The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (38 page)

Feeding
recordings into Mike at overspeed took five minutes, reading aloud another
thirty. That done, Adam said, “Professor, the reception was more
successful than I had counted on, due to your speech. I think we should push
the embargo through Congress at once. I can send out a call tonight for a
session at noon tomorrow. Comments?”

I
said, “Look, those yammerheads will kick it around for weeks. If you must
put it up to them—can’t see why—do as you did with
Declaration. Start late, jam it through after midnight using own people.”

Adam
said, “Sorry, Manuel. I’m getting caught up on events Earthside and
you have catching up to do here. It’s no longer the same group. Comrade
Wyoming?”

“Mannie
dear, it’s an elected Congress now. They must pass it. Congress is what
government we have.”

I
said slowly, “You held election and turned things over to them?
Everything? Then what are we doing?” Looked at Prof, expecting explosion.
My objections would not be on his grounds—but couldn’t see any use
in swapping one talk-talk for another. At least first group had been so loose
we could pack it—this new group would be glued to seats.

Prof
was undisturbed. Fitted fingertips together and looked relaxed. “Manuel,
I don’t think the situation is as bad as you seem to feel that it is. In
each age it is necessary to adapt to the popular mythology. At one time kings
were anointed by Deity, so the problem was to see to it that Deity anointed the
right candidate. In this age the myth is ‘the will of the people’
… but the problem changes only superficially. Comrade Adam and I have had
long discussions about how to determine the will of the people. I venture to
suggest that this solution is one we can work with.”

“Well
… okay. But why weren’t we told? Stu, did you know?”

“No,
Mannie. There was no reason to tell me.” He shrugged. “I’m a
monarchist, I wouldn’t have been interested. But I go along with Prof
that in this day and age elections are a necessary ritual.”

Prof
said, “Manuel, it wasn’t necessary to tell us till we got back; you
and I had other work to do. Comrade Adam and dear Comrade Wyoming handled it in
our absence … so let’s find out what they did before we judge what
they’ve done.”

“Sorry.
Well, Wyoh?”

“Mannie,
we didn’t leave everything to chance. Adam and I decided that a Congress
of three hundred would be about right. Then we spent hours going over the Party
lists—plus prominent people not in the Party. At last we had a list of
candidates—a list that included some from the Ad-Hoc Congress; not all
were yammerheads, we included as many as we could. Then Adam phoned each one
and asked him—or her—if he would serve … binding him to
secrecy in the meantime. Some we had to replace.

“When
we were ready, Adam spoke on video, announced that it was time to carry out the
Party’s pledge of free elections, set a date, said that everybody over
sixteen could vote, and that all anyone had to do to be a candidate was to get
a hundred chops on a nominating petition and post it in Old Dome, or the public
notice place for his warren. Oh, yes, thirty temporary election districts, ten
Congressmen from each district—that let all but the smallest warrens be
at least one district.”

“So
you had it lined up and Party ticket went through?”

“Oh,
no, dear! There wasn’t any Party ticket—officially. But we were
ready with our candidates … and I must say my stilyagi did a smart job
getting chops on nominations; our optings were posted the first day. Many other
people posted; there were over two thousand candidates. But there was only ten
days from announcement to election, and we knew what we wanted whereas the
opposition was split up. It wasn’t necessary for Adam to come out
publicly and endorse candidates. It worked out—you won by seven thousand
votes, dear, while your nearest rival got less than a thousand.”

“I
won?”

“You
won, I won, Professor won, Comrade Clayton won, and just about everybody we
thought should be in the Congress. It wasn’t hard. Although Adam never
endorsed anyone, I didn’t hesitate to let our comrades know who was
favored. Simon poked his finger in, too. And we do have good connections with
newspapers. I wish you had been here election night, watching the results.
Exciting!”

“How
did you go about nose counting? Never known how election works. Write names on
a piece of paper?”

“Oh,
no, we used a better system … because, after all, some of our best people
can’t write. We used banks for voting places, with bank clerks
identifying customers and customers identifying members of their families and
neighbors who don’t have bank accounts—and people voted orally and
the clerks punched the votes into the banks’ computers with the voter
watching, and results were all tallied at once in Luna City clearinghouse. We
voted everybody in less than three hours and results were printed out just
minutes after voting stopped.”

Suddenly
a light came on in my skull and I decided to question Wyoh privately. No, not
Wyoh—Mike. Get past his “Adam Selene” dignity and hammer
truth out of his neuristors. Recalled a cheque ten million dollars too large
and wondered how many had voted for me? Seven thousand? Seven hundred? Or just
my family and friends?

But
no longer worried about new Congress. Prof had not slipped them a cold deck but
one that was frozen solid—then ducked Earthside while crime was
committed. No use asking Wyoh; she didn’t even need to know what Mike had
done … and could do her part better if did not suspect.

Nor
would anybody suspect. If was one thing all people took for granted, was
conviction that if you feed honest figures into a computer, honest figures come
out. Never doubted it myself till met a computer with sense of humor.

Changed
mind about suggesting that Stu be let in on Mike’s self-awareness. Three
was two too many. Or perhaps three. “Mi—” I started to say,
and changed to: “My word! Sounds efficient. How big did we win?”

Adam
answered without expression. “Eighty-six percent of our candidates were
successful—approximately what I had expected.”

(“Approximately,”
my false left arm! Exactly what expected, Mike old ironmongery!)
“Withdraw objection to a noon session—I’ll be there.”

“It
seems to me,” said Stu, “assuming that the embargo starts at once,
we will need something to maintain the enthusiasm we witnessed tonight. Or
there will be a long quiet period of increasing economic depression—from
the embargo, I mean—and growing disillusionment. Adam, you first
impressed me through your ability to make shrewd guesses as to future events.
Do my misgivings make sense?”

“They
do.”

“Well?”

Adam
looked at us in turn, and was almost impossible to believe that this was a
false image and Mike was simply placing us through binaural receptors.
“Comrades … it must be turned into open war as quickly as
possible.”

Nobody
said anything. One thing to talk about war, another to face up to it. At last I
sighed and said, “When do we start throwing rocks?”

“We
do not start,” Adam answered. “They must throw the first one. How
do we antagonize them into doing so? I will reserve my thoughts to the last.
Comrade Manuel?”

“Uh
… don’t look at me. Way I feel, would start with a nice big rock
smack on Agra—a bloke there who is a waste of space. But is not what you
are after.”

“No,
it is not,” Adam answered seriously. “You would not only anger the
entire Hindu nation, a people intensely opposed to destruction of life, but you
would also anger and shock people throughout Earth by destroying the Taj
Mahal.”

“Including
me,” said Prof. “Don’t talk dirty, Manuel.”

“Look,”
I said, “didn’t say to do it. Anyhow, could miss Taj.”

“Manuel,”
said Prof, “as Adam pointed out, our strategy must be to antagonize them
into striking the first blow, the classic ‘Pearl Harbor’ maneuver
of game theory, a great advantage in Weltpolitick. The question is how? Adam, I
suggest that what is needed is to plant the idea that we are weak and divided
and that all it takes is a show of force to bring us back into line. Stu? Your
people Earthside should be useful. Suppose the Congress repudiated myself and
Manuel? The effect?”

“Oh,
no!” said Wyoh.

“Oh,
yes, dear Wyoh. Not necessary to do it but simply to put it over news channels
to Earth. Perhaps still better to put it out over a clandestine beam attributed
to the Terran scientists still with us while our official channels display the
classic stigmata of tight censorship. Adam?”

“I’m
noting it as a tactic which probably will be included in the strategy. But it
will not be sufficient alone. We must be bombed.”

“Adam,”
said Wyoh, “why do you say so? Even if Luna City can stand up under their
biggest bombs—something I hope never to find out—we know that Luna
can’t win an all-out war. You’ve said so, many times. Isn’t
there some way to work it so that they will just plain leave us alone?”

Adam
pulled at right cheek—and I thought: Mike, if you don’t knock off
play-acting, you’ll have me believing in you myself! Was annoyed at him
and looked forward to a talk—one in which I would not have to defer to
“Chairman Selene.”

“Comrade
Wyoming,” he said soberly, “it’s a matter of game theory in a
complex non-zero-sum game. We have certain resources or ‘pieces in the
game’ and many possible moves. Our opponents have much larger resources
and a far larger spectrum of responses. Our problem is to manipulate the game
so that our strength is utilized toward an optimax solution while inducing them
to waste their superior strength and to refrain from using it at maximum.
Timing is of the essence and a gambit is necessary to start a chain of events favorable
to our strategy. I realize this is not clear. I could put the factors through a
computer and show you. Or you can accept the conclusion. Or you can use your
own judgment.”

He
was reminding Wyoh (under Stu’s nose) that he was not Adam Selene but Mike,
our dinkum thinkum who could handle so complex a problem because he was a
computer and smartest one anywhere.

Wyoh
backtracked. “No, no,” she said, “I wouldn’t underitand
the maths. Okay, it has to be done. How do we do it?”

Was
four hundred before we had a plan that suited Prof and Stu as well as
Adam—or took that long for Mike to sell his plan while appearing to pull
ideas out of rest of us. Or was it Prof’s plan with Adam Selene as
salesman?

In
any case we had a plan and calendar, one that grew out of master strategy of
Tuesday 14 May 2075 and varied from it only to match events as they actually
had occurred. In essence it called for us to behave as nastily as possible
while strengthening impression that we would be awfully easy to spank.

Was
at Community Hall at noon, after too little sleep, and found I could have slept
two hours longer; Congressmen from Hong Kong could not make it that early
despite tube all way. Wyoh did not bang gavel until fourteen-thirty.

Yes,
my bride wife was chairman pro tem in a body not yet organized. Parliamentary
rulings seemed to come naturally to her, and she was not a bad choice; a mob of
Loonies behaves better when a lady bangs gavel.

Not
going to detail what new Congress did and said that session and later; minutes
are available. I showed up only when necessary and never bothered to learn
talk-talk rules—seemed to be equal parts common politeness and ways in
which chairman could invoke magic to do it his (her) way.

No
sooner had Wyoh banged them to order but a cobber jumped up and said,
“Gospazha Chairmah, move we suspend rules and hear from Comrade Professor
de la Paz!”—which brought a whoop of approval.

Wyoh
banged again. “Motion is out of order and Member from Lower Churchill
will be seated. This house recessed without adjourning and Chairman of
Committee on Permanent Organization, Resolutions, and Government Structure
still has the floor.”

Turned
out to be Wolfgang Korsakov, Member from Tycho Under (and a member of
Prof’s cell and our number-one finagler of LuNoHoCo) and he not only had
floor, he had it all day, yielding time as he saw fit (i.e., picking out whom
he wanted to speak rather than letting just anyone talk). But nobody was too
irked; this mob seemed satisfied with leadership. Were noisy but not unruly.

By
dinnertime Luna had a government to replace co-opted provisional
government—i.e., dummy government we had opted ourselves, which sent Prof
and me to Earth. Congress confirmed all acts of provisional government, thus
putting face on what we had done, thanked outgoing government for services and
instructed Wolfgang’s committee to continue work on permanent government
structure.

Prof
was elected President of Congress and ex-officio Prime Minister of interim
government until we acquired a constitution. He protested age and health
… then said would serve if could have certain things to help him; too old
and too exhausted from trip Earthside to have responsibility of
presiding—except on occasions of state—so he wanted Congress to
elect a Speaker and Speaker Pro Tem … and besides that, he felt that
Congress should augment its numbers by not more than ten percent by itself
electing members-at-large so that Prime Minister, whoever he might be, could
opt cabinet members or ministers of state who might not now be members of
Congress—especially ministers-without-portfolio to take load off his
shoulders.

They
balked. Most were proud of being “Congressmen” and already jealous
of status. But Prof just sat looking tired, and waited—and somebody
pointed out that it still left control in hands of Congress. So they gave him
what he asked for.

Then
somebody squeezed in a speech by making it a question to Chair. Everybody knew
(he said) that Adam Selene had refrained from standing for Congress on grounds
that Chairman of Emergency Committee should not take advantage of positon to
elbow way into new government … but could Honorable Chairlady tell member
whether was any reason not elect Adam Selene a member-at-large? As gesture of
appreciation for great services? To let all Luna—yes, and all those
earthworms, especially ex-Lunar ex-Authonty—know that we not repudiating
Adam Selene, on contrary he was our beloved elder statesman and was not
President simply because he chose not to be!