Chapter 12

By the time we reached Earth space, Danny still hadn't got back to me, to Branny's intense disappointment. Then came an even bigger disappointment: Earth could not be seen from Lipskiy base.

As soon as the Isaac Newton was in orbit around Luna, I got a call ordering me to report to Lipskiy base immediately. The tone of the order did not sound pleasant.

"AI, how do I get to Lipskiy base?"

"Report to the main hangar deck. The main transporters are situated there."

"Thanks. Roger?"

At my call, Dad quickly came into my office.

"I've gotta go down to the moon. Keep an eye on things while I'm gone. AI? Please ensure Roger and Imogen have all the necessary system accesses for while I am off the ship."

"Confirmed." The AI did not sound happy.

Ten minutes later I met Melissa at the transporter pads, and we were quickly whisked down to the moon. It was instantly obvious that we were on the moon, the gravity for one seemed almost none-existent. "This could be fun," I said in a dry aside to Melissa. Assuming I really meant it, she started to argue, then caught the look on my face and subsided with a scowl.

"Excuse me," I asked an apparent receptionist in front of me. "I'm Llewelyn Carter and this is Melissa West. We've been told to report here?"

The receptionist, if that's what he was, consulted a list on a PDA he was holding, then nodded. "Room A2W. That way," he pointed along a corridor that led away to his right.

We thanked him and followed the corridor. There were doors on both sides of the corridor, but only numbers, no letters, but the numbers, which started at eight, were at least getting smaller. We reached number two, halted, paused for a moment, then knocked.

There was no reply. I knocked again, and again there was no reply. Unfortunately there was also no door handle. "Shit now what?" I asked.

"Push?" suggested Melissa.

I shrugged and pushed and to my slight embarrassment the door opened easily. Inside was a small open-plan office, with desks for about ten, but there seemed to be almost no one there. "Excuse me?" I called to the one person I could see, a young man at the far end of the office, tapping at a computer.

He looked up, his face a picture of astonishment, and then jumped up and came running towards us. "Get out, get out, this is a secure office, you can't be in here. You know you're not supposed to enter any office until you've been invited in, or escorted in."

We retreated but only as far as the door we had entered by.

"We were told to report here," I shouted over his shouts.

He paused, then shook his head. "Not here you wouldn't have been. Not this office,"

"Office A2W?" asked Melissa.

The young man paused again, and I could see the thoughts whirling in his mind.

"Ah. No. This is A2N. Out the door, left, to the end, turn right, second door from the far end."

"Oh. Okay. The door just said 2."

He nodded. "This is level A, the top level, which contains most of the offices, level B contains ... er, this is the North wing, hence the N, you want room 2 on the West wing, which is where the senior officers all have their offices. Office two will be," he paused and blanched, "Shit, get out, go, run, you're late."

He practically bundled us out of the office, and though we didn't run - it wasn't possible in that gravity anyway - we hurried as best we could.

"You should have been here ten minutes ago," yelled the occupant of the office, when we eventually found it. "In fact, you should have been here two months ago. When you found out you were in Intelligence, why did you not report here straight away?"

"Because we didn't know this place existed until a few days ago. No one on the ship... ," I started.

"I don't give a goddamn what anyone on that flaming ship knew," he said, practically spitting his fury at me, "you should have got off."

"But sir," started Melissa.

"NO BUTS," yelled what I assumed was our boss. I still didn't know his name. "I should have the pair of you court-martialled for dereliction of duty." He paused, but there didn't seem any point in saying anything so we just waited it out. "The third member of your little menage-a-trois only escaped his bollocking because Soloat has been asking for an intelligence officer for months, and when you all happened to be there he got chosen as the most suitable of the three of you." His voice rose again. "And I see he's applied for a transfer. DENIED!"

The man in front of us ranted and raved for what seemed like an hour before finally relenting. "You," he said pointing at Melissa. "Room A9N. Go. Now. Fast."

Melissa looked at me despairingly and left, quickly. She didn't ask, and I hoped from what we'd been told by the previous person we'd spoken to, she would be able to work out, hopefully, where to find the room she needed.

"You. Why you were chosen for this I don't fuckin' know. We don't need more flamin' Limey's, we're already overrun with the fuckers. Room A15E." He grinned at me maliciously. "It's almost as far from here as it's possible to get. You've got ten minutes."

I left, but instead of turning towards the end of the corridor, I turned the other way. About half way along the corridor there had been a small alcove, not unlike the one we had arrived on, I was guessing, hoping, there would be a transporter there that would take me direct from the middle of the West Wing to the same place on East Wing. To my eternal relief I was right, and with probably only seconds to spare, I got to my destination.

I took a couple of deep breaths to calm my shattered nerves, and knocked.

"Come," yelled a voice.

The room was similar in a way to the first office we had entered, but this time there were three people in it, and a whole raft of empty desks. That they were normally occupied was obvious by the amount of personal clutter on many of them.

"Hello. I'm Commander Harding, and I'll be your line officer while you're on Lipskiy," said the same voice that had invited me in.

Commander Matt Harding was a lot smaller than I had expected, probably only five foot ten inches, short dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a thin, almost pinched, face. His face suggested bitterness, but he sounded cheerful, confident and friendly. Up close, his accent was from the north East of England. When I found out later he was actually from Newcastle, I knew it was the authentic Geordie accent.

"Hello, Lieutenant Carter reporting for duty, sir."

"Oh, no formalities here. No uniforms either," he said nodding at my uniform. "Except you've just come from Wilkerson, so that was a good idea." He grinned. "Didn't expect you for another twenty minutes, so either you're better in the point one Lunar gravity, or you're..." he trailed off with a questioning smile.

"I found the transporter pad to take me direct from west wing to east wing."

He nodded. "Bit naughty, but we've just finished for the evening, so we're not busy.

"Oh, sorry. Is it not allowed?"

"Technically, no. In theory old battle axe Wilkerson who's just sent you to me will rip your nuts off if he saw it. But since I know he only gave you ten minutes to get here, that would be the only way to do it. If he complains I'll just get my boss to squash him." He grinned nastily. "Don't worry. Lot's of little turf wars going on here."

"What rank is he?"

"Wilkerson? He's a Major. Ignore him. You don't work for him. You work for me. And if you need his services, go through me and I'll see you talk to the right person on his staff. Okay?"

I just nodded.

"Well, you've ended up in a pool job. Sorry. It's very important, but almost any monkey can do it. In reality people are only in here until there's a project for them. In here it's just collating and filing. In theory the AI's could do it just as well, and faster, but they won't spot things that a Human might, so we do it and we do it better." Matt Harding proceeded to give me a quick, verbal, tour of the base.

"Lipskiy base is basically a square block dug down into the lunar surface," I was told. "We are hard against the north wall of Lipskiy crater, built partly into it in fact. Level A contains most of the offices, and only north wing and a small part of east wing are inside the crater wall. Level B contains conference and meeting rooms, plus all the technical stuff, most of the AI's, the power supply, the main replicators et cetera, plus file rooms for all the paperwork we generate. Level C is part accommodation, plus the refectory or mess hall, the gym, the theatre which doubles as the cinema and other recreational type places. Levels D through H are straight accommodation levels. Only level D has apartments above ground, all the rest are totally below surface level, though all levels are at least partly buried. If you ever find yourself in a corridor and realise you've lost your bearings, look at the colour of the line painted down the centre of each corridor. South wing is white, east is red, west is blue, and north is black. The arrows point to the nearest emergency access stairs. There's one in each corner. If you're even daft enough to forget which level you are on, head to the nearest transporter pad in the centre of each wing, so the opposite direction to the arrows, and look on the wall behind it. If it's blank, you're on level A, otherwise you'll see the letter painted three foot high."

I nodded my understanding, and he continued. "The transporter pad on North wing level A, where you came in, is normally the only way in and out of the base, though in an emergency all transporter pads can be used. All the transporter pads on every level can link to each other, and under normal operating conditions, the only way between levels is by transporter pad. This is for security reasons. In an emergency however, doors open allowing access to stairs between levels. There's no atrium or similar, so all the levels are individually closed off from the others. About once every three months there will be emergency drills. Make sure you read up on what you have to do."

He paused for a moment. "This is your office. Unless you are accompanied, you never go into any other office on this floor or on level B. The offices on the West Wing are those of the senior officers of the Confederacy Intelligence HQ. As such they are usually empty as those people are almost never here on Lipskiy." Matt sounded vaguely angry about that. "They don't like it here, but won't move us to wherever they are, which presumably is much nicer." He shrugged. "Mind you, that's not difficult."

I smiled at that, and nodded at him to continue.

"West Wing of level C is accommodation. Again senior officer country. Avoid. The whole of South Wing is the mess hall. From there you can just see Daedalus Base, or at least, some of the comms towers, but you've got to be standing in the right place, and know what you're looking for. It's easier on this level, but you don't go into those offices. Level C north wing is the theatre and... ," he paused, obviously trying to think what was where. "Actually, I can't remember. East wing inner is the gym, outer is the changing rooms."

"What do you mean by inner or outer?"

"There's rooms and offices both sides of the corridor. Outer just means on the outside of the corridor, away from the rest of the base, inner means inside. We're inner. The other side of that wall there," he said pointing to the wall opposite the only door in the office, "in theory could be an office on East wing inner, though in fact it's probably just rock for quite some way."

"Oh. Okay."

"On this level each wing has about fifteen offices, with desk space for between two and ten people in each. That's office space for just under four hundred people, far more than actually live and work here."

"How many people is that?"

"Two hundred and fifty. Ish."

I was astonished. "Including concubines?"

He gave me a very strange look. "No. That's the staff. Just under two hundred actually live here, plus their concubines, the rest commute. We don't have room for more that that. Even though there's apartments for seven senior officers, they are almost never here, and most of the time their rooms are unoccupied. Even when they are here, they rarely, if ever, bring their concubines with them." He shook his head. "This is a secure base. It's why some staff live here but keep their concubines elsewhere."

"Oh? Where?"

He shook his head again. "You don't have that option, so I wouldn't worry about it."

"Oh. Too junior?"

He gave a wry smile. "Partly. And the fact that a lot of the top brass are a bit anti..." he paused, "you've met Major Wilkerson, he genuinely believes the only people who should be saved are Americans, and Americans from the forty-eight states." He had to explain to me that that meant excluding Alaska and Hawaii. "As far as he is concerned, everyone else extracted is a waste of space. Especially if they are from another country's armed forces. There are a number like him in the top brass."

"So because I'm British I also don't get that option?"

He just nodded.

"Um. Gravity?" I asked.

"Oh. Lunar gravity is point one of Earth's. Get used to it, as for the most part, Lipskiy has no artificial gravity."

"I thought the moon was one sixth Earth's gravity?" I asked, frowning slightly.

"It's point-one-six, approximately. That's close enough to point one."

I opened my mouth to point out that point one-six was roughly one sixth, but he stared at me as if defying me to argue.

"The gym has point seven G," he continued severely, "the mess hall, two of the conference rooms on level B, and a couple of offices on the west wing of this level all have point five G. When they're in use. Use the gym as much as possible. There's a first aid room on level C for minor injuries, but if anyone needs major medical treatment they are sent to Daedalus. They have at least point five in the entire base, and full one gee in the medical bay. If you can, try and make sure your women give birth there if they are pregnant." A look of irritation stole across his features. "This base was almost the first to be built, and there was a cock up during construction. That's why we don't have artificial gravity in most of the base." He didn't say whose fault that had been, but he definitely left me with the impression that Major Wilkerson was to blame.

"Now most of these offices on this and north wing are what we call project offices. What that means is that people assigned to a particular project will all be working from that one office. When the project finishes, or your part in it finishes, you move out either to a general pool office like this one, or into another project office for another project. You may genuinely have two desks. One which is yours, in a pool-office like this one and one in a project office. At the moment you only have a pool desk assigned to you. You may get assigned to a project, and if you do, you move into that office for the duration of the project, but this desk here stays yours. Yours until you die or get assigned off the base."

I laughed. "So what do I do?"

"Well, technically it's now evening here, so we're on downtime. Go home."

"Um. Where is home?"

"Oh shit. Has Wilkerson not assigned you to quarters?"

"No."

Matt gave a huge, almost dramatic, sigh. He tapped keys on his pad. "Right, you're assigned to "H14S. Level H is the lowest level, and well below the surface. No outside views."

I knew that would disappoint Siân at the very least, and probably Dad as well. "How do I get the pod down?"

"You don't. No pods on Lipskiy. You move into new quarters. You'd better," he paused, picked up the phone on his desk and dialled a number.

"Tony? Matt," he said a few seconds later. "There's a pod full," he listened for a moment. "Yes. That's right," another pause. "Oh great, thanks."

He hung up and turned back to me. "They are already on the way. Should be in their new home almost before you get there. Right, report back here at oh eight hundred tomorrow morning, bright and cheerful."

"Um, you said you've only just finished for the evening? But I've only just arrived, and I'm sure the clock in Major Wilkerson's office showed 22:00, or just after."

Harding nodded. "Most of this base works on Zulu time. Effectively Greenwich Mean Time. Individual projects may work on other times, depending upon their requirements. So if a project is working in Russia for example, it may work on Moscow time. This office works on Eastern Standard Time, so the time in New York. We have to deal a lot with staff in the UN building, and in the main Earth bound Confederacy offices. They are both in New York, so we stick to that time. Wilkerson doesn't do any ... Wilkerson stays on GMT like most of the rest of the base."

"Oh, okay, thanks."

He grinned and stuck out his hand. "Welcome to Lipskiy. A dump if there ever was one, and just pray you get away, or at least get up to level D."

I shook the proffered hand, thanked him with a smile, and headed to my new home.

"It's awful," sobbed Branny when I arrived. Everyone else looked glum too. "This isn't a pod, so it has no facilities to decorate or change," she cried. "It's a bloody hole in the ground."

"I know babe," I whispered, folding my arms around her to comfort her.

"And it's barely half the size of the pod. And did you know, that pod we were in would have opened up to become at least twice the size once it was on the ground?"

"That would have been far more than we need though."

"Not really," interrupted Imogen. "Because there are four pregnant women in this hole. You are going to have eight new babies shortly."

"Eight? You mean you are all? ... twins? All of you?"

Imogen smiled slightly. "Yes. I thought you knew."

"No. Hell. Oh fuck. And Siân isn't pregnant yet."

"Indeed. By the end of the year it'll be ten new babies. I'm just three months. Janine is about two weeks behind me, Branwyn another week or so behind her, and Stacy about three weeks after that. You should really have got Siân pregnant by now."

I glanced at Siân. She was looking at me, and when she saw my glance, gave a slow nod of agreement. "All right," I said with a smile. "I'm a bit knackered right now. A day or two, okay?"

The following morning, when I reported to work, 'bright and cheerful', I found out just how dull and tedious the work could be. There were ten people in the office, plus four empty desks. All the current occupants were British or Australian, seven males, three females, and apart from myself, all city dwellers. There was very little conversation, it seemed to be frowned upon. Matt seemed to think if we were talking we obviously weren't busy enough, and he would simply give us more work to do. And the group wasn't particularly friendly either. At the end of each day, everyone just scattered to their homes.

Two evenings later I finally took Siân to bed and made her pregnant. To her, and everyone else's, delight. Making love in the low gravity was interesting, but not special. We still fell, and it still hurt when we did so, so it wasn't as exciting as we had hoped it might be.