Flatlander - Larry Niven [114]
“How?”
“Yeah. You don’t have the power to pressure Earth. But you think you’ve got the lunar economy by the throat.”
“Gil, I push where I think something will give.”
“The moon might be stronger than you think, or more determined. You could win a war if it comes to that, but will you like yourselves afterward? And can you keep the UN neutral? Belt ships using asteroids as missiles; we wouldn’t like that this close to Earth.”
These casual conversations were getting to be more important than the sessions. We took to adjourning in midafternoon. We formed dinner triads: a lunie, a Belter, and a flatlander meeting to seek compromise while full bellies made us mellow. For some of us it worked. Some got indigestion.
A nightmare started me off again.
That fourth day, with three hours to go before dinner with Charles Ward and Hildegarde Quifting, I had gone to my room and flopped on the bed to watch the news.
I remember this item: Mary de Santa Rita Lisboa, the Brazilian planetologist, was doing some excavating south of Tycho. Early that morning she had waded into a dust pool to place some equipment. Her feet grew cold, then numb. She grew frightened almost too late. By the time she reached the edge, her legs were frozen to the knees. Before help reached her, she had fallen hard enough to break ribs and rip a pinhole leak in her suit. Ten minutes passed before she recognized the pain in her ears for what it was. She had slapped a patch on the gash and kept going, on frozen legs, with both ears and one lung ruined by decompression.
A basically interesting tale, yes? But what I remember is the patronizing tone, as if nothing above the level of a plains ape would have done such a damn-fool thing. The rest of the news was local and dull. Presently it put me to sleep.
I shouldn’t sleep in the afternoon.
Wandering through a dark, blurred forest, I found Naomi asleep in an ornate twentieth-century coffin, the kind with a mattress. I knew just how to wake her. I approached her coffin/bed, bent, and kissed her. She fell apart. I tried to put her together with my hands …
And woke with questions chasing each other through my head.
… Why would anyone lie herself into the organ banks? It was her own business, I told myself; she’d made that clear. But what could she be hiding that would be worth that?
Another crime?
… She had phoned me my first night on the moon. Why? Not because she was eager to see me again. She knew I was an ARM. Was she checking up on me to see what I suspected?
… She had claimed to be exploring the badlands west of the city. Call that her alibi. Alibi for what? Where could she have gone in four hours on foot?
I was hooked.
In my copious free time, with ten minutes to go before a dinner session with Charles Ward and Hildegarde Quifting, I tried to call Laura Drury. Her phone told me that she was asleep; please call back after 1230 tomorrow. My answer wasn’t recorded, I hope.
Late that night I summoned up a map of the city environs and spent some time studying it.
I called Laura again after the next day’s morning session. Laura was in uniform, but she hadn’t left her room. I said, “I can’t stand the suspense anymore. Did Naomi in fact reach a holding tank?”
She blinked. “Of course.”
“Is this of your own knowledge?”
“I haven’t seen her lying in the tank, no. I’d have heard if there was an escape.” She studied my image. “It wasn’t just casual sex, was it?”
“I left Earth to mine the asteroids because Naomi married someone else.”
“I’m sorry. We tend to think … I mean …”
“I know; flatlanders are easy. Have you got a minute to talk?”
“Gil, why don’t you stop tormenting yourself?”
“I got to wondering. Naomi was a computer programmer. It was one point against her. The jury assumed she could have got to the message lasers without leaving a record in the computer. Do you believe that?”
“I don’t know how good she was. Do you?”
“No. I got to wondering if a computer programmer that good could steal a puffer, again with no