THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS by Robert A. Heinlein

After discussion opened, some sense was talked. One shy little fellow with bloodshot eyes of old-time drillman stood up. “I’m an ice miner,” he said. “Learned my trade doing time for Warden like most of you. I’ve been on my own thirty years and done okay. Raised eight kids and all of ’em earned way–none eliminated nor any serious trouble. I should say I did do okay because today you have to listen farther out or deeper down to find ice.

“That’s okay, still ice in The Rock and a miner expects to sound for it. But Authority pays same price for ice now as thirty years ago. And that’s not okay. Worse yet, Authority scrip doesn’t buy what it used to. I remember when Hong Kong Luna dollars swapped even for Authority dollars– Now it takes three Authority dollars to match one HKL dollar. I don’t know what to do. . . but I know it takes ice to keep warrens and farms going.”

He sat down, looking sad. Nobody whistled but everybody wanted to talk. Next character pointed out that water can be extracted from rock–this is news? Some rock runs 6 percent–but such rock is scarcer than fossil water. Why can’t people do arithmetic?

Several farmers bellyached and one wheat farmer was typical. “You heard what Fred Hauser said about ice. Fred, Authority isn’t passing along that low price to farmers. I started almost as long ago as you did, with one two-kilometer tunnel leased from Authority. My oldest son and I sealed and pressured it and we had a pocket of ice and made our first crop simply on a bank loan to cover power and lighting fixtures, seed and chemicals.

“We kept extending tunnels and buying lights and planting better seed and now we get nine times as much per hectare as the best open-air farming down Earthside. What does that make us? Rich? Fred, we owe more now than we did the day we went private! If I sold out–if anybody was fool enough to buy–I’d be bankrupt. Why? Because I have to buy water from Authority–and have to sell my wheat to Authority–and never close gap. Twenty years ago I bought city sewage from the Authority, sterilized and processed it myself and made a profit on a crop. But today when I buy sewage, I’m charged distilled-water price and on top of that for the solids. Yet price of a tonne of wheat at catapult head is just what it was twenty years ago. Fred, you said you didn’t know what to do. I can tell you! Get rid of Authority!”

They whistled for him. A fine idea, I thought, but who bells cat?

Wyoming Knott, apparently–chairman stepped back and let Shorty introduce her as a “brave little girl who’s come all the way from Hong Kong Luna to tell how our Chinee comrades cope with situation”–and choice of words showed that he had never been there. . . not surprising; in 2075, HKL tube ended at Endsville, leaving a thousand kilometers of maria to do by rolligon bus, Serenitatis and part of Tranquillitatis–expensive and dangerous. I’d been there–but on contract, via mail rocket.

Before travel became cheap many people in Luna City and Novylen thought that Hong Kong Luna was all Chinee. But Hong Kong was as mixed as we were. Great China dumped what she didn’t want there, first from Old Hong Kong and Singapore, then Aussies and Enzees and black fellows and marys and Malays and Tamil and name it. Even Old Bolshies from Vladivostok and Harbin and Ulan Bator. Wye looked Svenska and had British last name with North American first name but could have been Russki. My word, a Loonie then rarely knew who father was and, if raised in creche, might be vague about mother.

I thought Wyoming was going to be too shy to speak. She stood there, looking scared and little, with Shorty towering over her, a big, black mountain. She waited until admiring whistles died down. Luna City was two-to-one male then, that meeting ran about ten-to-one; she could have recited ABC and they would have applauded.

Then she tore into them.

“You! You’re a wheat farmer–going broke. Do you know how much a Hindu housewife pays for a kilo of flour made from your wheat? How much a tonne of your wheat fetches in Bombay? How little it costs the Authority to get it from catapult head to Indian Ocean? Downhill all the way! Just solid-fuel retros to brake it–and where do those come from? Right here! And what do you get in return? A few shiploads of fancy goods, owned by the Authority and priced high because it’s importado. Importado, importado!–I never touch importado! If we don’t make it in Hong Kong, I don’t use it. What else do you get for wheat? The privilege of selling Lunar ice to Lunar Authority, buying it back as washing water, then giving it to the Authority–then buying it back a second time as flushing water–then giving it again to the Authority with valuable solids added–then buying it a third time at still higher price for farming–then you sell that wheat to the Authority at their price–and buy power from the Authority to grow it, again at their price! Lunar power–not one kilowatt up from Terra. It comes from Lunar ice and Lunar steel, or sunshine spilled on Luna’s soil–all put together by loonies! Oh, you rockheads, you deserve to starve!”

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