The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (32 page)

“We
have no ships,” I went on, “but would be possible to throw those
bargeloads of grain … instead of delivering them parking orbit.”

Next
day this evoked a headling: LOONIES THREATEN TO THROW RICE. At moment it
produced awkward silence.

Finally
journalist said, “Nevertheless I would like to know how you reconcile
your two statements—no more grain after 2082 … and ten or a hundred
times as much.”

“There
is no conflict,” Prof answered. “They are based on different sets
of circumstances. The figures you have been looking at show the present
circumstances … and the disaster they will produce in only a few years
through drainage of Luna’s natural resources—disaster which these
Authority bureaucrats—or should I say ‘authoritarian
bureaucrats?’—would avert by telling us to stand in the corner like
naughty children!”

Prof
paused for labored breathing, went on: “The circumstances under which we
can continue, or greatly increase, our grain shipments are the obvious
corollary of the first. As an old teacher I can hardly refrain from classroom
habits; the corollary should be left as an exercise for the student. Will
someone attempt it?”

Was
uncomfortable silence, then a little man with strange accent said slowly,
“It sound to me as if you talk about way to replenish natural
resource.”

“Capital!
Excellent!” Prof flashed dimples. “You, sir, will have a gold star
on your term report! To make grain requires water and plant
foods—phosphates, other things, ask the experts. Send these things to us;
we’ll send them back as wholesome grain. Put down a hose in the limitless
Indian Ocean. Line up those millions of cattle here in India; collect their end
product and ship it to us. Collect your own night soil—don’t bother
to sterilize it; we’ve learned to do such things cheaply and easily. Send
us briny sea water, rotten fish, dead animals, city sewage, cow manure, offal of
any sort—and we will send it back, tonne for tonne as golden grain. Send
ten times as much, we’ll send back ten times as much grain. Send us your
poor, your dispossessed, send them by thousands and hundreds of thousands;
we’ll teach them swift, efficient Lunar methods of tunnel farming and
ship you back unbelievable tonnage. Gentlemen, Luna is one enormous fallow
farm, four thousand million hectares, waiting to be plowed!”

That
startled them. Then someone said slowly, “But what do you get out of it?
Luna, I mean.”

Prof
shrugged. “Money. In the form of trade goods. There are many things you
make cheaply which are dear in Luna. Drugs. Tools. Book films. Gauds for our
lovely ladies. Buy our grain and you can sell to us at a happy profit.”

A
Hindu journalist looked thoughtful, started to write. Next to him was a
European type who seemed unimpressed. He said, “Professor, have you any
idea of the cost of shipping that much tonnage to the Moon?”

Prof
waved it aside. “A technicality. Sir, there was a time when it was not
simply expensive to ship goods across oceans but impossible. Then it was
expensive, difficult, dangerous. Today you sell goods half around your planet
almost as cheaply as next door; long-distance shipping is the least important
factor in cost. Gentlemen, I am not an engineer. But I have learned this about
engineers. When something must be done, engineers can find a way that is
economically feasible. If you want the grain that we can grow, turn your
engineers loose.” Prof gasped and labored, signaled for help and nurses
wheeled him away.

I
declined to be questioned on it, telling them that they must talk to Prof when
he was well enough to see them. So they pecked at me on other lines. One man
demanded to know why, since we paid no taxes, we colonists thought we had a
right to run things our own way? After all, those colonies had been established
by Federated Nations—by some of them. It had been terribly expensive.
Earth had paid all bills—and now you colonists enjoy benefits and pay not
one dime of taxes. Was that fair?

I
wanted to tell him to blow it. But Prof had again made me take a tranquilizer
and had required me to swot that endless list of answers to trick questions.
“Lets take that one at a time,” I said. “First, what is it
you want us to pay taxes for? Tell me what I get and perhaps I’ll buy it.
No, put it this way. Do you pay taxes?”

“Certainly
I do! And so should you.”

“And
what do you get for your taxes?”

“Huh?
Taxes pay for government.”

I
said, “Excuse me, I’m ignorant. I’ve lived my whole life in
Luna, I don’t know much about your government. Can you feed it to me in
small pieces? What do you get for your money?”

They
all got interested and anything this aggressive little choom missed, others
supplied. I kept a list. When they stopped, I read it back:

“Free
hospitals—aren’t any in Luna. Medical insurance—we have that
but apparently not what you mean by it. If a person wants insurance, he goes to
a bookie and works out a bet. You can hedge anything, for a price. I
don’t hedge my health, I’m healthy. Or was till I came here. We
have a public library, one Carnegie Foundation started with a few book films.
It gets along by charging fees. Public roads. I suppose that would be our
tubes. But they are no more free than air is free. Sorry, you have free air
here, don’t you? I mean our tubes were built by companies who put up
money and are downright nasty about expecting it back and then some. Public
schools. There are schools in all warrens and I never heard of them turning
away pupils, so I guess they are ‘public.’ But they pay well, too,
because anyone in Luna who knows something useful and is willing to teach it
charges all the traffic will bear.”

I
went on: “Let’s see what else—Social security. I’m not
sure what that is but whatever it is, we don’t have it. Pensions. You can
buy a pension. Most people don’t; most families are large and old people,
say a hundred and up, either fiddle along at something they like, or sit and
watch video. Or sleep. They sleep a lot, after say a hundred and twenty.”

“Sir,
excuse me. Do people really live as long on the Moon as they say?”

I
looked surprised but wasn’t; this was a “simulated question”
for which an answer had been taped. “Nobody knows how long a person will
live in Luna; we haven’t been there long enough. Our oldest citizens were
born Earthside, it’s no test. So far, no one born in Luna died of old
age, but that’s still no test; they haven’t had time to grow old
yet, less than a century. But—Well, take me, madam; how old would you say
I am? I’m authentic Loonie, third generation.”

“Uh,
truthfully, Colonel Davis, I was surprised at your youthfulness—for this
mission, I mean. You appear to be about twenty-two. Are you older? Not much, I
fancy.”

“Madam,
I regret that your local gravitation makes it impossible for me to bow. Thank
you. I’ve been married longer than that.”

“What?
Oh, you’re jesting!”

“Madam,
I would never venture to guess a lady’s age but, if you will emigrate to
Luna, you will keep your present youthful loveliness much longer and add at
least twenty years to your life.” I looked at list. “I’ll
lump the rest of this together by saying we don’t have any of it in Luna,
so I can’t see any reason to pay taxes for it. On that other point, sir,
surely you know that the initial cost of the colonies has long since been
repaid several times over through grain shipments alone? We are being bled
white of our most essential resources …and not even being paid an
open-market price. That’s why the Lunar Authority is being stubborn; they
intend to go on bleeding us. The idea that Luna has been an expense to Terra
and the investment must be recovered is a lie invented by the Authority to
excuse their treating us as slaves. The truth is that Luna has not cost Terra
one dime this century—and the original investment has long since been
paid back.”

He
tried to rally. “Oh, surely you’re not claiming that the Lunar
colonies have paid all the billions of dollars it took to develop space
flight?”

“I
could present a good case. However there is no excuse to charge that against us.
You have space flight, you people of Terra. We do not. Luna has not one ship.
So why should we pay for what we never received? It’s like the rest of
this list. We don’t get it, why should we pay for it?”

Had
been stalling, waiting for a claim that Prof had told me I was sure to hear
… and got it at last.

“Just
a moment, please!” came a confident voice. “You ignored the two
most important items on that list. Police protection and armed forces. You
boasted that you were willing to pay for what you get … so how about
paying almost a century of back taxes for those two? It should be quite a bill,
quite a bill!” He smiled smugly.

Wanted
to thank him!—thought Prof was going to chide me for failing to yank it
out. People looked at each other and nodded, pleased I had been scored on. Did
best to look innocent. “Please? Don’t understand. Luna has neither
police nor armed forces.”

“You
know what I mean. You enjoy the protection of the Peace Forces of the Federated
Nations. And you do have police. Paid for by the Lunar Authority! I know, to my
certain knowledge, that two phalanges were sent to the Moon less than a year
ago to serve as policemen.”

“Oh.”
I sighed. “Can you tell me how F.N. peace forces protect Luna? I did not
know that any of your nations wanted to attack us. We are far away and have
nothing anyone envies. Or did you mean we should pay them to leave us alone? If
so, there is an old saying that once you pay Danegeld, you never get rid of the
Dane. Sir, we will fight F.N. armed forces if we must … we shall never
pay them.

“Now
about those so-called ‘policemen.’ They were not sent to protect
us. Our Declaration of Independence told the true story about those
hoodlums—did your newspapers print it?” (Some had, some
hadn’t—depended on country.) “They went mad and started
raping and murdering! And now they are dead! So don’t send us any more
troops!”

Was
suddenly “tired” and had to leave. Really was tired; not much of an
actor and making that talk-talk come out way Prof thought it should was strain.

Was
not told till later that I had received an assist in that interview; lead about
“police” and “armed forces” had been fed by a stooge;
Stu LaJoie took no chances. But by time I knew, I had had experience in
handling interviews; we had them endlessly.

Despite
being tired was not through that night. In addition to press some Agra
diplomatic corps had risked showing up—few and none officially, even from
Chad. But we were curiosities and they wanted to look at us.

Only
one was important, a Chinee. Was startled to see him; he was Chinee member of
committee. I met him, simply as “Dr. Chan” and we pretended to be
meeting first time.

He
was that Dr. Chan who was then Senator from Great China and also Great
China’s long-time number-one boy in Lunar Authority—and, much
later, Vice-Chairman and Premier, shortly before his assassination.

After
getting out point I was supposed to make, with bonus through others that could
have waited, I guided chair to bedroom and was at once summoned to
Prof’s. “Manuel, I’m sure you noticed our distinguished
visitor from the Middle Kingdom.”

“Old
Chinee from committee?”

“Try
to curb the Loonie talk, son. Please don’t use it at all here, even with
me. Yes. He wants to know what we meant by ‘tenfold or a
hundredfold.’ So tell him.”

“Straight?
Or swindle?”

“The
straight. This man is no fool. Can you handle the technical details?”

“Done
my homework. Unless he’s expert in ballistics.”

“He’s
not. But don’t pretend to know anything you don’t know. And
don’t assume that he’s friendly. But he could be enormously helpful
if he concludes that our interests and his coincide. But don’t try to
persuade him. He’s in my study. Good luck. And remember—speak
standard English.”

Dr.
Chan stood up as I came in; I apologized for not standing. He said that he
understood difficulties that a gentleman from Luna labored under here and for
me not to exert myself—shook hands with himself and sat down.

I’ll
skip some formalities. Did we or did we not have some specific solution when we
claimed there was a cheap way to ship massive tonnage to Luna?

Told
him was a method, expensive in investment but cheap in running expenses.
“It’s the one we use on Luna, sir. A catapult, an escape-speed
induction catapult.”

His
expression changed not at all. “Colonel, are you aware that such has been
proposed many times and always rejected for what seemed good reasons? Something
to do with air pressure.”

“Yes,
Doctor. But we believe, based on extensive analyses by computer and on our
experience with catapulting, that today the problem can be solved. Two of our
larger firms, the LuNoHo Company and the Bank of Hong Kong in Luna, are ready
to head a syndicate to do it as a private venture. They would need help here on
Earth and might share voting stock—though they would prefer to sell bonds
and retain control. Primarily what they need is a concession from some
government, a permanent easement on which to build the catapult. Probably
India.”

(Above
was set speech. LuNoHoCo was bankrupt if anybody examined books, and Hong Kong
Bank was strained; was acting as central bank for country undergoing upheaval.
Purpose was to get in last word, “India.” Prof had coached me that
this word must come last.)

Dr.
Chan answered, “Never mind financial aspects. Anything which is
physically possible can always be made financially possible; money is a bugaboo
of small minds. Why do you select India?”

“Well,
sir, India now consumes, I believe, over ninety per cent of our grain
shipments—”