The attendant who brought the tea bowed and left. He was young, in hard condition, his civilian clothing suggestive of a uniform, Dagny suspected he was secret service. The door slid shut behind him. For a moment she heard silence.
“Please be seated,” Zhao Haifeng said. His English came fluent, in a choppy accent and high voice. He was tall, gaunt, white-haired, austerely clad. “Does tobacco annoy you?”
“No, go ahead,” Dagny replied. She refrained from expressing a hope that his cancer shots were current. If Luna must have a proconsul, he could be worse than this former professor of sociodynamics. Or so she supposed. Today might change her opinion.
They took their seats. Zhao brought forth a cigarette, touched his lighter ring to it, inhaled, streamed smoke from his nostrils. Dagny wondered if he was as tense as she was. A hint of acridity reached her.Ventilation sensors took note and it blew away on a piny breeze.
“You were most kind to come in person,” Zhao said. “I know how busy you are.”
“Your Excellency’s … request … was somewhat pressing,” Dagny answered.
“Quite apart from the security of communication lines,” the governor explained, “I am archaic enough to find a holographic image an inadequate substitute for flesh-and-blood presence, when matters of grave import are to be discussed.”
Also, Dagny thought, her coming to him was a symbol, an act of submission. Did he expect it to quell her, however subtly? When she called Anson Guthrie about the demand, the jefe had grinned and said, “The lamb requires the she-wolf to visit him.” But that was a jape. Behind the Confucian facade, this was no sheep whom she faced.
“Can we do that?” she asked. “You realize I no longer have any official standing of any kind.”
Zhao lifted a palm. “Please, Madame Beynac. We are in privacy. You know full well that in some respects you have more power on Luna than I do.”
Draw him out. “How? I was the Tycho Region delegate to the Coordinating Committee. That’s all.”
“You were elected its chairman—“ Zhao inclined his head “—by which it did itself honor.” He pulled hard on his cigarette. “Let us not continue the public charade. Time is as valuable to you as to me. The Committee lives on in the hearts of the colonists. It is what saw them through the anarchic years. Most of its former members have close ties to Fireball Enterprises, which has become unhealthily dominant in space.” Dagny bridled inwardly but let that pass. “The Lunar Authority is new, unwelcomed by many, often perceived as irrelevant to their real concerns, or as a burden. My duty is to improve this situation.”
Surprised despite herself, Dagny murmured, “Your Excellency is very frank.”
Zhao smiled. “Entrenous, madame.” Since hearing from him, she had prepared her thoughts and words as best she was able. “But may I then say you exaggerate? The Committee was never more than ad hoc, formed because we were getting one emergency after another and somebody had to take charge.” Her mind completed the sentence: Take charge, when the Grand Jihad erupted across Earth, an interwoven economy collapsed in country after country, revolutions and lawlessness ripped whole societies asunder, the brittle old United Nations broke into shards, nobody on the planet had serious attention to spare for a few tens of thousands on the Moon. “Fireball helped, yes. You might even say it saved us. But it didn’t take over government. It couldn’t have.”
“At any rate,” said Zhao dryly, “it chose not to. Perhaps that was because M. Guthrie foresaw that you Selenites would perforce set aside the conflicting fragments of national authority and establish your own.”
“Senor, you know we never meant the Committee to be permanent. Didn’t we cooperate in full with you and your people after you arrived?”
“You did not resist.”
“We’re as glad to have a single law here as we are to have a World Federation and a Peace Authority on Earth.” In principle, Dagny thought. In practice, it depended on how that law read. “Anyway, to get back to the subject, you’ve dissolved the Committee.”
“I am not certain it was wise to do that so soon.” Zhao lifted his teacup. “However, such was the decision in Hiroshima.”