Privateers by Ben Bova

of Saito Yamagata’s living room floor, sipping hot Japanese tea and trying to convince himself that it was four o’clock in the afternoon and not three in the morning. The room was virtually bare of furnishings; nothing but an exquisitely lacquered low table bearing the tea service, and a pair of matched silk paintings on the walls to either side. Through the triple-glazed glass shoji screen that formed one side of the room, Dan could see the snow-covered mountains that sparkled in the afternoon sunshine. None of them was as perfect as the divine cone of Fujiyama, but the mountains were very pretty. They reminded Dan of Colorado and years gone by that could never be recaptured.
    “It was good of you to come all this way to see me,” said Yamagata. He wore a Western-style business suit, perfectly tailored for his burly, short-limbed build. His round, smiling face had lines etched into it that Dan had not seen before, marks of worry.
     
    “I’ll never phone you at six A.M. again,” Dan said wearily. “Your revenge is too swift.”
    Yamagata laughed, a hearty belly-shaking bellow that reminded Dan of the old days.
    “I got the feeling,” Dan said, “that you wanted to talk to me in private.”
    The Japanese magnate grew serious. “Yes. It was necessary for us to have absolute confidence in the privacy of our discussion. This house is guarded by men whose families have served my family for many generations. We can speak here without fear of being overheard.”
    “Good.”
    “You are concerned about the Russians’ decision to increase the price of their lunar ores.”
    “More than that,” Dan said. “It’s their stranglehold on us that bothers me. By controlling the mines on the Moon they control the raw materials that we use in our orbital factories. They’ve got their hands at our throat every minute of every day of every year.”
    Yamagata closed his eyes and nodded.
    “Sooner or later they’re going to shut us down completely. You know that, don’t you?”
    His friend said sadly, “They may close down your factories, Daniel, but not mine. You are an American. …”
    “Expatriate.”
    “But still an American. They fear you. They hate you.”
    “So do most Americans,” Dan muttered.
    “Nevertheless,” Yamagata went on, “the Russians would be happy to close down your space operations. Only the fact that you have worked under the flag of Venezuela has stayed their hand-so far.”
    “They don’t want to make the Third World mad at them, I know.”
    “But they will find a pretext for closing down all the other nations’ space stations and all their factories. It is merely a matter of time.”
    “That includes you,” Dan pointed out.
    “Perhaps not,” said Yamagata. “The Japanese space stations are under the informal protection of the People’s Republic of China. Not even the Soviet Union has the courage to displease the Chinese.”
    “Not yet.”
    “Not for some time to come. China never relied so heavily on its nuclear missiles that it became powerless once the Russians perfected their space defenses. The Chinese still believe in manpower.”
    “With their population, why not?”
    “A billion and a half, at latest count.”
    “Christ, they could walk to Moscow and the Russians wouldn’t be able to stop them.”
    Yamagata pursed his lips. “The situation is not that simple, but suffice to say that for the foreseeable future the Russians do not desire to antagonize the Chinese, and China looks favorably upon Japan’s space-based industries.”
    “They’re your principal market, aren’t they?”
    “For products manufactured in orbit, yes, of course. We sell quite a bit to India, too, despite their own space factories. We underprice them!” He laughed again.
    “So you’re safe.”
    “For the time being,” Yamagata repeated.
    “And this Russian price increase?”
    “We are attempting to negotiate an exception, although I don’t think we will succeed. If not, then we will