For a span, only the fire talked, while. Matthias brooded and night gathered outside.
The old man said at last, perhaps to himself, like remote thunder: “Proserpina, the lost—Kaino, son of Dagny Beynac—Yes, surely she—”
He was still again, for a minute or three that grew long, before he turned his gaze on the visitors and spoke aloud:
“One indisputable fact in all this fog. The Federation government has systematically, for lifetimes, concealed potentially important data. It’s bending every effort to maintain that concealment. No reason given, no justification. Clean against the Covenant.” He looked away, out the window into the darkness. “What else is hidden? My whole life, I’ve felt the walls closing in.”
He fell silent anew. Kenmuir’s flagging pulse picked up till it hammered in his skull.
Matthias hunched his heavy shoulders. “I have to think about this. Think hard. Not much sleep for me tonight. But you two, you need your rest.”
“Oh, senor—“ Aleka breathed.
Matthias pressed the button. “You will take your rest,” he commanded. “Whatever I decide, I want you fit for action. Trouble me no further.” The attendant came in. “Berghall, see to this pair. Bath, clean clothes, good supper, quarters.”
The boy stood erect. “Senor.” Pride shone from him.
“Go,” Matthias said. “We’ll meet in the morning.” In a room upstairs where relics of ancient farings—a spaceship model, a glittery Moon rock, a view of the first human camp ever on Mars, a faded photograph of Anson Guthrie with his wife and children—rested like dreams come to harbor, two people could find their way to a renewed inner peace.
Nevertheless, as he was dropping off to sleep, Kenmuir wondered what thought of Dagny Beynac had been in the Rydberg. It was as if, at just that instant, the deep voice had stumbled. T
While the hours become daycycles, tension mounts. Sometimes Dagny can snatch an interlude of the low-level activity that is a downlead’s equivalent of sleep, but it is brief and always she is roused from it by the next upward ratcheting of the crisis.
Nominally she is no more than a member of the Provisional Trust, which has a doubtful standing. It is not the home rule government that, legally, should speak for Luna. It is a group that the legislature in Tsukimachi has called into existence and charged with negotiations. She had much to do with maneuvering enough deputies into voting for it, and with persuading Qovernor General Haugen that his veto would bring the open breach he fears.
In effect, the Trust has become the Lunar government, for it includes the Selenarchs who scornfully ignored a congress now impotent and irrelevant. True, representatives come also from the cities, the major industries and professions, the Terrans who want to stay on the Moon whatever happens. But all desire full independence. To that end, when they see fit they issue decrees which local magistrates put into action.
The power is sharply limited. Luna is still subject to the World Federation. Peace Authority forces havebeen redoubled. If any significant international statute is violated, the governor is to order the Trust dissolved and proclaim martial law.
Dagny is a delegate at large, chosen by the others and taking her seat at their urgent request. It has become she whose word is most heeded by them, who composes their differences for them, and who oftenest speaks on behalf of them. More than once, this has been directly to Federation President Daniel Janvier in Hiroshima. Such mana does the Beynac name have. It may be even stronger in the download than it was in the living woman. A robotic presence can seem impersonal, impartial. And underneath, does there go a dark mythic shiver … at the voice from beyond the grave, the oracular hero?
Politics on Earth gropes and fumbles. The Lunar question can no longer wait. Unrest, agitation, riots and boycotts and subtler seditions, rumors of forbidden weapons secretly manufactured, hitches in production and trade, warnings from Fireball that worse will probably befall, have thrust aside matters that hitherto seemed closer to home. In the night sky the full Moon hangs like a bomb. Janvier summons a special session of the High Council and Assembly.