“We’ve been in touch with them, their father and I, briefly. We did not argue rights or wrongs.” They never did any longer. “And we’ve followed the newscasts.” She must not go passive, she must keep the initiative, make Zhao respond to her. “For favor, though, brief me on what you see the issues to be. We can’t talk sense before we’ve straightened out what each of us is talking about.”
He nodded. “As you wish. I am anxious to make peace.”
“Peace hasn’t been breached, has it?” ^
“Not yet—openly—not quite. I cannot help speculating whether their aim is to force the Authority to take the first unretraceable step.” Zhao made an understated production of drinking more tea. “Let me show you a recorded presentation. I have not permitted its release thus far, because it could prove inflammatory.”
“Good of you, your Excellency. Look, I don’t want trouble either/Nobody in their right mind does.”
His glance hinted that that might not include the young, the true Lunarians. What he said was, “Stipulated. This sequence was meant for transmission to Peace Authority headquarters on Earth, as a threedimensional account of what happened. It was prepared by order of Chief of Constabulary Levine, under the direction of the officer who had been in command of the mission. Anticipating difficulties, he had had a continuous record kept. For purposes of clarity this has been edited and commentary added, but it remains objective and unbiased.”
“Does any such thing exist where people are concerned?”
His smile flickered wry. “True, they would not interpret it in Hiroshima as your Selenites would. Therefore I have sequestered it. I have not decided whether to release it. Please try to see my dilemma.”
He rose and went to the console. Dagny got up too and took a bounding low-£ turn around the room. It darkened. The scene from China went out of the viewscreen. They moved their chairs to face that way and sat down again. She breathed deep and made her muscles ease, like undoing a row of knots.
A man’s image appeared, uniformed, standing in a Spartanly functional studio. Lip movements showed he was not speaking the English that a translator program furnished: “Mohandas V. Sundaram, colonel, Peace Authority of the World Federation, reporting on an incident—“ He went on to give date, hour, precise location, and then, in the same clipped voice, background.
“During the Grand Jihad and the chaotic period afterward, the effective government on Luna was a self-created Coordinating Committee.” Unfair, Dagny thought. Colonial officers had agreed on the necessity, but the delegates were elected. Admittedly, several Earth side governments denounced the action, though they’d been in no position to do anything about it. “This confined itself to matters of public safety and essential services.” What else could or should it have done? “Numerous colonists and associations of colonists took advantage of the situation to commence operations hitherto illegal, notably in extractive and manufacturing industries. Indeed, theCommittee turned a number of facilities over to them.” Somebody had to operate the plants. “They used these not only to produce needed goods, but to make new capabilities for themselves,” The multiplier effect, thrice powerful when you started with robotic and molecular technology.
The reflection flashed through Dagny: The Renewal had simply been an extremist faction on an Earth gone generally ideological. People everywhere had been apt to regard productivity the way the medieval Church regarded sex, as inherently sinful, destructive, to be engaged in no more than was required for the survival of the race. Anyway, such was the ideal, and ideals could also constrain the thinking of the majority who didn’t really live by them. Wherefore people on the Moon must conform. And Fireball folk, who did not accept this, grew closer, more loyal, to each other than to an unfriendly society around them … like medieval Jews?
Her attention had wandered. She snatched it back: “—claims to ‘administration’ of large tracts were routinely franchised by the Committee. These franchises gave exclusive rights to exploitation, forbade trespass, and could be bought and sold. To all intents and purposes, they were the property rights in extraterrestrial real estate that the United Nations had enjoined. The World Federation has affirmed the prohibition. The Lunar Authority must enforce it.”