Nobody said anything. One thing to talk about war, another to face up to it. At last I sighed and said, “When do we start throwing rocks?”
“We do not start,” Adam answered. “They must throw the first one. How do we antagonize them into doing so? I will reserve my thoughts to the last. Comrade Manuel?”
“Uh. . . don’t look at me. Way I feel, would start with a nice big rock smack on Agra–a bloke there who is a waste of space. But is not what you are after.”
“No, it is not,” Adam answered seriously. “You would not only anger the entire Hindu nation, a people intensely opposed to destruction of life, but you would also anger and shock people throughout Earth by destroying the Taj Mahal.”
“Including me,” said Prof. “Don’t talk dirty, Manuel.”
“Look,” I said, “didn’t say to do it. Anyhow, could miss Taj.”
“Manuel,” said Prof, “as Adam pointed out, our strategy must be to antagonize them into striking the first blow, the classic ‘Pearl Harbor’ maneuver of game theory, a great advantage in Weltpolitick. The question is how? Adam, I suggest that what is needed is to plant the idea that we are weak and divided and that all it takes is a show of force to bring us back into line. Stu? Your people Earthside should be useful. Suppose the Congress repudiated myself and Manuel? The effect?”
“Oh, no!” said Wyoh.
“Oh, yes, dear Wyoh. Not necessary to do it but simply to put it over news channels to Earth. Perhaps still better to put it out over a clandestine beam attributed to the Terran scientists still with us while our official channels display the classic stigmata of tight censorship. Adam?”
“I’m noting it as a tactic which probably will be included in the strategy. But it will not be sufficient alone. We must be bombed.”
“Adam,” said Wyoh, “why do you say so? Even if Luna City can stand up under their biggest bombs–something I hope never to find out–we know that Luna can’t win an all-out war. You’ve said so, many times. Isn’t there some way to work it so that they will just plain leave us alone?”
Adam pulled at right cheek–and I thought: Mike, if you don’t knock off play-acting, you’ll have me believing in you myself! Was annoyed at him and looked forward to a talk–one in which I would not have to defer to “Chairman Selene.”
“Comrade Wyoming,” he said soberly, “it’s a matter of game theory in a complex non-zero-sum game. We have certain resources or ‘pieces in the game’ and many possible moves. Our opponents have much larger resources and a far larger spectrum of responses. Our problem is to manipulate the game so that our strength is utilized toward an optimax solution while inducing them to waste their superior strength and to refrain from using it at maximum. Timing is of the essence and a gambit is necessary to start a chain of events favorable to our strategy. I realize this is not clear. I could put the factors through a computer and show you. Or you can accept the conclusion. Or you can use your own judgment.”
He was reminding Wyoh (under Stu’s nose) that he was not Adam Selene but Mike, our dinkum thinkum who could handle so complex a problem because he was a computer and smartest one anywhere.
Wyoh backtracked. “No, no,” she said, “I wouldn’t underitand the maths. Okay, it has to be done. How do we do it?”
Was four hundred before we had a plan that suited Prof and Stu as well as Adam–or took that long for Mike to sell his plan while appearing to pull ideas out of rest of us. Or was it Prof’s plan with Adam Selene as salesman?
In any case we had a plan and calendar, one that grew out of master strategy of Tuesday 14 May 2075 and varied from it only to match events as they actually had occurred. In essence it called for us to behave as nastily as possible while strengthening impression that we would be awfully easy to spank.
Was at Community Hall at noon, after too little sleep, and found I could have slept two hours longer; Congressmen from Hong Kong could not make it that early despite tube all way. Wyoh did not bang gavel until fourteen-thirty.