The Stars are also Fire - [Harvest the Stars 02] Page 14

  "I'd not deny that, if it be a fair chance. Though, to repeat myself, what choice in the matter do you or I have? Say on."

  Kenmuir drew breath and plunged ahead. In the course of three daycycles, Lilisaire had filled out details of what she first told him, but mostly she had kindled him for her cause. He said nothing about what happened when they were not talking. Did Matthias, impassive in his chair, guess?

  The Rydberg made a single comment: "Remarkable, that those activities Niolente got carried out in space could stay a secret."

  "Well, sir, you know how basic the etaine is there." Kenmuir chose the Lunarian word because its usual translation as "family" or "clan" was not really right. Nothing that quite corresponded occurred in any Terran culture. Sometimes he had speculated that "pride" might serve—but no, Lunarians weren't lions either. "Apparently the expeditions were highly cyberneticized, the few organic personnel chosen for ties of blood as well as their skills. They'd keep silent. Niolente presumably meant to reveal her design at the right moment, under the right circumstances, which would give Luna the advantage she was working for, with her and her phyle in firm control of it.

  "At the final catastrophe, it seems everyone who knew perished with her. They were holed up together under Delandres Crater, and you surely recall how the missiles collapsed their shell around them even though the Peace Authority was only trying to force them to surrender. I think she kept them in a group like that precisely to retain the secret, and threatened to catapult warheads only as a bargaining counter that might win favorable terms—amnesty, at least. Instead, it got her bombarded.

  "Apparently, also, she'd wiped what files on the project she could. The record that the Peace Authority laid hands on was fragmentary. All that her adult children knew was that something major had been under way. You'd expect them to be close-mouthed about it, wouldn't you? They passed it down through the generations, under pledge of secrecy, very much like . . . the Rydbergs in the Trothdom."

  Hoarsened, Kenmuir drained his beer. A stillness followed, wherein his blood beat loudly through his veins.

  "And now this female wants me to give you the Founder's Word, for her benefit and in hopes she can use it to thwart the Habitat," Matthias said at last.

  "If, if possible, and if—"

  "Exactly what does she fantasize it is?"

  "Information. Long before Niolente's time, Dagny Beynac's son Kaino led a mysterious mission into deep space. The family never let out what it had been. Most likely it became the basis of what Niolente undertook. Meanwhile, Lars Rydberg had learned something, probably from Beynac herself, which he considered to be of the first importance."

  "Concerning a giant weapon in remote Solar orbit?" Matthias scoffed. "To revive an impolite word, lunacy."

  "I didn't—Lilisaire didn't necessarily mean that—"

  "She'd like it. For her personal gain. Judging from your account, she's let slip no hint to many of her fellow magnates, if any."

  "Sir, I'm not asking for—I wouldn't condone—"

  "But you are hoping for a way to keep the Terrans on Earth."

  "Not even that, sir, not in itself. Is it right to suppress information relevant to a matter as important as this? A decision made in ignorance could cost lives later on. I'm sorry if—if I—"

  Matthias gusted a sigh. "Don't apologize. No reason to. No such knowledge exists."

  "None?" Kenmuir protested.

  "Lars Rydberg brought a secret home to Earth, yes," Matthias said heavily. "He charged his eldest son with preserving it against a possible hour of great need. It has gone down the succession ever since." That was not by descent, although every lodgemaster had some Rydberg blood. "This is as much as the world has been told. I will not be the one who betrays it."

  Kenmuir saw adamantness. "Can you give me any hint?" he pleaded. "If nothing else, can you tell me Lilisaire was mistaken and it could not help her?"

  The old man nodded. "Yes, I believe I can truly say that." Again he sighed. "By now, after all the time that has passed, I wonder if it means anything whatsoever. We keep the faith, we Rydbergs, simply because this is one more tradition, rite, bond holding the Trothdom together, so a ghost of Fireball Enterprises can haunt living memories...I'm the one who's sorry, son."

  Abruptly Kenmuir felt wrung dry. "I see. Thank you, sir."

  "It was never a real hope for you, was it?"

  "I suppose not."

  "What will you do?"

  "Report back."

  "You're welcome to call from here."

  "Thank you, but—"

  "Ah. You want encryption?"

  "Well, actually, I was to call a number on Earth, but—a secure line—"

  "Tell me no more. For groundside communications, we have good security. Now and then, you know, the outfit gives aid to a consorte whose trouble is best kept confidential."

  Overwhelmed, Kenmuir mumbled, "Sir, when you're opposed to my whole purpose—"

  "Not entirely. I don't approve of the government concealing possibly critical information either. But mainly, you're a consorte yourself. I owe you troth." The gaze was keenly gauging. "I trust you not to break yours."

  After a moment: "If you're not in too big a hurry, let's have another drink. And dinner. Spend the night. I'd like to hear you yarn about where you've been."

  No, Kenmuir thought, assuredly he would not violate his oath. He would follow Lilisaire's next instructions as best he was able, to the point where he saw them leading toward a public menace. He did not expect they would. She ought to know him better than that. But he must stay wary. Events might flare out of control. And always—he harked back to his classical reading—the Lunarian spirit was Lucifer's.

  * * * *

  10

  The Mother of the Moon

  S

  een from the Taurus Mountains, Earth hung low in the southwestern sky. Its crescent was thinning with the sun's slow climb over eastern ridges. Shadows had shrunken across the bench where the Beynacs were encamped, but still picked out uncountable pock-marks in the level grayish rock. Above and below, the slope was likewise scarred, as were the heights around. Not yet lighted, the valley beneath lay as a lake of blackness. All contours were gentle, worn down by the meteoritic rains of gigayears, nothing here of Terrestrial crags or Martian steeps, an aged land withdrawn into itself and its secrets.

  For Dagny the view, like everything on Luna, had splendor. Maybe the very bareness uplifted her heart, a challenge. At the moment she was giving it no thought. Her attention was for Tychopolis, some 2700 kilometers hence.

  Joe Packer's face confronted her, clear to see through the new-model fishbowl helmet that topped his spacesuit. Its hyalon had self-darkened at the back against sunlight which would have blasted his eyes had he glanced straight and unprotected in its direction. The big holoscreen showed an excavator at work behind him, hazed in the dust it continuously stirred up. The images weren't perfect. No fiber-optic cable ran to these man-empty parts; a satellite relayed. The pictures were adequate for practical purposes.

  "—satisfactory progress in general," Packer was saying. "However, we've got a decision to make. This past nightwatch, over at the northwest corner of the Complex Three site, they hit a pretty huge boulder. It's evidently got more or less the same composition as the surrounding rock, so it didn't register on the ground-wave probe, but Pedro Noguchi says we'll have to get it out, and that'll leave a hole in the side, plus a lot of cracks that must be due to it. I told him to hold off there till you called in." His smile flashed, vivid white against the chocolate skin. "Don't worry, I found plenty other things to keep him and his gang out of mischief."

  "You would," Dagny agreed. Packer was every bit as competent as she was, slated to succeed her when she moved into general administration. For that reason, as well as to give him added experience, she felt free occasionally to accompany Edmond on his field trips—adventure, family life, helping out in his research. Still badly undermanned, the work was as basic to engineeri
ng and future habitation as it was to pure science. Building the structures for the University of Luna ought not to pose any extraordinary problems anyway.

  But of course no project on the Moon failed to spring its surprises, and the ultimate responsibility was hers. Even ten years ago, she'd have been tied to the spot. Telepresence capability was like having another avatar.

  Yes, flitted through her, history in space moved headlong, ever faster, like a comet plunging sunward. Not only here. An L-5 under construction, spaceport, industrial center, home for Terrans where they could bear children wholly Terran. The wealth of the asteroids in gathered. Ice from the deeps of space, soon water in abundance wherever humans wanted it. Not too many years later, antimatter produced so copiously that ships could burn it to accelerate through an entire voyage, bisecting Pluto's orbit in a trio of weeks. But when that liberation was won, Guthrie said, Fireball would first launch probes to the nearer stars. . . .

  Her mind sprang back to business. "Muy bien, let's have a look."

  Packer spoke a command. The computer shifted the viewpoint. Dagny beheld rubble, the rough-hewn angle of a pit, a mass suggestive of a clenched fist partly protruding, broken-off pieces of it scattered below. Packer turned the scanning over to her. She made the camera move in and out and around, illuminate murky recesses, magnify, induce fluorescence.

  "M-hm," she murmured at length. "It's what I thought, and I imagine you guessed." She, though, had learned from Edmond Beynac. "A meteorite, ancient, buried in later lava flow. The plutonic character—unusual, to say the least. My husband will be most interested."

  "Beg pardon?"

  "Didn't you know? He studies meteoritics, besides what's under his feet. Believes we won't understand the basics of how the planets formed till we understand the asteroids better." Dagny clicked her tongue. "Swears that one of these years he'll get out into the Belt and fossick around personally." Her heart stumbled. Too many had already perished in yonder distances. "This rock will be evidence for his idea, his minority opinion, that there was once a body in that region big enough to get really hot before it cooled off again. He thinks the nickel-iron object that gave us the Tycho mines was a piece of its core." Dagny shook herself. "But I'm wandering. Pedro's right, we'll have to remove this thing. The hole, and the fissures where the lava congealed around it, will be a potential weakness in the foundation. We can't simply fill in and feel safe." Not after the Rudolph strike, or the more recent, similar but worse disaster at the Struve Criswell.

  "What, then?" Packer asked.

  "Got any idea? A couple occur to me, but you've had longer to think. Between us, we ought to come up with something worth pursuing." A cry interrupted. "Oh, damn. The joys of motherhood. 'Scuse a mo'. I'll be right back, I hope."

  Rising, Dagny slipped from the office compartment and aft through the outsize, purely household van she had dubbed her kidmobile. The family often traveling in it—recreation, mainly, with friends along, though this was not their first serious expedition together—it was well furnished, from the pilot house in front to her and Edmond's bed cubicle at the rear. Beyond the pantry, kitchenette, and dinette, she found the main room and her children.

  It offered a space ten meters long by six wide. Foldout tables, collapsible chairs as thin as Lunar gravity permitted, chests that doubled as seats allowed passage, occasionally zigzaggy, no matter what was going on in the way of games, partying, entertainment, education, or simple ease. Dura moss made a living green carpet. Reserve tanks of water and air on the roof forbade any view straight up, but the windows on either side gave ample outlook. She saw the regular field van parked nearby, the whirly, strewn geological specimens and other clutter, the mountainscape, Earth big and lovely, the sun opposite stopped down to a wan disc. Music twanged from the speakers, for Dagny mercifully low—the newest feng-huang, she assumed. Her youngsters' tastes were not hers. She sometimes wondered what their generation would compose when they were grown.

  Anson was outside with his father and the two grad students. Gabrielle, at seven the next oldest, sat before one of the computer terminals. That was in order, her regular schooling session. But why did five-year-old Sigurd hunker beside her? He should be at his own lesson. Francis, three, was curled up with a reader. That was nothing strange; all of them had acquired literacy by his age, except for Helen in her cradle, who doubtless would too, and Francy seemed a natural-born bookworm. What had he chosen today? He never cared for the ordinary stuff. . . .

  Her eyes took aim on Gaby and Sigurd. Intent, they had not noticed her arrival. She recalled past incidents, a quick switcharound when she appeared, an air of surreptitiousness, baffled half-suspicions. In two kangaroo bounds, she was there. The baby's noises weren't of the sort that meant emergency.

  The girl registered dismay, immediately masked. The boy's mutinous expression stayed on him. He was the hell-raiser among them. Dagny peered at the screen. No, it did not carry an interactive math program. ARVEN ARDEA NIO LULLUI PEYAR— "What the devil is going on here?"

  Her daughter blanked the display. "Nothin'," she muttered. Color came and went in her face. She was outwardly the most Earthlike, chubby, topped with light-brown curls. Quiet, studious, was she inwardly the most paradoxical? "Just a game."

  Easy, Dagny thought, take it slow, don't drive them into hostility. They bore alien genes, but that DNA had come from two mighty self-determined parents. She caught Sigurd's glance and held it. "Doesn't seem like your kind of game," she said mildly to this large, strongly built, redhaired muchacho,

  He flushed in his turn. "Aw, we wan'ed a break."

  "If I were playing hooky, I'd do something more interesting. Unless this is. May I ask what it's about?"

  Gaby was getting back some composure. "Per—per-mu-ta-tions," she said. Triumphantly: "See? I did study."

  Having the machine produce random combinations of, no, not words, syllables? Dagny shook her head. That couldn't be right. Her glimpse had suggested a pattern, as if those were words in an unknown language. Could the pair be creating a fantasy world? Gaby showed gifts of that kind, insofar as she revealed any of herself. Sigurd, restless, resentful at being cooped up when his older brother had gone forth, might be finding an outlet in a shared dream.

  If so, it was nice that these utterly unlike two had set their fights aside and made something in common, for however brief a spell. Childhood secrets that had lain three decades forgotten stirred within Dagny. She'd better not push her invasion further.

  "Good for you, as far as it goes," she said. "However, you are not supposed to study sets today, you're to practice the mechanics of arithmetic. And you, Sigurd, are to improve your deplorable spelling."

  "Bo-oring," he whined. Gaby nodded, again and again.

  "I know," their mother replied. "And you wonder why you have to, when a computer can do such jobs for you. Bueno, listen. You may not always have a computer handy, when you badly need to figure out something or write something that comes across unmistakable. More important, learning the systems is the single way you'll get to understand them. If you're ignorant of how the machines work and why, they won't serve you, they'll boss you. And you'll be shut away from all kinds of wonderful things. Mainly, remember: Independent people have got to be independent.

  "Play games on your own time. You're on Fireball time now. Prove that we can trust you."

  Thus she led them back to their tasks. Francis, slight and blond, had barely glanced up from his reading. Past experience made Dagny believe he'd observed much more than he let on.

  Helen wailed. Dagny ascertained she didn't need changing but was hungry, undid her tunic, and laid the infant to her right breast. (An excellent feature of life on the Moon—except when centrifuging, you could leave off the bra and yet never begin to sag.) "I'm busy too, dear," she said, and returned forward.

  The dark little head pumped milk from her. Warmth and love flowed back. Yes, never mind all the extra trouble during pregnancy, she wanted anyway one more, another life to brigh
ten hers and 'Mond's before it flew out into the unbounded future.

  Unbounded in space. What was there for Earth? It shone so blue-and-white resplendent above the mountains. How much misery, how much terror and despair did the clouds veil? Poor North America, impoverished and stultified, the Renewal clinging like pitch to a semblance of power while the reality crumbled away in lawlessness. Poor Middle East, Befehl withdrawn, chaos loose, fanaticism a tide rising higher for every day that passed. . . . But in lands more fortunate civilization flourished, prosperity, liberty, and the true renewal, the healing of the planet, paid for by the riches that Fireball brought home. . . . The woman held her baby close.

  When she seated herself again at the office com, fears slipped away and Helen became simply a sweet presence on the fringe of awareness. Packer's eyes widened appreciatively, then he too got straight back to work. They were occupied for the next couple of hours, save when Dagny took her offspring back to the crib. She found Gaby and Sigurd at their education. They did not act especially chastened.