Collected Short Fiction, page 39
That is, the entire ownership of stock in the Moon Company had passed into the hands of the colonists. When first organized, this company had possessed in fee simple, “the Earth’s satellite, known as the Moon, with all mines, manufactories, smelters, refineries, and all other buildings and improvements, of whatsoever kind, that may be hereafter erected thereon.”
It was, however, quite evident that the Moon Company did not own such mines as those of my father’s, which, in fact, it had never claimed. On the other hand, it did own and operate some of the largest and most productive properties on the moon, and it had built and controlled the great cities and the vast systems of highways about them.
The whole situation was rather complicated and confusing, for Metals Corporation still insisted on tampering with the affairs of the Moon Company. And it ruthlessly enforced its monopoly on trade with the moon, its battleships of space ramming any other vessel found in the lanes.
In this year, when I returned home—it was 2326; I was then twenty-four years old—a great change took place in conditions on the moon. It was due to the growing sense of independence of the moon people. The synthetic food factories and the crater farms seemed a success; it looked as if the satellite might be able to look after herself, with little help from the Metals Corporation.
The Metals officials still apparently considered the moon a valuable property, to be made to yield a good revenue, not a growing nation, to be justly governed. It still insisted upon the purchase of metal on the moon, at prices set by its own official, refusing to permit private trade with the earth. This trade monopoly, and the dependence of the colonists on imports from earth, was evidently intended to keep the moon in subjection, even though the colonists controlled the Moon Company.
For years it had been known that the prices of metal on the moon were about a third of those at Pittsburgh. But the colonists had a deep love for the Metals Corporation, an abiding faith in the wisdom and the justice of its Directors. They considered their own debt to the Corporation, for their protection in an alien world, and for means of communication with the planet of their fathers. They thought of the perils faced by the ships that carried the metal to earth. And the ingots had been regularly sold to Metals, at the price it wished to pay.
But in 2324, prices on all metals were uniformly and arbitrarily lowered by ten per cent, for no stated reason other than that Metals wished to increase the power of her great space-fleets. The corporation insisted that the colonists were bound to sell their products to her, and at whatever price she thought just. And the moon, she said, needed the protection of the fleets.
THE result of the reduction of the prices of metal was a protest in unison from the people of the moon, that they were quite willing to build and equip ships of their own, and under the command of the Moon Company, but that they objected to supporting a fleet of vessels maintained largely to keep an unjust monopoly on commerce.
There was, at the time, no hint of rebellion, merely the gravest of petitions from the Directors of the Moon Company. But Metals proceeded to put the reduced rates into effect, and miners who refused to accept them found their warehouses guarded by watchmen with D-rays, on the alert to see that the ingots did not fall into the hands of smugglers.
The important result of all the confusion, with the practical suspension of trade while the boycott went on, was a great amount of discussion, and the revival of keenest public interest in the charter of the Moon Company.
A few patriotic spirits, of whom Warrington was a leader, got in touch with most of the stockholders of the Moon Company, who were scattered all over the moon. Later in the year several score of delegates met in Theophilus to hold an Assembly of Directors, the greatest that had been held since the stock passed out of the hands of the terrestrial holding company.
A small gathering it was, perhaps, but one of earnest and able men, burning with zeal for the cause of liberty and justice on the moon. Warrington was there, lofty, devoted and brilliant man, who had been in youth an officer in the space fleets, where he had learned the modern art of war. He had more recently won distinction in a long campaign against a rebellious army of the wild M’Dawils—one of the most blood-thirsty tribes of Selenites—defeating them in a brilliant battle near the Hercynian Mountains, on the border of the moon. Gardener was at the meeting, the profound philosopher, clear-headed, practical, far-sighted. Henry Patrick was there, the youthful orator whose later fiery speeches in every lunar city did much to inflame the moonfolk with the spirit of revolution, and my father, John Adams, an able, influential man, skillful financier and sincere statesman.
The old charter of the Moon Company was examined and discussed. Quite explicitly, Metals had granted it the full ownership of the moon, with all the mines and cities upon it, as well as the right to protect its territorial rights by force of arms, to build space fliers and to carry on trade with earth.
These latter provisions must not have seemed important when the charter was drawn up, since the Moon Company was to be only a subsidiary corporation to Metals. But now, even though Metals had never recognized the independence of the moon people, these old charter rights seemed important guarantees of freedom.
After a long and rather stormy session in one of the great auditoriums of Theophilus—there were many so loyal to Metals that they felt it an act of treason to question the wisdom of its government of the moon—the Assembly passed the “Assertion of Right.”
That famous document merely sets forth in simple language the claims of the moon people to the rights and privileges of self-government, of free ownership of mines and cities, and of freedom of commerce with the earth, as granted in the charter of the Moon Company.
The document was sent to the Directors of the Metals Corporation, at Pittsburgh, as “an humble petition from your loyal colonists on the moon.” The answer was simple and decisive: Under the present system, the moon had prospered for two centuries. Why change it?
And the same ship, that brought back that answer, carried orders that no metal was to be purchased for more than the new low price, and that anyone storing metal about his mine, or attempting to ship it to other points than the great space-ports, was liable for prosecution for smuggling.
With the arrival of the news, an electric wave of excitement ran over the moon. There was much wild talk of war and independence, and below it the awakening of the new ideal of liberty went steadily onward.
In January, 2325, the Assembly of the Directors of the Moon Company met again, in a new session that was to last for six long years, until the end of the greatest war of history.
These men again discussed the Assertion of Right, and in a few days passed the “Assertion of Equality,” on January 24, which has since been celebrated as the birthday of the moon’s liberty. It stated that the Moon Company was a free and independent corporation, of rank and power equal to those of any, and entitled to her representatives on the United Board of Directors.
At various times in the past, when there had seemed to be need of protection against the pirates of space, the cities of the moon had advanced funds for the construction of space ships, which had been built in the Metals shops at Pittsburgh, and commissioned in the name of the Moon Company. There were perhaps a half dozen of these vessels with the fleets of the Metals Corporation—it was upon one of them that Warrington had served. They were the property of the Moon Company, and usually manned and officered by men from the moon, though they sailed under commands of the admirals of earth.
One of the first acts of the Assembly had been to declare these ships to be under its immediate authority, and to command them to land at Theophilus, to await the orders of the directors of a sovereign corporation. Five of them soon appeared above the glass walls of the city. Technically they had mutinied in leaving the fleet; they were refused landing space at the space-port, though the admiral was too uncertain of the temper of the moonfolk to take more drastic action against them. They came down, with some little damage to equipment, in the desert, a few miles from the walls.
The Assembly, in order to test its claimed rights of commerce with the earth, announced that one of the ships would sail for New York at once. Thousands of tons of metal were piled up in the warehouses of the city; there was no difficulty in getting a cargo.
On February 6, 2325, when the sun was not four days high at Theophilus, thousands gathered in the streets and on the roofs to watch the departure of the ship, the Sandoval. The rest of us had come with father to attend the Assembly meeting; I was among the cheering, madly gay throngs upon the broad glass roof. It was a motley crowd, of white-clad farmers and grimy miners, of grimy mechanics and brightly attired society folk, haranguing one another, singing patriotic songs—people of many races and of a hundred trades, but all welded into one by the new born spirit of freedom.
Far to westward lay the silver space ships upon the swarthy desert, like globes of gleaming white quicksilver scattered upon a dark rock. The sunshine w-as hot and bright, painting the ships with silver flame, setting them forth very vividly against the black shadows of the hills behind them.
Faint clouds of many-colored mist swirled up about one of the argent spheres, and very slowly, it seemed, it was lifted into the air. A great shout—a human cry that rolled over the city’s roof like the roar of a breaking sea—arose with the ship into space.
In a few minutes the vessel was out of sight to the naked eye; but still the throng waited, not a mere excited mass of people, but feeling the pulse of awakening nationality, fused into a single unit by an awakening spirit of patriotism.
The Sandoval was still within good view of the telescopes that project by the hundred from the towers and domes that rise a little from the city’s vast expanse of level roof, when the catastrophe took place. There were a hundred observers; and the whole city knew of the outrage a few minutes after it happened.
The outbound Sandoval, fifty miles above the city, was rammed by a warship.
The great round vessel, rather clumsy at best, and heavily laden with metal, fell an easy victim to the slender, modern, cigar-shaped warship of Metals. As a silver arrow might pierce and burst a bright soap bubble, the battleship sped upon the Sandoval, ripping it open with an armored prow.
Several hours later, it was reported that a mass of wreckage, laden with dead men and precious metal, had fallen beyond the three great peaks in the crater of Theophilus. But before that time, all the moon knew of the deed. And many a man, who had thought little or not at all of his relation with the earth, felt a sudden fierce desire for liberty.
On that day, the independence of the moon was born.
CHAPTER VIII
The Radium Raid
THAT cruel and deliberate outrage, the ramming of a ship of the Moon Company’s as if it had been a common pirate, set the planet afire with a flame of resentment. For the first time in the history of the moon, its inhabitants began to think of independence, to wonder if they could lead an existence without the commercial relations with the earth, without the protection of Metals Corporation.
Much was written and spoken on the subject in the next few weeks. One anonymous author published a series of eloquent and fiery appeals for liberty, called The Parting of the Ways, which were eagerly read and widely quoted. The unknown author—who, I afterward had reason to suspect, was none other than my own father—made a powerful plea for lunar independence.
The moon, he pointed out, had a population as large as the membership of several of the corporations of earth, and a wealth far greater than that of any, measured in natural resources. Certainly, he said, the moonfolk were as progressive, thrifty, and intelligent as any on earth; certainly they were capable of self-government.
The moon, he argued, was no longer dependent upon the earth for any necessary articles. The factories in the great artificial caverns below the cities turned out every variety of manufactured article, from clothing, metal goods, and building material, to drugs, medicine, and synthetic food.
The mines of the moon would not only supply all her needs in the way of metals, but their output was so indispensable to the industrial life of earth that the mother planet would be compelled to resume commerce in the end. Economically, the earth was dependent upon the moon, far more than the moon depended upon the earth.
The farms, in crater and atomic-lighted cavern, would furnish sufficient quantities of vitamine-containing fruit and vegetables. These, so long the principal importations from earth, would no longer compel commercial relations with the mother planet.
In one of the last of his papers, the daring author went so far as to suggest the possibility of a successful war with the Metals Corporation. The earth, he pointed out, would be at the vast disadvantage of maintaining a military force at the distance of nearly a quarter of a million miles from home, while the interruption of commerce would deprive it of the source of metals upon which its military strength is so largely based.
And if the moon people, he concluded, were not trained soldiers, they at least had had considerable military experience in the many bloody wars with the moon-calves; they were used to hardship and danger; they were familiar with the natural features of the moon’s topography. And if they were lacking in weapons of war, there were the great D-ray tubes used in boring mine shafts—powerful enough to bring down a space ship miles away—and the smaller pistol-like tubes used by individual miners, which would be useful hand weapons.
As might have been expected The Parting of the Ways aroused the keenest disapproval of the agents of Metals. The papers were ordered suppressed; such copies as could be gathered up were destroyed; and a reward was offered for the author, dead or alive. But despite the best of their efforts, the writer remained unknown—it was only after the death of my father, years later, that I found among his possessions the plates, from which the outlawed papers had been printed. And all the moon-read the tattered little pamphlets that were secretly passed from hand to hand.
Few, who knew my father, might have suspected him of the authorship of those terse, powerful challenges to rise to action, ringing with a brief, emphatic eloquence, simple, throbbing with sincerity and truth. For he was an aging man, an invalid who had relinquished to me much of the management of the business. He had recovered completely from his injuries in the war of 2307. While he was not able to take an active part in the war on the moon, he had more to do with it than was commonly known at the time. His heart was as strong as any patriot’s, and he did his part, despite an aged and suffering body.
As the people of the moon read the timely article in The Parting of the Ways, and pondered upon the ramming of the Sandoval, there slowly, crystallized a definite spirit of unity, that grew firmer in the conviction that the moon need no longer lean upon the long arm of the Metals Corporation.
The new spirit was first definitely shown in the “Radium Raid,” an incident which took place in New Boston, about the middle of the year.
The Metals Corporation had clung tenaciously to the lowered schedule of prices, despite the boycott of the moon. It was the boast of the new party of independence that not an ounce of metal had been sold to the Metals since the ramming of the Sandoval.
That had meant hardship to the moon people, for if no metal had gone to the earth, Metals had seen to it that no merchandise had been shipped to the moon. The people had accustomed themselves to doing without coffee and a few other luxuries that were not produced on the moon, and large subscriptions had been raised to assist miners who faced ruin for lack of a market.
Nor were the disadvantages all on one side, for on earth a thousand industries depended on the metal and other products imported from the moon, and the suspension of commerce cut off their raw material. There was a vast pressure upon officials of Metals to raise the prices and resume trade, but they stubbornly held to their point.
As the year went on, it developed there was in the warehouses at New Boston a shipload of radium, consigned to the Metals Corporation at Pittsburgh. The agents of Metals had purchased this radium after the new low rates had gone into effect, but before the boycott had brought an end to trade. Late in June a space flier landed at New Boston, to take on the metal. The situation was a delicate one. Metals had already bought the metal. But according to the terms of the compact among the moon people, no metal was to be permitted to leave the planet until the prices were raised.
Public excitement ran high. The lead chests were carried out of the warehouse, and the loading went on. The Assembly of Directors was still in session, and the question of whether the ship should be allowed to depart was fiercely debated. Its sailing meant the breaking of the boycott; the radium would relieve the present industrial crisis on earth. Yet the metal had been sold; it seemed the duty of the sellers to let it go.
But public opinion ran high against the sending of the radium. It was argued that the Corporation might at least pay the old price, since the boycott had trebled the price of radium in Pittsburgh. In spite of that, on the last day of June, a messenger came from Theophilus with the news that the Moon Company officially sanctioned the departure of the vessel.
A vast crowd had assembled around the ship, to watch the loading of the lead drums that contained the precious metal. There had been some rather violent demonstrations of popular feeling, and the port authorities had had some difficulty in keeping order. But when the messenger arrived with the news that the ship was to be permitted to depart, and that he had delivered to her commander the clearance papers he had brought from the Assembly, the throngs dispersed and returned to the city.
It was almost sunset. The vessel was scheduled to depart in a few hours. The metal was all on board, the laborers were returning to the city, before the cold would come, and the crew were still busy, getting the cargo in shape for the voyage.
