The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress Part 22

I had chair close by Prof's stretcher, listening. He turned to me. "Tell them, Colonel."

I parroted it. Prof and Mike had worked out stock situation. I had memorized and was ready with answers. I said, "Do you gentlemen remember the Pathfinder? How she came plunging in, out of control?"

They remembered. n.o.body forgets greatest disaster of early days of s.p.a.ce flight when unlucky Pathfinder hit a Belgian village.

"We have no s.h.i.+ps," 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 circ.u.mstances. The figures you have been looking at show the present circ.u.mstances . . . 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 circ.u.mstances under which we can continue, or greatly increase, our grain s.h.i.+pments are the obvious corollary of the first. As an old teacher I can hardly refrain from cla.s.sroom 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+pping that much tonnage to the Moon?"

Prof waved it aside. "A technicality. Sir, there was a time when it was not simply expensive to s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+pping 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 b-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. "n.o.body 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 s.h.i.+pments 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 s.p.a.ce flight?"

"I could present a good case. However there is no excuse to charge that against us. You have s.p.a.ce flight, you people of Terra. We do not. Luna has not one s.h.i.+p. 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.

18

Was not told till later that I had received an a.s.sist 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 a.s.sa.s.sin.

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 a.s.sume 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 s.h.i.+p ma.s.sive 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 a.n.a.lyses 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 eas.e.m.e.nt 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 s.h.i.+pments-"

"Ninety-three point one percent."

"Yes, sir. India is deeply interested in our grain so it seemed likely that she would cooperate. She could grant us land, make labor and materials available, and so forth. But I mentioned India because she holds a wide choice of possible sites, very high mountains not too far from Terra's equator. The latter is not essential, just helpful. But the site must be a high mountain. It's that air pressure you spoke of, or air density. The catapult head should be at as high alt.i.tude as feasible but the ejection end, where the load travels over eleven kilometers per second, must be in air so thin that it approaches vacuum. Which calls for a very high mountain. Take the peak Nanda Devi, around four hundred kilometers from here. It has a railhead sixty kilometers from it and a road almost to its base. It is eight thousand meters high. I don't know that Nanda Devi is ideal. It is simply a possible site with good logistics; the ideal site would have to be selected by Terran engineers."

"A higher mountain would be better?"

"Oh, yes, sir!" I a.s.sured him. "A higher mountain would be preferred over one nearer the equator. The catapult can be designed to make up for loss in free ride from Earth's rotation. The difficult thing is to avoid so far as possible this pesky thick atmosphere. Excuse me, Doctor; I did not mean to criticize your planet."

"There are higher mountains. Colonel, tell me about this proposed catapult."

I started to. "The length of an escape-speed catapult is determined by the acceleration. We think-or the computer calculates-that an acceleration of twenty gravities is about optimum. For Earth's escape speed this requires a catapult three hundred twenty-three kilometers in length. Therefore---"

"Stop, please! Colonel, are you seriously proposing to bore a hole over three hundred kilometers deep?"

"Oh, no! Construction has to be above ground to permit shock waves to expand. The stator would stretch nearly horizontally, rising perhaps four kilometers in three hundred and in a straight line-almost straight, as Coriolis acceleration and other minor variables make it a gentle curve. The Lunar catapult is straight so far as the eye can see and so nearly horizontal that the barges just miss some peaks beyond it."

"Oh. I thought that you were overestimating the capacity of present-day engineering. We drill deeply today. Not that deeply. Go on."

"Doctor, it may be that common misconception which caused you to check me is why such a catapult has not been constructed before this. I've seen those earlier studies. Most a.s.sumed that a catapult would be vertical, or that it would have to tilt up at the end to toss the s.p.a.cecraft into the sky-and neither is feasible nor necessary. I suppose the a.s.swnption arose from the fact that your s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps do boost straight up, or nearly."

I went on: "But they do that to get above atmosphere, not to get into orbit. Escape speed is not a vector quant.i.ty; it is scalar. A load bursting from a catapult at escape speed will not return to Earth no matter what its direction. Uh. . . two corrections: it must not be headed toward the Earth itself but at some part of the sky hemisphere, and it must have enough added velocity to punch through whatever atmosphere it still traverses. If it is headed in the right direction it will wind up at Luna."

"Ah, yes. Then this catapult could be used but once each lunar month?"

"No, sir. On the basis on which you were thinking it would be once every day, picking the time to fit where Luna will be in her orbit. But in fact-or so the computer says; I'm not an astronautics expert-in fact this catapult could be used almost any time, simply by varying ejection speed, and the orbits could still wind up at Luna."

"I don't visualize that."

"Neither do I, Doctor, but-Excuse me but isn't there an exceptionally fine computer at Peiping University?"

"And if there is?" (Did I detect an increase in bland inscrutability? A Cyborg-computer-Pickled brains? Or live ones, aware? Horrible, either way.) "Why not ask a topnotch computer for all possible ejection times for such a catapult as I have described? Some orbits go far outside Luna's...o...b..t before returning to where they can be captured by Luna, taking a fantastically long time. Others hook around Terra and then go quite directly. Some are as simple as the ones we use from Luna. There are periods each day when short orbits may be selected. But a load is in the catapult less than one minute; the limitation is how fast the beds can be made ready. It is even possible to have more than one load going up the catapult at a time if the power is sufficient and computer control is versatile. The only thing that worries me is-These high mountains they are covered with snow?"

"Usually," he answered. "Ice and snow and bare rock."

"Well, sir, being born in Luna I don t know anything about snow. The stator would not only have to be rigid under the heavy gravity of this planet but would have to withstand dynamic thrusts at twenty gravities. I don t suppose it could be anch.o.r.ed to ice or snow. Or could it be?"

"I'm not an engineer, Colonel, but it seems unlikely. Snow and ice would have to be removed. And kept clear. Weather would be a problem, too."

"Weather I know nothing about, Doctor, and all I know about ice is that it has a heat of crystallization of three hundred thirty-five million joules per tonne. I have no idea how many tonnes would have to be melted to clear the site, or how much energy would be required to keep it clear, but it seems to me that it might take as large a reactor to keep it free of ice as to power the catapult."

"We can build reactors, we can melt ice. Or engineers can be sent north for re-education until they do understand ice." Dr. Chan smiled and I s.h.i.+vered. "However, the engineering of ice and snow was solved in Antarctica years ago; don't worry about it. A clear, solid-rock site about three hundred fifty kilometers long at a high alt.i.tude-Anything else I should know?"

"Not much, sir. Melted ice could be collected near the catapult head and thus be the most ma.s.sy part of what will be s.h.i.+pped to Luna-quite a saving. Also the steel canisters would be re-used to s.h.i.+p grain to Earth, thus stopping another drain that Luna can't take. No reason why a canister should not make the trip hundreds of times. At Luna it would be much the way barges are now landed off Bombay, solid-charge retrorockets programmed by ground control-except that it would be much cheaper, two and a half kilometer-seconds change of motion versus eleven-plus, a squared factor of about twenty-but actually even more favorable, as retros are parasitic weight and the payload improves accordingly. There is even a way to improve that."

"How?"

"Doctor, this is outside my specialty. But everybody knows that your best s.h.i.+ps use hydrogen as reaction ma.s.s heated by a fusion reactor. But hydrogen is expensive in Luna and any ma.s.s could be reaction ma.s.s; it just would not be as efficient. Can you visualize an enormous, brute-force s.p.a.ce tug designed to fit Lunar conditions? It would use raw rock, vaporized, as reaction ma.s.s and would be designed to go up into parking orbit, pick up those s.h.i.+pments from Terra, bring them down to Luna's surface. It would be ugly, all the fancies stripped away-might not be manned even by a Cyborg. It can be piloted from the ground, by computer."

"Yes, I suppose such a s.h.i.+p could be designed. But let's not complicate things. Have you covered the essentials about this catapult?"

"I believe so, Doctor. The site is the crucial thing. Take that peak Nanda Devi. By the maps I have seen it appears to have a long, very high ridge sloping to the west for about the length of our catapult. If that is true, it would be ideal-less to cut away, less to bridge. I don't mean that it is the ideal site but that is the sort to look for: a very high peak with a long, long ridge west of it."

"I understand." Dr. Chan left abruptly.

Next few weeks I repeated that in a dozen countries, always in private and with implication that it was secret. All that changed was name of mountain. In Ecuador I pointed out that Chimborazo was almost on equator-ideal! But in Argentina I emphasized that their Aconcagua was highest peak in Western Hemisphere. In Bolivia I noted that Altoplano was as high as Tibetan Plateau (almost true), much nearer equator, and offered a wide choice of sites for easy construction leading up to peaks comparable to any on Terra.

I talked to a North American who was a political opponent of that choom who had called us "rabble." I pointed out that, while Mount McKinley was comparable to anything in Asia or South America, there was much to be said for Mauna Loa-extreme ease of construction. Doubling gees to make it short enough to fit, and Hawaii would be s.p.a.ceport of World . . . whole world, for we talked about day when Mars would be exploited and freight for three (possibly four) planets would channel through their "Big Island."

Never mentioned Mauna Loa's volcanic nature; instead I noted that location permitted an aborted load to splash harmlessly in Pacific Ocean.

In Sovunion was only one peak discussed-Lenin, over thousand meters (and rather too close to their big neighbor).

Kilimanjaro, Popocatepetl, Logan, El Libertado-my favorite peak changed by country; all that we required was that it be "highest mountain" in hearts of locals. I found something to say about modest mountains of Chad when we were entertained there and rationalized so well I almost believed it.

Other times, with help of leading questions from Stu LaJoie's stooges, I talked about chemical engineering (of which I know nothing but had memorized facts) on surface of Luna, where endless free vacuum and sunpower and limitless raw materials and predictable conditions permitted ways of processing expensive or impossible Earthside-when day arrived that cheap s.h.i.+pping both ways made it profitable to exploit Luna's virgin resources, Was always a suggestion that entrenched bureaucracy of Lunar Authority had failed to see great potential of Luna (true), plus answer to a question always asked, which answer a.s.serted that Luna could accept any number of colonists.

This also was true, although never mentioned that Luna (yes, and sometimes Luna's Loonies) killed about half of new chums. But people we talked to rarely thought of emigrating themselves; they thought of forcing or persuading others to emigrate to relieve crowding-and to reduce their own taxes. Kept mouth shut about fact that half-fed swarms we saw everywhere did breed faster than even catapulting could offset.

We could not house, feed, and train even a million new chums each year-and a million wasn't a drop on Terra; more babies than that were conceived every night. We could accept far more than would emigrate voluntarily but if they used forced emigration and flooded us. . . Luna has only one way to deal with a new chum: Either he makes not one fatal mistake, in personal behavior or in coping with environment that will bite without warning. . . or he winds up as fertilizer in tunnel farm.

All that immigration in huge numbers could mean would be that a larger percentage of immigrants would die-too few of us to help them past natural hazards.

However, Prof did most talking about "Luna's great future." I talked about catapults.

During weeks we waited for committee to recall us, we covered much ground. Stu's men had things set up and only question was how much we could take. Would guess that every week on Terra chopped a year off our lives, maybe more for Prof. But he never complained and was always ready to be charming at one more reception.

We spent extra time in North America. Date of our Declaration of Independence, exactly three hundred years after that of North American British colonies, turned out to be wizard propaganda and Stu's manipulators made most of it. North Americans are sentimental about their "United States" even though it ceased to mean anything once their continent had been rationalized by F.N. They elect a president every eight years, why, could not say-why do British still have Queen?--and boast of being "sovereign." "Sovereign," like "love," means anything you want it to mean; it's a word in dictionary between "sober" and "sozzled."

"Sovereignty" meant much in North America and "Fourth of July" was a magic date; Fourth-of-July League handled our appearances and Stu told us that it had not cost much to get it moving and nothing to keep going; League even raised money used elsewhere-North Americans enjoy giving no matter who gets it.