The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (18 page)

I
told conscience to go to sleep. Was pipsqueak compared to swindles by every
government throughout history in financing every war—and is not
revolution a war?

This
money, after passing through many hands (augmented by Mike each time), wound up
as senior financing of LuNoHo Company. Was a mixed company, mutual and stock;
“gentleman-adventurer” guarantors who backed stock put up that
stolen money in own names. Won’t discuss bookkeeping this firm used.
Since Mike ran everything, was not corrupted by any tinge of honesty.

Nevertheless
its shares were traded in Hong Kong Luna Exchange and listed in Zurich, London,
and New York. Wall Street Journal called it “an attractive
high-risk-high-gain investment with novel growth potential.”

LuNoHoCo
was an engineering and exploitation firm, engaged in many ventures, mostly
legitimate. But prime purpose was to build a second catapult, secretly.

Operation
could not be secret. You can’t buy or build a hydrogen-fusion power plant
for such and not have it noticed. (Sunpower was rejected for obvious reasons.)
Parts were ordered from Pittsburgh, standard UnivCalif equipment, and we
happily paid their royalties to get top quality. Can’t build a stator for
a kilometers-long induction field without having it noticed, either. But most important
you cannot do major construction hiring many people and not have it show. Sure,
catapults are mostly vacuum; stator rings aren’t even close together at
ejection end. But Authority’s 3-g catapult was almost one hundred
kilometers long. It was not only an astrogation landmark, on every Luna-jump
chart, but was so big it could be photographed or seen by eye from Terra with
not-large telescope. It showed up beautifully on a radar screen.

We
were building a shorter catapult, a 10-g job, but even that was thirty
kilometers long, too big to hide.

So
we hid it by Purloined Letter method.

I
used to question Mike’s endless reading of fiction, wondering what
notions he was getting. But turned out he got a better feeling for human life
from stories than he had been able to garner from facts; fiction gave him a
gestalt of life, one taken for granted by a human; he lives it. Besides this
“humanizing” effect, Mike’s substitute for experience, he got
ideas from “not-true data” as he called fiction. How to hide a
catapult he got from Edgar Allan Poe.

We
hid it in literal sense, too; this catapult had to be underground, so that it
would not show to eye or radar. But had to be hidden in more subtle sense;
selenographic location had to be secret.

How
can this be, with a monster that big, worked on by so many people? Put it this
way: Suppose you live in Novylen; know where Luna City is? Why, on east edge of
Mare Crisium; everybody knows that. So? What latitude and longitude? Huh? Look
it up in a reference book! So? If you don’t know where any better than
that, how did you find it last week? No
huhu
, cobber; I took tube,
changed at Torricelli, slept rest of way; finding it was capsule’s worry.

See?
You don’t know where Luna City is! You simply get out when capsule pulls
in at Tube Station South.

That’s
how we hid catapult.

Is
in Mare Undarum area, “everybody knows that.” But where it is and
where we said it was differ by amount greater or less than one hundred
kilometers in direction north, south, east, or west, or some combination.

Today
you can look up its location in reference books—and find same wrong
answer. Location of that catapult is still most closely guarded secret in Luna.

Can’t
be seen from space, by eye or radar. Is underground save for ejection and that
is a big black shapeless hole like ten thousand others and high up an
uninviting mountain with no place for a jump rocket to put down.

Nevertheless
many people were there, during and after construction. Even Warden visited and
my co-husband Greg showed him around. Warden went by mail rocket, commandeered
for day, and his Cyborg was given coordinates and a radar beacon to home
on—a spot in fact not far from site. But from there, it was necessary to
travel by rolligon and our lorries were not like passenger buses from Endsville
to Beluthihatchie in old days; they were cargo carriers, no ports for
sightseeing and a ride so rough that human cargo had to be strapped down.
Warden wanted to ride up in cab but—sorry, Gospodin!—just space for
wrangler and his helper and took both to keep her steady.

Three
hours later he did not care about anything but getting home. He stayed one hour
and was not interested in talk about purpose of all this drilling and value of
resources uncovered.

Less
important people, workmen and others, traveled by interconnecting
ice-exploration bores, still easier way to get lost. If anybody carried an
inertial pathfinder in his luggage, he could have located site—but
security was tight. One did so and had accident with p-suit; his effects were
returned to L-City and his pathfinder read what it should—i.e., what we
wanted it to read, for I made hurried trip out with number-three arm along. You
can reseal one without a trace if you do it in nitrogen atmosphere—I wore
an oxygen mask at slight overpressure. No
huhu
.

We
entertained vips from Earth, some high in Authority. They traveled easier
underground route; I suppose Warden had warned them. But even on that route is
one thirty-kilometer stretch by rolligon. We had one visitor from Earth who
looked like trouble, a Dr. Dorian, physicist and engineer. Lorry tipped
over—silly driver tried shortcut—they were not in line-of-sight for
anything and their beacon was smashed. Poor Dr. Dorian spent seventy-two hours
in an unsealed pumice igloo and had to be returned to L-City ill from hypoxia
and overdose of radiation despite efforts on his behalf by two Party members
driving him.

Might
have been safe to let him see; he might not have spotted doubletalk and would
not have spotted error in location. Few people look at stars when p-suited even
when Sun doesn’t make it futile; still fewer can read stars—and
nobody can locate himself on surface without help unless he has instruments,
knows how to use them and has tables and something to give a time tick. Put at
crudest level, minimum would be octant, tables, and good watch. Our visitors
were even encouraged to go out on surface but if one had carried an octant or
modern equivalent, might have had accident.

We
did not make accidents for spies. We let them stay, worked them hard, and Mike
read their reports. One reported that he was certain that we had found uranium
ore, something unknown in Luna at that time. Project Centerbore being many
years later. Next spy came out with kit of radiation counters. We made it easy
for him to sneak them through bore.

By
March ‘76 catapult was almost ready, lacking only installation of stator
segments. Power plant was in and a co-ax had been strung underground with a
line-of-sight link for that thirty kilometers. Crew was down to skeleton size,
mostly Party members. But we kept one spy so that Alvarez could have regular
reports—didn’t want him to worry; it tended to make him suspicious.
Instead we worried him in warrens.

Were
changes in those eleven months. Wyoh was baptized into Greg’s church,
Prof’s health became so shaky that he dropped teaching, Mike took up
writing poetry. Yankees finished in cellar. Wouldn’t have minded paying
Prof if they had been nosed out, but from pennant to cellar in one
season—I quit watching them on video.

Prof’s
illness was phony. He was in perfect shape for age, exercising in hotel room
three hours each day, and sleeping in three hundred kilograms of lead pajamas.
And so was I, and so was Wyoh, who hated it. I don’t think she ever
cheated and spent night in comfort though can’t say for sure; I was not
dossing with her. She had become a fixture in Davis family. Took her one day to
go from “Gospazha Davis” to “Gospazha Mum,” one more to
reach “Mum” and now it might be “Mimi Mum” with arm
around Mum’s waist. When Zebra File showed she couldn’t go back to
Hong Kong, Sidris had taken Wyoh into her beauty shop after hours and done a
job which left skin same dark shade but would not scrub off. Sidris also did a
hairdo on Wyoh that left it black and looking as if unsuccessfully unkinked.
Plus minor touches—opaque nail enamel, plastic inserts for cheeks and
nostrils and of course she wore her dark-eyed contact lenses. When Sidris got
through, Wyoh could have gone bundling without fretting about her disguise; was
a perfect “colored” with ancestry to match—Tamil, a touch of
Angola, German. I called her “Wyma” rather than “Wyoh.”

She
was gorgeous. When she undulated down a corridor, boys followed in swarms.

She
started to learn farming from Greg but Mum put stop to that. While she was big
and smart and willing, our farm is mostly a male operation—and Greg and
Hans were not only male members of our family distracted; she cost more farming
man-hours than her industry equaled. So Wyoh went back to housework, then
Sidris took her into beauty shop as helper.

Prof
played ponies with two accounts, betting one by Mike’s “leading
apprentice” system, other by his own “scientific” system. By
July ‘75 he admitted that he knew nothing about horses and went solely to
Mike’s system, increasing bets and spreading them among many bookies. His
winnings paid Party’s expenses while Mike built swindle that financed
catapult. But Prof lost interest in a sure thing and merely placed bets as Mike
designated. He stopped reading pony journals—sad, something dies when an
old horseplayer quits.

Ludmilla
had a girl which they say is lucky in a first and which delighted
me—every family needs a girl baby. Wyoh surprised our women by being
expert in midwifery—and surprised them again that she knew nothing about
baby care. Our two oldest sons found marriages at last and Teddy, thirteen, was
opted out. Greg hired two lads from neighbor farms and, after six months of
working and eating with us, both were opted in—not rushing things, we had
known them and their families for years. It restored balance we had lacked
since Ludmilla’s opting and put stop to snide remarks from mothers of
bachelors who had not found marriages—-not that Mum wasn’t capable
of snubbing anyone she did not consider up to Davis standards.

Wyoh
recruited Sidris; Sidris started own cell by recruiting her other assistant and
Bon Ton Beaute Shoppe became hotbed of subversion. We started using our
smallest kids for deliveries and other jobs a child can do—they can stake
out or trail a person through corridors better than an adult, and are not
suspected. Sidris grabbed this notion and expanded it through women recruited
in beauty parlor.

Soon
she had so many kids on tap that we could keep all of Alvarez’s spies
under surveillance. With Mike able to listen at any phone and a child spotting
it whenever a spy left home or place of work or wherever—with enough kids
on call so that one could phone while another held down a new stakeout—we
could keep a spy under tight observation and keep him from seeing anything we
didn’t want him to see. Shortly we were getting reports spies phoned in
without waiting for Zebra File; it did a sod no good to phone from a taproom
instead of home; with Baker Street Irregulars on job Mike was listening before
he finished punching number.

These
kids located Alvarez’s deputy spy boss in L-City. We knew he had one
because these finks did not report to Alvarez by phone, nor did it seem
possible that Alvarez could have recruited them as none of them worked in
Complex and Alvarez came inside Luna City only when an Earthside vip was so
important as to rate a bodyguard commanded by Alvarez in person.

His
deputy turned out to be two people—an old lag who ran a candy, news, and
bookie counter in Old Dome and his son who was on civil service in Complex. Son
carried reports in, so Mike had not been able to hear them.

We
let them alone. But from then on we had fink field reports half a day sooner
than Alvarez. This advantage—all due to kids as young as five or
six—saved lives of seven comrades. All glory to Baker Street Irregulars!

Don’t
remember who named them but think it was Mike—I was merely a Sherlock
Homes fan whereas he really did think he was Sherlock Holmes’s brother
Mycroft … nor would I swear he was not; “reality” is a
slippery notion. Kids did not call themselves that; they had their own play
gangs with own names. Nor were they burdened with secrets which could endanger
them; Sidris left it to mothers to explain why they were being asked to do
these jobs save that they were never to be told real reason. Kids will do
anything mysterious and fun; look how many of their games are based on
outsmarting.

Bon
Ton salon was a clearinghouse of gossip—women get news faster than Daily
Lunatic. I encouraged Wyoh to report to Mike each night, not try to thin gossip
down to what seemed significant because was no telling what might be
significant once Mike got through associating it with a million other facts.

Beauty
parlor was also place to start rumors. Party had grown slowly at first, then
rapidly as powers-of-three began to be felt and also because Peace Dragoons
were nastier than older bodyguard. As numbers increased we shifted to high
speed on agitprop, black-propaganda rumors, open subversion, provocateur
activities, and sabotage. Finn Nielsen handled agitprop when it was simpler as
well as dangerous job of continuing to front for and put cover-up activity into
older, spyridden underground. But now a large chunk of agitprop and related
work was given to Sidris.

Much
involved distributing handbills and such. No subversive literature was ever in
her shop, nor our home, nor that hotel room; distribution was done by kids, too
young to read.

Sidris
was also working a full day bending hair and such. About time she began to have
too much to do I happened one evening to make walk-about on Causeway with
Sidris on my arm when I caught sight of a familiar face and figure—skinny
little girl, all angles, carrot-red hair. She was possibly twelve, at stage
when a fem shoots up just before blossoming out into rounded softness. I knew
her but could not say why or when or where.