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

  "Right," Guthrie agreed. "Wish I could've called on you before. Too busy. Always too backscuttling busy." He took a turn around the room, glancing at things. "I do miss books," he remarked. "Antique bound volumes. When I was young, dropping in on somebody, if they were readers, what you saw on their bookshelves would tell you more about them than a month's palaver."

  "I—remember from your houses," Dagny said. "No need to remind you about the transport problems we had till lately."

  "Nevertheless we can oblige you," Edmond said. He took a hand-held cyberlit off a table, where it rested beside a small meteorite full of metallic glints, and started it. Titles and authors’ names appeared on the screen. "Here, play with this." He gave it to Guthrie.

  The jefe unscrolled part of the catalogue, darting to and fro among its items. Most were in the central library database, listed here because they interested the Beynacs. Some were personal property. He evoked a few pages, including representations of texts and pictures centuries old. "Fine collection," he said meanwhile. "This gadget's not the same as holding a real book, but then I daresay the Egyptian priest told Solon, at boring length, how much more character hieroglyphs had than any spindly alphabet."

  He was no clotbrain, Dagny reflected, in spite of his sneers at self-styled intellectuals.

  A door opened. The housekeeper robot scanned in, sensed people, and, in the absence of orders, withdrew, closing the door again.

  "Ah, your professional publications, 'Mond," Guthrie observed. "Impressive clutch. M-m, I see you're stiff-necked as ever pushing your theory about a big ancient asteroid."

  "The evidence accumulates," the geologist answered. He sought the miniature bar. "But we are being inhospitable. What will you have to drink?"

  "I'm told they've begun brewing decent beer since I was last on the Moon. That, por favor, to go in hot pursuit of a cold akvavit, if you've got some."

  "Dagny would disown me if we did not, especially when you were coming." Edmond prepared the same for her, a dry sherry for himself.

  "But where's your real writing?" Guthrie asked him.

  "Hein?"

  "Those novels Dagny's mentioned, under the name —uh, blast, I'm getting senile—"

  "You are not, Uncans," she declared. "You've simply got so much else in your head. Jacques Croquant, that's his pen name."

  "My secret is out!" Edmond groaned. "I did not know you had told him."

  "I'd like to read 'em," Guthrie said. "'Fraid my French has gone down a black hole, what little there ever was of it, but if a translator program won't mangle the style too badly, I gather they're fun."

  Edmond shrugged. "Style, what is that? They are deep-space adventure stories I write in spare time for amusement. The pseudonym is because academics are snobs. They respect my Lunar work, yes." As well they might, Dagny thought fiercely. It had revolutionized selenology. "But I want also my ideas about the early Solar System taken seriously, investigated."

  "That might well be arranged, now we're setting up a meteoroid patrol." Guthrie continued his random retrievals. "What, three biographies of Charles de Gaulle? And his collected works. Hero of yours?"

  "In the twentieth century, exactly two leaders of major nations deserved the name of statesman, he and Konrad Adenauer. The rest—" Edmond shrugged again. "Eh, bien, I can imagine several of them meant well."

  "'Mond's got more regard for authority than I do," Dagny put in.

  Guthrie smiled. "Yeah, you're a natural-born, two-dominants rebel, Diddyboom. So how does it feel to be turning into a power yourself, here on Luna?"

  "I'm not," she denied. "Not really. It's just that, you know how the governments load us with politicians and bureaucrats who can't tell a crap from a crater. Being in administration forces me to deal directly with them, and if my friends and I can get the residents to support Fireball's positions, and the right candidates into what few elective offices we're allowed —ah, you know. The drinks are ready. Sit down, please do."

  All three took chairs, though on Luna it was as easy to stand and gatherings often did throughout a social evening. The Beynacs preferred to maintain a few gestures, customs, symbols. Dagny wondered whether they would be able to through the rest of their lives.

  When Edmond cared about something, he cared passionately. "We must accept legitimate authority," he argued. "Else society ablates itself until people welcome the warlord who will enforce a brutal kind of order that at least gives them security. The problem is not what makes a government legitimate. There have been many ways in history, royal or noble birth, priestliness, popular vote, a sociological theory, et cetera, et cetera. The problem is, how does a government keep legitimacy? How does it lose it? I say the breakdown comes when it begins doing more to people than for them. This has happened, it is happening, in more and more countries on Earth. In space, the disorder that soon or late follows breakdown, it would mean extinction. Fireball has more right to power than most of the governments that today claim power, because Fireball's masters honor their obligations to Fireball's people."

  He wasn't what you'd call handsome, Dagny thought, but when he kindled, a nova lit in her too. She sent a chill caraway nip over her tongue, followed it with the tingle of beer, and was not much calmed.

  "Gracias," Guthrie said. "We try. Don't thank me, however. Thank the folks who're actually doing it, like this wife of yours. Or you personally, 'Mond, even if you avoid politicking. I've kept track, sort of. You two don't scamp your responsibilities, you go out and look for more."

  "If we do well, it is because of you, sir. You make us want to. You make it possible."

  Guthrie shook his head. "Not me. Never think that. Those who believe in an indispensable man don't survive long, nor ought to." He grinned, tossed off a considerable draught, and added, "Mind you, I'm not modest. I do a braw job where I am. But that's in an outfit which is sound because its members are."

  "And they are because it is."

  Dagny nodded to herself. She had watched mutuality grow and strengthen, year by year. This new, fast-spreading, altogether spontaneous practice of swearing troth to the company, which in the person of an officer pledged faith of its own—

  "You started Fireball, Uncans," she said softly. "You kept it going through every terrible trouble."

  "Juliana more than me," Guthrie answered, low in his throat.

  Her eyes stung. "We all miss her. You—" She leaned over to lay her hand briefly upon his.

  "Don't worry about me," he growled. "I soldier on."

  "She would have wanted you to," Edmond said.

  "It's your nature," Dagny murmured.

  Guthrie shook his heavy shoulders. "Hey, this is in danger of turning serious," he protested.

  Dagny saw how he wanted to veer from the intimate. But when would another chance come to talk quietly? "Please bear with us a little while longer," she appealed. "We've so been wanting to hear your thoughts, your knowledge. Earth is in such a bad way, and Fireball seems to be almost the only strong force for good that's left."

  "Hoo-ha, lass!" he exclaimed. "Jesus Christ couldn't live up to that kind of billing. You know better. You could name as well as me plenty who haven't let power short circuit their wits."

  "Yes, they keep progress alive, at least in science and technology," Edmond said. "Foremost, those of the super-rich who are enlightened, like you. The 'Savant Barons.'"

  "And a few in government, much though I hate to admit it."

  "But what of the populace? What of the vast majority, in every land, who can find no real place in this high-technology universe you have created?"

  "Yeah. The High World versus the Low World. It's more than a journalistic duck-billed platitude. Count yourselves lucky. Everybody in space is High World. Not as a pun. Necessarily."

  Dagny felt her brows draw together. "That may be why we have trouble making sense of what's going on on Earth," she ventured.

  "Sense there is mighty thin on the ground, honey. Day by day, scarcer and scarcer, in spite of t
he best efforts of us whom you want to canonize."

  "Newscasts, analyses, books, personal communications—here on the Moon, it all seems . . . abstract? Surreal?" Dagny forced herself: "Is there really going to be a war?"

  "Wars are popping already, around the planet," Guthrie replied somberly. "We call 'em disorders or revolutions or whatever, but wars is what they amount to. And, yes, I'm afraid the big one is on the way."

  "The Jihad?" Edmond's tone went hoarse. "Those preachers—But it is not Islam against the infidels, not truly, is it? Nothing so simple."

  "No, sure not. I'd call it the last full-scale revolt of the Low World against an order of things it doesn't understand and reels forever left out of. The High World will have its share of Muslim allies, and the Mahdis will have theirs of every creed and none."

  "What will come of it?" Dagny whispered,

  "Not a general blowup," Guthrie assured her. "I expect nukes will get fired in anger, but not many nor high-yield. The whole hooraw is too complicated, changeable, scrambled geographically and ethnically and economically and you-name-it-too much for any clear-cut showdown. My guess is we'll see years of fighting, minor in some areas, a blood tsunami in others. The High World countries will end on top, but they'll be so shaken that things can't go back to the same for them either."

  He paused, then finished: "I doubt there ever was or ever will be a war that was worth what it cost, when you figure in the costs to everybody concerned, including generations unborn. But what comes out of this might be better in a few respects than what we've got now. For instance, I don't see how that rattlebone, patchgut Renewal can survive the strain.

  "On the whole, though, be glad you're on the Moon, you and yours, with nothing worse to worry about than vacuum, radiation, meteoroids, life-support failure, and bureaucrats."

  "Most glad for our children," Dagny said.

  "Of course."

  Now they all wanted to change the subject. "Where are the youngsters, anyway?" Guthrie inquired.

  Dagny seized on the relief, the lightness. "That question has more answers than kids."

  Edmond nodded. "They scamper about, when they do not—vont à la derobée—go very quietly, like the cat. And they have their private things we know little about." He sighed. "Less and less, the more they grow."

  "Yes, I've gotten that from Dagny," Guthrie said. Once, after she thus confided in him, his return message spoke of a mother hen he'd seen when he was a boy, given duck eggs to brood and the hatchlings to raise, helplessly watching them swim off across a pond. "But where are they at the moment?"

  "Well, Brandir's in Port Bowen," she told him. "He aims to be a structural engineer, you may remember, and I arranged for him to work a few weeks on a new cargo launch catapult they're building, hands-on experience. He's eager to meet you, but unless you can stay longer than you said, or seek him out, it'll have to be by phone. Verdea's at a friend's, probably trying out a composition on her. Kaino's wingflight stunt team—"

  "Hold on, por favor. Brandir, Verdea, Kaino? You've described this fad among the Lunarian youngsters for taking invented names and insisting on them—so have the journalists—but I can't recall which of yours is which."

  "It is more than a fad," Edmond said. "They are totally serious about it. In fact, they are developing a whole new language for themselves. Not slang, not an argot, a language."

  "They don't reject us," Dagny said. "Not really." She had to believe that. And they did remain amicable toward their parents, in their individual ways, and if an aloofness dwelt beneath it, was the pain this gave her more than she had given to hers? "It's just that they are—different, more different than anybody foresaw. They're trying to learn what their natures are, and, and we can't help them much."

  Guthrie rubbed his chin. "Not simply adolescent rebellion, then, eh? Though Lord knows, looking at Earth and Earth's officials on Luna, they have a fair amount of justification." He knocked back his beer. Edmond took the mug and the shot glass for refills. "Gracias, amigo. Can you sort of fill me in on them?"

  Dagny put recent sequences onto the screen, in succession, and found a few words about each.

  Brandir. Anson. Sixteen. Two meters tall, wide-shouldered, supple; ash-blond hair, silver-blue eyes, marmoreal skin on which no beard would ever grow. His face was not purely Lunarian, it bore traces of his mother's. He often clashed with his father, but not too seriously, and she thought he stayed emotionally closer to her than his siblings did or could. It didn't stop him from cutting a swath among Earth-gene girls. As for females of his kind, what happened was their choice as much as his. They appeared to have parallel interests of their own, an independence taken so for granted that they didn't bother to assert it. Whatever had become of school-age sweethearts?

  Verdea. Gabrielle. Fourteen. Almost Earthlike in looks, of medium height, buxom, round snub-nosed countenance, brown eyes, brown curls bobbed short. Quiet, studious, and, when she wanted something, steely determined about it. A literary gift, expressed in poems and prose sketches that baffled Dagny. (Starstone freedom: Achilles/Odysseus—) While a couple of other young geniuses had written the program that constructed the basic Lunarian language, she seemed to be among the leading contributors to its expanding and ever more subtle vocabulary. Dagny had cause to wonder whether she was sexually active, but what did a mother know? Lunarian children kept their doings to themselves, and Verdea scorned Earth-gene boys.

  Kaino. Sigurd. Twelve. Big for his years, strong, redhaired, blue-eyed, features sharing much of his father's ruggedness. The athlete of the bunch, the loudest, impulsive, sometimes wildly reckless. In sibling rivalry with Brandir, but it seldom manifested itself in quarrels. They would stalk by one another for daycycles on end, unspeaking, and then abruptly, for a while, be the closest of comrades. Kaino's all-dream was to pilot spacecraft. He would not, could not accept that the heredity which made Lunar weight normal for him likewise made high accelerations a death barrier.

  Temerir. Francis. Going on ten. Slight, platinum-blond, gray eyes oblique and enormous in a visage ascetic save for the full red lips. Even more than Verdea was he a reader, a student, soft-spoken, asocial. He showed great scientific talent.

  Fia. Helen. Seven and a half. Still entirely a child, though you saw that she would be beautiful, black hair, umber eyes, face a feminine version of Brandir’s. Already almost as reserved as Temerir. She might be highly musical, but it was hard to tell, and she disliked most of what she heard. Maybe she'd create the first truly Lunarian music.

  Jinann. Carla. Four. A little redhead, as her mother had been, vivacious and affectionate. Her Lunarian name she had from her siblings, and often forgot to use it. But who could say what she would become?

  "Are the youngest at home?" Guthrie asked.

  "In the playroom, I suppose," Edmond answered.

  "You will meet them soon, when Clementine has made them presentable."

  "They demand that," Dagny explained. "They're excited about your visit, but none of them likes...outsiders...to see them at a disadvantage."

  Guthrie raised his brows. "You've found an actual nurse for them? My impression was the servant problem on Luna is so intractable nobody remembers what the word means. An au pair, maybe?"

  "No, no. Clementine's what we call their robot."

  "A robot nurse? Housekeepers are tough enough to program."

  "This is a new model, lately developed by a small company in the city," Edmond said. "We consented to test it. To date it goes fairly well."

  "Huh! I hadn't heard a thing. Ah, hell, who can keep up?"—when computer models and nanolevel experiments compress former years' worth of R & D into hours. The obstacle that progress must overcome wasn't innovation, Dagny understood; it was capital investment and market acceptance. "Isn't this a tad dicey?"

  "We've got plenty of fail-safes, never fear," she said. "Besides, it's just a guardian, a doer of simple chores, and an entertainer. That is, it has a repertory of song and story elements to combine. We aren't m
aking it a substitute for us, only a helper. We wouldn't want more."

  "You'd scarcely get more anyway. This much surprises me."

  "Is advancement in artificial intelligence slowing to a halt?" wondered Edmond. "I have seen it claimed, but the man who had Clementine built, he does not agree."