“I, I suppose so,” he faltered.
In haste, before she could ask him, or he ask himself, what drove him: “I was describing the context of those times. I think Niolente believed that if the Federation government learned prematurely about Proserpina, it would occupy the body on some pretext and forbid emigration. She meant to present it with a fait accompli, a world developed enough that her claim would be indisputable and enforceable.
“Now of course a ship of hers might be noticed meanwhile and tracked. Against that contingency, early on she took another precaution. It wouldn’t be as effective as fortification, but it could be quickly done and it should give her a talking point. Her engineers put in a sophisticated detector system coupled to a huge, high-powered, thoroughly protected radio transmitter. At any sign of outsiders anywhere in the vicinity, it would shout the whole story to the Solar System and Alpha Centauri.”
“What good in that?” Aleka inquired.
“Federation units could not then declare they were the discoverers,” Kenmuir said. “Niolente was probably overrating the deviousness of her opponents— reading hers into them—but in any event, the arrangement exists to this day. No one can approach without touching off the news, except by using the proper pass code; and apparently that information perished with her.”
“Couldn’t the system be nullified?”
“Doubtless, though the effort would be considerable. Among other things, some robotic weapons are also in place. The job was never done, because there was no reason to. The Peace Authority—or, rather, a few top-level officials and the nascent cybercosm— became the sole inheritors of the secret. They’ve kept it ever since.”
“Why?”
“At first, I’d guess, simply to avoid provoking theLunarians further. Establishing a republic and reconciling them to it was amply hard already. Later, as the cybercosm increased its capabilities and influence, it must have decided for reasons of its own to continue the policy. In the course of a generation or two, the number of humans who were told was brought sharply down. Close to zero, maybe. At least, this is the explanation that occurs to me for how Proserpina has stayed unknown.”
“Till now,” she said ferociously.
He responded with bleakness. “Chances are, it will remain so. We didn’t read as far as the useful data, orbital elements and the rest. If we tried to make our story public, we’d be called hoaxers or dements, and quite possibly committed for treatment. We have nothing in support of it but our naked word, and half of that is nothing but conjecture. The likelihood of our gaining anything more is … ridiculously small.”
“We’re taking the shot, though,” she declared.
“Yes, we are.” Alone, he might well have surrendered.
The car fled onward.
“But it doesn’t make sense,” she whispered at last. “Why this secrecy? What harm if Lilisaire leads a few Lunarians off to Proserpina? Give them time, and they’d make it come alive, same as the Moon. And it’d bleed off their opposition to the Habitat. What reasonable objection can the—the authorities have?”
She had’not said “the cybercosm.” Dared she?
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I honestly can’t imagine.”
They passed a branch tubeway, curving off before it straightened and pointed southward over the horizon. It was behind them in less than a second. However, it had drawn his attention aft. Luna stood wan and waxing above the east. There had this wild hunt of his begun, there had its course been- set, long and long ago. T
JL es,” Dagny Beynac sighed. “It is too much.”
“But you can’t let go,” said Anson Guthrie almost as softly. .
“Should I? You always held that nobody’s indispensable, and the idea that anybody is means the believers are in bad trouble.”
Her white head drooped. She leaned back into her lounger and let it shape itself to her gauntness and warm the shivering out. Eyelids fell. They lifted again and she beheld the familiar room, old furniture, young flowers, the viewscreen tuned to Earth and full of sunlight, bright water, forest, the house on Vancouver Island and children at play on its lawn. “Yeah,” Guthrie agreed.
The strength to talk flowed slowly back. He waited. Today he had come in a special body, four-legged, four-armed, but with two hands that looked and felt very like human hands. Besides the sensor-speaker turret, on top was a holocylinder in which he generated the appearance of living, middle-aged Guthrie. It must be difficult to control all of that at once. Now and then the image stiffened to a three-dimensional picture. Otherwise it spoke, smiled, regarded her with love as if it and not the turret were what actually saw. She did not know who else had ever encountered him like this. Maybe no one.