How can this be, with a monster that big, worked on by so many people? Put it this way: Suppose you live in Novylen; know where Luna City is? Why, on east edge of Mare Crisium; everybody knows that. So? What latitude and longitude? Huh? Look it up in a reference book! So? If you don’t know where any better than that, how did you find it last week? No huhu, cobber; I took tube, changed at Torricelli, slept rest of way; finding it was capsule’s worry.
See? You don’t know where Luna City is! You simply get out when capsule pulls in at Tube Station South.
That’s how we hid catapult.
Is in Mare Undarum area, “everybody knows that.” But where it is and where we said it was differ by amount greater or less than one hundred kilometers in direction north, south, east, or west, or some combination.
Today you can look up its location in reference books–and find same wrong answer. Location of that catapult is still most closely guarded secret in Luna.
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.