Robert Heinlein - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

They had erected a platform under big news video on south face. Adam Selene greeted us from video screen and now Prof's face and voice were projected from it, much magnified, over his head--did not have to shout. But did have to pause after every sentence; crowd roars drowned out even bull voice from screen--and no doubt pauses helped, as rest. But Prof no longer seemed old, tired, ill; being back inside The Rock seemed to be tonic he needed. And me, too! Was wonderful to be right weight, feel strong, breathe pure, replenished air of own city.

No mean city! Impossible to get all of L-City inside Old Dome--but looked as if they tried. I estimated an area ten meters square, tried to count heads, got over two hundred not half through and gave up. Lunatic placed crowd at thirty thousand, seems impossible.

Prof's words reached more nearly three million; video carried scene to those who could not crowd into Old Dome, cable and relay flashed it across lonely maria to all warrens. He grabbed chance to tell of slave future Authority planned for them. Waved that "white paper." "Here it is!" he cried. "Your fetters! Your leg irons! Will you wear them?"

"NO!"

"They say you must. They say they will H-bomb... then survivors will surrender and put on these chains. Will you?"

"NO! NEVER!"

"Never," agreed Prof. "They threaten to send troops... more and more troops to rape and murder. We shall fight them."

"DA!"

"We shall fight them on the surface, we shall fight them in the tubes, we shall fight them in the corridors! If die we must, we shall die free!"

"Yes! Ja-da! Tell 'em, tell 'em!"

"And if we die, let history write: This was Luna's finest hour! Give us liberty... or give us death!"

Some of that sounded familiar. But his words came out fresh and new; I joined in roars. Look... I knew we couldn't whip Terra--I'm tech by trade and know that an H-missile doesn't care how brave you are. But was ready, too. If they wanted a fight, let's have it!

Prof let them roar, then led them in "Battle Hymn of the Republic," Simon's version. Adam appeared on screen again, took over leading it and sang with them, and we tried to slip away, off back of platform, with help of stilyagi led by Slim. But women didn't want to let us go and lads aren't at their best in trying to stop ladies; they broke through. Was twenty-two hundred before we four, Wyoh, Prof, Stu, self, were locked in room L of Raffles, where Adam-Mike joined us by video. I was starved by then, all were, so I ordered dinner and Prof insisted that we eat before reviewing plans.

Then we got down to business.

Adam started by asking me to read aloud white paper, for his benefit and for Comrade Wyoming-- "But first, Comrade Manuel, if you have the recordings you made Earthside, could you transmit them by phone at high speed to my office? I'll have them transcribed for study--all I have so far are the coded summaries Comrade Stuart sent up."

I did so, knowing Mike would study them at once, phrasing was part of "Adam Selene" myth--and decided to talk to Prof about letting Stu in on facts. If Stu was to be in executive cell, pretending was too clumsy.

Feeding recordings into Mike at overspeed took five minutes, reading aloud another thirty. That done, Adam said, "Professor, the reception was more successful than I had counted on, due to your speech. I think we should push the embargo through Congress at once. I can send out a call tonight for a session at noon tomorrow. Comments?"

I said, "Look, those yammerheads will kick it around for weeks. If you must put it up to them--can't see why--do as you did with Declaration. Start late, jam it through after midnight using own people."

Adam said, "Sorry, Manuel. I'm getting caught up on events Earthside and you have catching up to do here. It's no longer the same group. Comrade Wyoming?"

"Mannie dear, it's an elected Congress now. They must pass it. Congress is what government we have."

I said slowly, "You held election and turned things over to them? Everything? Then what are we doing?" Looked at Prof, expecting explosion. My objections would not be on his grounds--but couldn't see any use in swapping one talk-talk for another. At least first group had been so loose we could pack it--this new group would be glued to seats.

Prof was undisturbed. Fitted fingertips together and looked relaxed. "Manuel, I don't think the situation is as bad as you seem to feel that it is. In each age it is necessary to adapt to the popular mythology. At one time kings were anointed by Deity, so the problem was to see to it that Deity anointed the tight candidate. In this age the myth is 'the will of the people'... but the problem changes only superficially. Comrade Adam and I have had long discussions about how to determine the will of the people. I venture to suggest that this solution is one we can work with."

"Well... okay. But why weren't we told? Stu, did you know?"

"No, Mannie. There was no reason to tell me." He shrugged. "I'm a monarchist, I wouldn't have been interested. But I go along with Prof that in this day and age elections are a necessary ritual."

Prof said, "Manuel, it wasn't necessary to tell us till we got back; you and I had other work to do. Comrade Adam and dear Comrade Wyoming handled it in our absence... so let's find out what they did before we judge what they've done."

"Sorry. Well, Wyoh?"

"Mannie, we didn't leave everything to chance. Adam and I decided that a Congress of three hundred would be about right. Then we spent hours going over the Party lists--plus prominent people not in the Party. At last we had a list of candidates--a list that included some from the Ad-Hoc Congress; not all were yammerheads, we included as many as we could. Then Adam phoned each one and asked him--or her--if he would serve... binding him to secrecy in the meantime. Some we had to replace.

"When we were ready, Adam spoke on video, announced that it was time to carry out the Party's pledge of free elections, set a date, said that everybody over sixteen could vote, and that all anyone had to do to be a candidate was to get a hundred chops on a nominating petition and post it in Old Dome, or the public notice place for his warren. Oh, yes, thirty temporary election districts, ten Congressmen from each district--that let all but the smallest warrens be at least one district."

"So you had it lined up and Party ticket went through?"

"Oh, no, dear! There wasn't any Party ticket--officially. But we were ready with our candidates... and I must say my stilyagi did a smart job getting chops on nominations; our optings were posted the first day. Many other people posted; there were over two thousand candidates. But there was only ten days from announcement to election, and we knew what we wanted whereas the opposition was split up. It wasn't necessary for Adam to come out publicly and endorse candidates. It worked out--you won by seven thousand votes, dear, while your nearest rival got less than a thousand."

"I won?"

"You won, I won, Professor won, Comrade Clayton won, and just about everybody we thought should be in the Congress. It wasn't hard. Although Adam never endorsed anyone, I didn't hesitate to let our comrades know who was favored. Simon poked his finger in, too. And we do have good connections with newspapers. I wish you had been here election night, watching the results. Exciting!"

"How did you go about nose counting? Never known how election works. Write names on a piece of paper?"

"Oh, no, we used a better system... because, after all, some of our best people can't write. We used banks for voting places, with bank clerks identifying customers and customers identifying members of their families and neighbors who don't have bank accounts--and people voted orally and the clerks punched the votes into the banks' computers with the voter watching, and results were all tallied at once in Luna City clearinghouse. We voted everybody in less than three hours and results were printed out just minutes after voting stopped."