But his personality did not get us anywhere in Agra. Prof was carried to office of President of Grand Assembly, me being pushed alongside, and there he attempted to present his credentials as Ambassador to F.N. and prospective Senator for Luna–was referred to Secretary General and at his offices we were granted ten minutes with assistant secretary who sucked teeth and said he could accept our credentials “without prejudice and without implied commitment.” They were referred to Credentials Committee–who sat on them.
I got fidgety. Prof read Keats. Grain barges continued to arrive at Bombay.
In a way was not sorry about latter. When we flew from Bombay to Agra we got up before dawn and were taken out to field as city was waking. Every Loonie has his hole, whether luxury of a long-established home like Davis Tunnels or rock still raw from drill; cubic is no problem and can’t be for centuries.
Bombay was bee-swarms of people. Are over million (was told) who have no home but some piece of pavement. A family might claim right (and hand down by will, generation after generation) to sleep on a piece two meters long and one wide at a described location in front of a shop. Entire family sleeps on that space, meaning mother, father, kids, maybe a grandmother. Would not have believed if had not seen. At dawn in Bombay roadways, side pavements, even bridges are covered with tight carpet of human bodies. What do they do? Where do they work? How do they eat? (Did not look as if they did. Could count ribs.)
If I hadn’t believed simple arithmetic that you can’t ship stuff downhill forever without shipping replacement back, would have tossed in cards. But. . . tanstanfl. “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch,” in Bombay or in Luna.
At last we were given appointment with an “Investigating Committee.” Not what Prof had asked for. He had requested public hearing before Senate, complete with video cameras. Only camera at this session was its “in-camera” nature; was closed. Not too closed, I had little recorder. But no video. And took Prof two minutes to discover that committee was actually vips of Lunar Authority or their tame dogs.
Nevertheless was chance to talk and Prof treated them as if they had power to recognize Luna’s independence and willingness to do so. While they treated us as a cross between naughty children and criminals up for sentencing.
Prof was allowed to make opening statement. With decorations trimmed away was assertion that Luna was de-facto a sovereign state, with an unopposed government in being, a civil condition of peace and order, a provisional president and cabinet carrying on necessary functions but anxious to return to private life as soon as Congress completed writing a constitution–and that we were here to ask that these facts be recognized de-jure and that Luna be allowed to take her rightful place in councils of mankind as a member of Federated Nations.
What Prof told them bore a speaking acquaintance with truth and they were not where they could spot discrepancies. Our “provisional president” was a computer, and “cabinet” was Wyoh, Finn, Comrade Clayton, and Terence Sheehan, editor of Pravda, plus Wolfgang Korsakov, board chairman of LuNoHoCo and a director of Bank of Hong Kong in Luna. But Wyoh was only person now in Luna who knew that “Adam Selene” was false face for a computer. She had been terribly nervous at being left to hold fort alone.
As it was, Adam’s “oddity” in never being seen save over video was always an embarrassment. We had done our best to turn it into a “security necessity” by opening offices for him in cubic of Authority’s Luna City office and then exploding a small bomb. After this “assassination attempt” comrades who had been most fretful about Adam’s failure to stir around became loudest in demands that Adam must not take any chances–this being helped by editorials.
But I wondered while Prof was talking what these pompous chooms would think if they knew that our “president” was a collection of hardware owned by Authority?
But they just sat staring with chill disapproval, unmoved by Prof’s rhetoric–probably best performance of his life considering he delivered it flat on back, speaking into a microphone without notes, and hardly able to see his audience.