The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

by Robert A. Heinlein

  “Mum! Haven’t killed anybody, don’t intend to. And know that lecture by heart.”

  “Please be civil, dear.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Forgiven. Forgotten. I’m to tell Professor de la Paz to leave a number. I shall.”

  “One thing. Forget name ‘Wyoming Knott.’ Forget Professor was asking for me. If a stranger phones or calls in person, and asks anything about me, you haven’t heard from me, don’t know where I am … think I’ve gone to Novylen. That goes for rest of family, too. Answer no questions—especially from anybody connected with Warden.”

  “As if I would! Manuel you are in trouble!”

  “Not much and getting it fixed.”—hoped!—“Tell you when I get home. Can’t talk now. Love you. Switching off.”

  “I love you, dear. Sp’coynoynauchi.”

  “Thanks and you have a quiet night, too. Off.”

  Mum is wonderful. She was shipped up to The Rock long ago for carving a man under circumstances that left grave doubts as to girlish innocence—and has been opposed to violence and loose living ever since. Unless necessary—she’s no fanatic. Bet she was a jet job as a kid and wish I’d known her—but I’m rich in sharing last half of her life.

  I called Mike back. “Do you know Professor Bernardo de la Paz’s voice?”

  “I do, Man.”

  “Well … you might monitor as many phones in Luna City as you can spare ears for and if you hear him, let me know. Public phones especially.”

  (A full two seconds’ delay—Was giving Mike problems he had never had, think he liked it.) “I can check-monitor long enough to identify at all public phones in Luna City. Shall I use random search on the others, Man?”

  “Um. Don’t overload. Keep an ear on his home phone and school phone.”

  “Program set up.”

  “Mike, you are best friend I ever had.”

  “That is not a joke, Man?”

  “No joke. Truth.”

  “I am—Correction: I am honored and pleased. You are my best friend, Man, for you are my only friend. No comparison is logically permissible.”

  “Going to see that you have other friends. Not-stupids, I mean. Mike? Got an empty memory bank?”

  “Yes, Man. Ten-to-the-eighth-bits capacity.”

  “Good! Will you block it so that only you and I can use it? Can you?”

  “Can and will. Block signal, please.”

  “Uh … Bastille Day.” Was my birthday, as Professor de la Paz had told me years earlier.

  “Permanently blocked.”

  “Fine. Got a recording to put in it. But first—Have you finished setting copy for tomorrow’s Daily Lunatic?”

  “Yes, Man.”

  “Anything about meeting in Stilyagi Hall?”

  “No, Man.”

  “Nothing in news services going out-city? Or riots?”

  “No, Man.”

  “‘Curiouser and curiouser,” said Alice.’ Okay, record this under ‘Bastille Day,’ then think about it. But for Bog’s sake don’t let even your thoughts go outside that block, nor anything I say about it!”

  “Man my only friend,” he answered and voice sounded diffident, “many months ago I decided to place any conversation between you and me under privacy block accessible only to you. I decided to erase none and moved them from temporary storage to permanent. So that I could play them over, and over, and over, and think about them. Did I do right?”

  “Perfect. And, Mike—I’m flattered.”

  “P’jal’st. My temporary files were getting full and I learned that I needed not to erase your words.”

  “Well—‘Bastille Day.’ Sound coming at sixty-to-one.” I took little recorder, placed close to a microphone and let it zip-squeal. Had an hour and a half in it; went silent in ninety seconds or so. “That’s all, Mike. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Good night, Manuel Garcia O’Kelly my only friend.”

  I switched off and raised hood. Wyoming was sitting up and looking troubled. “Did someone call? Or …”

  “No trouble. Was talking to one of my best—and most trustworthy—friends. Wyoh, are you stupid?”

  She looked startled. “I’ve sometimes thought so. Is that a joke?”

  “No. If you’re not-stupid, I’d like to introduce you to him. Speaking of jokes—Do you have a sense of humor?”

  “Certainly I have!” is what Wyoming did not answer—and any other woman would as a locked-in program. She blinked thoughtfully and said, “You’ll have to judge for yourself, cobber. I have something I use for one. It serves my simple purposes.”

  “Fine.” I dug into pouch, found print-roll of one hundred “funny” stories. “Read. Tell me which are funny, which are not—and which get a giggle first time but are cold pancakes without honey to hear twice.”

  “Manuel, you may be. the oddest man I’ve ever met.” She took that print-out. “Say, is this computer paper?”

  “Yes. Met a computer with a sense of humor.”

  “So? Well, it was bound to come some day. Everything else has been mechanized.”

  I gave proper response and added “Everything?”

  She looked up. “Please. Don’t whistle while I’m reading.”

  4

  Heard her giggle a few times while I rigged out bed and made it. Then sat down by her, took end she was through with and started reading. Chuckled a time or two but a joke isn’t too funny to me if read cold, even when I see it could be fission job at proper time. I got more interested in how Wyoh rated them.

  She was marking “plus,” “minus,” and sometimes question mark, and plus stories were marked “once” or “always”—few were marked “always.” I put my ratings under hers. Didn’t disagree too often.

  By time I was near end she was looking over my judgments. We finished together. “Well?” I said. “What do you think?”

  “I think you have a crude, rude mind and it’s a wonder your wives put up with you.”

  “Mum often says so. But how about yourself, Wyoh? You marked plusses on some that would make a slot-machine girl blush.”

  She grinned. “Da. Don’t tell anybody; publicly I’m a dedicated party organizer above such things. Have you decided that I have a sense of humor?”

  “Not sure. Why a minus on number seventeen?”

  “Which one is that?” She reversed roll and found it. “Why, any woman would have done the same! It’s not funny, it’s simply necessary.”

  “Yes, but think how silly she looked.”

  “Nothing silly about it. Just sad. And look here. You thought this one was not funny. Number fifty-one.”

  Neither reversed any judgments but I saw a pattern: Disagreements were over stories concerning oldest funny subject. Told her so. She nodded. “Of course. I saw that. Never mind, Mannie dear; I long ago quit being disappointed in men for what they are not and never can be.”

  I decided to drop it. Instead told her about Mike.

  Soon she said, “Mannie, you’re telling me that this computer is alive?”

  “What do you mean?’ I answered. “He doesn’t sweat, or go to W.C. But can think and talk and he’s aware of himself. Is he ‘alive’?”

  “I’m not sure what I mean by ‘alive,’” she admitted. “There’s a scientific definition, isn’t there? Irritability, or some such. And reproduction.”

  “Mike is irritable and can be irritating. As for reproducing, not designed for it but—yes, given time and materials and very special help, Mike could reproduce himself.”

  “I need very special help, too,” Wyoh answered, “since I’m sterile. And it takes me ten whole lunars and many kilograms of the best materials. But I make good babies. Mannie, why shouldn’t a machine be alive? I’ve always felt they were. Some of them wait for a chance to savage you in a tender spot.”

  “Mike wouldn’t do that. Not on purpose, no meanness in him. But he likes to play jokes and one might go wrong—like a puppy who doesn’t know he’s biting. He’s ignorant No,
not ignorant, he knows enormously more than I, or you, or any man who ever lived. Yet he doesn’t know anything.”

  “Better repeat that. I missed something.”

  I tried to explain. How Mike knew almost every book in Luna, could read at least a thousand times as fast as we could and never forget anything unless he chose to erase, how he could reason with perfect logic, or make shrewd guesses from insufficient data … and yet not know anything about how to be “alive.” She interrupted. “I scan it. You’re saying he’s smart and knows a lot but is not sophisticated. Like a new chum when he grounds on The Rock. Back Eartbside he might be a professor with a string of degrees … but here he’s a baby.”

  “That’s it. Mike is a baby with a long string of degrees. Ask how much water and what chemicals and how much photoflux it takes to crop fifty thousand tonnes of wheat and he’ll tell you without stopping for breath. But can’t tell if a joke is funny,”

  “I thought most of these were fairly good.”

  “They’re ones he’s heard—read—and were marked jokes so he filed them that way. But doesn’t understand them because he’s never been a—a people. Lately he’s been trying to make up jokes. Feeble, very.” I tried to explain Mike’s pathetic attempts to be a “people.” “On top of that, he’s lonely.”

  “Why, the poor thing! You’d be lonely, too, if you did nothing but work, work, work, study, study, study, and never anyone to visit with. Cruelty, that’s what it is.”

  So I told about promise to find “not-stupids.” “Would you chat with him, Wye? And not laugh when he makes funny mistakes? If you do, he shuts up and sulks.”

  “Of course I would, Mannie! Uh … once we get out of this mess. If it’s safe for me to be in Luna City. Where is this poor little computer? City Engineering Central? I don’t know my way around here.”

  “He’s not in L-City; he’s halfway across Crisium. And you couldn’t go down where he is; takes a pass from Warden. But—”

  “Hold it! ‘Halfway across Crisium—’ Mannie, this computer is one of those at Authority Complex?”

  “Mike isn’t just ‘one of those’ computers,” I answered, vexed on Mike’s account. “He’s boss; he waves baton for all others. Others are just machines, extensions of Mike, like this is for me,” I said, flexing hand of left arm. “Mike controls them. He runs catapult personally, was his first job—catapult and ballistic radars. But he’s logic for phone system, too, after they converted to Lunawide switching. Besides that, he’s supervising logic for other systems.”

  Wyoh closed eyes and pressed fingers to temples. “Mannie, does Mike hurt?”

  “‘Hurt?’ No strain. Has time to read jokes.”

  “I don’t mean that. I mean: Can he hurt? Feel pain?”

  “What? No. Can get feelings hurt. But can’t feel pain. Don’t think he can. No, sure he can’t, doesn’t have receptors for pain. Why?”

  She covered eyes and said softly, “Bog help me.” Then looked up and said, “Don’t you see, Mannie? You have a pass to go down where this computer is. But most Loonies can’t even leave the tube at that station; it’s for Authority employees only. Much less go inside the main computer room. I had to find out if it could feel pain because—well, because you got me feeling sorry for it, with your talk about how it was lonely! But, Mannie, do you realize what a few kilos of toluol plastic would do there?”

  “Certainly do!” Was shocked and disgusted.

  “Yes. We’ll strike right after the explosion—and Luna will be free! Mmm … I’ll get you explosives and fuses—but we can’t move until we are organized to exploit it. Mannie, I’ve got to get out of here, I must risk it. I’ll go put on makeup.” She started to get up.

  I shoved her down, with hard left hand. Surprised her, and surprised me—had not touched her in any way save necessary contact. Oh, different today, but was 2075 and touching a fem without her consent—plenty of lonely men to come to rescue and airlock never far away. As kids say, Judge Lynch never sleeps.

  “Sit down, keep quiet!” I said. “I know what a blast would do. Apparently you don’t. Gospazha, am sorry to say this … but if came to choice, would eliminate you before would blow up Mike.”

  Wyoming did not get angry. Really was a man some ways—her years as a disciplined revolutionist I’m sure; she was all girl most ways. “Mannie, you told me that Shorty Mkrum is dead.”

  “What?” Was confused by sharp turn. “Yes. Has to be. One leg off at hip, it was; must have bled to death in two minutes. Even in a surgery amputation that high is touch-and-go.” (I know such things; had taken luck and big transfusions to save me—and an arm isn’t in same class with what happened to Shorty.)

  “Shorty was,” she said soberly, “my best friend here and one of my best friends anywhere. He was all that I admire in a man—loyal, honest, intelligent, gentle, and brave—and devoted to the Cause. But have you seen me grieving over him?”

  “No. Too late to grieve.”

  “It’s never too late for grief. I’ve grieved every instant since you told me. But I locked it in the back of my mind for the Cause leaves no time for grief. Mannie, if it would have bought freedom for Luna—or even been part of the price—I would have eliminated Shorty myself. Or you. Or myself. And yet you have qualms over blowing up a computer!”

  “Not that at all!” (But was, in part. When a man dies, doesn’t shock me too much; we get death sentences day we are born. But Mike was unique and no reason not to be immortal. Never mind “souls”—prove Mike did not have one. And if no soul, so much worse. No? Think twice,)

  “Wyoming, what would happen if we blew up Mike? Tell.”

  “I don’t know precisely. But it would cause a great deal of confusion and that’s exactly what we—”

  “Seal it. You don’t know. Confusion, da. Phones out. Tubes stop running. Your town not much hurt; Kong Kong has own power. But L-City and Novylen and other warrens all power stops. Total darkness. Shortly gets stuffy. Then temperature drops and pressure. Where’s your p-suit?”

  “Checked at Tube Station West.”

  “So is mine. Think you can find way? In solid dark? In time? Not sure I can and I was born in this warren. With corridors filled with screaming people? Loonies are a tough mob; we have to be—but about one in ten goes off his cams in total dark. Did you swap bottles for fresh charges or were you in too much hurry? And will suit be there with thousands trying to find p-suits and not caring who owns?”

  “But aren’t there emergency arrangements? There are in Hong Kong Luna.”

  “Some. Not enough. Control of anything essential to life should be decentralized and paralleled so that if one machine fails, another takes over. But costs money and as you pointed out, Authority doesn’t care. Mike shouldn’t have all jobs. But was cheaper to ship up master machine, stick deep in The Rock where couldn’t get hurt, then keep adding capacity and loading on jobs—did you know Authority makes near as much gelt from leasing Mike’s services as from trading meat and wheat? Does. Wyoming, not sure we would lose Luna City if Mike were blown up. Loonies are handy and might jury-rig till automation could be restored. But I tell you true: Many people would die and rest too busy for politics.”

  I marveled it. This woman had been in The Rock almost all her life … yet could think of something as new-choomish as wrecking engineering controls. “Wyoming, if you were smart like you are beautiful, you wouldn’t talk about blowing up Mike; you would think about how to get him on your side.”

  “What do you mean?” she said. “The Warden controls the computers.”

  “Don’t know what I mean,” I admitted. “But don’t think Warden controls computers—wouldn’t know a computer from a pile of rocks. Warden, or staff, decides policies, general plans. Half-competent technicians program these into Mike. Mike sorts them, makes sense of them, plans detailed programs, parcels them out where they belong, keeps things moving. But nobody controls Mike; he’s too smart. He carries out what is asked because that’s how he’s built. But he’
s selfprogramming logic, makes own decissions. And a good thing, because if he weren’t smart, system would not work.”

  “I still don’t see what you mean by ‘getting him on our side.’”

  “Oh. Mike doesn’t feel loyalty to Warden. As you pointed out: He’s a machine. But if I wanted to foul up phones without touching air or water or lights, I would talk to Mike. If it struck him funny, he might do it.”

  “Couldn’t you just program it? I understood that you can get into the room where he is.”

  “If I—or anybody—programmed such an order into Mike without talking it over with him, program would be placed in ‘hold’ location and alarms would sound in many places. But if Mike wanted to—” I told her about cheque for umpteen jillion. “Mike is still finding himself, Wyoh. And lonely. Told me I was ‘his only friend’—and was so open and vulnerable I wanted to bawl. If you took pains to be his friend, too—without thinking of him as ‘just a machine’—well, not sure what it would do, haven’t analyzed it. But if I tried anything big and dangerous, would want Mike in my corner.”

  She said thoughtfully, “I wish there were some way for me to sneak into that room where he is. I don’t suppose makeup would help?”

  “Oh, don’t have to go there. Mike is on phone. Shall we call him?”

  She stood up. “Mannie, you are not only the oddest man I’ve met; you are the most exasperating. What’s his number?”

  “Comes from associating too much with a computer.” I went to phone. “Just one thing, Wyoh. You get what you want out of a man just by batting eyes and undulating framework.”

  “Well … sometimes. But I do have a brain.”

  “Use it. Mike is not a man. No gonads. No hormones. No instincts. Use fem tactics and it’s a null signal. Think of him as supergenius child too young to notice vive-la-difference.”

  “I’ll remember. Mannie, why do you call him ‘he’?”