Free The Ganymede Club by Charles Sheffield

your head?" She had better learn to get used to it, or change her career plans.
    "But I might not make it." Lola could see the Earth's dark bulk, with the Moon on the horizon beyond it. The ship must have turned on its axis during the ascent. "It's supposed to be really tough. I'll need another five years of training, even if I pass the rest of the entry tests. And after that—"
    She paused. A bright spark of blue light had appeared, not on the Moon's illuminated crescent, but over on the other limb where the disk was supposed to be dark.
    "After that?" prompted Coline.
    Lola did not reply. She pointed. Two more flecks of flame had sprung into view, close to the first one. Even as she watched, there were others. The Moon was suddenly ablaze, a line of flame spreading rapidly across its dark face like a windblown fire.
    Audie Coline had turned casually to follow Lola's gesture. He jerked upright, pushing Spook to one side. "The line!" he exclaimed. "My God, this is impossible. That's the Armageddon defense line!"
    His tone and the horror on his face said a lot more to Lola than his words. The scene behind him told even more. The Moon was on fire. A great swath on the lunar surface was burning with the ghastly blue light of nuclear fusion. In the foreground, a matching spark glowed suddenly on Earth's nightside. It was followed by another two, both in the Northern Hemisphere. They grew rapidly, ever brighter. A dozen others appeared—a score, a hundred. The atmosphere itself was beginning to glow in orange-red streaks.
    "Is it?" asked Spook.
    Lola did not answer—did not want to answer. Because it was. It was war, the unthinkable war between Earth and the Belt that everyone had talked about forever, but that no one had believed could really happen. The Moon was on fire, Earth was on fire. The world was ending.
    She and Spook might have a chance to escape. Ganymede was not involved in the Earth/Belt dispute, so a ship heading for Ganymede might be spared. But Mother and Father . . ., they were down there, on the flaming ruin that a few minutes ago had been the peaceful Earth.
    She reached out and grasped Spook's hand, hard enough to hurt him. Her mother's instructions had been specific: "Until we arrive, you're in charge. Look after Spook. Don't let him get into trouble. "
    He was in trouble. They were all in trouble. Earth and the Moon and the Belt and Mars, now and for years or decades to come. But that did not relieve her of her responsibility.
    She was in charge.
    Lola stared at Spook's frightened face, and past it to the flaming sky outside the port. She felt the last of her childhood disappear, bleeding away into the harsh emptiness beyond the ship.
    THE SOLAR SYSTEM BEFORE AND AFTER THE GREAT WAR (2067 A.D.)

    PREWAR
    Mercury: Research station for solar studies, occasional science staff.

Venus: Three surface domes, plus research stations and an experimental biosphere: investigations into meteorology, planetology, ecosystems. Permanent staff.

Earth: Population eleven billion.

Luna: Population seven million, plus automated factories.

Mars: Self-sufficient colony, population seventeen million.

Asteroid Belt: Self-sufficient colonies on Ceres, Pallas, Vesta, Juno, Hidalgo, and twenty-seven smaller planetoids. Total population one hundred and seven million.

Jupiter: Interdependent colonies on Ganymede and Callisto, research stations on Europa and Io, unmanned collection vessels in Jovian atmosphere; combined population, Jovian system: eighty-three million.

Saturn: Ganymede-based exploring parties to rings and all major moons. Von Neumanns working on Dione and Titan. No colonies.

Uranus: Smart probes to all major moons; research station proposed for Oberon. No colonies.
    POSTWAR
    Mercury: Research station lost, no survivors.

Venus: Surface domes lost, no survivors.

Earth: Population two billion in Southern Hemisphere and tropics; Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable.

Luna: Population zero, no production