I decided that the notion could be generalized into any occupation. “Value for value.” Building “on the square and on the level.” The Hippocratic oath. Don’t let the team down. Honest work for honest pay. Such things did not have to be proved; they were an essential part of life-true throughout eternity, true in the farthest reaches of the Galaxy.
I suddenly got a glimpse of what Bonforte was driving at. If there were ethical basics that transcended time and place, then they were true both for Martians and for men. They were true on any planet around any star-and if the human race did not behave accordingly they weren’t ever going to win to the stars because some better race would slap them down for double-dealing.
The price of expansion was virtue. “Never give a sucker an even break” was too narrow a philosophy to fit the broad reaches of space.
But Bonforte was not preaching sweetness and light. “I am not a pacifist. Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay-and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Mr. Speaker, life belongs to those who do not fear to lose it. This bill must pass!” And with that he had got up and crossed the aisle in support of a military appropriation his own party had refused in caucus.
Or again: “Take sides! Always take sides! You will sometimes be wrong-but the man who refuses to take sides must always be wrong! Heaven save us from poltroons who fear to make a choice. Let us stand up and be counted.” (This last was in a closed caucus but Penny had caught it on her minicorder and Bonforte had saved it-Bonforte had a sense of history; he was a record keeper. If he had not been, I would not have had much to work with.)
I decided that Bonforte was my kind of man. Or at least the kind I liked to think I was. His was a persona I was proud to wear.
So far as I can remember I did not sleep on that trip after I promised Penny that I would take the royal audience if Bonforte could not be made ready. I intended to sleep-there is no point in taking your stage with your eyes bagging like hound’s ears-but I got interested in what I was studying and there was a plentiful supply of pepper pills in Bonforte’s desk. It is amazing how much ground you can cover working a twenty-four-hour day, free from interruptions and with all the help you could ask for.
But shortly before we were due at New Batavia, Dr. Capek came in and said, “Bare your left forearm.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because when you go before the Emperor we don’t want you falling flat on your face with fatigue. This will make you sleep until we ground. Then I’ll give you an antidote.”
“Eh? I take it that you don’t think he will be ready?”
Capek did not answer, but gave me the shot. I tried to finish listening to the speech I was running but I must have been asleep in seconds. The next thing I knew Dak was saying deferentially, “Wake up, sir. Please wake up. We’re grounded at Lippershey Field.”
Chapter 8
Our Moon being an airless planet, a torchship can land on it. But the Tom Paine, being a torchship, was really intended to stay in space and be serviced only at space stations in orbit; she had to be landed in a cradle. I wish I had been awake to see it, for they say that catching an egg on a plate is easy by comparison. Dak was one of the half dozen pilots who could do it.
But I did not even get to see the Tommie in her cradle; all I saw was the inside of the passenger bellows they fastened to her air lock and the passenger tube to New Batavia-those tubes are so fast that, under the low gravity of the Moon, you are again in free fall at the middle of the trip.
We went first to the apartments assigned to the leader of the loyal opposition, Bonforte’s official residence until (and if) he went back into power after the coming election. The magnificence of them made me wonder what the Supreme Minister’s residence was like. I suppose that New Batavia is odds-on the most palatial capital city in all history; it is a shame that it can hardly be seen from outdoors-but that minor shortcoming is more than offset by the fact that it is the only city in the Solar System that is actually impervious to fusion bombs. Or perhaps I should say “effectively impervious” since there are some surface structures which could be destroyed. Bonforte’s apartments included an upper living room in the side of a cliff, which looked out through a bubble balcony at the stars and Mother Earth herself-but his sleeping room and offices were a thousand feet of solid rock below, by private lift.