Alec took a step toward him.
“What’s the matter, kid? She’s already fucked half the Council for you, why not a couple of real men?”
Alec aimed for the throat. The miner put his hands up to protect himself and Alec slammed into him. They toppled over the stone bench together and landed on the grassy ground with a thudding grunt. Someone screamed, voices shouted, but that was all far away. Alec felt the solid strength of the miner’s muscular arms grabbing at him.
The miner was big and catlike, hard-handed and strong. But he hadn’t spent hours each day in the Earth-gravity centrifuge, as Alec had for months. Alec scrambled to his feet and turned, saw the miner still in a crouch, knees bent, one hand touching the ground like an ape’s.
Looking up at him, the miner smiled. “I heard you got a temper, kid. Now you’re gonna see what it costs you.”
He got to his feet slowly. Alec stood still, realizing that they were standing between benches now, little room to maneuver. Every nerve in him, every muscle was screaming with rage and anticipation. But he held himself in check, waiting, waiting.
The miner towered over Alec, big as his father. He made a feinting move to his right. Alec ignored it. Another left, and again Alec did not respond. Then he launched a straightarm blow to Alec’s head.
Alec slipped under it, kicked the man’s knee out, chopped hard at his kidney and brought a cupped hand up into his face. It caught his nose. Blood spurted and he fell heavily against the stone bench.
He looked surprised now, with blood splashed over his face. The grin was gone. He got to all fours, tried to rise to his feet again, but the damaged knee would not support him. He went down again on his face.
Alec looked around at the circle of spectators. “Anyone else have something to say?”
Lawrence came to his side. “Come on, it’s over. Let’s get out of here.”
Alec let his companions lead him through the hushed crowd while the miner’s friends bent over him.
They made their way to Alec’s quarters, which he shared with his mother. Gradually, one by one, his friends drifted away until only Joanna remained. They were drinking legitimate liquor now, part of the precious supply that was synthesized each year from the unusable waste products of the hydroponics farms.
Joanna was sitting on the padded sofa, feet tucked up beneath her. Alec sat beside her. The furniture was all made of lunar stone, their most plentiful material, and padded with foam cushions. The room was spacious by lunar standards, big enough for a large viewscreen on one wall, two chairs and a low stone table in front of the sofa. Paintings hung on the other walls, and the ceiling panels glowed with a soft fluorescence.
“You know,” Joanna was saying, “I think Deitz’s rat poison extract tastes better than this stuff.”
Alec grunted. “How can you taste anything? It burns the taste buds off your tongue.”
“It’s strong, all right.” Joanna stared down at her cup for a moment, then smiled up at Alec. “I had no idea you were so strong. You handled that miner as if he were a toy.”
With a shrug, Alec answered, “Spend as many hours in the centrifuge as I do and you’ll get strong, too.”
“You really are dedicated,” she said softly.
He didn’t know what to answer to that one. Joanna was watching him, her large almond-shaped eyes almost as dark as his mother’s.
“Doesn’t anything interest you,” she asked, a smile toying at her lips, “except the mission to Earth?”
“A lot of things interest me. But the mission comes first.”
“Oh. I see.”
“The life of the whole community depends on this mission,” he said gravely. “If we don’t get those fissionables, and soon, we’ll be in irreversible trouble.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “And that’s why you’ve been so... inaccessible?”
The games they play, Alec thought to himself. Think of me before anyone or anything else. But he knew that he played the same game himself.
“I’m in training, Joanna. Facing a full Earth gravity is like carrying six times your normal weight. Half the people here can’t stand it, their bones have become too brittle. And then there’ve been the classes in military tactics, logistics, all the planning...”
“You’ve been involved in those classes since we all were children,” Joanna said.
“Yes,” he said, “and it’s paid off. Did you know that the Council’s adopted my plan for the mission? I worked it out with old Colonel Dunn, all the details, the men and equipment, the timing—everything. They accepted it over Kobol’s plan.”
“No, I didn’t know. That’s wonderful.” But her voice was flat, plainly uninterested.
“I’ve even studied the old tapes of Earth’s weather... rainfall and temperature changes, things like that.”
“But what about you?” Joanna asked. “What do you want out of all this?”
“Me?” Suddenly he was puzzled. “I want to lead the mission.” There was more to it, of course, but he had no intention of discussing that with anyone.
“But why? What’s the reason... your own personal reason?”
Alec did not answer. He couldn’t.
Joanna made an impatient huffing sound. She turned squarely to him, kneeling, sitting on her heels. “Alec, what do you want? Why is the Earth mission so, so... all-encompassing for you? Is it because of your father, what he did? Or is it to keep your mother secure as Chairwoman of the Council, or what?”
He edged away from her. “It’s not for my mother, and it’s certainly not for my father. It’s for me. I’m going because I want to go. It’s my life.”
“You enjoy risking your life.”
“Don’t get so personal,” he said. “It’s not polite.”
Her mouth was a determined thin line. “Alec, don’t give me any of that politeness crap. We’ve known each other since we were toddlers and I want to know why you’re so anxious to throw your life away. It frightens me!”
