This converts in split second to heat. Explosion, big one!
Should have been obvious. Look at Luna: What you see? Thousands on thousands of craters–places where Somebody got playful throwing rocks.
Wyoh said, “Joules don’t mean much to me. How does that compare with H-bombs?”
“Uh–” I started to round off in head. Mike’s “head” works faster; he answered, “The concussion of a hundred-tonne mass on Terra approaches the yield of a two-kilotonne atomic bomb.”
“‘Kilo’ is a thousand,” Wyoh murmured, “and ‘mega’ is a million– Why, that’s only one fifty-thousandth as much as a hundred-megatonne bomb. Wasn’t that the size Sovunion used?”
“Wyoh, honey,” I said gently, “that’s not how it works. Turn it around. A two-kilotonne yield is equivalent to exploding two million kilograms of trinitrotoluol . . . and a kilo of TNT is quite an explosion– Ask any drillman. Two million kilos will wipe out good-sized town. Check, Mike?”
“Yes, Man. But, Wyoh my only female friend, there is another aspect. Multi-megatonne fusion bombs are inefficient. The explosion takes place in too small a space; most of it is wasted. While a hundred-megatonne bomb is rated as having fifty thousand times the yield of a two-kilotonne bomb, its destructive effect is only about thirteen hundred times as great as that of a two-kilotonne explosion.”
“But it seems to me that thirteen hundred times is still quite a lot–if they are going to use bombs on us that much bigger.”
“True, Wyoh my female friend . . . but Luna has many rocks.”
“Oh. Yes, so we have.”
“Comrades,” said Prof, “this is outside my competence–in my younger or bomb-throwing days my experience was limited to something of the order of the one-kilogram chemical explosion of which you spoke, Manuel. But I assume that you two know what you are talking about.”
“We do,” Mike agreed.
“So I accept your figures. To bring it down to a scale that I can understand this plan requires that we capture the catapult. No?”
“Yes,” Mike and I chorused.
“Not impossible. Then we must hold it and keep it operative. Mike, have you considered how your catapult can be protected against, let us say, one small H-tipped torpedo?”
Discussion went on and on. We stopped to eat–stopped business under Prof’s rule. Instead Mike told jokes, each produced a that-reminds-me from Prof.
By time we left Raffles Hotel evening of 14th May ’75 we had–Mike had, with help from Prof–outlined plan of Revolution, including major options at critical points.
When came time to go, me to home and Prof to evening class (if not arrested), then home for bath and clothes and necessities in case he returned that night, became clear Wyoh did not want to be alone in strange hotel–Wyoh was stout when bets were down, between times soft and vulnerable.
So I called Mum on a Sherlock and told her was bringing house guest home. Mum ran her job with style; any spouse could bring guest home for meal or year, and our second generation was almost as free but must ask. Don’t know how other families work; we have customs firmed by a century; they suit us.
So Mum didn’t ask name, age, sex, marital condition; was my right and she too proud to ask. All she said was: “That’s nice, dear. Have you two had dinner? It’s Tuesday, you know.” “Tuesday” was to remind me that our family had eaten early because Greg preaches Tuesday evenings. But if guest had not eaten, dinner would be served–concession to guest, not to me, as with exception of Grandpaw we ate when was on table or scrounged standing up in pantry.
I assured her we had eaten and would make tall effort to be there before she needed to leave. Despite Loonie mixture of Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and ninety-nine other flavors, I suppose Sunday is commonest day for church. But Greg belongs to sect which had calculated that sundown Tuesday to sundown Wednesday, local time Garden of Eden (zone minus-two, Terra) was the Sabbath. So we ate early in Terran north-hemisphere summer months.
Mum always went to hear Greg preach, so was not considerate to place duty on her that would clash. All of us went occasionally; I managed several times a year because terribly fond of Greg, who taught me one trade and helped me switch to another when I had to and would gladly have made it his arm rather than mine. But Mum always went–ritual not religion, for she admitted to me one night in pillow talk that she had no religion with a brand on it, then cautioned me not to tell Greg. I exacted same caution from her. I don’t know Who is cranking; I’m pleased He doesn’t stop.