He smiled. “Unfortunately, what shops may stock it are not yet open. For haste’s sake, I ordered mere field rations stowed. But recalling you also like moonfruit, I brought these from my home.” He gave her a bag.
Nor did it make sense that her eyes should sting. They could be absolute darlings when they chose, her Lunarians, wholly human. Well, God damn it, that was what they were. “Gracias. Thanks. I, I’ll think of you from now on whenever I taste moonfruit.”
“Need you further help?”
“Mainly that you keep the city calm.”
“I have been preparing through these past day-cycles,” he said grimly.
“You’ll soon hear news that will change everything. I don’t know what the changes will be, nor do I dare tell you more here where we could be overheard, but expect a huge surprise.”
“While you fare alone to cope.” The oblique eyes searched her. “Have you the potence of body for it?”
“I’d better.”
“Then fare you victoriously, mother of us.” Inalante took her hand and bowed deeply over it.
He was no revolutionary, she knew. Nor was he a lackey. He cared little or naught what the constitutional structure might be, as long as he and his were left unmolested to pursue their own ends. Since that required peace, he had accepted the mayoralty here, in an uncontested election, to help maintain it. From this position he could maneuver for changes in rules that he disliked, meanwhile conniving at enough evasion of them to keep people somewhat content without provoking the Authority to intervene.
No doubt a majority of Moondwellers felt more or less likewise. But their ambitions were seldom of a kind that Federation law would much hinder. It was the powerful and the radical who strained against restraints, and it was they who would break the system or be broken by it. Or both, Dagny thought.She went to her gate, through the gangtube, and into her vehicle.
The crew were a pair of constabulary officers, pilot and reserve, Terrans. They greeted the lady Beynac with deference and promised her breakfast as soon as they were in stable flight. She harnessed into her seat and relaxed.
Liftoff went deftly, at little more than two Lunar gravities. Altitude attained, the seat swung on its gimbals as the hull brought its length horizontal. A snort of thrust followed; then weight leveled off and there was only the almost subliminally faint thrum and hiss of downjets holding the mass aloft. Dagny’s engineering years came back to her and she spent a minute estimating how much more fuel-expensive this flight was, over the distance she must cover, than the suborbital she had tried for, besides being slower. But the idea was to be able to cruise freely and set. down wherever you wanted, on a moment’s notice. When you had a pinch of antimatter to season your exhaust, efficiency was no big consideration.
The reserve brought her tray and, seeing she was not in a conversational mood, withdrew. The coffee wasn’t bad but except for blessed Inalante’s gift the food was as dull as usual. Dagny ate dutifully. For the most part her look went out the window at her side to mountains, maria, craters, wrinkled below the sun and a sickle Earth. Now and then a work of humankind gleamed into view, a dome cluster, a monorail, a relay mast, a solar collector, a microwave transmitter beaming the energy invisibly to the mother world. Glare drowned nearly all stars. Once, though, she saw a spark soar across the high black and vanish into distance.
Probably a cargo pod, catapult-launched from Leyburg, she judged. It would be loaded with something, chemicals or biologicals or nanos or whatever else was best produced under Lunar conditions. Her glimpse being insufficient for her to gauge the trajectory, she couldn’t tell what the pod was like. It might be meant for aerodynamic descent on Earth, parachute landing on Mars, rendezvous with L-5 or an asteroid or an outpost farther yet. Never mind. Wherever bound, it bore a magnificent achievement, and she had been among the builders of the groundwork.
But catapults—
Easy to hurl anything off the Moon, with its low escape velocity and its lavishness of virtually cost-free energy. The trouble lay in that “anything.” A hundred-tonne mass, shaped to penetrate atmosphere, would strike on Earth with the force of a tactical nuclear warhead.