They stepped into the lift-tube, and Sam turned back to wave. Then the field bore them up, out of sight.
Whitey clasped Dar’s shoulder. “Up to the observation room, quickly! This is one lift-off I want to be able to watch!”
They ran to a smaller lift-shaft back down the concourse and flew up into the observation tower. It was a wide, circular space, with a thick carpet and thicker windows. In fact, it was nothing but windows, a full circle of them, and a transparent roof above. Dar looked around at the Lunar surface outside, a crazy quilt of brightness and blackness. “Wonder why they didn’t just build a clear dome?”
“The usual reason—this was cheaper.” Whitey pointed at the huge sliver cigar a quarter of a mile away. “She’s lifting, children.”
They stared, tracking it in silence, as the Brave New World lifted from the Lunar surface and drifted upward, away and away, shrinking from a monster that filled half the sky, to a splendid flying hill, diminishing and diminishing, to a silver cigar indeed, then a cigarillo, then a matchstick, then only a point of brightness. Suddenly that brightness intensified; it became an actinic spark, throwing a faint shadow of the three watchers onto the floor behind them, and began to slide away across the heavens.
“Exhaust,” Lona whispered. “They’ve ignited their interplanetary drive.”
The spark moved faster and faster until it was only a streak of light, shooting off toward the unseen orbit of Pluto, a miniature sun seeking a dawn.
When it had dwindled to being only one more faint star in the millions that surrounded them, they turned away with a sigh. “I hope they make it.” Dar smiled sadly. “I wonder if they’ll really manage to set up their crackpot society.”
“I have a notion they will,” Whitey mused. “When Horatio sets his mind to something, it gets done. Just hope they’ll be happy, though.”
“Me, too.” Dar frowned. “Especially Father Marco. How can he found a Cathodean monastery if he has his brain wiped of any engineering knowledge?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Lona murmured, with a quiet smile.
Whitey fixed her with a jaundiced eye. “Granddaughter, lick that cream off your whiskers and tell me who you phoned!”
“Just the Brave New World’s computer, Grandpa—it isn’t hard to get the number, if you know what to say to Central Memory.”
“No, not at all—you only had to talk your way past a few dozen of the System’s strongest security blocks first!”
Lona shrugged it off. “Just basic logic.”
“Yes, getting baser and baser as it goes along. And just what did you and the Brave New World have to say to each other?”
“Oh, I just convinced it that Father Marco’s the only one aboard who might stand even a remote chance of fixing it, if it ever broke down. It saw my point right away, and promised that, when it came time to wipe brains, it would skip Father Marco’s.”
Whitey nodded, with a wry smile. “I was wondering why he was suddenly eager to go. I could see a Cathodean being willing to leave civilization for the sake of the Church—but technology is another matter.”
“I thought they ought to be able to keep some link to reality,” Lona agreed. “And the only place they could do that, without it leaking out to the whole society, is inside the walls of a monastery.”
“How pure and altruistic of you,” Whitey muttered.
Lona shrugged. “I just have fun with computers, Grandpa.”
“Well, enjoy it while you can,” Whitey sighed. “I have a notion our new lords and masters aren’t going to think too highly of fun—especially your kind.”
“Yeah, I hadn’t thought about the future here.” Dar frowned. “Maybe Horatio and his buddies aren’t all that much crackpots.”
“Things could get rather dull here,” Lona agreed. “That’s why, as long as I was on the phone, I got in touch with the Bank of Terra’s computer, Grandpa, and had all your funds transferred to the Bank of Maxima.”
A delighted grin spread across Whitey’s face. “How thoughtful of you, child!”
Dar frowned. “Maxima? The place that built Fess? He’s says it’s just a barren piece of rock!”
“With robot factories,” Lona reminded him, “which includes computer factories. And computer technicians and cybernetics experts, of course—my kind of people.”
“But I thought you wanted to participate in the life of decadence.”
“I do, if I can—but if I have to choose between that and toying with circuits and programs, I know where the real fun lies. Besides, Maxima’s close to Terra; I might be able to come down for a spree, now and then.”
“Then why transfer the money there? All of it?”
“Because Maxima’s the one world that might be able to keep the central government from gimmicking its computers,” Lona explained. “That keeps the money intact, not to mention our privacy.”
“Privacy? You think that’ll be threatened?” Dar turned to Whitey, frowning. “You really think it’s going to get that bad here?”
“It’s called a police state,” Whitey explained. “I’m sure they intend to include Maxima in it, too—in theory.”
“But not in practice,” Lona assured him. “At least, not if I have anything to say to the Maxima computers.”
“A chip off the old bloke, if ever there was one!” Whitey grinned. “Your mama would’ve said just the same. Well then, if Maxima’s where you’re bound, we’d better get started.” He pulled out the recall unit and pressed a button. “Should be here, pretty soon.” He turned to Dar. “How about you? Like to lift away from here?”
“Yes, I would, thank you—very much.”
“Thought so. You could go back to Wolmar, you know. The LORDS party’s been saying for a long time that the frontier worlds cost too much, that we ought to just cut them off and leave ‘em to their own devices. Might be some hard times coming out in the marches, but the worlds there should at least keep their freedom.”
Dar nodded. “I’d thought about that. In fact, I’m pretty sure General Shacklar—our governor—has had that in mind for a while, too. Also Myles Croft, on Falstaff.”
“Well, I know My’s been getting strapped down and ready to go on his own, so I don’t doubt your Shacklar has, too. But I take it you’re not planning to go back there.”
Dar frowned. “How’d you figure that out?”
“ ‘Cause if you were, you would’ve hitched a ride with Horatio and gotten dropped off with Stroganoff. What’s the matter? Had a taste of the fleshpots, and decided to stay near ‘em?”
“You’ve got me pegged,” Dar admitted. “How’d you guess?”
“Believe it or not, I was young once, myself.”
“The trick is, believing that he ever aged.” Lona stepped a little closer to Dar, and it seemed to him that he could feel her presence as a physical pressure. And her eyes danced; she was watching him with a smile that was both secretive and amused. “Where were you planning to go?”
“Someplace,” Dar pronounced, “where I’ll never have to hear about that Interstellar Telepathic Conspiracy again.”
“Yeah, that’s a masterstroke of confusion, isn’t it?” Whitey chuckled. “I never saw a Big Lie work so well—it even has some of the liars convinced! I love watching a fantasy go out of control.”
“Oh, it isn’t total fantasy,” Dar mused. “There’s a grain of substance to it.”
Whitey gave him a sidelong glance. “You sure about that?”
“Well, it kinda makes sense, doesn’t it?” Dar spread his hands. “With all that fuss and bother, there should’ve been at least one real telepath at the bottom of it all.”
“Should’ve, maybe.” Lona gave him her most skeptical look. “Would’ve’s another matter. When it comes to telepathy, if it doesn’t have integrated circuits, I won’t believe in it.”