The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress Page 14

  Can’t be seen from space, by eye or radar. Is underground save for ejection and that is a big black shapeless hole like ten thousand others and high up an uninviting mountain with no place for a jump rocket to put down.

  Nevertheless many people were there, during and after construction. Even Warden visited and my co-husband Greg showed him around. Warden went by mail rocket, commandeered for day, and his Cyborg was given coordinates and a radar beacon to home on—a spot in fact not far from site. But from there, it was necessary to travel by rolligon and our lorries were not like passenger buses from Endsville to Beluthihatchie in old days; they were cargo carriers, no ports for sightseeing and a ride so rough that human cargo had to be strapped down. Warden wanted to ride up in cab but—sorry, Gospodin!—just space for wrangler and his helper and took both to keep her steady.

  Three hours later he did not care about anything but getting home. He stayed one hour and was not interested in talk about purpose of all this drilling and value of resources uncovered.

  Less important people, workmen and others, traveled by interconnecting ice-exploration bores, still easier way to get lost. If anybody carried an inertial pathfinder in his luggage, he could have located site—but security was tight. One did so and had accident with p-suit; his effects were returned to L-City and his pathfinder read what it should—i.e., what we wanted it to read, for I made hurried trip out with number-three arm along. You can reseal one without a trace if you do it in nitrogen atmosphere—I wore an oxygen mask at slight overpressure. No huhu.

  We entertained vips from Earth, some high in Authority. They traveled easier underground route; I suppose Warden had warned them. But even on that route is one thirty-kilometer stretch by rolligon. We had one visitor from Earth who looked like trouble, a Dr. Dorian, physicist and engineer. Lorry tipped over—silly driver tried shortcut—they were not in line-of-sight for anything and their beacon was smashed. Poor Dr. Dorian spent seventy-two hours in an unsealed pumice igloo and had to be returned to L-City ill from hypoxia and overdose of radiation despite efforts on his behalf by two Party members driving him.

  Might have been safe to let him see; he might not have spotted doubletalk and would not have spotted error in location. Few people look at stars when p-suited even when Sun doesn’t make it futile; still fewer can read stars—and nobody can locate himself on surface without help unless he has instruments, knows how to use them and has tables and something to give a time tick. Put at crudest level, minimum would be octant, tables, and good watch. Our visitors were even encouraged to go out on surface but if one had carried an octant or modern equivalent, might have had accident.

  We did not make accidents for spies. We let them stay, worked them hard, and Mike read their reports. One reported that he was certain that we had found uranium ore, something unknown in Luna at that time. Project Centerbore being many years later. Next spy came out with kit of radiation counters. We made it easy for him to sneak them through bore.

  By March ‘76 catapult was almost ready, lacking only installation of stator segments. Power plant was in and a co-ax had been strung underground with a line-of-sight link for that thirty kilometers. Crew was down to skeleton size, mostly Party members. But we kept one spy so that Alvarez could have regular reports—didn’t want him to worry; it tended to make him suspicious. Instead we worried him in warrens.

  10

  Were changes in those eleven months. Wyoh was baptized into Greg’s church, Prof’s health became so shaky that he dropped teaching, Mike took up writing poetry. Yankees finished in cellar. Wouldn’t have minded paying Prof if they had been nosed out, but from pennant to cellar in one season—I quit watching them on video.

  Prof’s illness was phony. He was in perfect shape for age, exercising in hotel room three hours each day, and sleeping in three hundred kilograms of lead pajamas. And so was I, and so was Wyoh, who hated it. I don’t think she ever cheated and spent night in comfort though can’t say for sure; I was not dossing with her. She had become a fixture in Davis family. Took her one day to go from “Gospazha Davis” to “Gospazha Mum,” one more to reach “Mum” and now it might be “Mimi Mum” with arm around Mum’s waist. When Zebra File showed she couldn’t go back to Hong Kong, Sidris had taken Wyoh into her beauty shop after hours and done a job which left skin same dark shade but would not scrub off. Sidris also did a hairdo on Wyoh that left it black and looking as if unsuccessfully unkinked. Plus minor touches—opaque nail enamel, plastic inserts for cheeks and nostrils and of course she wore her dark-eyed contact lenses. When Sidris got through, Wyoh could have gone bundling without fretting about her disguise; was a perfect “colored” with ancestry to match—Tamil, a touch of Angola, German. I called her “Wyma” rather than “Wyoh.”

  She was gorgeous. When she undulated down a corridor, boys followed in swarms.

  She started to learn farming from Greg but Mum put stop to that. While she was big and smart and willing, our farm is mostly a male operation—and Greg and Hans were not only male members of our family distracted; she cost more farming man-hours than her industry equaled. So Wyoh went back to housework, then Sidris took her into beauty shop as helper.

  Prof played ponies with two accounts, betting one by Mike’s “leading apprentice” system, other by his own “scientific” system. By July ‘75 he admitted that he knew nothing about horses and went solely to Mike’s system, increasing bets and spreading them among many bookies. His winnings paid Party’s expenses while Mike built swindle that financed catapult. But Prof lost interest in a sure thing and merely placed bets as Mike designated. He stopped reading pony journals—sad, something dies when an old horseplayer quits.

  Ludmilla had a girl which they say is lucky in a first and which delighted me—every family needs a girl baby. Wyoh surprised our women by being expert in midwifery—and surprised them again that she knew nothing about baby care. Our two oldest sons found marriages at last and Teddy, thirteen, was opted out. Greg hired two lads from neighbor farms and, after six months of working and eating with us, both were opted in—not rushing things, we had known them and their families for years. It restored balance we had lacked since Ludmilla’s opting and put stop to snide remarks from mothers of bachelors who had not found marriages—-not that Mum wasn’t capable of snubbing anyone she did not consider up to Davis standards.

  Wyoh recruited Sidris; Sidris started own cell by recruiting her other assistant and Bon Ton Beaute Shoppe became hotbed of subversion. We started using our smallest kids for deliveries and other jobs a child can do—they can stake out or trail a person through corridors better than an adult, and are not suspected. Sidris grabbed this notion and expanded it through women recruited in beauty parlor.

  Soon she had so many kids on tap that we could keep all of Alvarez’s spies under surveillance. With Mike able to listen at any phone and a child spotting it whenever a spy left home or place of work or wherever—with enough kids on call so that one could phone while another held down a new stakeout—we could keep a spy under tight observation and keep him from seeing anything we didn’t want him to see. Shortly we were getting reports spies phoned in without waiting for Zebra File; it did a sod no good to phone from a taproom instead of home; with Baker Street Irregulars on job Mike was listening before he finished punching number.

  These kids located Alvarez’s deputy spy boss in L-City. We knew he had one because these finks did not report to Alvarez by phone, nor did it seem possible that Alvarez could have recruited them as none of them worked in Complex and Alvarez came inside Luna City only when an Earthside vip was so important as to rate a bodyguard commanded by Alvarez in person.

  His deputy turned out to be two people—an old lag who ran a candy, news, and bookie counter in Old Dome and his son who was on civil service in Complex. Son carried reports in, so Mike had not been able to hear them.

  We let them alone. But from then on we had fink field reports half a day sooner than Alvarez. This advantage—all due to kids as young as
five or six—saved lives of seven comrades. All glory to Baker Street Irregulars!

  Don’t remember who named them but think it was Mike—I was merely a Sherlock Homes fan whereas he really did think he was Sherlock Holmes’s brother Mycroft … nor would I swear he was not; “reality” is a slippery notion. Kids did not call themselves that; they had their own play gangs with own names. Nor were they burdened with secrets which could endanger them; Sidris left it to mothers to explain why they were being asked to do these jobs save that they were never to be told real reason. Kids will do anything mysterious and fun; look how many of their games are based on outsmarting.

  Bon Ton salon was a clearinghouse of gossip—women get news faster than Daily Lunatic. I encouraged Wyoh to report to Mike each night, not try to thin gossip down to what seemed significant because was no telling what might be significant once Mike got through associating it with a million other facts.

  Beauty parlor was also place to start rumors. Party had grown slowly at first, then rapidly as powers-of-three began to be felt and also because Peace Dragoons were nastier than older bodyguard. As numbers increased we shifted to high speed on agitprop, black-propaganda rumors, open subversion, provocateur activities, and sabotage. Finn Nielsen handled agitprop when it was simpler as well as dangerous job of continuing to front for and put cover-up activity into older, spyridden underground. But now a large chunk of agitprop and related work was given to Sidris.

  Much involved distributing handbills and such. No subversive literature was ever in her shop, nor our home, nor that hotel room; distribution was done by kids, too young to read.

  Sidris was also working a full day bending hair and such. About time she began to have too much to do I happened one evening to make walk-about on Causeway with Sidris on my arm when I caught sight of a familiar face and figure—skinny little girl, all angles, carrot-red hair. She was possibly twelve, at stage when a fem shoots up just before blossoming out into rounded softness. I knew her but could not say why or when or where.

  I said, “Psst, doll baby. Eyeball young fem ahead. Orange hair, no cushions.”

  Sidris looked her over. “Darling, I knew you were eccentric. But she’s still a boy.”

  “Damp it. Who?”

  “Bog knows. Shall I sprag her?”

  Suddenly I remembered like video coming on. And wished Wyoh were with me-but Wyoh and I were never together in public. This skinny redhead had been at meeting where Shorty was killed. She sat on floor against wall down front and listened with wide-eyed seriousness and applauded fiercely. Then I had seen her at end in free trajectory—curled into ball in air and had hit a yellow jacket in knees, he whose jaw I broke a moment later.

  Wyoh and I were alive and free because this kid moved fast in a crisis. “No, don’t speak to her,” I told Sidris. “But I want to keep her in sight. Wish we had one of your Irregulars here. Damn.”

  “Drop off and phone Wyoh, you’ll have one in five minutes,” my wife said.

  I did. Then Sidris and I strolled, looking in shopwindows and moving slowly, as quarry was window-shopping. In seven or eight minutes a small boy came toward us, stopped and said, “Hello, Auntie Mabell. Hi, Uncle Joe.”

  Sidris took his hand. “Hi, Tony. How’s your mother, dear?”

  “Just fine.” He added in a whisper, “I’m Jock.”

  “Sorry.” Sidris said quietly to me, “Stay on her,” and took Jock into a tuck shop.

  She came out and joined me. Jock followed her licking a lollipop. “‘Bye, Auntie Mabel! Thanks!” He danced away, rotating, wound up by that little redhead, stood and stared into a display, solemnly sucking his sweet. Sidris and I went home.

  A report was waiting. “She went into Cradle Roll Crèche and hasn’t come out. Do we stay on it?”

  “A bit yet,” I told Wyoh, and asked if she remembered this kid. She did, but had no idea who she might be. “You could ask Finn.”

  “Can do better.” I called Mike.

  Yes, Cradle Roll Crèche had a phone and Mike would listen. Took him twenty minutes to pick up enough to give analysis—many young voices and at such ages almost sexless. But presently he told me, “Man, I hear three voices that could match the age and physical type you described. However, two answer to names which I assume to be masculine. The third answers when anyone says ‘Hazel’—which an older female voice does repeatedly. She seems to be Hazel’s boss.”

  “Mike, look at old organization file. Check Hazels.”

  “Four Hazels,” he answered at once, “and here she is: Hazel Meade, Young Comrades Auxiliary, address Cradle Roll Crèche, born 25 December 2063, mass thirty-nine kilos, height—”

  “That’s our little jump jet! Thanks, Mike. Wyoh, call off stake-out. Good job!”

  “Mike, call Donna and pass the word, that’s a dear.”

  I left it to girls to recruit Hazel Meade and did not eyeball her until Sidris moved her into our household two weeks later. But Wyoh volunteered a report before then; policy was involved. Sidris had filled her cell but wanted Hazel Meade. Besides this irregularity, Sidris was doubtful about recruiting a child. Policy was adults only, sixteen and up.

  I took it to Adam Selene and executive cell. “As I see,” I said, “this cells-of-three system is to serve us, not bind us. See nothing wrong in Comrade Cecilia having an extra. Nor any real danger to security.”

  “I agree,” said Prof. “But I suggest that the extra member not be part of Cecilia’s cell—she should not know the others, I mean, unless the duties Cecilia gives her make it necessary. Nor do I think she should recruit, at her age. The real question is her age.”

  “Agreed,” said Wyoh. “I want to talk about this kid’s age.”

  “Friends,” Mike said diffidently (diffidently first time in weeks; he was now that confident executive “Adam Selene” much more than lonely machine)—“perhaps I should have told you, but I have already granted similar variations. It did not seem to require discussion.”

  “It doesn’t, Mike,” Prof reassured him. “A chairman must use his own judgment. What is our largest cell?”

  “Five. it is a double cell, three and two.”

  “No harm done. Dear Wyoh, does Sidris propose to make this child a full comrade? Let her know that we are committed to revolution … with all the bloodshed, disorder, and possible disaster that entails?”

  “That’s exactly what she is requesting.”

  “But, dear lady, while we are staking our lives, we are old enough to know it. For that, one should have an emotional grasp of death. Children seldom are able to realize that death will come to them personally. One might define adulthood as the age at which a person learns that he must die … and accepts his sentence undismayed.”

  “Prof,” I said, “I know some mighty tall children. Seven to two some are in Party.”

  “No bet, cobber. It’ll give odds that at least half of them don’t qualify—and we may find it out the hard way at the end of this our folly.”

  “Prof,” Wyoh insisted. “Mike, Mannie. Sidris is certain this child is an adult. And I think so, too.”

  “Man?” asked Mike.

  “Let’s find way for Prof to meet her and form own opinion. I was taken by her. Especially her go-to-hell fighting. Or would never have started it.”

  We adjourned and I heard no more. Hazel showed up at dinner shortly thereafter as Sidris’ guest. She showed no sign of recognizing me, nor did I admit that I had ever seen her—but learned long after that she had recognized me, not just by left arm but because I had been hatted and kissed by tall blonde from Hong Kong. Furthermore Hazel had seen through Wyoming’s disguise, recognized what Wyoh never did successfully disguise: her voice.

  But Hazel used lip glue. If she ever assumed I was in conspiracy she never showed it.

  Child’s history explained her, far as background can explain steely character. Transported with parents as a baby much as Wyoh had been, she had lost father through accident while he was convict labor, which her mother
blamed on indifference of Authority to safety of penal colonists. Her mother lasted till Hazel was five; what she died from Hazel did not know; she was then living in crèche where we found her. Nor did she know why parents had been shipped—possibly for subversion if they were both under sentence as Hazel thought. As may be, her mother left her a fierce hatred of Authority and Warden.

  Family that ran Cradle Roll let her stay; Hazel was pinning diapers and washing dishes as soon as she could reach. She had taught herself to read, and could print letters but could not write. Her knowledge of math was only that ability to count money that children soak up through their skins.

  Was fuss over her leaving crèche; owner and husbands claimed Hazel owed several years’ service. Hazel solved it by walking out, leaving her clothes and fewer belongings behind. Mum was angry enough to want family to start trouble which could wind up in “brawling” she despised. But I told her privately that, as her cell leader, I did nor want our family in public eye—and hauled out cash and told her Party would pay for clothes for Hazel. Mum refused money, called off a family meeting, took Hazel into town and was extravagant—for Mum—in re-outfitting her.

  So we adopted Hazel. I understand that these days adopting a child involves red tape; in those days it was as simple as adopting a kitten.

  Was more fuss when Mum started to place Hazel in school, which fitted neither what Sidris had in mind nor what Hazel had been led to expect as a Party member and comrade. Again I butted in and Mum gave in part way. Hazel was placed in a tutoring school close to Sidris’ shop—that is, near easement lock thirteen; beauty parlor was by it (Sidris had good business because close enough that our water was piped in, and used without limit as return line took it back for salvage). Hazel studied mornings and helped in afternoons, pinning on gowns, handing out towels, giving rinses, learning trade—and whatever else Sidris wanted.