She answered, "They claim to have finished the War with about two hundred million and Moscow at four million. Now they are claiming twenty - five million more in the Union, and over a million increase in Moscow." She thought a bit. "It's a lie. Unless they are breeding like flies everywhere outside Moscow, they have lost population since the War - not gained. I haven't found even one family with more than three children. The average is less than two. And they marry late. Robert, they aren't even replacing themselves."
She looked at that empty river. "Not quite as big as Copenhagen is my guess."
We stopped in many other cities - Alma Ata, Tashkent, Samarkand, Minsk, Vilno, Kiev, Riga, Leningrad, etc. - and she continued her gentle questioning but never found reason to change her opinion. Even out in the Muslim countries of Turkestan the birthrate was low, or the answers seemed to show it. She did not write down her figures (Well, I don't think she did; I warned her not to) but she has a memory that is effectively perfect as long as necessary.. . then she can wash out useless details, which I can't do.)
How was it possible for the Russians to claim that Moscow was seven times as big as it actually was? How could I be right and the whole world wrong? The World Almanac gave the same figures the Russians did, all news services seemed to accept Russian population figures - how could a Big Lie that big not be noticed - and denounced?
About a year later I had a chance to discuss it with an old shipmate, an admiral now retired but then holding a major command. I asked him how many people there were in Moscow.
He answered, "I don't know. Why don't you look it up?" (When a high brass answers, "I don't know," he may mean, "Don't be nosy and let's change the subject." But I persisted.)
"Make a guess. You must have some idea."
"Okay." He closed his eyes and kept quiet for several minutes. "Seven hundred and fifty thousand, not over that."
(Jackpot!)
I said, "Mister Ought Ought Seven, have you made a special study of Russia? Or shouldn't I ask?"
"Not at all. This command gives me all the trouble I need without worrying about Russia. I simply worked it as a logistics problem, War College style. But I had to stop and visualize the map first. Roads, rivers, railroads, size of marshalling yards, and so forth. You know." (I did, vaguely. But I wasn't a War College graduate. He is.) "That city just doesn't have the transportation facilities to be any bigger than that. Get much over three quarters of a million and they'd starve. Until they double their tracks and increase their yards they can't risk a bigger population. You don't do that over night. They can pick up some slack with the river - but it doesn't go where they need it most."
And there it stands. Either all three of us are crazy despite the fact that all three of us got the same answer to a numerical question using three entirely different but logical methods... or for many, many years the Kremlin lie factory has peddled their biggest and fanciest "Pravda" without ever being questioned.
Look - both the Pentagon and the State Department know exactly how big Moscow is, and the Kremlin knows that they know. We were high - flying 'em with the U - 2 for four years; you can bet Moscow was carefully photographed many times. Our present Eye - in - the - Sky satellites are so sharp - eyed that they can come close to reading the license plate on your car; our top officials know precisely what the logistics situation is for Moscow - and every economist knows that one of the parameters that controls strictly the upper limit to the size of a city is how many tons of food it can ship in, week in and week out, never failing. Most big cities are only a day or two away from hunger, only a week or so away from beginning starvation and panic.
Moscow isn't even a seaport; she's a river port and not a good one. Most food must come overland by train or lorry.
Maybe she's built enough more facilities since 1960
but in 1960 she just didn't have what it takes. Since I can't believe the 5,000,000+ figure for 1960, I don't believe the 7,000,000+ figure for this year.
I have one very wild theory. Our State Department may see no advantage in calling them liars on this point. Through several administrations we have been extremely careful not to hurt their feelings. I think this is a mistake but I am neither president nor secretary of state; my opinion is not important and may be wrong.
(" 'But the Emperor is not wearing any clothes,' said the child.")
The three biggest lies in the USA today:
1) The check is in the mail.
2) I gave at the office.
3) (Big, cheery smile) "Hello! I'm from Washington. I'm here to
help you!"
1 - Anon.f
FOREWORD
In April 1962 I received a letter from the advertising agents of Hoffman Electronics: They had a wonderful idea - SF stories about electronics, written by well-known SF writers, just long enough to fill one column of Scientific American or Technology Review or such, with the other two thirds of the page an ad for Hoffman Electronics tied into the gimmick of the story. For this they offered a gee - whiz word rate - compared with SF magazines.
A well - wrought short story is twice as hard to write as
a novel; a short - short is at least eight times as hard - but
one that short... there are much easier ways of making
a living. I dropped them a postcard saying, "Thanks but
I'm busy on a novel." (True - GLORY ROAD)
They upped the ante. This time I answered, "Thanks and I feel flattered - but I don't know anything about electronics." (Almost true.)
They wrote back offering expert advice from Hoffman's engineers on the gimmick - and a word rate six times as high as The Saturday Evening Post had paid me.
I had finished GLORY ROAD; I sat down and drafted this one - then sweated endlessly to get it under 1200 words as required by contract. Whereas I had written GLORY ROAD in 23 days and enjoyed every minute of it. This is why lazy writers prefer novels.
SEARCHLIGHT
"Will she hear you?"
"If she's on this face of the Moon. If she was able to get out of the ship. If her suit radio wasn't damaged. If she has it turned on. If she is alive. Since the ship is silent and no radar beacon has been spotted, it is unlikely that she or the pilot lived through it."
"She's got to be found! Stand by, Space Station. Tycho Base, acknowledge."
Reply lagged about three seconds, Washington to Moon and back. "Lunar Base, Commanding General."
"General, put every man on the Moon out searching for Betsy!"
Speed - of - light lag made the answer sound grudging. "Sir, do you know how big the Moon is?"
"No matter! Betsy Barnes is there somewhere - so every man is to search until she is found. If she's dead, your precious pilot would be better off dead, too!"
"Sir, the Moon is almost fifteen million square miles. If I used every man I have, each would have over a thousand square miles to search. I gave Betsy my best pilot. I won't listen to threats against him when he can't answer back. Not from anyone, sir! I'm sick of being told what to do by people who don't know Lunar conditions. My advice - my official advice, sir - is to let Meridian Station try. Maybe they can work a miracle.
The answer rapped back, "Very well, General! I'll speak to you later. Meridian Station! Report your plans."
Elizabeth Barnes, "Blind Betsy," child genius of the piano, had been making a USO tour of the Moon. She "wowed 'em" at Tycho Base, then lifted by jeep rocket for Farside Hardbase, to entertain our lonely missile men behind the Moon. She should have been there in an hour. Her pilot was a safety pilot; such ships shuttled unpiloted between Tycho and Farside daily.
After lift - off her ship departed from its programming, was lost by Tycho's radars. It was... somewhere.
Not in space, else it would be radioing for help and its radar beacon would be seen by other ships, space stations, surface bases. It had crashed - or made emergency landing - somewhere on the vastness of Luna.