“So?”
“They were sending robots, with a very few trusted persons, to prepare the ground for a colony.”
Aleka laid a finger to her chin. He found the gesture charming. “Strange. The way I remember—I studied that period up and down and sideways when I was young.” As if she were old! “It was wildly romantic to me, Fireball bringing the last totalitarians down at the cost of its own power, Guthrie and Rinndalir leading their people away to Centauri—“ He saw the vision flame in her.
How many on Earth particularly cared any longer? And those few who did, to whom the stars still called, they’d settle for the Habitat, because there would be nothing else in their lifetimes. Even Aleka, Kenmuir thought, named the Demeter story romantic: a myth, no, a fairy tale. Her myth, the ideal by which and for which she lived, was of deep seas, a lonely island, and fellowship with the nonhuman. Not the inhuman, as for him; the nonhuman.
Her passion faded. “Would Rinndalir get involved in any such project?” she asked. “I remember how he said more than once, like when recruiting for the migration, that the Oort Cloud itself is too close to Earth. Nothing less than an interstellar passage could give gap enough to stay free, to keep from being swallowed up eventually by the Federation.” She shrugged. “His idea of freedom, not mine.” A sigh. “But damn, I’d’ve liked to’ve known him.”
Kenmuir prickled, realized he was being jealous of a ghost, and sat back scoffing at himself. “I suspect that was camouflage for Niolente,” he said. “To him the adventure was irresistible, but, naturally, he wanted her to succeed too, back here in the Solar System.” •
“Succeed … how? I mean, why the secrecy? The Moon was a sovereign state—fully sovereign, outside the Federation. Why not simply announce the discovery of the asteroid, claim it, and start settling it openly?” Aleka paused. “That is, if anybody’d want to go.” She winced. “Endless night, so far from the sun.”
“I’ve thought about that.” Kenmuir did not tell how many hours he had lain awake thinking. “At first, I’d guess, the idea was mainly to keep the asteroid— Proserpina—in the possession of their house, their phyle, for whatever gain was to be had. In that era, the demand for minerals and ices was growing. It might at length make a distant, rich source profitable. That never quite happened.
“After Fireball began dying, the position of the whole Selenarchy became hopeless. Niolente led a series of brilliant delaying actions. Yet she must have known she was only buying time.
“Time for what? I rather imagine she had several different possibilities in mind. But one of them wasProserpina. Ready it, arm it, and then reveal its existence, then plant a colony that would declare itself a new, independent Selenarchy. She may have dreamed that in the long run it would force a second … liberation … of the Moon.”
“A daydream, for sure.” Aleka grimaced. “Not a beautiful one, either. In my eyes, anyway. We’re well rid of the Selenarchs. Their heirs are bad enough.”
“You’re not a Lunarian,” Kenmuir replied.
She gave him a long look. He thought he saw compassion. After a moment, though, she said, “Value judgments aside, how’d she expect a few squatters on a lifeless rock, away in the dark, could stand off the Federation? With missiles? Earth could send warheads that’d blow the whole asteroid to gravel, if Earth had to.”
“If Earth had to,” Kenmuir repeated. “Why should it? The purpose of installing weapons would be to force extreme measures, an atrocity, if the Federation insisted on denying the right of some Lunarians to live peacefully and remotely according to their customs. Which it would not, at such a price. Totalitarianism, the wjiole concept of purposeful social control, was newly discredited.”
Aleka gazed out at the great, peaceful landscape. “Overreaction to the Avantists.”
“No doubt. Since then, the cybercosm has evolved, and, yes, on the whole it’s done well by us. Just the same, you’re in rebellion against it.”
“Not really.” He heard the distress. “My people are caught in a dilemma. It’s not right against wrong, it’s a conflict of rights. The one way I can see out of the trap is for us to get that cession from Lilisaire. Maybe I should be grateful for this situation that’s given me a chance to earn it. But why the horrible tangle that’s got us running from we know not what? I tell myself and tell myself, it’s a misunderstanding, maybe a bit of overzealous bureaucracy, and it’ll all soon straighten out. If I truly thought we were a menace to society, I’d hit that phone and call the police this minute to come for us.” She tautened in her seat. “Wouldn’t you?”