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to work on a rural commune. According to what she had told Al and Simone later, that had been a
boring time spent mostly in servicing the machines which did most of the farming.
Few people, in China or anywhere else, were engaged in agriculture now. This fact, combined with the
movement of many Chinese to urban areas, the availability of more goods and services, and the freer
exchange of ideas with other nations, had loosened Chinese attitudes considerably. That land now had its
revisionists, dissenters, and skeptics, most of whom chose to remain in China, suffering only occasionally
under forced "re-education." Practices such as self-criticism sessions were regarded as customs more
than anything else; the quoting of Mao was ritualistic. Yet the Chinese still retained some Puritan attitudes,
a willingness to work hard, a concern for their people as a whole, and a general seriousness of purpose.
Those here on Luna, although generally more liberal than their compatriots on Earth, often kept to
themselves and, during their time off, often helped to do some of the more tedious but necessary tasks
here, not wanting to appear élitist or idle. As a result, the lunar cuisine, with the Chinese aiding the kitchen
machines, had taken on a distinctly Chinese flavor.
Al knew that there were certain things one had to know if one was to get along in the international
scientific community on the moon. One was that not everyone had to live in the same way, easy enough
to accept as an abstract idea unless one was a fanatic; more difficult to accept when a person had to live
with a widely varying group of people from day to day. Another was that as far as scientific work was
concerned, everyone's goals were pretty similar in spite of societal differences. This might produce a
schism in the minds of some who came from more rigid societies, but humanity after all had long practice
in devising different mental compartments in which to hold often contradictory ideas. As it turned out,
those on the moon were more often in agreement than not. Al often thought that Luna, and those who
went into space, would soon have a culture of their own quite different from any on Earth. How Earth,
which regarded each national group in space as simply an extension of various national policies, would
accept this, Al did not know. But he was sure that anyone or any group which could not successfully and
peacefully deal with diversity was probably doomed.
Al's room was at present divided in half by a retractable wall. Since each of the rooms in the living
quarters housed two people, such a wall insured privacy when needed. Liu Ching had once commented
that hardly any of the Chinese used this wall because it was assumed that anyone would do his best to get
along with a roommate. Those who did not were considered self-indulgent or egotistical. She had smiled
when Al recounted tales of some who, without the wall, could not have stood the sight of their
roommates for long periods of time. Most of these problems were solved by a change of rooms.
Al sat at his desk top, reading a paper on the space ship engines that Ahmed had recommended to him
earlier. On the other side of the wall, the voices of Simone and Liu Ching murmured in Chinese, providing
a soothing background noise. There was no computer outlet in Al's room; when he needed print-outs, he
had to use the one located next to the sitting room. He completed his reading and deposited the paper in
a recycling slot just above the desk top. Then he pushed the desk top into the wall and got up. He
grasped the dividing wall at the end nearer the door and began to push it toward the back of the room.
"At last!" Simone said.
"What were you reading?" Liu Ching asked.
"A paper by one of Ahmed's colleagues on some details of the space ship engine designs. I thought it
might get me going on some thoughts about a space drive, and there is one interesting detail…"
"Ah!" Simone interrupted as she turned back to the Chinese woman."Une fois lancé sur le sujet… we
shall be sitting here all night listening to a discourse."
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