The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Read Online Free PDF Page A

starve.
    No
doubt he could have gone to work in any school then in L-City but he
didn’t. He worked a while washing dishes, I’ve heard, then as
babysitter, expanding into a nursery school, and then into a crèche.
When I met him he was running a crèche, and a boarding and day school,
from nursery through primary, middle, and high schools, employed co-op thirty
teachers, and was adding college courses.
    Never
boarded with him but I studied under him. I was opted at fourteen and my new
family sent me to school, as I had had only three years, plus spotty tutoring.
My eldest wife was a firm woman and made me go to school.
    I
liked Prof. He would teach anything. Wouldn’t matter that he knew nothing
about it; if pupil wanted it, he would smile and set a price, locate materials,
stay a few lessons ahead. Or barely even if he found it tough—never
pretended to know more than he did. Took algebra from him and by time we
reached cubics I corrected his probs as often as he did mine—but he
charged into each lesson gaily.
    I
started electronics under him, soon was teaching him. So he stopped charging
and we went along together until he dug up an engineer willing to daylight for
extra money—whereupon we both paid new teacher and Prof tried to stick
with me, thumb-fingered and slow, but happy to be stretching his mind.
    Chairman
banged gavel. “We are glad to extend to Professor de la Paz as much time
as he wants—and you chooms in back sign off! Before I use this mallet on
skulls.”
    Prof
came forward and they were as near silent as Loonies ever are; he was
respected. “I shan’t be long,” he started in. Stopped to look
at Wyoming, giving her up-and-down and whistling. “Lovely
señorita,” he said, “can this poor one be forgiven? I have
the painful duty of disagreeing with your eloquent manifesto.”
    Wyoh
bristled. “Disagree how? What I said was true!”
    “Please!
Only on one point. May I proceed?”
    “Uh
… go ahead.”
    “You
are right that the Authority must go. It is ridiculous—pestilential, not
to be borne—that we should be ruled by an irresponsible dictator in all
our essential economy! It strikes at the most basic human right, the right to
bargain in a free marketplace. But I respectfully suggest that you erred in
saying that we should sell wheat to Terra—or rice, or any food—at
any price. We must not export food!”
    That
wheat farmer broke in. “What am I going to do with all that wheat?”
    “Please!
It would be right to ship wheat to Terra … if tonne for tonne they
returned it. As water. As nitrates. As phosphates. Tonne for tonne. Otherwise
no price is high enough.”
    Wyoming
said “Just a moment” to farmer, then to Prof: “They
can’t and you know it. It’s cheap to ship downhill, expensive to
ship uphill. But we don’t need water and plant chemicals, what we need is
not so massy. Instruments. Drugs. Processes. Some machinery. Control tapes.
I’ve given this much study, sir. If we can get fair prices in a free
market—”
    “Please,
miss! May I continue?”
    “Go
ahead. I want to rebut.”
    “Fred
Hauser told us that ice is harder to find. Too true—bad news now and
disastrous for our grandchildren. Luna City should use the same water today we
used twenty years ago … plus enough ice mining for population increase.
But we use water once—one full cycle, three different ways. Then we ship
it to India. As wheat. Even though wheat is vacuum-processed, it contains
precious water. Why ship water to India? They have the whole Indian Ocean! And
the remaining mass of that grain is even more disastrously expensive, plant
foods still harder to come by, even though we extract them from rock. Comrades,
harken to me! Every load you ship to Terra condemns your grandchildren to slow
death. The miracle of photosynthesis, the plant-and-animal cycle, is a closed
cycle. You have opened it—and your lifeblood runs downhill to Terra. You
don’t need higher prices, one cannot eat money!