The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Read Online Free Page B

the
Authority—then buying it back a second time as flushing water—then
giving it again to the Authority with valuable solids added—then buying
it a third time at still higher price for farming—then you sell that
wheat to the Authority at their price—and buy power from the Authority to
grow it, again at their price! Lunar power—not one kilowatt up from
Terra. It comes from Lunar ice and Lunar steel, or sunshine spilled on
Luna’s soil—all put together by loonies! Oh, you rockheads, you
deserve to starve!”
    She
got silence more respectful than whistles. At last a peevish voice said,
“What do you expect us to do,
gospazha
? Throw rocks at
Warden?”
    Wyoh
smiled. “Yes, we could throw rocks. But the solution is so simple that
you all know it. Here in Luna we’re rich. Three million hardworking,
smart, skilled people, enough water, plenty of everything, endless power,
endless cubic. But what we don’t have is a free market. We must get rid
of the Authority!”
    “Yes—but
how?”
    “Solidarity.
In HKL we’re learning. Authority charges too much for water, don’t
buy. It pays too little for ice, don’t sell. It holds monopoly on export,
don’t export. Down in Bombay they want wheat. If it doesn’t arrive,
the day will come when brokers come here to bid for it—at triple or more
the present prices!”
    “What
do we do in meantime? Starve?”
    Same
peevish voice—Wyoming picked him out, let her head roll in that old
gesture by which a Loonie fem says, “You’re too fat for me!”
She said, “In your case, cobber, it wouldn’t hurt.”
    Guffaws
shut him up. Wyoh went on, “No one need starve, Fred Hauser, fetch your
drill to Hong Kong; the Authority doesn’t own our water and air system
and we pay what ice is worth. You with the bankrupt farm—if you have the
guts to admit that you’re bankrupt, come to Hong Kong and start over. We
have a chronic labor shortage, a hard worker doesn’t starve.” She
looked around and added, “I’ve said enough. It’s up to
you”—left platform, sat down between Shorty and myself.
    She
was trembling. Shorty patted her hand; she threw him a glance of thanks, then
whispered to me, “How did I do?”
    “Wonderful,”
I assured her. “Terrific!” She seemed reassured.
    But
I hadn’t been honest. “Wonderful” she had been, at swaying
crowd. But oratory is a null program. That we were slaves I had known all my
life—and nothing could be done about it. True, we weren’t bought
and sold—but as long as Authority held monopoly over what we had to have
and what we could sell to buy it, we were slaves.
    But
what could we do? Warden wasn’t our owner. Had he been, some way could be
found to eliminate him. But Lunar Authority was not in Luna, it was on
Terra—and we had not one ship, not even small hydrogen bomb. There
weren’t even hand guns in Luna, though what we would do with guns I did
not know. Shoot each other, maybe.
    Three
million, unarmed and helpless—and eleven billion of them … with
ships and bombs and weapons. We could be a nuisance—but how long will
papa take it before baby gets spanked?
    I
wasn’t impressed. As it says in Bible, God fights on side of heaviest
artillery.
    They
cackled again, what to do, how to organize, and so forth, and again we heard
that “shoulder to shoulder” noise. Chairman had to use gavel and I
began to fidget.
    But
sat up when I heard familiar voice: “Mr. Chairman! May I have the
indulgence of the house for five minutes?”
    I
looked around. Professor Bernardo de la Paz—which could have guessed from
old-fashioned way of talking even if hadn’t known voice. Distinguished
man with wavy white hair, dimples in cheeks, and voice that
smiled—Don’t know how old he was but was old when I first met him,
as a boy.
    He
had been transported before I was born but was not a lag. He was a political
exile like Warden, but a subversive and instead of fat job like
“warden,” Professor had been dumped, to live or