Stu bowed without getting up. “Very well, sir.”
“I–”
Greg came in. “You want me, Mannie?”
“What makes with Earthside sender?”
“Harry says you have it by tomorrow. A crummy rig, he says, but push watts through it and will be heard.”
“Power we got. And if he says ‘tomorrow’ then he knows what he wants to build. So will be today–say six hours. I’ll work under him. Wyoh hon, will you get my arms? Want number-six and number-three–better bring number-five, too. And you stick with me and change arms for me. Stu, want you to write some nasty messages–I’ll give you general idea and you put acid in them. Greg, we are not going to get all those rocks into space at once. Ones we have in space now will impact in next eighteen, nineteen hours. Then, when F.N. is announcing that all rocks are accounted for and Lunar menace is over. . . we crash into their newscast and warn of next bombings. Shortest possible orbits, Greg, ten hours or less–so check everything on catapult and H-plant and controls; with that extra boost all has to be dead on.”
Wyoh was back with arms; I told her “number six” and added, “Greg, let me talk with Harry.”
Six hours later sender was ready to beam toward Terra. Was ugly job, vandalized mainly out of a resonance prospector used in project’s early stages. But could ride an audio signal on its radio frequency and was powerful. Stu’s nastified versions of my warnings had been taped and Harry was ready to zipsqueal them–all Terran satellites could accept high speed at sixty-to-one and had no wish to have our sender heated more seconds than necessary; eyeball watch had confirmed fears: At least two ships were in orbit around Luna.
So we told Great China that her major coastal cities would each receive a Lunar present offset ten kilometers into ocean–Pusan, Tsingtao, Taipei, Shanghai, Saigon, Bangkok, Singapore, Djakarta, Darwin, and so forth–except that Old Hong Kong would get one smack on top of F.N.’s Far East offices, so kindly have all human beings move far back. Stu noted that human beings did not mean F.N. personnel; they were urged to stay at desks.
India was given similar warnings about coastal cities and was told that F.N. global offices would be spared one more rotation out of respect for cultural monuments in Agra–and to permit human beings to evacuate. (I intended to extend this by another rotation as deadline approached–out of respect for Prof. And then another, indefinitely. Damn it, they would build their home offices next door to most overdecorated tomb ever built. But one that Prof treasured.)
Rest of world was told to keep their seats; game was going extra innings. But stay away from any F.N. offices anywhere; we were frothing at mouth and no F.N. office was safe. Better yet, get out of any city containing an F.N. headquarters–but F.N. vips and finks were urged to sit tight.
Then spent next twenty hours coaching Junior into sneaking his radar peeks when our sky was clear of ships, or believed to be. Napped when I could and Lenore stayed with me and woke me in time for next coaching. And that ended Mike’s rocks and we all went into alert while we got first of Junior’s rocks flung high and fast. Waited until certain it had gone hot and true– then told Terra where to look for it and where and when to expect it, so that all would know that F.N.’s claims of victory were on a par with their century of lies about Luna–all in Stu’s best, snotty, supercilious phrases delivered in his cultured accents.
First one should have been for Great China but was one piece of North American Directorate we could reach with it–her proudest jewel, Hawaii. Junior placed it in triangle formed by Maui, Molokai, and Lanai. I didn’t work out programming; Mike had anticipated everything.
Then pronto we got off ten more rocks at short intervals (had to skip one program, a ship in our sky) and told Great China where to look and when to expect them and where–coastal cities we had neglected day before.