Janvier invokes emergency powers granted under the Covenant and commands the Lunarian ships to go. They make no reply. The Trust declares that the order has no legal force, because simply adopting an unusual orbit poses no threat, nor has one been spoken.
Lunarians in the cities occasionally set aside their dignity and leer at passing Earthfolk. The air well-nigh smells of oncoming lightning.
The Federation and its member governments keep no spacecraft capable of attack. Indeed, they have scant space transport of any sort. Normally they have contracted with Fireball, thereby sparing themselves both the capital cost and the expensive, cumbersome bureaucracies they would have been sure to establish.
Fireball declines to move against the Lunarian vessels. What, a private company undertaking paramilitary operations? It would be a violation of the Covenant. For that matter, Anson Guthrie announces, Fireball will not provide the extra bottom needed for lifting more troops to the Moon. He holds that the move would be disastrously unwise, and his organization cannot in conscience support it.
In Hiroshima the speaker for Ecuador, where Fireball is incorporated, explains that her government concurs with Sr. Guthrie and will not compel him. She strongly urges giving the Lunarians their self-determination, and introduces a motion to that effect.
However, Fireball and Ecuador will not tolerate bombardment of Earth. Should such happen, every resource will be made available for pacification of the Moon and punishment of the criminals. Meanwhile, they offer their good offices toward mediating the dispute.
Lars Rydberg goes to Luna as Fireball’s plenipotentiary.
His public statements are few and curt. For the most part he is alone with the download. This is natural and somewhat reassuring. Day by day, the terror on Earth ebbs.The Assembly reopens the independence question. Speeches are shorter and more to the point than before. Divisions are becoming clear-cut. On the one side, the. advocates of releasing Luna have gained recruits among their colleagues and in their constituencies. If the alternative amounts to war, it is unacceptable. The Lunarians have the right to be what they are, and as their unique civilization flowers, ours will share in its achievements. On the other side, the heritage persuasion has hardened and has also made converts. Furthermore, it is argued, nationalism wrought multimillions of deaths, over and over, with devastation from which the world has never quite recovered. Here we see the monster hatching anew. We must crush its head while we still can.
The news explodes: Selenarchs have dispatched units of their retainers to occupy powerbeam stations “and protect them for the duration of the present exigency.” The squadrons are well-organized and formidably equipped—with small arms, as the Covenant allows if you strain an interpretation, but equal to anything that the Peace Authority force on the Moon can bring against them. Besides, although the Selenarchs are noncommittal about it, rumors fly of heavier weapons. A catapult, easily and cheaply made, can throw a missile halfway around the Moon.
Be that as it may, a transmission unit would scarcely survive a battle for possession of it.
Janvier: “This is rebellion. Fireball promised help in case of outright violence.”
Rydberg: “Sir, fam not a lawyer. I cannot judge the legality of the action. According to the Provisional Trust, it is justified under the law of dire necessity. Think how dependent Earth is on the solar energy from Luna.”
Janvier: “Oh, yes. They suppose they have us by the. throat. I say this is as suicidal a threat as those ships pose, but a great many human beings would die, and I call on Fireball to do its duty.”
Rydberg: “Sir, we could take out the ships, at enormous cost, but how can we handle the situation on the ground? Let me repeat, Lord Brandir and his associates do not make it a threat. They do not want cities darkened, services halted, panic and crime and death over Earth. No, they will guard those stations from sabotage by extremists here on the Moon.”
Janvier: “What of the sites they have not occupied?”
Rydberg: “True, they can watch only a few. They consider it an object lesson.”
Janvier: “Hm. I say again, they are trying to take us by the throat.”