and shops vending beach wear and souvenirs. They were dressed like tourists, as they had been instructed to be. Joanna was in white shorts and a flowered sleeveless blouse, with a big floppy straw hat; Lev wore comfortable baggy slacks, a loose-fitting mesh s.h.i.+rt hanging over them, and sungla.s.ses.

"I see the string bikini is making a comeback," Lev said, grinning. "I'll have to buy a few for you."

Joanna pretended to grimace. "One woman on the entire beach in a string outfit doesn't make a fas.h.i.+on trend, Lev. And she's very young, probably still in her teens."

Her husband shrugged. "She is a bit on the emaciated side, but still she seems quite attractive."

"Honestly."

"You would look much better than she does."

"I couldn't wear a skimpy thing like that on the beach!"

"Who said you'd wear it on the beach?" Lev countered. "We have fourteen rooms in Savannah. I could spread a little sand in the sun porch and chase you through the entire house."

"You would, too, wouldn't you?" Joanna said, laughing. Lev was trying to lighten her mood, she realized. Ease the tension.

Arranging a meeting with Seigo Yamagata had been easier than getting to see Georges Faure. And more difficult. Yamagata was even more inaccessible than the U.N. secretary-general, but his aides had responded with swift politeness to Joanna's call. Very indirectly they suggested that a luncheon might be of interest to both parties. Joanna refused to come to j.a.pan; Yamagata's aides said with deep regret that a meeting elsewhere would probably be impossible.

At Lev's suggestion, Joanna suggested a neutral territory. Within an hour Yamagata's twenty-year-old son Saito called back to propose meeting at Grand Cayman. Quietly. Discreetly.

"Many corporations conduct business on Grand Cayman," the young man said, looking earnest. "It would not be out of the ordinary for a very high officer of this corporation to be present on the island at a certain time and place."

Joanna nodded at his image on her phone screen. "Yes," she agreed. "Masterson Corporation does business with several banking establishments there."

The time and place were set. Now Joanna and Lev walked along the beachfront street in the brilliant late morning sunlight and brisk sea breeze, heading toward the Sunrise Hotel.

"I wonder how many of these j.a.panese tourists are actually Yamagata security people," Lev murmured.

Joanna had noticed them, too, strolling innocently along the beach walk, window shopping, lolling in the suns.h.i.+ne. "About the same number as our own Masterson troops," she replied.

Lev's brows rose. "Are any any of these people actually tourists?" of these people actually tourists?"

"A few, I suppose."

At last they stood before the Sunrise Hotel, a quiet little modernistic construction of concrete painted pastel blue on the far end of the beach, away from the gaudier shops and restaurants. The arrangements for the meeting included the requirement that they walk to this hotel from their own corporate-owned condo; no taxi whose trip record could be traced, no ostentatious limousine.

Joanna thought that Yamagata was being melodramatic, overly cautious. It's understandable to want to keep your movements private and avoid the media paparazzi, she thought, but the man's acting downright paranoid.

She noticed that Lev walked up the hotel's front steps stiffly, like a man in pain.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

He looked surprised. "Yes, of course."

"You looked...' Joanna didn't know how to say it without hurting her husband.

"Like an old man," he finished for her. "My dearest one, I am am an old man." an old man."

"As soon as this mess is over," she said, almost whispering, "we're going back to Moonbase and you are going to start nanotherapy."

Instead of protesting as Joanna expected he would, Brudnoy nodded. That told her worlds about how he truly felt.

Then he said, "a.s.suming, of course, that there is a Moonbase left standing, and nanotherapy will still be allowed there."

Joanna murmured, "Yes, a.s.suming all that."

Once they stepped into the cool shade of the hotel's lobby they saw that it was completely staffed by j.a.panese.

"Why do I feel like a fly walking into the spider's web?" Lev whispered to his wife as they followed a smiling young woman in an old-fas.h.i.+oned kimono through the lobby and out into a small but pleasantly decorated restaurant.

It was completely empty. The minimalist decor was decidedly j.a.panese: polished wood and lacquered low tables with cus.h.i.+ons on the floor. No chairs.

They took off their sandals at the door and the young woman led them to a table by a window that looked out onto a garden of raked sand and bare rocks.

"I'm glad I wore shorts instead of a skirt," Joanna said as she sat cross-legged on one of the cus.h.i.+ons.

Grunting, Lev slowly lowered himself into the cus.h.i.+on next to her. Once his long legs were settled properly, he pointed through the window. "We could have gardens like that at Moonbase," he said.

"If Yamagata has his way," Joanna whispered, "probably they'll turn the entire floor of Alphonsus into a rock garden."

"An exercise in esthetics," Lev murmured.

The slightest of noises made Joanna turned her head. A middle-aged man in a deep blue kimono that bore the white symbol of a flying heron had entered the otherwise empty restaurant and was striding toward them.

Lev scrambled to his feet. He towered over the j.a.panese.

"Please, please, be seated. Make yourselves comfortable," said Seigo Yamagata, in strong, deep voice. "I am so sorry to be late. A last-minute call from Kyoto."

He was wiry thin, with black hair combed straight back from his receding hairline, face round and flat with deep brown eyes that sparkled with intelligence and what might even have been humor.

As he sat on his heels opposite Joanna, Yamagata shook his head and put on a rueful expression. "No matter how carefully you pick your a.s.sistants and how well you train them, they always seem to find some emergency that only you can resolve.' He laughed heartily.

"How true," Joanna said. "I trained Ibrahim al-Ras.h.i.+d for many years, and now that he's risen to the top of Masterson Corporation he's trying to undermine everything I stand for."

Yamagata's brows rose a few millimeters.

Three young women in identical kimonos brought each of them individual trays of sake and, kneeling, placed them on the table.

Yamagata used the moment to consider Joanna's words. "Yes," he said slowly, "I can see that you do not agree with the direction Ras.h.i.+d has taken. I hope this little meeting can clear up the difficulty between us."

He looked directly into Joanna's eyes as he spoke, ignoring Lev. At least he's not a male chauvinist, Joanna thought.

"I didn't realize until just a short time ago," Joanna said,'that Faure is actually being controlled by you."

Yamagata's eyes widened momentarily, then he threw his head back and laughed. "Controlled? By me? Whatever gave you that idea?"

"He's using the nanotech treaty as a pretext for seizing Moonbase, yet he intends to have your people run Moonbase and continue to use nanomachines just as we are doing now."

Instead of answering her, Yamagata lifted his tiny cup of sake. "A toast. To better understanding."

Joanna clicked her cup against his, then Lev's. As if it were an afterthought, Yamagata touched his cup to Lev's also.

"Do I misunderstand the situation?" Joanna asked, after sipping the warm rice wine.

"It's not a question of misunderstanding," Yamagata answered,'so much as comprehending the entire picture."

"Please enlarge my understanding, then," she said.

"Gladly. Moonbase is the leading center of nanotechnology development, that is true. Faure is using the nanotech treaty as a means of establis.h.i.+ng U.N. control over the nations of the Earth, that is also true. As long as Moonbase continues to defy the treaty Faure will bend every effort at his command to stop you."

Joanna nodded. "That much I already know."

"However," Yamagata raised one finger, "once the U.N. has taken control of Moonbase, Faure will turn the operation of the base over to Yamagata Industries."

"I knew that, too," Joanna said.

"Yes, of course. Yamagata will continue to operate Moon-base just as before, but under the direction and supervision of United Nations inspectors."

"How will that be different from the way Moonbase is being run now?"

Yamagata took another sip of sake. "The major difference," he said, after smacking his lips, "is that Yamagata Industries will stop the manufacture of Clippers.h.i.+ps and their export to Earth."

"Stop building Clippers.h.i.+ps!"

"The market will be saturated within a few years," Yamagata said. "Your diamond craft are too too good! They are so reliable and durable that the need for new ones will soon decline steeply." good! They are so reliable and durable that the need for new ones will soon decline steeply."

"But how will you maintain Moonbase?" Joanna asked. "Economically, I mean. Clippers.h.i.+ps are our main source of income."

Yamagata hesitated a moment, then said in a lower tone, "Moonbase will be maintained at a smaller size and level of activity."

"Downsized?"

"To some extent. Yamagata Industries will support the scientific studies being done there, of course, and the research work in Moonbase's laboratories."

"But not Clippers.h.i.+p manufacture."

"Nothing that has touched nanomachines will be exported to Earth," Yamagata said firmly. "Except helium-three, of course."

"Fuel for fusion power generators," Joanna realized.

"Yes."

"So this is nothing but a power grab, after all," she said. "You're using Faure to take Moonbase from us, just as I thought."

"Not at all! I am offering Masterson Corporation a share of the greatest opportunity since the discovery of fire: a share of the fusion power industry."

"That's Ras.h.i.+d's doing," Joanna said.

"He has tried to interest your board of directors in fusion for many years, to no avail. Now Yamagata Industries offers you a partners.h.i.+p in this new industry."

"You want to take over Masterson Corporation."

"A merger makes much sense. Cooperation is much to be preferred over compet.i.tion."

Lev spoke up. "May I interrupt?"

Yamagata turned his head toward the Russian.

"If you gain control of Moonbase, why do you want to pursue a cooperative partners.h.i.+p with Masterson Corporation? You will have the nanotechnology to produce fusion fuel on the Moon. Yes?"

Yamagata smiled politely. "Just so. But why not be generous to a defeated compet.i.tor? Masterson can market fusion systems in the western hemisphere while Yamagata markets them in the eastern hemisphere."

Scratching at his beard unconsciously, Lev replied, "And when the market for Clippers.h.i.+ps opens up again, you can resume manufacturing them despite the nanotech treaty. No?"

Yamagata shook his head vigorously. "No. Not at all. That point is clear. The forces arrayed against nanotechnology will not allow Clippers.h.i.+ps to be brought to Earth. Not for the foreseeable future."

Lev frowned, puzzled.

"You must realize," Yamagata said, s.h.i.+fting his attention to Joanna again,'that not even I can openly flout Faure and the nanoluddites. Helium-three they will accept, diamond Clippers.h.i.+ps are too obvious a symbol of nanotechnology for them to put up with."