The Stars are also Fire - [Harvest the Stars 02]

by Poul Anderson

  Transmission lag.

  "No," agrees download Dagny Beynac, "but as long as they follow safe traffic patterns, they are not obliged to give reasons. I've asked, and received no answer except that this is private business. It may be a precautionary move of some kind. I suggest you underplay, or you could have mass hysteria on top of your other problems."

  Transmission lag,

  "That may not be avoidable," he says grimly.

  The ships do not take Lunar orbit, as they would if shuttles were to bring their cargoes down. They ease into paths around the Earth-Moon system. Such orbits are unstable, and from time to time thrust corrects them.

  "They must vacate," Janvier states. His image in the screen is haggard, sweat beading cheeks and brow. "From where they are, they could accelerate inward, open their hatches, and shovel rocks at meteor speed down on our cities,"

  Transmission tag.

  "Don't force the issue yet," Dagny advises. "It would be a crazy thing for them to do, you know. Most of the stuff would burn up in the atmosphere. What little reached the surface would be gravel size, and trajectory control impossible. Everything would likeliest fall in the ocean or onto empty fields."

  —"That is if it is ordinary stuff, ore, ingots, dust, ice. How do we know they haven't forged massive, aerodynamic missiles out there?"

  —"It would still be insane. Whenever Earth wants to make an all-out effort, it can crush Luna utterly. Killing millions of people would reliably provoke that. I assure you, the Selenarchs are not loco."

  —"I suppose so, although sometimes I wonder. But I have to deal with the public reaction. When the news is released, and that is inevitable soon, any 'cast will show you what it is like. I beg you, convince those arrogant barons and tycoons they have miscalculated."

  —"I am not certain they have, señor. I am certain that the politicians of Earth miscalculated gravely. Let us try together, from our different sides, for emotional damage control."

  Janvier invokes emergency powers granted under the Covenant and commands the Lunarian ships to go. They make no reply. The Trust declares that the order has no legal force, because simply adopting an unusual orbit poses no threat, nor has one been spoken.

  Lunarians in the cities occasionally set aside their dignity and leer at passing Earthfolk. The air well-nigh smells of oncoming lightning.

  The Federation and its member governments keep no spacecraft capable of attack. Indeed, they have scant space transport of any sort. Normally they have contracted with Fireball, thereby sparing themselves both the capital cost and the expensive, cumbersome bureaucracies they would have been sure to establish.

  Fireball declines to move against the Lunarian vessels. What, a private company undertaking paramilitary operations? It would be a violation of the Covenant. For that matter, Anson Guthrie announces, Fireball will not provide the extra bottom needed for lifting more troops to the Moon. He holds that the move would be disastrously unwise, and his organization cannot in conscience support it.

  In Hiroshima the speaker for Ecuador, where Fireball is incorporated, explains that her government concurs with Sr. Guthrie and will not compel him. She strongly urges giving the Lunarians their self-determination, and introduces a motion to that effect.

  However, Fireball and Ecuador will not tolerate bombardment of Earth. Should such happen, every resource will be made available for pacification of the Moon and punishment of the criminals. Meanwhile, they offer their good offices toward mediating the dispute.

  Lars Rydberg goes to Luna as Fireball's plenipotentiary.

  His public statements are few and curt. For the most part he is alone with the download. This is natural and somewhat reassuring. Day by day, the terror on Earth ebbs.

  The Assembly reopens the independence question. Speeches are shorter and more to the point than before. Divisions are becoming clear-cut. On the one side, the. advocates of releasing Luna have gained recruits among their colleagues and in their constituencies. If the alternative amounts to war, it is unacceptable. The Lunarians have the right to be what they are, and as their unique civilization flowers, ours will share in its achievements. On the other side, the heritage persuasion has hardened and has also made converts. Furthermore, it is argued, nationalism wrought multimillions of deaths, over and over, with devastation from which the world has never quite recovered. Here we see the monster hatching anew. We must crush its head while we still can.

  The news explodes: Selenarchs have dispatched units of their retainers to occupy powerbeam stations "and protect them for the duration of the present exigency." The squadrons are well-organized and formidably equipped—with small arms, as the Covenant allows if you strain an interpretation, but equal to anything that the Peace Authority force on the Moon can bring against them. Besides, although the Selenarchs are noncommittal about it, rumors fly of heavier weapons. A catapult, easily and cheaply made, can throw a missile halfway around the Moon.

  Be that as it may, a transmission unit would scarcely survive a battle for possession of it.

  —Janvier: "This is rebellion. Fireball promised help in case of outright violence."

  —Rydberg: "Sir, I am not a lawyer. I cannot judge the legality of the action. According to the Provisional Trust, it is justified under the law of dire necessity. Think how dependent Earth is on the solar energy from Luna."

  —Janvier: "Oh, yes. They suppose they have us by the throat. I say this is as suicidal a threat as those ships pose, but a great many human beings would die, and I call on Fireball to do its duty."

  —Rydberg: "Sir, we could take out the ships, at enormous cost, but how can we handle the situation on the ground? Let me repeat, Lord Brandir and his associates do not make it a threat. They do not want cities darkened, services halted, panic and crime and death over Earth. No, they will guard those stations from sabotage by extremists here on the Moon."

  —Janvier: "What of the sites they have not occupied?"

  —Rydberg: "True, they can watch only a few. They consider it an object lesson."

  —Janvier: "Hm. I say again, they are trying to take us by the throat."

  —Rydberg: "And I say, with respect, they are demonstrating what could, what would happen on a world of wild individualists who felt they were under a foreign tyranny. . . . Please, I am not on their side myself, I am simply telling you what they believe. . . . Can the Peace Authority secure the network? Yes, if first you commit genocide on the Lunarians. Otherwise you must guard the whole of it, at unbearable expense, and the guard will keep failing, because they are Terrans, not Lunarians, and as for robots, humans can always find ways to outwit them."

  —"Whereas the Selenarchs, if they rule the Moon, can effectively maintain the system?"

  —"Yes, Mr. President. They have the organization and the loyal, able followers. They will not have the revolutionary saboteurs."

  —"Are you certain?"

  —"Nothing is certain forever. I am speaking of today, our children's lifetimes, and I hope our grandchildren's. By then, Earth may no longer need power from Luna."

  —"But meanwhile the Selenarchs can blackmail us."

  —"Consider their psychology, sir. Those utilities enjoy huge earnings. Why jeopardize that? Lunarians are not interested in dominion over . . . our kind of humans."

  —"Then what games do they mean to play?"

  —"That I cannot tell you. I wonder if they can, themselves. The future will show. I only say, this game is played out and you should concede."

  Undetectable in circuit, Dagny has followed the conversation. It is her wont.

  Whipsaw, from a degree of relief about a firestorm from space to a dread of global energy famine. The peoples of Earth and their leaders are alike exhausted. It is easiest to accept the assurances, override the remaining opposition, and yield. After all, the positive inducements are substantial.

  The measure comes to the floor. It passes. The Council ratifies, the president signs. Once the stipulated compensatory arrangements have
been made, Luna shall be free and sovereign.

  Baronial men leave the transmitters. The circling ships enter Lunar orbit and discharge cargoes that turn out to be quite commonplace. As part of the accord, these craft will soon be in Terrestrial hands.

  No gatherings jubilate. On Earth, the mood is mostly a dull thankfulness that the confrontation is past. Lunarians are not given to mass histrionics. Terran Moondwellers who feel happy with the outcome celebrate apart. As for those who do not, they begin preparing to emigrate.

  Alone, Dagny and Rydberg speak. She wears a bipedal robot body. Weary to the depths of her spirit, if downloads have any, she will not simulate the image of the dead woman; but neither will she be a mere voice.

  "It worked," she sighs: for she has mastered the making of human sounds. "Between the Trust, Fireball, Brandir and his fellows, the space captains—"

  "Do not forget yourself," he says.

  The faceless head shakes. "No, nor those I haven't named. You know who they were. Never mind. What we set up and played through, the whole charade, it worked. I honestly doubted it would. But what else was there to try?"

  His tone goes metallic. "If it had failed, it would have stopped being a charade."

  "Yes. Janvier realized that. Do you realize that he did? It succeeded because reality stood behind it."

  "And it was simpler than what's ahead of us."

  "You'll navigate, I'm sure."

  He gives her a long look, as if it were into living eyes. "We will?"

  "Luna, Earth, Fireball, everybody."

  "Except you?"

  "I've been useful—"

  "What a poor word,. . . Mother!"

  A robot cannot weep. "I kept her promise for her. Now let me go."

  "Do you want to die?" he whispers.

  She forms a laugh. "What the hell does that question mean, for me?"

  He must take a moment before he can say it. "Do you want your program wiped? Made nothing?"

  "Your mother set that condition before she agreed to be downloaded. I hold you to it."

  "Anson Guthrie goes on."

  "He is he. I am I." Oh, Dagny Beynac loved life, but to her, being an abstraction was not life. Nor does the revenant care to evolve into something else, alien to her Edmond.

  "The time could come—very likely will come— when they have need of you again."

  "No. They should never think they need one person that much."

  Her gaze captures his and holds it. Beneath his thin white hair is a countenance gone well-nigh skeletal. He is near the century mark himself. Yet he was born to a girl named Dagny Ebbesen.

  After a long time, he slumps back in his chair and says unevenly, "The, the termination will be a big event, you know."

  If she were making an image, it would have smiled. "I'm afraid so. See it through."

  "I already hear talk about it. The same tomb for you—"

  "Why not, if they wish?"

  A gesture, a symbol, a final service rendered. This hardware and the blanked software may as well rest there as anyplace else. The site may even become a halidom, like Thermopylae or Bodhgaya, around which hearts can irrationally rally. Besides, she likes the thought that that which was her will lie beside the ash that was Dagny Beynac beneath the stars that shone on 'Mond.

  * * * *

  41

  F

  og rolled in during the night. By sunrise it had cloaked Guthrie House in a gray-white where the closest trees, two or three meters from a window, were shadows and everything else was formless. Air lay cold and damp and very quiet. You could just hear the hush of waves along the shore and perhaps a dripping from the eaves.

  At breakfast Matthias, Kenmuir, and Aleka exchanged no more than muttered greetings, for it was plain to see that the lodgemaster wanted silence. But when the last cup of coffee had been drained, he rose and growled, "Follow me." The others went after his bulk, out into the hall, up the stairs, down another hall to a certain door which he opened, and through. He closed it behind them.

  "I believe it's right we talk here," he said.

  Kenmuir and Aleka glanced about. Unlighted save for what seeped through the fog from a hidden sun, the room would have been dim were its walls and ceiling not so white. A few ancient pictures decorated it, family scenes, landscapes, a view of Earth from orbit. Drapes hung at the tall windows. The floor was bare hardwood. Furniture was sparse and likewise from early times, four chairs, a dresser, a cabinet, a bed. In one corner stood a man-high mechanical clock. Its pendulum swung slowly and somehow inexorably; the ticking seemed loud in this stillness.

  A chill ran through Kenmuir. The hair stood up on his arms. He knew where he was.

  "For privacy?" Aleka was asking.

  "No," Matthias replied. "I told you, the estate is spyproof and everybody on it is a sworn consorte. But here is where mortal Anson Guthrie died."

  Her eyes grew large. She made a sign that Kenmuir did not recognize.

  Then she looked more closely at Matthias, stooped shoulders, lines graven deeper than before in a face where the nose stood forth like a mountain ridge, and murmured, "You really didn't sleep much, did you?"

  "There'll be time for that later," he said. "All the time in the universe."

  Heavily, he sat down and gestured his visitors to do so. They put their chairs side by side. Aleka's hand found Kenmuir's. What comfort flowed from hers into his!

  Matthias raised his head. "But we haven't much of it just now," he warned. "The hunters don't know you're here. If they did, we'd be under arrest already. They're searching, though, and surveying, and thinking. Before long, Venator or a squad of his will return. Meanwhile, if you leave in any ordinary way, you'll surely be sported. Disguises won't help. They'll stop everyone for a close look."

  The eeriness tingled again down Kenmuir's spine. "There's a way that's not ordinary?"

  "You'll help us, señor?" Aleka joined in.

  Matthias nodded. "What little I can. Or, rather, I'll hope to help the cause of freedom."

  "You decided this last night?" Kenmuir asked, and realized at once how stupid the question was.

  Matthias's voice marched on, toneless but clock-steady. "It wasn't easy. I’ll be breaking a promise as old as the Trothdom and as strong as any I ever gave. And it may be for nothing, or it may be for the worse. Why are they so determined to keep Proserpina from us? I should think if the Lunarians got knowledge of it, access to it, they wouldn't oppose the Habitat—at least, not with force enough to matter. And the Habitat is our way to the stars." He breathed for a moment. "Or is it? I don't know, I don't know."

  Aleka heard the pain. She released Kenmuir's hand and reached over to grasp his.

  He closed the great knobbly paw about hers and held it for two or three heartbeats before he let go. A smile ghosted briefly over his lips. "Gracias, querida," he signed. "I did think about you too, and your people."

  Resonantly: "And I thought over and over how high-handed, how unlawful Venator's gang is being. If the Federation government can do this to us, concealing a fact that would change thousands of lives, maybe change the course of history, what else is it doing? What will it do next? Guthrie used to quote a proverb about not letting the camel's nose into your tent. I think more than its nose is in. Bloody near the whole camel is. Or soon will be, if we sit meek."

  "Could they have a decent reason for the secrecy?" she asked low.

  Kenmuir spoke. Anger had been crystallizing in him too, sharp and cold. "At best, they aren't even offering that much of an excuse. They're treating us like children."

  "Children of the cybercosm," Matthias agreed. "Or wards, or pets, or domestic animals."

  Trouble trembled in Aleka's face and words. "Most people feel free and happy."

  "Most dogs do," Matthias said.

  "I'm not against you, señor. I just can't help wondering—the larger good, also for my people—"

  "Either we act or we don't," Kenmuir snapped.

  "Yes." She straightened. "Buen
o, let's act, then, and take the responsibility for whatever comes of it, like—like free adult humans."

  Kenmuir decided he should utter another question whose answer he was almost sure of, if only to get it out of the way. "Could we simply broadcast what we know? I suppose Guthrie House has the equipment. It's got plenty of every other kind I can think of."

  "I considered that," Matthias admitted. "No. It wouldn't be any real use. I've lived on Earth and dealt with the powers that be long enough to have learned what works, and how, and what doesn't work. A bare statement like that—too easily denied, and guided down the public memory hole. Meanwhile Venator and his merry men would have seized us. They might all too well pick up clues to Fireball's secret, and go blot it out."