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

  "M-m, nothing is guaranteed, you know. The planning may be total, but—I simply wonder if this blowup was due to an oversight, or a runaway chaos, or a quantum fluctuation that got amplified. . . . I really don't know how these operations are conducted. In a few daycycles, if I have a free hour or two, I'd like to retrieve a full account."

  "You will get one," Eythil said cynically. "Whether or nay it relates what truly happened—if aught happened at all—will be for you to guess."

  He was right, Kenmuir thought. The system could feed pretty much anything it chose into the database, complete with images, numbers, and mathematical analysis. It wouldn't be hard to bypass the human functionaries who were supposed to be in the loop. "Why should the mind lie," he protested, "especially when the story isn't to its credit?"

  Eythil finger-shrugged. "Who knows? Incidentally to some broad design, maychance. Let us assume this happening will help make plausible the diversion of yet more resources to the Habitat project, and thereby hasten the destruction of Lunarian lifeways. Thus might the sociotechnic program esoterically calculate."

  Kenmuir took a long, heartening draught. "Farfetched. You are bitter, aren't you?"

  "Have I not cause?"

  It surfaced in the minutes that followed, breaking through the normal reserve of Eythil's race toward Kenmuir's. The spaceman was familiar with most of it, but he listened throughout, because here was a need to speak. Moreover, he heard a few aspects that had not touched on him before.

  —While the asteroids were invaluable sources of minerals, as the comets were of ices and both were of organics, by themselves they did not suffice. A large body is required for the chemical fractionation that creates usable concentrations of most industrial materials. Hence prospecting and mining on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. On Mercury they were carried out entirely by machines—

  —although even for them, Venus was too costly. In environments less horrific, humans were marginally employable: those humans whose desire for a frontier brought them there. Above all was Mars—

  —to which Lunarians, especially, went in the high days of the Selenarchy. Terrans, too, could reproduce in that gravity field; but at first their numbers were less, because few were accustomed to land that could kill them. Mars remained a province of Luna until the Federation took them both over—

  —"and we should yet be of Lunarian name," Eythil said. "Is not a member nation supposed to govern itself? But nay, afar on Mars we have less autonomy left us than here where we circle Earth."

  "Well, you've gotten proportionally more Terrans," Kenmuir pointed out. "Whether or not they were born there, they'll think, act, vote according to their psychological bent and their culture."

  "You speak like a sociotech." Contempt edged the word.

  "I don't mean to," Kenmuir said mildly. "One is apt to read a lot on space hauls. It makes for a bookish vocabulary. Oh, I am not only a Terran by race, I'm an Earthling. But I do sympathize with you Lunarians. All the old, irreconcilable issues are rising again, aren't they?"

  —which once made Luna declare itself a nation, independent and sovereign: birthright, property right, education, the survival of a civilization that openly rejected certain basic ideals. He had often wondered what would have developed if it had stayed clear of the Federation. Idle imagining, of course. When reaction to the War Strike doomed mighty Fireball, the end of separatist Luna was in sight, however long a delaying campaign Niolente and her cohorts might wage. Yet, in some hypothetical quantum-mechanical alternative reality—

  "Under the Covenant, the Assembly and High Council should at least respect our constitution," Eythil maintained. "But nay, more and more they reshape the 'fundamental ethic' clause to bring down olden law and ways. Decision passes ever more from living beings to machines."

  Intelligent machines, Kenmuir thought, not subject to human corruption and cruelty. Yet undeniably this was governance by . . . aliens? The Teramind bore something of the awesomeness of God, but it was not God—too remote, not fallible enough. As for the day-to-day details of life, maybe what gnawed some people worst was just a sense of having become irrelevant.

  "It isn't due to any conspiracy," he argued. "It's the, the logic of events. The former nations scarcely exist any longer. They've broken up into thousands of different societies, in fact and often in form. The Federation has had to take over many of their duties. Without an integrated world economy, everyone would starve."

  "Scant value has that economy had for us Martians of late."

  "Well, declining demand for minerals."

  "We could adapt, in a self-chosen fashion. But nay, it must be in Earth wise. You speak of the Federation as the sole viable government that is left. But that means that naught stands between the lone person and it."

  "I know. History shows your fear is reasonable. Also, anomie is demoralizing. But you have to agree, the Federation government doesn't try to run people's lives for them. In fact, many of its interferences with you Lunarians have been to curb arbitrary powers of the Selenarchs that they aren't supposed to possess in a republic—"

  Perhaps fortunately, the wall speaker announced: "Ambient space is now known to be safe. You may lift when you please, señores."

  Silence fell between them, and prevailed while they went to the vehicle, launched, and flew. Eythil might have been nursing his anger, or might have gone into some unearthly mind-realm of his own. Kenmuir had begun to feel a vague headache and feverishness. He wondered whether it was nerves, dread that he might somehow fail Lilisaire . . . whatever she wanted of him.

  The westering sun rose higher as the trajectory bore him in that direction. Earth, too, shifted across his sky, easterly and northerly. It shone at late first quarter, a blue crescent marbled with white clouds which, widespread over nightside, captured enough light from the stars and from below to make that part of it ghostly gray. So had it been when first she summoned him.

  He did not yet know why she did—he, the most ordinary of men, an Earthman at that. "Ey, but you are far from ordinary," she had purred when he got up the courage to ask. "Your whole career, your doings in the yonder, your ties to the past. You live not in a void nor by illusions, like so many. You know what has gone before, the land and folk and deeds from which your being springs; for you, time has reality, even as space does." That had not seemed quite an answer to him.

  True, in repeated talks she had drawn him out concerning the Fireball Trothdom. He wasn't sure why, and he knew nothing that a datasearch program couldn't have found for her. It wasn't much more than an association, after all, a lodge or fellowship rooted in wistfulness for a grandeur long vanished, not unlike the Ronin, the Swagmen, or the Believers. Like them, it had its rituals, social gatherings, mutual helpfulness, and little else. Whatever the secret lore was that was said to be passed down from Rydberg to Rydberg, it couldn't be of any importance, and it had certainly not been confided to Ian Kenmuir.

  Maybe Lilisaire was trying to get an idea of what membership felt like. It was not a Lunarian sort of thing; it might provide a little insight into the other species. Or maybe she was interested because the Trothdom meant a great deal to Kenmuir, and in her fashion she, liked him.

  She had said he was a fine lover. (The memory flamed.) "No, except that you inspire me," he replied honestly. She laughed and rumpled his hair. He did not delude himself that he was anything but an agreeable diversion, at best.

  And yet. . . she had called him back, urgently, at no small cost to an undertaking from which she stood to make a profit. In some way, however minor, she needed him.

  His heart thuttered. He didn't know if he was in love—this was foreign to any such state anytime earlier in his life—or in thralldom. At the moment, he didn't care.

  The flyer reached apoluna and descended. From the Cordillera reared the witchy towers of Zamok Vysoki.

  Having landed, Kenmuir brushed past Eythil, straight into the gangtube. The slight malaise had faded out of him. If he was afire and ashiver, it was
wholly with Lilisaire. Not until later did he hope he hadn't offended his proud escort, then wonder whether Eythil hadn't been amused.

  No attendant waited in the room beyond. Clearly, the flyer had sent word ahead, and a robot or a servant would take his things wherever the Wardress desired. A voice from the air said, "Hail, Ian Kenmuir. Betake you to the Pagoda and be made welcome."

  He knew that turret and the way there. How he knew them! He bounded, he soared down the changeable corridors and through the multiform chambers. Lunarians moved in them, male and female, on various business of hers. Most were staff, whether or not they wore the livery, but several came from outside, and he recognized two magnates. No words or gestures passed between them and him, save for the swift and stylized eye contact that was courtesy. At the end of his trek he did find a guardsman, standing at panther ease, who saluted and let him through the door.

  Sunlight exploded from a blinding center into sparks and flashes of every color his vision could capture. They flowed and shifted all around him with each least movement he made, across the glassy floor and the few fragile furnishings, the walls and ceiling and his hands. He had come into the middle of a single million-faceted synthetic diamond. Odors drifted on the air, spice, honeysuckle. Barely audible wailed the minor-key melody of a canto of Verdea's.

  By a table set with crystal, near a broad animate couch, poised Lilisaire. The auburn mane fell over bare shoulders and a full-length gown that sheathed her like a second skin. The wreckage of rainbows played on those whitenesses. Her only ornaments were stardrops hung from her ears and a finger ring whose jewel flickered with tiny flames. At her feet lay a pet he remembered, a black leopard with golden spots. It lifted its head and stared at him.

  She smiled. "Yes, well are you come, my captain," she murmured in Anglo.

  He stopped, suddenly helpless. She advanced. Her skirts whispered. He lifted a hand. She laid fingertips moth-lightly on the wrist. It signified that she was his superior, but he never thought to dispute that. The faintest of pressures urged him to the table. She lowered her arm and stood before him. "Pour for us," she bade.

  He obeyed. The sound of it rang clear under the music. With a green glance she invited him to partake of the canapés—he knew they were superb—while she raised her goblet. "Uwach yei," she said.

  "Your service, m-my lady," he pledged. Rims belled together. They sipped. The wine sang.

  Her gaze steadied on him. He forgot the diamond radiance. "Service," she said low. "Mean you this?"

  He caught his breath before he answered: "I do. And not because I'm your employee."

  "My captain." Her free hand reached to stroke his cheek. He would have felt a blow less keenly and shakingly.

  He snatched after balance. "What is this about?" he asked in his driest voice. "What can I do?"

  "You may well have guessed. It concerns the Habitat."

  "Yes, I. . . surmised as much. You and your class have opposed it so hard."

  The Selenarchic families must feel sore pressed, he thought, when they stooped to politics—what they called monkey dealings. Granted, it was for the most part indirectly. Those who, like Lilisaire, had substantial inherited property on Earth could raise up Terran advocates and get a few into the Federation Assembly —Useless. Public opinion (in such fraction of the public as paid any attention) excitedly favored what would be the first real pioneering their species had mounted in generations. Besides, the cybercosm had first proposed the scheme. Surely sophotectic intelligence superior to the human knew what was best for humanity.

  Lilisaire's voice plucked him from his recollections. "Indeed. We waxed sufficiently troublesome that the government investigated us."

  "Well, naturally, if you were making a fuss, a data scan—"

  "Nay, more. Officers from Earth prowled about inquiring. One of them came hither soon after I had called to you. Nor was he an ordinary Peace Authority agent. He was of the best they have, a very synnoiont."

  Startled, Kenmuir exclaimed, "That was serious!"

  She finger-shrugged. "Ey, he said not his nature to me. But I scented he was no common man. Later I carried a hunt of my own through the databases and among folk. Have no fear. It is unlikely he knows I did. And he found naught of wrongdoing." Her laughter chimed. "For, I regret, there has been none. Whence might the opportunity for it have come?"

  Abrupt, cold fury spat: "Nay, we lie bound, awaiting the knife. It will not even slit our throats cleanly. First the women shall be spayed and the men gelded."

  The leopard snarled.

  Kenmuir fumbled for words. "Matters can't be that bad, my lady."

  She put on calm. "Think. What has preserved us thus far, save that Terrans cannot breed on the Moon?"

  His mind tried to resist her. What was preserved, it said, was the dominance of the Selenarchy, in fact if no longer in name. And that began to be eroded after biotech enabled his kind to live indefinitely under low gravity, healthy except for loss of muscle tissue if they didn't keep up their exercises. (For a second he imagined he could feel the engineered microbes implanted in him, their chemistry suffusing every cell.) More and more of the old species took up permanent residence. But, yes, their numbers remained limited by the inability of their women to carry a child to term, or raise one born on a larger world but less than about three years of age, nervous system still developing. However precariously, the Lunar aristocrats clung to dominion over the nominal republic.

  "Now you expect a rush of settlers from Earth?" he asked stupidly.

  "It will be unstoppable. The sociotechnic equations foretell it. Hundreds of thousands declare themselves ardent to go. Once the Habitat is ready—"

  —abandoned L-5 refurbished, brought into low Lunar orbit, provided with lightsails to exert the forces that would keep it on that otherwise unstable path, set spinning again in order to give full Earth weight around its huge circumference. Lo, a place for Terrans to bear young and see them through those early years, while easily going to the Moon and back—

  "—and that will be no long while hence. Time hounds us, Kenmuir." She never used his given name. He did not know whether it was due habit, hers being single, or a decision to avoid any true intimacy.

  "But they'll be the flower of Earth," he argued. "The sort who want to do real work, live real lives, here, in space." Like himself, he acknowledged. He had been lucky, had gotten into the Academy, the Space Service, at last the Venture. How could be begrudge anyone else the stars?

  Her lip lifted. "Yes, the lords of the world and their machine masters should well rejoice to see that restlessness bled away from the planet. On the Moon it will be more easily contained." Her tone went urgent. "But understand you not? They will make Luna over. Their vast new constructions will break its peace while they in their hordes impose the society they want."

  "Uh, that can't happen overnight."

  "Swifter than you believe, my innocent captain, and with entropic certainty. I say to you, it will destroy us."

  "Mars—"

  "Mars is already lost."

  Recalling Eythil, Kenmuir didn't dispute that. "M-m, your colonists on the asteroids and the outer moons—no, those places could never hold more than remnants," powerless, impoverished, until ships from Earth came to remove them under the banner of charity and efficiency.

  He glanced down at the leopard and pictured it confined for life in a cage full of apes.

  "We, or our children, will cease wishing to live," Lilisaire went on, quietly. "Some will drag out their last years, some not," but go violently, in rebellion, crime, suicide. "None will bring young into that kennel of an existence. In two centuries, three, no matter, this mischief-making, unconforming breed will be extinct. How convenient for the cybercosm."

  Kenmuir doubted her concern for her species. Yet how genuine was the despair he heard beneath the steel! If she was right, if the Lunarians perished, a certain magnificence would have gone out of-the universe.

  Shock: Could the cybercosm actually in
tend that?

  The eyes regarding him were tearless, the slim body unbowed. "You must have some recourse in mind," he said slowly.

  She nodded. The ruddy hair rippled. "A forlorn venture," she replied in the same level Voice, "belike in quest of a treasure that shall prove to be a myth."

  Leaning slightly forward, suddenly tense: "Will you dare it?"

  Almost, he gasped at the impact. "T-tell me," he stammered.

  She straightened, relaxing her flesh. "It need be naught unlawful. . . on your part," he heard. "Nevertheless there is a thing you can seek to learn for me, which has lain hidden away for lifetimes."

  "What?"

  "In this house abides a fugitive tradition. Yet I have also fact to relate. Come, drink, calm yourself, hear me out."

  He was amazed at the deftness with which she reviewed history. It was familiar to him, but she brought it into perspective—her perspective—and touched on matters about which he had known little.