The Gods Themselves

1

Selene Lindstrom smiled brightly and walked with the light springy touch that was startling when first seen by the tourists, but was soon recognized as having a grace of its own.

“It’s time for lunch,” she said, cheerfully. “All home-grown, ladies and gentlemen. You may not be used to the taste, but it’s all nourishing.... Right here, sir. You won’t mind sitting with the ladies, I know.... One moment. There will be seats for all.... Sorry, there will be a choice on the beverage, but not on the main course. That will be veal. ... No, no. Artificial flavor and texture, but it’s really quite good.”

Then she sat down herself, with a slight sigh and an even slighter wavering of her pleasant expression.

One of the group sat down across from her.

“Do you mind?” he asked.

She looked at him, quickly, penetrating. She had the faculty of making quick judgments, of course, and he did not seem troublesome. She said, “Not at all. But aren’t you with someone in this group?”

He shook his head. “No. I’m alone. Even if that were not the case, Earthies are no great thrill to me.”

She looked at him again. He was fiftyish and there was a weary look about him which only his bright, inquisitive eyes seemed to belie. He had the unmistakable look of the Earthman, laden down with gravity. She said, “ ‘Earthie’ is a Moon-expression, and not a very nice one.”

“I’m from Earth,” he said, “so I can use it without offense, I hope. Unless you object.”

Selene shrugged as though to say: Please yourself.

She had the faintly oriental look about the eyes so many of the Moon-girls had, but her hair was the color of honey and her nose was prominent. She was undeniably attractive without being in any way classically beautiful.

The Earthman was staring at the nameplate she wore on the blouse covering the upper slope of her high, not-too-large left breast. She decided it was really the name-plate he was looking at, not the breast, though the blouse was semi-transparent when it caught the light at a particular angle and there was no garment beneath it.

He said, “Are there many Selenes here?”

“Oh, yes. Hundreds, I think. Also Cynthias, Dianas, and Artemises. Selene is a little tiresome. Half the Selenes I know are called ‘Silly’ and the other half ‘Lena.’ ”

“Which are you?”

“Neither. I am Selene, all three syllables. SELL-uh-nee,” she said, coming down heavily on the first syllable, “to those who use my first name at all.”

There was a small smile on the Earthman’s face that sat there as though he weren’t quite used to it. He said, “And what if anyone asks you if you sell any, Selene?”

“They never ask me that again!” she said, firmly.

“But do they ask you?”

“There are fools always.”

A waitress had reached their table and had placed the dishes before them with quick, smooth motions.

The Earthman was visibly impressed. He said to the waitress, “You make them seem to float down.”

The waitress smiled and moved on.

Selene said, “Don’t you try to do the same. She’s used to the gravity and can handle it.”

“And if I try, I’ll drop everything? Is that it?”

“You’ll make a gorgeous mess,” she said.

“Well, I won’t try.”

“There’s a good chance someone will before long, and the plate will flow down to the floor and they’ll grab for it and miss, and ten to one knock themselves out of their chair. I’d warn them, but it never helps and they’re just all the more embarrassed. Everyone else will laugh—the tourists, that is, because the rest of us have seen it too often to find it funny and because it’s just a cleanup job.”

The Earthman was lifting his fork carefully. “I see what you mean. Even the simplest motions seem queer.”

“Actually, you get used to it quickly enough. At least to little things like eating. Walking is harder. I never saw an Earthman run efficiently out here. Not really efficiently.”

For a while they ate in silence. Then he said, “What does the L. stand for?” He was looking at her nameplate again. It said, “Selene Lindstrom L.”

“It just means Luna,” she said, rather indifferently, “to distinguish me from the immigrants. I was born here.”

“Really?”

“That’s nothing to be surprised about. We’ve had a working society here for over half a century. Don’t you think babies are born here? We have people here who were born here and are grandparents.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-two,” she said.

He looked startled, then mumbled, “Of course.”

Selene raised her eyebrows. “You mean you understand? Most Earthmen have to have it explained.”

The Earthman said, “I know enough to know that most of the visible signs of aging are the result of the inexorable victory of gravity over tissue—the sagging of cheek and the drooping of breast. With the Moon’s gravity one-sixth that of Earth, it isn’t really hard to understand that people will stay young-looking.”

Selene said, “Only young-looking. It doesn’t mean we have immortality here. The life-span is about that of Earth, but most of us are more comfortable in old age.”

“That’s not to be dismissed. ... Of course, there are penalties, I suppose.” He had just taken his first sip of his coffee. “You have to drink this—” He paused for a word and must have discarded it, for he used none.

“We could import food and beverages from Earth,” she said, amused, “but only enough to feed a fraction of us a fraction of the time. There’d be no point to that when we can use the space for more vital items. Besides, we’re used to this crud. ... Or were you going to use a still stronger word?”

“Not for the coffee,” he said. “I was going to save that for the food. But crud will do.... Tell me,” Miss Lindstrom. I didn’t see any mention on the tour itinerary of the proton synchrotron.”

“The proton synchrotron?” She was finishing her coffee and her eyes were beginning to slide round the room, as though estimating the moment for getting them all to their feet again. “That’s Terrestrial property and it’s not open to tourists.”

“You mean that it’s off-limits to Lunarites.”

“Oh, no. Nothing of the sort. Most of its staff are Lunarites. It’s just that it’s the Terrestrial government that sets the rules. No tourists.”

“I’d love to see it,” he said.

She said, “I’m sure you would.... You’ve brought me luck; not one item of food, not one blessed man or woman has hit the floor.”

She got to her feet and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be leaving in about ten minutes. Please leave the plates where they are. There are rest rooms for those who wish to use them and then we will visit the food-processing plants where meals such as you have just eaten are made possible.”

2

Selene’s quarters were small, of course, and compact; but they were intricate. The windows were panoramic; star scenes that changed slowly and very randomly, never having any relationship to any real constellation. Each of the three windows could be made to undergo telescopic magnification, when Selene so desired.

Barren Neville hated that part of it. He would tend to turn it off rather savagely and say, “How can you stand it? You’re the only one I know who has the bad taste to do such a thing. It’s not as though these nebulae and star clusters exist, even.”

And Selene would shrug, coolly, and say, “What’s existence? How do you know the ones out there exist? Besides it gives me a sensation of freedom and motion. May I have that in my own quarters if I choose?”

Then Neville would mumble something and make a halfhearted attempt to restore the controls to where he had found them and Selene would say, “Let it go!”

The furniture was in smooth curves, and the walls were abstractly decorated in low-key, unobtrusive colors. Nowhere was there any representation of anything that might be considered a living thing.

“Living things are Earth,” Selene would say, “not the Moon.”

Now, when she entered, she found, as so often, Neville there; Barron Neville, resting on the flimsy couch with one sandal on. The other lay beside him where it had dropped, and there was a line of red marks on his abdomen, just over his umbilicus, where he had been meditatively scratching.

She said, “Get us some coffee, won’t you, Barron?” and slipped out of her own clothes in a long, graceful wiggle accompanied by a sigh of relief, letting them drop to the ground and then kicking them into the corner with one toe.

“What a relief to get out of them,” she said. “It’s the worst part of the job, having to dress like an Earthie.”

Neville was in the kitchen corner. He paid no attention; he had heard it before. He said, “What’s wrong with your water supply? It’s way down.”

“Is it?” she asked. “Well, I’ve been overusing, I suppose. Just be patient.”

“Any trouble, today?”

Selene shrugged. “No. Very run of the mill. Just the usual bit about watching them teetering along and pretending they don’t hate the food, and knowing they’re wondering if they’ll be asked to take off their clothes, I shouldn’t be surprised.... Disgusting possibility.”

“Are you taking up prudery?” He brought the two small cups of coffee to the table.

“In this case prudery is required. They’re wrinkled, sagging, paunchy, and full of germs. I don’t care what the quarantine regulations are like; they’re full of germs.... What’s new on your side?”

Barron shook his head. He was heavily-built for a Lunarite, and there was an almost-sullen narrowing of his eyes that had become a built-in feature. Except for that his features were even, and remarkably handsome, Selene thought.

He said, “Nothing startling. We’re still waiting out the change in Commissioner. We’ll have to see what this Gott-stein is like.”

“Can he make difficulties?”

“None more than are being made. After all, what can they do? They can’t infiltrate. You can’t disguise an Earthie as a Lunarite.” But he looked uneasy just the same.

Selene sipped at her coffee and looked at him shrewdly. “Some Lunarites might be Earthies inside.”

“Yes, and I’d like to know which. Sometimes I don’t think I can trust— Oh, well. I’m wasting incredible amounts of time with my synchrotron project and getting nowhere. I’m having no luck with priorities.”

“They probably don’t trust you, and I don’t blame them. If only you didn’t slink around so conspiratorially.”

“I do no such thing. It would give me great pleasure to walk out of the synchrotron room and never return, but then they would become suspicious. ... If you’ve been raising hell with your water supply, Selene, I suppose we can’t have a second cup.”

“No, we can’t. But if it conies to that, you’ve been helping me waste water. You’ve had two showers here in the last week.”

“I’ll give you a water credit. I didn’t know you were counting.”

“I’m not counting—my water level is.”

She finished her own cup of coffee and stared at its emptiness thoughtfully. She said, “They always make faces over it. The tourists do. And I can never figure out why, either. It tastes fine to me. Did you ever taste Earth-coffee, Barron?”

“No,” he said, briefly.

“I did. Once. Some tourist had smuggled in packets of what he called instant coffee. He offered me some in exchange for you-know-what. Seemed to think it was an even trade.”

“And you had some?”

“I was curious. It was bitter and metallic. I hated it. Then I told him that miscegenation was against Lunarite custom and he turned rather bitter and metallic himself.”

“You never told me this. He didn’t try anything, did he?”

“It’s not particularly your business, is it? And, no, he didn’t try anything. If he had tried, at the wrong gravity for him, I’d have bounced him from here to corridor 1.”

Then she went on. “Oh, yes. I picked up another Earthie today. Insisted on sitting with me.”

“And what did he offer you in exchange for the screwing you so delicately call you-know-what?”

“Just sat there.”

“And stared at your breasts?”

“They’re there to be stared at, but actually he didn’t. He stared at my nameplate.... Besides, what’s it to you what he fantasied? Fantasies are free and I don’t have to fulfill them. What do you think I’m fantasying? Bed with an Earthman? With all the action you would expect of someone trying to handle a gravitational field he isn’t used to? I wouldn’t say it hasn’t been done, but not by me, and not that I’ve ever heard any good of it. Is that settled? Can I get back to the Earthie? Who’s nearly fifty? And who obviously wasn’t terrifically handsome even when he was twenty?... Interesting appearance, though; I’ll grant him that.”

“All right. I can do without a thumbnail sketch. What about him?”

“He asked about the proton synchrotron!”

Neville rose to his feet, swaying a little as was almost inevitable after quick movement at low gravity. “What did he ask about the synchrotron?”

“Nothing. Why are you so excited? You asked me to tell you anything that was out of the way with any tourist at any time and this seemed out of the way. No one ever asked me about the synchrotron before.”

“All right.” He paused a little, then in a normal voice, said, “Why was he interested in the synchrotron?”

Selene said, “I haven’t the faintest idea. He just asked if he could see it. It could be that he’s a tourist with an interest in science. For all I know, it was just a ploy to get me interested in him.”

“And I suppose you are. What’s his name?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask him.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not interested in him. Which way do you want it to be? Besides, his asking shows he’s a tourist. If he were a physicist, he wouldn’t have to ask. He’s be there.”

“My dear Selene,” said Neville. “Let me spell it out. Under the present circumstances, anyone who asks to see the proton synchrotron is a peculiar fellow we want to know about. And why should he ask you?” He walked hastily to the other end of the room and back as though wearing off a little energy. Then he said, “You’re the expert at that nonsense. Do you find him of interest?”

“Sexually?”

“You know what I mean. Don’t play games, Selene.”

Selene said with clear reluctance. “He’s interesting, even disturbing. But I don’t know why. He said nothing. He did nothing.”

“Interesting and disturbing, is he? Then you will see him again.”

“And do what?”

“How do I know? That’s your bit. Find out his name. Find out anything else you can. You’ve got some brains, so use them on a little practical nosiness for a change.”

“Oh, well,” she said, “orders from on high. All right.”

3

There was no way of telling the Commissioner’s quarters, by size alone, from those of any Lunarite. There was no space on the Moon, not even for Terrestrial officials; no luxurious waste, even as a symbol of the home planet. Nor, for that matter, was there any way of changing the overwhelming fact about the Moon—that it was underground at low gravity—even for the greatest Earthman who ever lived.

“Man is still the creature of his environment,” sighed Luiz Montez. “I’ve been two years on the Moon and there have been times when I have been tempted to stay on but— I’m getting on in years. I’ve just passed my fortieth and if I intend ever to go back to Earth, it had better be now. Any older and I won’t be able to readjust to full-gravity.”

Konrad Gottstein was only thirty-four and looked, if anything, younger. He had a wide, round, large-featured face, the kind of face one didn’t see among the Lunarites, the kind of face that was something they would draw as part of an Earthie caricature. He was not heavily-built—it did not pay to send heavily-built Earthmen to the Moon— and his head seemed too large for his body.

He said (and he spoke Planetary Standard with a perceptibly different accent from that of Montez), “You sound apologetic.”

“I am. I am,” said Montez. Where Gottstein’s face was intrinsically good-natured in appearance, the long thin lines of Montez’ face were almost comically tragic. “I am apologetic in both senses. I am embarrassed to be leaving the Moon, since it is an attractive world filled with excitement. And I am embarrassed about the embarrassment; ashamed that I should be reluctant to take up Earth’s burden—gravity and all.”

“Yes, I imagine taking back the other five-sixths will be hard,” said Gottstein. “I’ve been on the Moon only a few days and already I feel that one-sixth g is perfectly fine.”

“You won’t feel that when the constipation starts and you start living on mineral oil,” said Montez with a sigh, “but that will pass.... And don’t think you can imitate the light gazelle just because you feel light. There’s an art to it.”

“So I understand.”

“So you think you understand, Gottstein. You haven’t seen the kangaroo walk, have you?”

“On television.”

“That doesn’t really give you the feel of it. You have to try it. It’s the proper mode for crossing level lunar surface at high speed. The feet move together backward and launch you on what would be a simple broad jump on Earth. While you’re in mid-air, they come forward; begin moving back just before they hit the ground again; keep you launched; and so on. The motion seems slow by Earth standards with only a low gravity whipping you on, but each leap is in excess of twenty feet and the amount of muscular effort required to keep you in the air—if there were air—is minimal. The sensation is like flying—”

“Have you tried it? Can you do it?”

“I’ve tried it, but no Earthman can really do it. I’ve kept it up for as many as five leaps in a row, enough to get the sensation; just enough to want to do more, but then there is the inevitable miscalculation, a loss of synchronization, and you tumble and slide for a quarter of a mile. The Lunarites are polite and never laugh at you. Of course, it’s easy for them. They start as children and pick it up at once without trouble.”

“It’s their world,” said Gottstein, chuckling. “Think how they’d be on Earth.”

“They wouldn’t be on Earth. They can’t. I suppose that’s an advantage on our side. We can be either on Moon or on Earth, They can live only on the Moon. We tend to forget that because we confuse the Lunarites with Immies.”

“With what?”

“That’s what they call the Earth-immigrants; those who live on the Moon more or less permanently but were born and raised on the Earth. The immigrants can, of course, return to the Earth, but the real Lunarites have neither the bones nor the muscles to withstand the Earth’s gravity. There were some tragedies in that respect in the Moon’s early history.”

“Oh?”

“Oh, yes. People who returned with their Moon-born children. We tend to forget. We’ve had our own Crisis and a-few dying children don’t seem important in the light of the huge casualties of the late Twentieth and all that followed. Here on the Moon, though, every dead Lunarite who succumbed to the gravity of Earth is remembered.... It helps them feel a world apart, I think.”

Gottstein said, “I thought I had been thoroughly briefed on Earth, but it seems I will still have a lot to learn.”

“Impossible to learn everything about the Moon from a post on Earth, so I have left you a full report as my predecessor did for me. You’ll find the Moon fascinating and, in some ways, excruciating. I doubt that you’ve eaten Lunar rations on Earth and if you’re going by description only, you will not be prepared for the reality.... But you’ll have to learn to like it. It’s bad policy to ship Earth-items here. We’ve got to eat and drink the local products.”

“You’ve been doing it for two years. I guess I’ll survive.”

“I’ve not been doing it steadily. There are periodic furloughs to Earth. Those are obligatory, whether you want them or not. They’ve told you that, I’m sure.”

“Yes,” said Gottstein.

“Despite any exercises you do here, you will have to subject yourself to full gravity now and then just to remind your bones and muscles what it’s like. And when you’re on Earth, you’ll eat. And occasionally, some food is smuggled in.” Gottstein said, “My luggage was carefully inspected, of course, but it turned out there was a can of corned beef in my coat pocket. I had overlooked it. So did they.”

Montez smiled slowly and said, hesitantly, “I suspect you are now going to offer to share it.”

“No,” said Gottstein, judiciously, wrinkling his large button nose. “I was going to say with all the tragic nobility I could muster, ‘Here, Montez, have it all! Thy need is greater than mine.’ ” He stumbled a bit in trying to say this, since he rarely used second person singular in Planetary Standard.

Montez smiled more broadly, and then let it vanish. He shook his head. “No. In a week, I’ll have all the Earth-food I can eat. You won’t. Your mouthfuls will be few in the next few years and you will spend too much time regretting your present generosity. You keep it all. ... I insist. I would but be earning your hatred ex post facto.”

He seemed serious, his hand on the other’s shoulder, his eyes looking straight into Gottstein’s. “Besides,” he said, “there is something I want to talk to you about that I’ve been putting off because I don’t know how to approach it and this food would be an excuse for further sidetracking.”

Gottstein put away the Earth-can at once. There was no way in which his face could match the other’s seriousness, but his voice was grave and steady, “Is there something you could not put into your dispatches, Montez?”

“There was something I tried to put in, Gottstein, but between my not knowing how to phrase it and Earth’s reluctance to grasp my meaning, we ended up not communicating. You may do better. I hope you do. One of the reasons I have not asked to have my tour of duty extended is that I can no longer take the responsibility of my failure to communicate.”

“You make it sound serious.”

“I wish I could make it sound serious. Frankly, it sounds silly. There are only some ten thousand people in the Lunar colony. Rather less than half are native Lunarites. They’re hampered by an insufficiency of resources, an insufficiency of space, a harsh world, and yet—and yet—”

“And yet?” said Gottstein, encouragingly.

“There is something going on here—I don’t know exactly what—which may be dangerous.”

“How can it be dangerous? What can they do? Make war against the Earth?” Gottstein’s face trembled on the brink of a smile-crease.

“No, no. It’s more subtle than that.” Montez passed his hand over his face, rubbing his eyes petulantly. “Let me be frank with you. Earth has lost its nerve.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, what would you call it? Just about the time the Lunar colony was being established, Earth went through the Great Crisis. I don’t have to tell you about that.”

“No, you don’t,” said Gottstein, with distaste.

“The population is two billion now from its six billion peak.”

“Earth is much better for that, isn’t it?”

“Oh, undoubtedly, though I wish there had been a better way of achieving the drop.... But it’s left behind a permanent distrust of technology; a vast inertia; a lack of desire to risk change because of the possible side-effects. Great and possibly dangerous efforts have been abandoned because the danger was feared more than greatness was desired.”

“I take it you refer to the program on genetic engineering.”

“That’s the most spectacular case of course, but not the only one,” said Montez, bitterly.

“Frankly, I can’t get excited over the abandonment of genetic engineering. It was a tissue of failures.”

“We lost our chance at intuitionism.”

“There has never been any evidence that intuitionism is desirable, and considerable indications of its undesirability.... Besides what about the Lunar colony itself? This certainly is no indication of stagnation on Earth.”

“It is,” said Montez, vigorously. “The Lunar colony is a hangover, a last remnant of the period before the Crisis; something that was carried through as a last sad forward thrust of mankind before the great retreat.”

“That’s too dramatic, Montez.”

“I don’t think so. The Earth has retreated. Mankind has retreated, everywhere but on the Moon. The Lunar colony is man’s frontier not just physically, but psychologically, too. Here is a world that doesn’t have a web of life to disrupt; that doesn’t have a complex environment in delicate balance to upset. Everything on the Moon that is of any use to man is man-made. The Moon is a world constructed by man from the start and out of basics. There is no past.”

“Well?”

“On Earth, we are unmanned by our longing for a pastoral past that never really existed; and that, if it had existed, could never exist again. In some respects, much of the ecology was disrupted in the Crisis and we are making do with the remnants so that we are frightened, always frightened.... On the Moon, there is no past to long for or dream about. There is no direction but forward.”

Montez seemed to be catching fire with his own words. He said, “Gottstein, I have watched it for two years; you will watch it for at least that much longer. There is a fire here on the Moon; a restless burning. They expand in every direction. They expand physically. Every month, new corridors are bored, new living quarters established, a new population potential made room for. They expand as far as resources are concerned. They find new construction materials, new water sources, new lodes of specialized minerals. They expand their sun-power battery-banks, enlarge their electronics factories. ... I suppose you know that these ten thousand people here on the Moon are now the major source for Earth’s supply of mini-electronic devices and fine biochemicals.”

“I know they’re an important source.”

“Earth lies to itself for comfort’s sake. The Moon is the major source. At the present rate, it may become the sole source in the near future.... It’s growing intellectually, too. Gottstein, I imagine there isn’t a bright science-oriented youngster on Earth who doesn’t vaguely—or perhaps not so vaguely—dream of going, to the Moon one day. With Earth in retreat from technology, the Moon is where the action is.”

“You’re referring to the proton synchrotron, I suppose?”

“That’s one example. When was the last new synchrotron built on Earth? But it’s just the biggest and most dramatic item; not the only or even the most important. If you want to know the most important scientific device on the Moon—”

“Something so secret I haven’t been told?”

“No, something so obvious that no one seems to notice. It’s the ten thousand brains here. The ten thousand best human brains there are. The only close-knit group of ten thousand human brains that are, in principle and by emotion, science-oriented.”

Gottstein moved restlessly and tried to shift his chair’s position. It was bolted to the floor and wouldn’t move, but in the attempt to do so, Gottstein found himself skittering out of the chair. Montez reached out an arm to steady him.

Gottstein flushed. “Sorry.”

“You’ll get used to the gravity.”

Gottstein said, “But aren’t you making it out a lot worse than it is? Earth isn’t a know-nothing planet altogether. We did develop the Electron Pump. That’s a purely Terrestrial accomplishment. No Lunarite had anything to do with it.”

Montez shook his head and muttered a few words in his native Spanish. They didn’t sound like placid words. He said, “Have you ever met Frederick Hallam?”

Gottstein smiled. “Yes, as a matter of fact I have. The Father of the Electron Pump. I believe he has the phrase tattooed on his chest.”

“The mere fact that you smile and make that remark proves my point, really. Ask yourself: Could a man like Hallam really have fathered the Electron Pump? For the unthinking multitude, the story will do, but the fact is—and you must know it if you stop to think about it— there is no father to the Electron Pump. The para-people, the people in the para-Universe, whoever they are and whatever that is, invented it. Hallam was their accidental instrument. All of Earth is their accidental instrument.”

“We were clever enough to take advantage of their initiative.”

“Yes, as cows are clever enough to eat the hay we provide for them. The Pump is no sign that man is forward-looking. Quite the reverse.”

“If the Pump is a backward step, then I say good for backwardness. I wouldn’t want to do without it.”

“Who would? But the point is it fits Earth’s present mood perfectly. Infinite energy at virtually zero cost, except for maintenance, and with zero pollution besides. But there are no Electron Pumps on the Moon.”

Gottstein said, “I imagine there’s no need for them. The Solar batteries supply what the Lunarites require. Infinite energy at virtually zero cost, except for maintenance, and with zero pollution besides.... Isn’t that the litany?”

“Yes, indeed, but the Solar batteries are entirely man-made. That’s the point I’m making. An Electron Pump was projected for the Moon; installation was attempted.”

“And?”

“And it didn’t work. The para-people didn’t accept the tungsten. Nothing happened.”

“I didn’t know that. Why not?”

Montez lifted his shoulders and eyebrows expressively. “How is one to know? We might assume, for instance, that the para-people live on a world without a satellite; that they have no conception of separate worlds in close proximity, each populated; that, having found one, they did not seek another. Who knows?—The point is, that the para-people didn’t bite and we ourselves, without them, could do nothing.”

“We ourselves,” repeated Gottstein, thoughtfully. “By that, you mean the Earthmen?”

“Yes.”

“And the Lunarites?”

“They were not involved.”

“Were they interested?”

“I don’t know. That’s where my uncertainty—and fear—chiefly rests. The Lunarites—the native Lunarites, particularly—do not feel like Earthmen. I don’t know what their plans are or what they intend. I can’t find out.”

Gottstein looked thoughtful. “But what can they do? Do you have any reason to suppose they intend to do us harm; or that they can do Earth harm even if they intend it?”

“I can’t answer that question. They are an attractive and intelligent people. It seems to me they lack real hatred or real rage or even real fear. But perhaps that is what only seems to me. What bothers me most is that I don’t know.”

“The scientific equipment on the Moon is run by Earth, I believe.”

“That is correct. The proton synchrotron is. The radio telescope on the trans-terrestrial side is. The three-hundred-inch optical telescope is. ... The large equipment, that is, all of which has been in existence for fifty years.”

“And what’s been done since?”

“Very little by Earthmen.”

“What about the Lunarites?”

“I’m not sure. Their scientists work in the large installations, but I once tried to check time cards. There are gaps.”

“Gaps?”

“They spend considerable time away from the large installations. It is as though they had laboratories of their own.”

“Well, if they produce mini-electronic devices and fine bio-chemicals, isn’t that to be expected?”

“Yes, but— Gottstein, I don’t know. I fear my ignorance.”

There was a moderately long pause. Gottstein said, “Montez, I take it you are telling me all this so that I will be careful; so that I will try to find out what the Lunarites are doing?”

“I suppose that’s about it,” said Montez, unhappily.

“But you don’t even know that they’re doing anything at all.”

“I feel that they are.”

Gottstein said, “It’s odd, then. I should be trying to talk you out of all this fearful mysticism of yours—but it’s odd—”

“What is?”

“The same vessel that brought me to the Moon brought someone else to the Moon. I mean, a large party came, but one face in particular triggered something. I didn’t talk to him—had no occasion to—and I dismissed the matter. But now our talk is pushing a button, and he suddenly comes back to mind—”

“Yes?”

“I was on a committee once that dealt with Electron Pump matters. A question of safety.” He smiled briefly. “Earth’s lost nerve, you might say. We worry about safety everywhere—and a good thing, damn it, lost nerve or not. The details escape me but in connection with that hearing, I saw that face that now I saw on the vessel. I’m convinced of it.”

“Does that have significance, do you think?”

“I’m not sure. I associate that face with something disturbing. If I keep on thinking, it may come back to me. In any case, I had better get a list of the passengers and see if any name means something to me. Too bad, Montez, but I think you’re getting me started.”

“Not bad at all,” said Montez. “I’m glad of it. As for this man; it may be he is only a tourist of no consequence and will be gone in two weeks, but I am glad to have you thinking about the matter—”

Gottstein did not seem to be listening. “He is a physicist, or a scientist of some sort,” he muttered. “I’m certain of it and I associate him with danger—”

4

“Hello,” said Selene, cheerfully.

The Earthman turned around. Recognition took almost no time at all. “Selene! Am I right? Selene!”

“Right! Correctly pronounced. Are you enjoying yourself?”

The Earthman said gravely, “Very much. It makes me realize how unique our century is. It was not so long ago I was on Earth, feeling tired of my world, tired of myself. Then I thought: Well, if I were living a hundred years ago, the only way I could leave the world would be to die, but now—I can go to the Moon.” He smiled without real gaiety.

Selene said, “Are you happier now that you are on the Moon?”

“A little.” He looked about. “Don’t you have a crowd of tourists to take care of?”

“Not today,” she said, cheerfully. “It’s my day off. Who knows, I may take two or three. It’s a dull job.”

“What a shame, then, that you bump into a tourist on your day off.”

“I didn’t bump into you. I came looking for you. And a hard job that was, too. You shouldn’t wander off by yourself.”

The Earthman looked at her with interest. “Why should you look for me? Are you fond of Earthmen?”

“No,” she said, with easy frankness. “I’m sick of them. I dislike them on principle and being constantly associated with them in my job makes it worse.”

“Yet you come looking for me and there isn’t a way on Earth—on the Moon, I mean—that I can convince myself I am young and handsome.”

“Even if you were, it wouldn’t help. Earthmen don’t interest me, as everyone but Barren knows.”

“Then why do you come looking for me?”

“Because there are other ways of being interested and because Barton is interested.”

“And who is Barron? Your boyfriend?”

Selene laughed. “Barron Neville. He’s a lot more than a boy and a lot more than a friend. We have sex when we feel like it.”

“Well, that’s what I meant. Do you have children?”

“One boy. He’s ten. He spends most of his time in the boys’ compound. To spare you the next question, he’s not Barron’s. I may have a child by Barron if we’re still together when I’m assigned another child—if I’m assigned another child.... I am pretty sure I will be.”

“You’re quite frank.”

“About things I don’t consider secret? Of course.... Now what would you like to do?”

They had been walking along a corridor of milk-white rock, into the glazed surface of which were inset dusky bits of “Moon-gems” that lay about for the taking in most sections of the Lunar surface. She wore sandals which scarcely seemed to touch the ground; he wore thick-soled boots which leadenly helped weigh him down to keep his steps from becoming torture.

The corridor was one-way. Occasionally, a small electric cart would overtake them and move nearly silently past.

The Earthman said, “Now what would I like to do? That is a broad-beamed invitation. Would you like to set boundary conditions so that my answers will not innocently offend you?”

“Are you a physicist?”

The Earthman hesitated. “Why do you ask?”

“Just to hear what you would say. I know you’re a physicist.”

“How?”

“No one says ‘set boundary conditions’ unless they are.

Especially if the first thing they want to see on the Moon is the proton synchrotron.”

“Is that why you’ve come looking for me? Because I seem to be a physicist?”

“That’s why Barron sent me looking for you. Because he’s a physicist. I came because I thought you were rather unusual for an Earthman.”

“In what way?”

“Nothing terribly complimentary—if it’s compliments you’re fishing for. It’s just that you seem not to like Earth-men.”

“How can you tell that?”

“I watched you look at the others in the party. Besides, I can always tell somehow. It’s the Earthies who don’t like Earthies who tend to stay on the Moon. Which brings me back to the question.... What would you like to do? And I’ll set the boundary conditions. I mean as far as sightseeing is concerned.”

The Earthman looked at her sharply. “That’s peculiar, Selene. You have a day off. Your job is sufficiently uninteresting or distasteful so that you are glad to have the day off and would be willing to make it two or three. Yet your way of spending it is to volunteer to resume your job for me particularly.... Just because of a little interest.”

“Barron’s interest. He’s busy now and there’s no harm in entertaining you until he’s ready.... Besides, it’s different. Can’t you see it’s different? On my job I’m riding herd on a couple of dozen Earthies— Don’t you mind my using the term?”

“I use it myself.”

“Because you’re an Earthman. Some Earth-people consider it a term of derision and resent it when a Lunarite uses it.”

“You mean when a Lunie uses it?”

Selene flushed. She said, “Yes. That’s about it.”

“Well, then, let’s neither of us cry out at words. Go ahead, you were telling me about your job.”

“On my job, there are these Earthies whom I have to keep from killing themselves and whom I have to take here and there and give little speeches to and make sure they eat and drink and walk by the book. They see their little pet sights and do their little pet things, and I have to be terribly polite and motherly.”

“Awful,” said the Earthman.

“But you and I can do as we please, I hope, and you are willing to take your chances and I don’t have to watch what I say.”

“I told you that you’re perfectly welcome to call me Earthie.”

“All right, then. I’ll have a busman’s holiday. What would you like to do?”

“That’s an easy one to answer. I want to see the proton synchrotron.”

“Not that Maybe Barren can arrange it after you see him.”

“Well, if I can’t see the synchrotron, I don’t know what else there is to see. I know the radio telescope is on the other side and I don’t suppose there’s any novelty in it, anyway. ... You tell me. What doesn’t the average tourist get to see?”

“A number of things. There are the algae rooms—not the antiseptic processing plants, which you’ve seen—but the farms themselves. However, the smell is pretty strong there and I don’t suppose an Earthie—Earthman—would find it particularly appetizing. Earth—men have trouble with the food as it is.”

“Does that surprise you? Have you ever tasted Earth-food?”

“Not really. I probably wouldn’t like it, though. It all depends on what you’re used to.”

“I suppose so,” said the Earthman, sighing. “If you ate a real steak, you’d probably gag at the fat and fiber.”

“We could go to the outskirts where the new corridors are being driven into bedrock, but you’ll have to wear special protective garments. There are the factories—”

“You make the choice, Selene.”

“I will, if you will tell me something honestly.”

“I can’t promise without hearing the question.”

“I said that Earthies that didn’t like Earthies tended to stay on the Moon. You didn’t correct me. Do you intend to stay on the Moon?”

The Earthman stared at the toes of his clumsy boots. He said, “Selene, I had trouble getting a visa to the Moon. They said I might be too old for the trip and that if I stayed any length of time I might find it impossible to return to Earth. So I told them I planned to stay on the Moon permanently.”

“You weren’t lying?”

“I wasn’t sure at the time. But I think I’ll stay here now.”

“I should have thought that they would have been less willing than ever to let you go under those conditions.”

“Why?”

“Generally, the Earth authorities don’t like to send physicists to the Moon on a permanent basis.”

The Earthman’s lips twitched. “In that respect, I had no trouble.”

“Well, then, if you’re going to be one of us, I think you ought to visit the gymnasium. Earthies often want to but we don’t encourage them as a general rule—though it’s not forbidden outright. Immigrants are a different thing.”

“Why?”

“Well, for one thing, we exercise in the nude or near-nude. Why not?” She sounded aggrieved, as though weary of repeating a defensive position. “The temperature is controlled; the environment is clean. It’s just that where people from Earth are expected to be, nudity becomes unsettling. Some Earthies are shocked; some are titillated; and some are both. Well, we’re not going to dress in the gymnasium for their sake, and we’re not going to cope with them, either; so we keep them out.”

“But immigrants?”

“They have to get used to it. In the end, they’ll be discarding clothes, too. And they’ll need the gymnasium even more than the native Lunarites do.”

“I’ll be honest with you, Selene. If I encounter female nudity, I’ll find it titillating, too. I’m not quite so old that I won’t.”

“Well, titillate, then,” she said, indifferently, “but to yourself. Agreed?”

“Do we have to get undressed too?” He looked at her with amused interest.

“As spectators? No. We could, but we don’t have to. You would feel uncomfortable if you did this early in the game and you wouldn’t be a particularly inspiring sight to the rest of us—”

“You are frank!”

“Do you think it would be? Be honest. And as for myself, I have no wish to put you under a special strain in your private titillation. So we might both just as well stay clothed.”

“Will there be any objection? I mean to my being there as an Earthie of uninspirational appearance?”

“Not if I’m with you.”

“Very well, then, Selene. Is it far away?”

“We are there. Just through here.”

“Ah, then, you were planning to come here all the time.”

“I thought it might be interesting.”

“Why?”

Selene smiled suddenly. “I just thought.”

The Earthman shook his head. “I’m beginning to think you never just think. Let me guess. If I’m to stay on the Moon, I will need to exercise now and then in order to keep muscles, bones, and all my organs, perhaps, in condition.”

“Quite true. So do all of us, immigrants from Earth in particular. The day will come when the gymnasium will be a daily grind for you.”

They stepped through a door and the Earthman stared in astonishment. “This is the first place I’ve seen that looks like Earth.”

“In what way?”

“Why it’s big. I didn’t imagine you would have such big rooms on the Moon. Desks, office machinery, women at the desks—”

“Bare-breasted women,” said Selene, gravely.

“That part isn’t Earthlike, I admit.”

“We’ve got a hold-chute, too, and an elevator for Earthies. There are many levels.... But wait.”

She approached a woman at one of the nearer desks, talking in a rapid, low voice while the Earthman stared at everything with amiable curiosity.

Selene returned. “No trouble. And it turns out we’re going to have a melee. A rather good one; I know the teams.”

“This place is very impressive. Really.”

“If you still mean its size, it’s not nearly big enough. We have three gymnasiums. This is the largest.”

“I’m somehow pleased that in the Spartan surroundings of the Moon, you can afford to waste so much room on frivolity.”

“Frivolity!” Selene sounded offended. “Why do you think this is frivolity?”

“Melees? Some sort of game?”

“You might call it a game. On Earth you can do such things for sports; ten men doing, ten thousand watching. It’s not so on the Moon; what’s frivolous for you is necessary for us, ... This way; we’ll take the elevator, which means a little waiting perhaps.”

“Didn’t mean to get you angry.”

“I’m not really angry but you must be reasonable. You Earthmen have been adapted to Earth-gravity for all the three hundred million years since life crawled onto dry land. Even if you don’t exercise, you get by. We’ve had no time at all to adapt to Moon-gravity.”

“You look different enough.”

“If you’re born and reared under Moon-gravity, your bones and muscles are, naturally, slimmer and less massive than an Earthie’s would be, but that’s superficial. There isn’t a bodily function we possess, however subtle— digestion, rates of hormonal secretions—that isn’t maladjusted to gravity and that doesn’t require a deliberate regimen of exercise. If we can arrange exercise in the form of fun and games that does not make it frivolity.... Here’s the elevator.”

The Earthman hung back in momentary alarm, but Selene said, with residual impatience, as though still seething over the necessity of defense. “I suppose you’re going to tell me it looks like a wickerwork basket. Every Earthman who uses it says so. With Moon-gravity, it doesn’t have to be any more substantial.”

The elevator moved downward slowly. They were the only ones on board.

The Earthman said, “I suspect this isn’t much used.”

Selene smiled again. “You’re right. The hold-chute is much more popular, and much more fun.”

“What is it?”

“Exactly what the name implies.... Here we are. We only had to drop two levels.... It’s just a vertical tube you can drop through, with handholds. We don’t encourage Earthies to use it.”

“Too risky?”

“Not in itself. You can climb down as though it were a ladder. However, there are always youngsters swinging down at considerable speed and Earthies don’t know how to keep out of the way. Collisions are always discomforting. But you’ll get to use it in time.... In fact, what you’ll see now is a kind of large hold-chute designed for recklessness.”

She led him to a circular railing around which a number of individuals were leaning and talking. All were more or less in the nude. Sandals were common and usually a hip-purse was slung over one shoulder. Some wore briefs. One was scooping a greenish-mash out of a container and was eating it.

The Earthman wrinkled his nose slightly as he passed that one. He said, “The dental problem must be severe on the Moon.”

“It isn’t good,” Selene agreed. “If we ever get the chance, we’ll select for an edentate jaw.”

“Toothlessness?”

“Maybe not entirely. We might keep the incisors and canines for cosmetic reasons and for occasionally useful tasks. They’re easily cleaned, too. But why should we want useless molars? It’s just a hangover from an Earthie past.”

“Are you making any progress in that direction?”

“No,” she said, stiffly. “Genetic engineering is illegal. Earth insists.”

She was leaning over the railing. “They call this the Moon’s playground,” she said.

The Earthman looked down. It was a large cylindrical opening with pink smooth walls to which metal bars were attached in what seemed a random configuration. Here and there, a bar stretched across a portion of the cylinder, sometimes across its entire width. It was perhaps four or five hundred feet deep and about fifty feet across.

No one seemed to be paying particular attention either to the playground or to the Earthman. Some had looked at him indifferently as he passed, seeming to weigh his clothed state, his facial appearance, and then had turned away. Some made a casual hand gesture to Selene’s direction before turning away, but all turned away. The no-interest signal, however subdued, could not have been more blatant.

The Earthman turned to the cylindrical opening. There were slim figures at the bottom, foreshortened because they were seen from above. Some wore wisps of clothing in red, some in blue. Two teams, he decided. Clearly the wisps served protective functions, since all wore gloves and sandals, protective bands about knees and elbows. Some wore brief bands about the hips, some about the chests.

“Oh,” he muttered. “Men and women.”

Selene said, “Right! The sexes compete equally but the idea is to prevent the uncontrolled swinging of parts that might hamper the guided fall. There’s a sexual difference there which also involves vulnerability to pain. It’s not modesty.”

The Earthman said, “I think I’ve read of this.”

“You may have,” said Selene, indifferently. “Not much seems to get out. Not that we have any objection, but the Terrestrial government prefers to keep news of the Moon to a minimum.”

“Why, Selene?”

“You’re an Earthman. You tell me.... Our theory here on the Moon is that we embarrass the Earth. Or at least the Earth government.”

On either side of the cylinder now, two individuals were rising rapidly and the patter of light drumbeats was heard in the background. At first, the climbers seemed to be going up a ladder, rung by rung, but their speed increased and by the time they were halfway up, they were striking each hold as they passed, making an ostentatious slapping noise.

“Couldn’t do that on Earth as gracefully,” said the Earthman, admiringly. “Or at all,” he amended.

“It’s not just low-gravity,” said Selene. “Try it, if you think so. This takes endless hours of practice.”

The climbers reached the railing and swung up to a headstand. They performed a simultaneous somersault and began to fall.

“They can move quickly when they want to,” said the Earthman.

“Umm,” said Selene, through the patter of applause. “I suspect that when Earthmen—I mean the real Earthmen, the ones who have never even visited the Moon—think of moving around the Moon, they think of the surface and of spacesuits. That’s often slow, of course. The mass, with the spacesuit added, is huge, which means high inertia and a small gravity to overcome it.”

“Quite right,” said the Earthman. “I’ve seen the classic motion pictures of the early astronauts that all school children see and the movements are like those underwater, The picture gets imprinted, even when we know better.”

“You’d be surprised how fast we can move on the surface these days, spacesuit and all,” said Selene. “And here, underground, without spacesuits, we can move as quickly as on Earth. The slower whip of gravity is made up for by the proper use of muscles.”

“But you can move slowly, too.” The Earthman was watching the acrobats. They had gone up with speed and were going down with deliberate slowness. They were floating, slapping the handholds to delay the drop rather than, as before, to accelerate the rise. They reached the ground and two others replaced them. And then two more.

And then two more. From each team alternately, pairs competed in virtuosity.

Each pair went up in unison; each pair rose and fell in a more complicated pattern. One pair kicked off simultaneously to cross the tube in a low parabola, convex upward, each reaching the handhold the other had abandoned, and somehow skimming past each other in mid-air without touching. That evoked louder applause.

The Earthman said, “I suspect I lack the experience to appreciate the finer points of skill. Are these all native Lunarites?”

“They have to be,” said Selene. “The gymnasium is open to all Lunar citizens and some immigrants are fairly good, considering. For this kind of virtuosity, however, you must depend on babies that are conceived and born here. They have the proper physical adaptation, at least more than native Earthmen have, and they get the proper childhood training. Most of these performers are under eighteen.”

“I imagine it’s dangerous, even at Moon-gravity levels.”

“Broken bones aren’t very uncommon. I don’t think there’s been an actual death, but there’s been at least one case of broken spine and paralysis. That was a terrible accident; I was actually watching— Oh, wait now; we’re going to have the ad libs now.”

“The what?”

“Till now, we’ve had set pieces. The climbs were according to a fixed pattern.”

The percussion beat seemed softer as one climber rose and suddenly launched into mid-air. He caught a transverse bar one-handed, circling it once vertically, and let go.

The Earthman watched closely. He said, “Amazing. He gets around those bars exactly like a gibbon.”

“A what?” asked Selene.

“A gibbon. A kind of ape; in fact, the only ape still existing in the wild. They—” He looked at Selene’s expression and said, “I don’t mean it as an insult, Selene; they are graceful creatures.”

Selene said, frowning, “I’ve seen pictures of apes.”

“You probably haven’t seen gibbons, in motion. ... I dare say that Earthies might call Lunarites ‘gibbons’ and mean it insultingly, about on the level of what you mean by ‘Earthie.’ But I don’t mean it so.”

He leaned both elbows on the railing and watched the movements. It was like dancing in the air. He said, “How do you treat Earth-immigrants here on the Moon, Selene? I mean immigrants who mean to stay here life-long. Since they lack true Lunarite abilities—”

“That makes no difference. Immies are citizens. There’s no discrimination; no legal discrimination.”

“What does that mean? No legal discrimination?”

“Well, you said it yourself. There are some things they can’t do. There are differences. Their medical problems are different and they’ve usually had a worse medical history. If they come in middle age, they look—old.”

The Earthman looked away, embarrassed. “Can they intermarry? I mean, immigrants and Lunarites.”

“Certainly. That is, they can interbreed.”

“Yes, that’s what I meant.”

“Of course. No reason why an immigrant can’t have some worthwhile genes. Heavens, my father was an immie, though I’m second-generation Lunarite on my mother’s side.”

“I suppose your father must have come when he was quite—Oh, good Lord—” He froze at the railing, then drew a shuddering sigh. “I thought he was going to miss that bar.”

“Not a chance,” said Selene. “That’s Marco Fore. He likes to do that, reach out at the last moment. Actually, it’s bad form to do that and a real champion doesn’t. Still— My father was twenty-two when he arrived.”

“I suppose that’s the way. Still young enough to be adaptable; no emotional complications back on Earth. From the standpoint of the Earthie male, I imagine it must be rather nice to have a sexual attachment with a—”

“Sexual attachment!” Selene’s amusement seemed to cover a very real sense of shock. “You don’t suppose my father had sex with my mother. If my mother heard you say that, she’d set you right in a hurry.”

“But—”

“Artificial insemination was what it was for goodness sake. Sex with an Earthman?”

The Earthman looked solemn. “I thought you said there was no discrimination.”

“That’s not discrimination. That’s a matter of physical fact. An Earthman can’t handle the gravity field properly. However practiced he might be, under the stress of passion, he might revert. I wouldn’t risk it. The clumsy fool might snap his arm or leg—or worse, mine. Gene mixtures are one thing; sex is quite another.”

“I’m sorry.... Isn’t artificial insemination against the law?”

She was watching the gymnastics with absorption. “That’s Marco Fore again. When he isn’t trying to be uselessly spectacular, he really is good; and his sister is almost as good. When they work together it’s really a poem of motion. Look at them now. They’ll come together and circle the same bar as though they have a single body stretched across. He’s a little too flamboyant at times, but you can’t fault his muscular control.... Yes, artificial insemination is against Earth’s law, but it’s allowed where medical reasons are involved, and, of course, that’s often the case, or said to be.”

All the acrobats had now climbed to the top and were in a great circle just below the railing; all the reds on one side, the blues on the other. All arms on the side of the interior were raised and the applause was loud. Quite a crowd had now gathered at the rail.

“You ought to have some seating arrangement,” said the Earthman.

“Not at all. This isn’t a show. This is exercise. We don’t encourage any more spectators than can stand comfortably about the railing. We’re supposed to be down there, not up here.”

“You mean you can do that sort of thing, Selene?”

“After a fashion, of course. Any Lunarite can. I’m not as good as they are. I haven’t joined any teams— There’s going to be the melee now, the free-for-all. This is the really dangerous part. All ten are going to be in the air and each side is going to try to send members of the other side into a fall.”

“A real fall.”

“As real as possible.”

“Are there injuries occasionally?”

“Occasionally. In theory, this sort of thing is frowned upon. That is considered frivolous, and we don’t have so large a population that we can afford to incapacitate anyone without real cause. Still, the melee is popular and we can’t raise the votes to outlaw it.”

“Which side do you vote on, Selene?”

Selene blushed. “Oh, never mind. You watch this!”

The percussion rhythm had suddenly grown thunderous and each of the individuals in the huge well darted outward like an arrow. There was wild confusion in mid-air but when they parted again, each ended firmly on a bar-grip. There was the tension of waiting. One launched; another followed; and the air was filled with flashing bodies again. Over and over it happened.

Selene said, “The scoring is intricate. There is a point for every launch; a point for every touch; two points for every miss inflicted; ten points for a grounding; various penalties for various kinds of fouling.”

“Who keeps the score?”

“There are umpires watching who make the preliminary decisions and there are television tapes in case of appeals. Very often even the tapes can’t decide.”

There was a sudden excited cry when a girl in blue moved past a boy in red and slapped his flank resoundingly. The boy who received the blow had writhed away, but not successfully, and grabbing at a wall bar with improper balance struck that wall ungracefully with his knee.

“Where were his eyes?” demanded Selene indignantly. “He didn’t see her coming.”

The action grew hotter and the Earthman tired of trying to make sense of the knotted flights. Occasionally, a leaper touched a bar and did not retain his hold. Those were the times when every spectator leaned over the railing as though ready to launch himself into space in sympathy. At one time, Marco Fore was struck in the wrist and someone cried “Foul!”

Fore missed his handhold and fell. To the Earthman’s eyes, the fall, under Moon-gravity, was slow, and Fore’s lithe body twisted and turned, reaching for bar after bar, without quite making it. The others waited, as though all maneuvering was suspended during a fall.

Fore was moving quite rapidly now, though twice he had slowed himself without quite being able to maintain a handhold.

He was nearly to the ground when a sudden spidery lunge caught a transverse bar with the right leg and he hung suspended and swinging, head downward, about ten feet above the ground. Arms outspread, he paused while the applause rang out and then he had twisted upright and jumped into a rapid climb.

The Earthman said, “Was he fouled?”

“If Jean Wong actually grabbed Marco’s wrist instead of pushing it, it was a foul. The umpire has ruled a fair block, however, and I don’t think Marco will appeal. He fell a lot farther than he had to. He likes these last-minute saves and someday he’ll miscalculate and hurt himself.... Oh, oh.”

The Earthman looked up in sudden inquiry, but Selene’s eyes weren’t upon him. She said, “That’s someone from the Commissioner’s office and he must be looking for you.”

“Why—”

“I don’t see why he should come here to find anyone else. You’re the unusual one.”

“But there’s no reason—” began the Earthman.

Yet the messenger, who had the build of an Earthman himself or an Earth-immigrant, and who seemed uneasy to be the center of the stares of a couple of dozen slight, nude figures who seemed to tinge their scorn with indifference, came directly toward him.

“Sir,” he began. “Commissioner Gottstein requests that you accompany me—”

5

Barren Neville’s quarters were somehow harsher than Selene’s. His books were on bold display, his computer-outlet was unmasked in one comer, and his large desk was in disarray. His windows were blank.

Selene entered, folded her arms, and said, “If you live like a slob, Barren, how do you expect to have your thoughts neat?”

“I’ll manage,” said Barron, grumpily. “How is it you haven’t brought the Earthman with you?”

“The Commissioner got to him first. The new Commissioner.”

“Gottstera?”

“That’s right. Why weren’t you ready sooner?”

“Because it took time to find out. I won’t work blind.”

Selene said, “Well, then, we’ll just have to wait.”

Neville bit at a thumbnail and then inspected the result severely. “I don’t know whether I ought to like the situation or not.... What did you think of him?”

“I liked him,” said Selene, definitely. “He was rather pleasant, considering he was an Earthie. He let me guide him. He was interested. He made no judgments. He didn’t patronize.... And I didn’t go out of my way to avoid insulting him, either.”

“Did he ask any further about the synchrotron?”

“No, but then he didn’t have to.”

“Why not?”

“I told him you wanted to see him, and I said you were a physicist. So I imagine he’ll ask you whatever he wants to ask you when he sees you.”

“Didn’t he think it strange that he should be talking to a female tourist guide who just happens to know a physicist?”

“Why strange? I said you were my sex-partner. There’s no accounting for sex attraction and a physicist may well condescend to a lowly tourist guide.”

“Shut up, Selene.”

“Oh— Look, Barren, it seems to me that if he were spinning some sort of fancy web, if he approached me because he planned to get to you through me, he would have shown some trace of anxiety. The more complicated and silly any plot, the more rickety it is and the more anxious the plotter. I deliberately acted casual. I talked about everything but the synchrotron. I took him to a gymnastics show.”

“And?”

“And he was interested. Relaxed and interested. Whatever he has on his mind, it isn’t involuted.”

“You’re sure of that? Yet the Commissioner got to him before I did. You consider that good?”

“Why should I consider it bad? An open invitation to a meeting of some sort delivered in front of a couple of dozen Lunarites isn’t particularly involuted, either.”

Neville leaned back with his hands clasped at the nape of his neck. “Selene, please don’t insist on making judgments, when I don’t ask you to. It’s irritating. The man is not a physicist in the first place. Did he tell you he was?”

Selene paused to think. “I called him a physicist. He didn’t deny it but I don’t recall that he actually said he was. And yet—and yet, I’m sure he is.”

“It’s a lie of omission, Selene. He may be a physicist in his own mind, but the fact is that he isn’t trained as a physicist and he doesn’t work as one. He has had scientific training; I’ll grant him that; but he has no scientific job of any kind. He couldn’t get one. There isn’t a lab on Earth that would give him working room. He happens to be on Fred Hallam’s crud-list and he’s been top man there for a long time.”

“Are you sure?”

“Believe me, I checked. Didn’t you just criticize me for taking so long.... And it sounds so good that it’s too good.”

“Why too good? I don’t see what you’re getting at.”

“Doesn’t it seem to you we ought to trust him? After all, he’s got a grievance against Earth.”

“You can certainly argue that way, if your facts are right.”

“Oh, my facts are right, at least in the sense that they’re what turns up, if you dig for them. But maybe we’re supposed to argue that way.”

“Barren, that’s disgusting. How can you weave these conspiracy theories into everything? Ben didn’t sound—”

“Ben?” said Neville, sardonically.

“Ben!” repeated Selene, firmly. “Ben didn’t sound like a man with a grievance or like a man trying to make me think he sounded like a man with a grievance.”

“No, but he managed to make you think he was someone to be liked. You did say you liked him, didn’t you? With emphasis? Maybe that’s exactly what he was trying to do.”

“I’m not that easy to fool and you know it.”

“Well, I’ll just have to wait till I see him.”

“The hell with you, Barron. I’ve associated with thousands of Earthies of all kinds. It’s my job. And you have no reason whatsoever to speak sarcastically about my judgment. You know you have every reason to trust it.”

“All right. Well see. Don’t get angry. It’s just that we’ll have to wait now.... And as long as we do,” he rose lithely to his feet, “guess what I’m thinking?”

“I don’t have to.” Selene rose as smoothly, and with an almost invisible motion of her feet slid sideways, well away from him. “But think it by yourself. I’m not in the mood.”

“Are you annoyed because I’ve impugned your judgment?”

“I’m annoyed because— Oh, hell, why don’t you keep your room in better condition?” And she left.

6

“I would like,” said Gottstein, “to offer you some Earth-side luxury, Doctor, but, as a matter of principle, I have been allowed to bring none. The good people of the Moon resent the artificial barriers imposed by special treatment for men from Earth. It seems better to soothe their sensibilities by assuming the Lunarite pose as far as possible though I’m afraid my gait will give me away. Their confounded gravity is impossible.”

The Earthman said “I find this so also. I congratulate you on your new post—”

“Not yet quite mine, sir.”

“Still, my congratulations. Yet I can’t help wondering why you have asked to see me.”

“We were shipmates. We arrived not so long ago on the same vessel.”

The Earthman waited politely.

Gottstein said, “And my acquaintance with you is a longer one than that. We met—briefly—some years ago.”

The Earthman said quietly, “I’m afraid I don’t recall—”

“I’m not surprised at that. There is no reason for you to remember. I was, for a time, on the staff of Senator Burt, who headed—still heads, in fact—the Committee on Technology and the Environment. It was at a time when he was rattier anxious to get the goods on Hallam—Frederick Hallam.”

The Earthman seemed, quite suddenly, to sit a little straighter. “Did you know Hallam?”

“You’re the second person to ask me that since my coming to the Moon. Yes, I did. Not intimately. I’ve known others who’ve met him. Oddly enough, their opinion usually coincided with mine. For a person who is apparently idolized by the planet, Hallam inspired little personal liking on the part of those who knew him.”

“Little? None at all, I think,” said the Earthman.

Gottstein ignored the interruption. “It was my job, at the time—or at least, my assignment from the senator—to investigate the Electron Pump and see if its establishment and growth were accompanied by undue waste and personal profit-taking. It was a legitimate concern for what was essentially a watch-dog committee, but the senator was, between us, hoping to find something of damage to Hallam. He was anxious to decrease the strangle-hold that man was gaining on the scientific establishment. There, he failed.”

“That much would be obvious. Hallam is stronger than ever right now.”

“There was no graft to speak of; certainly none that could be traced to Hallam. The man is rigidly honest.”

“In that sense, I am sure. Power has its own market value not necessarily measured in credit-bills.”

“But what interested me at the time, though it was something I could not then follow up, was that I did come across someone whose complaint was not against Hallam’s power, but against the Electron Pump itself. I was present at the interview, but I did not conduct it. You were the complainant, were you not?”

The Earthman said, cautiously, “I remember the incident to which you refer, but I still don’t remember you.”

“I wondered then how anyone could possibly object to the Electron Pump on scientific grounds. You impressed me sufficiently so that when I saw you on the ship, something stirred; and then, eventually, it came back. I have not referred to the passenger list but let me check my memory. Aren’t you Dr. Benjamin Andrew Denison?”

The Earthman sighed. “Benjamin Allan Denison. Yes. But why does this come up now? The truth is, Commissioner, I don’t want to drag up matters of the past. I’m here on the Moon and rather anxious to start again; from the start, if necessary. Damn it, I considered changing my name.”

“That wouldn’t have helped. It was your face I recognized. I have no objection to your new life, Dr. Denison. I would not in any way interfere. But I would like to pry a little for reasons that do not directly involve you. I don’t remember, quite, your objection to the Electron Pump. Could you tell me?”

Denison’s head bent. The silence lengthened itself and the Commissioner-Appointee did not interrupt. He even stifled a small clearing of the throat.

Denison said, “Truly, it was nothing. It was a guess I made; a fear about the alteration in the intensity of the strong nuclear field. Nothing!”

“Nothing?” Gottstein did clear his throat now. “Please don’t mind if I strive to understand this. I told you that you interested me at the time. I was unable to follow it up then and I doubt that I could dig the information out of the records now. The whole thing is classified—the senator did very poorly at the time and he isn’t interested in publicity over it. Still, some details come back. You were once a colleague of Hallam’s; you were not a physicist.”

“That’s right. I was a radiochemist. So was he.”

“Stop me if I remember incorrectly, but your early record was a very good one, right?”

“There were objective criteria in my favor. I had no illusions about myself. I was a brilliant worker.”

“Amazing how it comes back. Hallam, on the other hand, was not.”

“Not particularly.”

“And yet afterward things did not go well with you. In fact, when we interviewed you—I think you volunteered to see us—you were working for a toy manufacturer—”

“Cosmetics,” said Denison, in a strangled voice. “Male cosmetics. That didn’t help gain me a respectful hearing.”

“No, it wouldn’t. I’m sorry. You were a salesman.”

“Sales manager. I was still brilliant, I rose to vice-president before breaking off and coming to the Moon.”

“Did Hallam have something to do with that? I mean with you leaving science?”

“Commissioner,” said Denison. “Please! It really doesn’t matter any longer. I was there when Hallam first discovered the tungsten conversion and when the chain of events began that led to the Electron Pump. Exactly what would have happened if I had not been there, I can’t say. Hallam and I might both have been dead of radiation poisoning a month later or of a nuclear explosion six weeks later. I don’t know. But I was there and, partly because of me, Hallam is what he is now; and because of my part in it, I am what I am now. The hell with the details. Does that satisfy you? Because it will have to.”

“I think it satisfies me. You had a personal grudge against Hallam, then?”

“I certainly had no affection for him, in those days. I have no affection for him now, for that matter.”

“Would you say, then, that your objection to the Electron Pump was inspired by your anxiety to destroy Hallam.”

Denison said, “I object to this cross-examination.”

“Please? Nothing of what I ask is intended to be used against you. This is for my own benefit because I am concerned about the Pump and about a number of things.”

“Well, then, I suppose you might work out some emotional involvement. Because I disliked Hallam I was ready to believe that his popularity and greatness had a false foundation. I thought about the Electron Pump, hoping to find a flaw.”

“And you therefore found one?”

“No,” said Denison forcefully, bringing his fist down on the arm of the chair and moving perceptibly upward from his seat in reaction. “Not ‘therefore.’ I found a flaw but it was an honest one. Or so it seemed to me. I certainly didn’t invent a flaw merely to puncture Hallam.”

“No question of inventing, Doctor,” said Gottstein soothingly. “I don’t dream of making such an implication. Yet we all know that in trying to determine something on the boundary line of the known, it is necessary to make assumptions. The assumptions can be made over a gray area of uncertainty and one can shade them in one direction or another with perfect honesty, but in accord with—uh—the emotions of the moment. You made your assumptions, perhaps, on the anti-Hallam edge of the possible.”

“This is a profitless discussion, sir. At the time, I thought I had a valid point. However, I am not a physicist. I am—was—a radiochemist.”

“Hallam was a radiochemist, too, but he is now the most famous physicist in the world.”

“He’s still a radiochemist. A quarter-century out of date.”

“Not so, you. You worked hard to become a physicist.”

Denison smoldered. “You really investigated me.”

“I told you; you impressed me. Amazing how it comes back. But now I’ll pass on to something a little different. Do you know a physicist named Peter Lamont?”

Reluctantly—“I’ve met him.”

“Would you say he was brilliant, too?”

“I don’t know him well enough to say and I hate to overuse the word.”

“Would you say he knew what he was talking about?”

“Barring information to the contrary, I would say, yes.”

Carefully, the Commissioner leaned back in his seat. It had a spindly look about it and by Earth standards it would not have supported his weight. He said, “Would you care to say how you came to know Lamont? Was it by reputation only? Did you meet?”

Denison said, “We had some direct conversations. He was planning to write a history of the Electron Pump; how it started; a full account of all the legendary crap that’s grown up around it. I was flattered that Lamont came to me; that he seemed to have found out something about me. Damn it, Commissioner, I was flattered that he knew I was alive. But I couldn’t really say much. What would have been the use? I would have gained nothing but some sneers and I am tired of it; tired of brooding; tired of self-pity.”

“Do you know anything about what Lamont has been doing in the last few years?”

“What is it you’re thinking of, Commissioner?” asked Denison, cautiously.

“About a year ago, maybe a little more, Lamont spoke to Burt. I am not on the senator’s staff any longer, but we see each other occasionally. He talked to me about it. He was concerned. He thought Lamont might have made a valid point against the Electron Pump and yet could see no practical way of taking up the matter. I, too, was concerned—”

“Concern everywhere,” said Denison, sardonically.

“But now, I wonder. If Lamont talked to you and—”

“Stop! Stop right there, Commissioner. I think I see you sidling toward a point and I don’t want you to move any further. If you expect me to tell you that Lamont stole my idea, that once again I am being treated badly, you are wrong. Let me tell you as forcefully as I can; I had no valid theory. It was purely a guess. It worried me; I presented it; I was not believed; I was discouraged. Since I had no way of demonstrating its value, I gave up. I did not mention it in my discussion with Lamont; we never went past the early days of the Pump. What he came up with later, however much it may have resembled my guess, was arrived at independently. It seems to be much more solid and to be based on rigid mathematical analysis. I lay claim to no priority; to none.”

“You seem to know about Lament’s theory.”

“It made the rounds in recent months. The fellow can’t publish and no one takes him seriously, but it was passed along the grapevine. It even reached me.”

“I see, Doctor. But I take it seriously. To me the warning was second time round, you understand. The report of the first warning—from you—had never reached the senator. It had nothing to do with financial irregularities, which were what was then on his mind. The actual head of the investigating panel—not myself—considered it—you will forgive me—crackpot. I did not. When the matter came up again, I grew disturbed. It was my intention to meet with Lamont, but a number of physicists whom I consulted—”

“Including Hallam?”

“No, I did not see Hallam. A number of those I consulted advised me that Lament’s work was utterly without foundation. Even so, I was considering seeing him when I was asked to take up this position, and here I am, and here you are. So you see why I had to see you. In your opinion is there merit in the theories advanced by yourself and by Dr. Lament?”

“You mean is continued use of the Electron Pump going to blow up the Sun, or maybe the entire arm of the Galaxy?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

“How can I tell you? All I have is my own guess, which is just a guess. As for Lament’s theory, I have not studied it in detail; it has not been published. If I saw it, the mathematics might be beyond me.... Besides, what’s the difference? Lamont won’t convince anyone. Hallam has ruined him as earlier he ruined me, and the public generally would find it against their short-term interest to believe him even if he went over Hallam’s head, so to speak. They don’t want to give up the Pump, and it’s a lot easier to refuse to accept Lament’s theory than to try to do something about it.”

“But you’re still concerned about it, aren’t you?”

“In the sense that I think we might indeed destroy ourselves and that I wouldn’t like to see that happen, of course.”

“So you’ve come to the Moon, now, to do something that Hallam, your old enemy, would prevent your doing on Earth.”

Denison said, slowly, “You, too, like to make guesses.”

“Do I?” said Gottstein, indifferently. “Perhaps I am brilliant, too. Is my guess correct?”

“It may be. I haven’t given up hope of returning to science. If anything I do were to lift the specter of doom from mankind, either by showing that it does not exist or that it does exist and must be removed, I would be pleased.”

“I see. Dr. Denison, to discuss another point at the moment, my predecessor, the retiring Commissioner, Mr. Montez, tells me that the growing edge of science is here on the Moon. He seems to think a disproportionate quantity of the brains and initiative of mankind is here.”

“He may be right,” said Denison. “I don’t know.”

“He may be right,” agreed Gottstein, thoughtfully, “If so, doesn’t it strike you that this may be inconvenient for your purpose. Whatever you do, men may say and think it was accomplished through the Lunar scientific structure. You personally might gain little in the way of recognition, however valuable the results you present.... Which, of course, would be unjust.”

“I am tired of the rat-race of credit, Commissioner Gottstein. I want some interest in life, more interest than I can find as vice-president in charge of Ultra-sonic Depilatories. I’ll find it in a return to science. If I accomplish something in my own eyes, I will be satisfied.”

“Let us say that that would be insufficient for me. What credit you earn, you should receive; and it should be quite possible for me, as Commissioner, to present the facts to the Terrestrial community in such a way as to preserve for you what is yours. Surely you are human enough to want what is your own.”

“You are kind. And in return?”

“You are cynical. But justly so. In return I want your help. The retiring Commissioner, Mr. Montez, is not certain as to the lines of scientific research being undertaken on the Moon. Communications between the peoples of Earth and Moon are not perfect, and coordination of the efforts on both worlds is clearly for the benefit of all. It is understandable that there’s distrust, I suppose, but if you can do anything to break down that distrust, it will be as valuable to us as your scientific findings might be.”

“Surely, Commissioner, you can’t feel that I’m the ideal man to bear witness to the Lunarites as to how fair-meaning and well-disposed the Earth’s scientific establishment is.”

“You mustn’t confuse one vengeful scientist with the men of the Earth as a whole, Dr. Denison. Let’s put it this way. I would appreciate being kept aware of your scientific findings so that I could help you retain your fair share of credit; and in order to understand your findings properly—I am not a professional scientist myself, remember —it would be helpful if you were to explain them in the light of the present state of science on the Moon. Is it agreed?”

Denison said, “You ask a hard thing. Preliminary results, prematurely disclosed, whether through carelessness or over-enthusiasm, can do tremendous harm to a reputation. I would hate to talk about anything to anyone until I was sure of my ground. My earlier experience with the committee on which you served would certainly encourage me to be cautious.”

“I quite understand,” said Gottstein, heartily. “I would leave it to you to decide when I might usefully be informed.... But I have kept you late and you probably want to sleep.”

Which was a dismissal. Denison left, and Gottstein looked after him thoughtfully.

7

Denison opened the door by hand. There was a contact that would have opened it automatically, but in the blur of waking, he could not find it.

The dark-haired man, with a face that was somehow scowling in repose, said, “I’m sorry.... Am I early?”

Denison repeated the last word to give him time to absorb matters. “Early? ... No. I... I’m late, I think.”

“I called. We made an appointment—”

And now Denison had it. “Yes. You’re Dr. Neville.”

“That’s right. May I come in?”

He stepped in as he asked. Denison’s room was small, and held a rumpled bed that took up most of the available space. The ventilator was sighing softly.

Neville said with meaningless courtesy, “Slept well, I hope?”

Denison looked down at his pajamas and passed his hand over his rumpled hair. “No,” he said abruptly. “I had an abominable night. May I be excused long enough to make myself more presentable?”

“Of course. Would you like to have me prepare breakfast meanwhile? You may be unacquainted with the equipment.”

“It would be a favor,” said Denison.

He emerged some twenty minutes later, washed and shaved, wearing trousers and an undershirt. He said, “I trust I didn’t break the shower. It went off and I couldn’t turn it on again.”

“The water’s rationed. You only get so much. This is the Moon, Doctor. I’ve taken the liberty of preparing scrambled eggs and hot soup for the two of us.”

“Scrambled—”

“We call it that. Earthmen wouldn’t, I suppose.”

Denison said, “Oh!” He sat down with something less than enthusiasm and tasted the pasty yellow mixture that clearly was what the other meant by scrambled eggs. He tried not to make a face at the first taste and then manfully swallowed it and dug in for a second forkful.

“You’ll get used to it with time,” said Neville, “and it’s highly nourishing. I might warn you that the high-protein content and the low gravity will cut your need for food.”

“Just as well,” said Denison, clearing his throat.

Neville said, “Selene tells me that you intend to stay on the Moon.”

Denison said, “That was my intention.” He rubbed his eyes. “I’ve had a terrible night, though. It tests my resolution.”

“How many times did you fall out of bed?”

“Twice. ... I take it that the situation is a common one.”

“For men of Earth, an invariable one. Awake, you can make yourself walk with due regard for the Moon’s gravity. Asleep, you toss as you would on Earth. But at least falling is not painful at low gravity.”

“The second time, I slept on the floor awhile before waking. Didn’t remember falling. What the hell do you do about it?”

“You mustn’t neglect your periodic checks on heartbeat, blood pressure, and so on, just to make sure the gravity change isn’t introducing too much of a strain.”

I’ve been amply warned of that,” said Denison with distaste. “ln fact, I have fixed appointments for the next month. And pills.”

“Well,” said Neville, as if dismissing a triviality, “within a week you’ll probably have no trouble at all. ... And you’ll need proper clothing. Those trousers will never do and that flimsy upper garment serves no purpose.”

“I presume there’s some place I can buy clothes.”

“Of course. If you can get her when she’s off duty, Selene will be glad to help, I’m sure. She assures me you’re a decent sort, Doctor.”

“I’m delighted she thinks so.” Denison, having swallowed a spoonful of the soup, looked at it as though he were wondering what to do with the rest. Grimly, he continued the task of downing it.

“She judged you to be a physicist, but of course she’s wrong.”

“I was trained as a radiochemist.”

“You haven’t worked at that either for a long time, Doctor. We may be out of it up here, but we’re not that far out of it. You’re one of Hallam’s victims.”

“Are there so many you speak of them as a group?”

“Why not? The whole Moon is one of Hallam’s victims.”

“The Moon?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We have no Electron Pump Stations on the Moon. None have been established because there has been no cooperation from the para-Universe. No samples of tungsten have been accepted.”

“Surely, Dr. Neville, you don’t intend to imply that this is Hallam’s doing.”

“In a negative way, yes. Why must it be only the para-Universe which can initiate a Pump Station. Why not ourselves?”

“As far as I know, we lack the knowledge to take the initiative.”

“And we will continue to lack the knowledge if research into the matter is forbidden.”

“Is it forbidden?” Denison asked, with a faint note of surprise.

“In effect. If none of the work necessary to expand knowledge in that direction finds adequate priorities at the proton synchrotron or at any of the other large equipment —all controlled by Earth and all under the influence of Hallam—then the research is effectively forbidden.”

Denison rubbed his eyes. “I suspect I will have to sleep again before long. ... I beg your pardon. I did not mean to imply you were boring me. But tell me, is the Electron Pump so important to the Moon? Surely the Solar batteries are effective and sufficient.”

“They tie us to the Sun, Doctor. They tie us to the surface.”

“Well— But why does Hallam take this adverse interest in the matter, do you suppose, Dr. Neville?”

“You know better than I, if you know him personally, as I do not. He prefers not to make it clear to the public generally that the entire Electron Pump establishment is the product of the para-men, with ourselves merely servants of the masters. And if, on the Moon, we advance to the point where we ourselves know what we are doing, then the birth of the true Electron Pump technology will date from our moment, not from his.”

Denison said, “Why do you tell me all this?”

“To avoid wasting my time. Ordinarily, we welcome physicists from Earth. We feel cut off here on the Moon, victims of deliberate Terrestrial policy against us, and a physicist-visitor can be helpful, even if only to give us a feeling of lesser isolation. A physicist-immigrant is even more helpful and we like to explain the situation to him and encourage him to work with us. I am sorry that you are not, after all, a physicist.”

Denison said, impatiently, “But I never said I was.”

“And yet you asked to see the synchrotron. Why?”

“Is that really what’s bothering you? My dear sir, let me try to explain. My scientific career was ruined half a lifetime ago. I, have decided to see some sort of rehabilitation, some sort of renewed meaning, to my life as far away from Hallam as I could get—which means here on the Moon. I was trained as a radiochemist, but that has not permanently paralyzed me as far as any other field of endeavor is concerned. Para-physics is the great field of today and I have done my best to self-educate myself there, feeling that this will offer me my best hope for rehabilitation.”

Neville nodded. “I see,” he said with clear dubiousness.

“By the way, since you mentioned the Electron Pump— Have you heard anything about the theories of Peter Lamont?”

Neville eyed the other narrowly. “No. I don’t think I know the man.”

“Yes, he is not yet famous. And probably never will be; chiefly for the same reason I’ll never be. He crossed Hallam, ... His name came up recently and I’ve been giving him some thought. It was one way of occupying the sleepless portion of last night.” And he yawned.

Neville said, impatiently, “Yes, Doctor? What of this man? What is his name?”

“Peter Lamont. He has some interesting thoughts on para-theory. He believes that with continued use of the Pump, the strong nuclear interaction will grow basically more intense in the space of the Solar system and that the Sun will slowly heat up and, at some crucial point, undergo a phase-change that will produce an explosion.”

“Nonsense! Do you know the amount of change produced, on a cosmic scale, of any use of the Pump on a human scale? Even granted that you are only self-educated in physics, you ought have no difficulty in seeing that the Pump can’t possibly make any appreciable change in general Universal conditions during the lifetime of the Solar system.”

“Do you think so?”

“Of course. Don’t you?” said Neville.

“I’m not sure. Lament’s grinding a personal axe. I’ve met him briefly and he impressed me as an intense and very emotional fellow. Considering what Hallam has done to him, he is probably driven by overwhelming anger.”

Neville frowned. He said, “Are you sure he is on the outs with Hallam?”

“I’m an expert on the subject.”

“It doesn’t occur to you that the initiation of that kind of doubt—that the Pump is dangerous—might be used as but another device to keep the Moon from developing Stations of its own?”

“At the cost of creating universal alarm and despondency? Of course not. That would be cracking walnuts with nuclear explosions. No, I’m sure Lament is sincere. In fact, in my own bumbling way, I had similar notions once.”

“Because you, too, are driven by hate for Hallam.”

“I’m not Lamont. I imagine I don’t react the same way he does. In fact, I had some dim hope I would be able to investigate the matter on the Moon, without Hallam’s interference and without Lament’s emotionalism.”

“Here on the Moon?”

“Here on the Moon. I thought perhaps I might get the use of the synchrotron.”

“And that was your interest in it?”

Denison nodded.

Neville said, “You really think you will get the use of the synchrotron? Do you know how far back the requisitions have piled up?”

“I thought perhaps I might get the cooperation of some of the Lunar scientists.”

Neville laughed and shook his head. “We have almost as little chance as you.... However, I’ll tell you what we can do. We have established laboratories of our own. We can give you space; we might even have some minor instrumentation for you. How useful our facilities would be to you, I can’t say, but you might be able to do something.”

“Do you suppose I would have any means there of making observations useful to para-theory?”

“It would depend partly on your ingenuity, I suppose. Do you expect to prove the theories of this man, Lamont?”

“Or disprove them. Perhaps.”

“You’ll disprove them, if anything at all. I have no fears about that.”

Denison said, “It’s quite clear, isn’t it, that I’m not a physicist by training? Why do you so readily offer me working-space?”

“Because you’re from Earth. I told you that we value that, and perhaps your self-education as a physicist will be of additional value. Selene vouches for you, something I attach more importance to than I should, perhaps. And we are fellow-sufferers at the hands of Hallam. If you wish to rehabilitate yourself, we will help you.”

“But pardon me if I am cynical. What do you expect to get out of it?”

“Your help. There is a certain amount of misunderstanding between the scientists of the Earth and the Moon. You are a man of Earth who has come voluntarily to the Moon and you could act as a bridge between us to the benefit of both. You have already had contact with the new Commissioner and it may be possible that, as you rehabilitate yourself, you will rehabilitate us as well.”

“You mean that if what I do weakens Hallam’s influence, that will benefit Lunar science as well.”

“Whatever you do is sure to be useful.... But perhaps I ought to leave you to catch up with your sleep. Call on me during the next couple of days and I will see about placing you in a laboratory. And”—he looked about—“getting you somewhat more comfortable quarters as well.”

They shook hands and Neville left.

8

Gottstein said, “I suppose that, however annoying this position of yours may have been, you are getting ready to leave it today with a small pang.”

Montez shrugged eloquently. “A very large pang, when I think of the return to full gravity. The difficulty of breathing—the aching feet—the perspiration. I’ll be a bath of perspiration constantly.”

“It will be my turn someday.”

“Take my advice. Never stay here longer than two months at a time. I don’t care what the doctors tell you or what kind of isometric exercises they put you through— get back to Earth every sixty days and stay at least a week. You’ve got to keep the feel of it.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.... Oh, I’ve been in touch with my friend.”

“Which friend is that?”

“The man who was on the vessel with me when I came in. I thought I remembered him and I did. A man named Denison; a radiochemist. What I remembered of him was accurate enough.”

“Ah?”

“I remembered a certain interesting irrationality of his, and tried to probe it. He resisted in quite a shrewd fashion. He sounded rational; so rational, in fact, that I grew suspicious. There’s a kind of attractive rationality developed by certain types of crackpots; a kind of defense mechanism.”

“Oh, Lord,” said Montez, clearly harassed. “I’m not sure I follow you. If you don’t mind, I’m going to sit down for a moment. Between trying to determine whether everything is properly packed and thinking about Earth’s gravity, I’m out of breath.... What kind of irrationality?”

“He tried to tell us once that there was danger in the use of the Electron Pumps. He thought it would blow up the Universe.”

“Indeed? And will it?”

“I hope not. At the time it was dismissed rather brusquely. When scientists work on a subject at the limit of understanding, they grow edgy, you know. I knew a psychiatrist once who called it the ‘Who knows?’ phenomenon. If nothing you do will give you the knowledge you need, you end by saying, ‘Who knows what will happen?’ and imagination tells you.”

“Yes, but if physicists go around saying such things, even a few of them—”

“But they don’t. Not officially. There’s such a thing as scientific responsibility and the journals are careful not to print nonsense. ... Or what they consider nonsense. Actually, you know, the subject’s come up again. A physicist named Lament spoke to Senator Hurt, to that self-appointed environmental messiah, Chen, and to a few others. He also insists on the possibility of cosmic explosion. No one believes him but the story spreads in a thin sort of way and gets better with the retelling.”

“And this man here on the Moon believes it.”

Gottstein smiled broadly. “I suspect he does. Hell, in the middle of the night, when I have trouble sleeping—I keep falling out of bed, by the way—I believe it myself. He probably hopes to test the theory experimentally, here.”

“Well?”

“Well, let him. I hinted we would help him.”

Montez shook his head. “That’s risky. I don’t like the official encouragement of crackpot notions.”

“You know, it’s just barely possible they may not be entirely crackpot, but that’s not the point. The point is that if we can get him established here on the Moon, we may find out, through him, what’s going on here. He’s anxious for rehabilitation and I hinted that rehabilitation would come through us if he cooperated.... I’ll see to it that you are discreetly kept posted. As between friends, you know.”

“Thank you,” said Montez. “And good-by.”

9

Neville chafed. “No. I don’t like him.”

“Why not? Because he’s an Earthie?” Selene brushed a bit of fluff from her right breast, then caught it and looked at it critically. “That’s not from my blouse. I tell you the air-recirculation is abominable.”

“This Denison is worthless. He is not a para-physicist. He’s a self-educated man in the field, he says, and proves it by coming here with ready-made damn-fool notions.”

“Like what?”

“He thinks that the Electron Pump is going to explode the Universe.”

“Did he say that?”

“I know he thinks that.... Oh, I know the arguments. I’ve heard them often enough. But it’s not so, that’s all.”

“Maybe,” said Selene, raising her eyebrows, “you just don’t want it to be so.”

“Don’t you start,” said Neville.

There was a short pause. Selene said, “Well, what will you do with him?”

“I’ll give him a place to work. He may be worthless as a scientist, but he’ll have his uses just the same. He’ll be conspicuous enough; the Commissioner has been talking to him already.”

“I know.”

“Well, he has a romantic history as someone with a wrecked career trying to rehabilitate himself.”

“Really?”

“Really. I’m sure you’ll love it. If you ask him about it, he’ll tell you. And that’s good. If we have a romantic Earthman working on the Moon on a crackpot project, he’ll make a perfect object to preoccupy the Commissioner. He’ll be misdirection; window-dressing. And it may even be that through him, who knows, we might just possibly get a better idea of what goes on there on Earth.... You’d better continue to be friendly with him, Selene.”

10

Selene laughed, and the sound was metallic in Denison’s earpiece. Her figure was lost in the spacesuit she wore.

She said, “Now come, Ben, there’s no reason to be afraid. You’re an old hand by now—you’ve been here a month.”

“Twenty-eight days,” mumbled Denison. He felt smothered in his own suit.

“A month,” insisted Selene. “It was well past half-Earth when you came; it is well past half-Earth now.” She pointed to the brilliant curve of the Earth in the southern sky.

“Well, but wait. I’m not as brave out here as I am underground. What if I fall?”

“What if you do? The gravity is weak by your standards, the slope is gentle, your suit is strong. If you fall, just let yourself slide and roll. It’s almost as much fun that way, anyhow.”

Denison looked about doubtfully. The Moon lay beautiful in the cold light of the Earth. It was black and white; a mild and delicate white as compared with the Sunlit views he had seen when he had taken a trip a week before to inspect the Solar batteries that stretched from horizon to horizon along the floor of Mare Imbrium. And the black was somehow softer, too, through lack of the blazing contrast of true day. The stars were supernally bright and the Earth—the Earth—was infinitely inviting with its swirls of white on blue, and its peeping glimpse of tan.

“Well,” he said, “do you mind if I hang on to you?”

“Of course not. And we won’t go all the way up. It will be the beginner’s slope for you. Just try to keep in time with me. I’ll move slowly.”

Her steps were long, slow, and swinging, and he tried to keep in synchronization. The up-sloping ground beneath them was dusty and, with each step he kicked up a fine powder that settled quickly in the airlessness. He matched her stride for stride, but with an effort.

“Good,” said Selene, her arm locked in his, steadying him. “You’re very good for an Earthie—no, I ought to say Immie—”

“Thank you.”

“That’s not much better, I suppose. Immie for Immigrant is as insulting as Earthie for Earthman. Shall I just say you’re simply very good for a man your age.”

“No! That’s much worse.” Denison was gasping a little and he could feel his forehead moistening.

Selene said, “Each time you reach the point where you’re about to put your foot down, give a little push with your other foot. That will lengthen your stride and make it all the easier. No, no—watch me.”

Denison paused thankfully and watched Selene, somehow slim and graceful despite the grotesquerie of the suit once she moved, take off into low, loping leaps. She returned and knelt at his feet.

“Now you take a slow step, Ben, and I’ll hit your foot when I want it to shove.”

They tried several times, and Denison said, “That’s worse than running on Earth. I better rest.”.

“All right. It’s just that your muscles aren’t used to the proper coordination. It’s yourself you’re fighting, you know, not gravity.... Well, sit down and catch your breath. I won’t take you up much farther.”

Denison said, “Will I do any damage to the pack if I lie down on my back?”

“No; of course not, but it’s not a good idea. Not on the bare ground. It’s only at 120 degrees absolute; 150 degrees below zero, if you prefer, and the smaller the area of contact the better. I’d sit down.”

“All right.” Gingerly, Denison sat down with a grunt. Deliberately, he faced northward, away from the Earth. “Look at those stars!”

Selene sat facing him, at right angles. He could see her face now and then, dimly through the faceplate, when the Earthlight caught it at the proper angle.

She said, “Don’t you see the stars on Earth?”

“Not like this. Even when there are no clouds, the air on Earth absorbs some of the light. Temperature differences in the atmosphere make them twinkle, and city lights, even distant city lights, wash them out.”

“Sounds disgusting.”

“Do you like it out here, Selene? On the surface?”

“I’m not crazy about it really, but I don’t mind it too much, now and then. It’s part of my job to bring tourists out here, of course.”

“And now you have to do it for me.”

“Can’t I convince you it’s not the same thing at all, Ben? We’ve got a set route for the tourists. It’s very tame, very uninteresting. You don’t think we’d take them out here to the slide, do you? This is for Lunarites—and Immies. Mostly Immies, actually.”

“It can’t be very popular. There’s no one here but ourselves.”

“Oh, well. There are particular days for this sort of thing. You should see this place on race days. You wouldn’t like it then, though.”

“I’m not sure I like it now. Is gliding a sport for Immies, particularly?”

“Rather. Lunarites don’t like the surface generally.”

“How about Dr. Neville?”

“You mean, how he feels about the surface?”

“Yes.”

“Frankly, I don’t think he’s ever been up here. He’s a real city boy. Why do you ask?”

“Well, when I asked permission to go along on the routine servicing of the Solar batteries, he was perfectly willing to have me go, but he wouldn’t go himself. I rather asked him to, I think, so I could have someone answer my questions, if there were any, and his refusal was rather strong.”

“I hope there was someone else to answer your questions.”

“Oh, yes. He was an Immie, too, come to think of it. Maybe that explains Dr. Neville’s attitude toward the Electron Pump.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well—” Denison leaned back and kicked his legs up alternately, watching them rise and fall slowly with a certain lazy pleasure. “Hey, that’s not bad. Look, Selene— What I mean is that Neville is so intent on developing a Pump Station on the Moon when the Solar batteries are so adequate for the job. We couldn’t use Solar batteries on the Earth, where the Sun is never as unfailing, as prolonged, as bright, as radiant in all wave lengths. There’s not a single planetary body in the Solar system, no body of any size, that is more suitable for the use of the batteries than the Moon is. Even Mercury is too hot.—But the use does tie you to the surface, and if you don’t like the surface—”

Selene rose to her feet suddenly, and said, “All right, Ben, you’ve rested enough. Up! Up!”

He struggled to his feet and said, “A Pump Station, however, would mean that no Lunarite would ever have to come out on the surface, if he didn’t want to.”

“Uphill we go, Ben. Well go to that ridge up ahead. See it, where the Earthlight cuts off in a horizontal line?”

They made their way up the final stretch silently. Denison was aware of the smoother area to their side; a wide swathe of slope from which most of the dust had been brushed.

“That’s too smooth for a beginner to work up,” Selene said, answering his thoughts. “Don’t get too ambitious or you’ll want me to teach you the kangaroo-hop next.”

She made a kangaroo-hop as she spoke, turned about face almost before landing, and said, “Right here. Sit down and I’ll adjust—”

Denison did, facing downhill. He looked down the slope uncertainly. “Can you really glide on it?”

“Of course. The gravity is weaker on the Moon than on the Earth, so you press against the ground much less strongly, and that means there is much less friction. Everything is more slippery on the Moon than on the Earth. That’s why the floors in our corridors and apartments seemed unfinished to you. Would you like to hear me give my little lecture on the subject? The one I give the tourists?”

“No, Selene.”

“Besides, we’re going to use gliders, of course.” She had a small cartridge in her hand. Clamps and a pair of thin tubes were attached to it.

“What is that?” asked Ben.

“Just a small liquid-gas reservoir. It will emit a jet of vapor just under your boots. The thin gas layer between boots and ground will reduce friction to virtually zero. You’ll move as though you were in clear space.”

Denison said uneasily. “I disapprove. Surely, it’s wasteful to use gas in this fashion on the Moon.”

“Oh, now. What gas do you think we use in these gliders? Carbon dioxide? Oxygen? This is waste gas to begin with. It’s argon. It comes out of the Moon’s soil in ton-lots, formed by the billions of years of breakdown of potassium-40.... That’s part of my lecture, too, Ben.... The argon has only a few specialized uses on the Moon. We could use it for gliding for a million years without exhausting the supply. ... All right. Your gliders are on, Now wait till I put mine on.”

“How do they work?”

“It’s quite automatic. You just start sliding and that will trip the contact and start the vapor. You’ve only got a few minutes supply; but that’s all you’ll need.”

She stood up and helped him to his feet. “Face downhill. ... Come on, Ben, this is a gentle slope. Look at it. It looks perfectly level.”

“No, it doesn’t,” said Denison, sulkily. “It looks like a cliff to me.”

“Nonsense. Now listen to me and remember what I told you. Keep your feet about six inches apart and one just a few inches ahead of the other. It doesn’t matter which one is ahead. Keep your knees bent. Don’t lean into the wind because there isn’t any. Don’t try to look up or back, but you can look from side to side if you have to. Most of all, when you finally hit level, don’t try to stop too soon; you’ll be going faster than you think. Just let the glider expire and then friction will bring you to a slow halt.”

“I’ll never remember all that.”

“Yes, you will. And I’ll be right at your side to help. And if you do fall and I don’t catch you, don’t try to do anything. Just relax and let yourself tumble or slide. There are no boulders anywhere that you can collide with.”

Denison swallowed and looked ahead. The southward slide was gleaming in Earthlight. Minute unevenness caught more than their share of light, leaving tiny uphill patches in darkness so that there was a vague mottling of the surface. The bulging half-circle of Earth rode the black sky almost directly ahead.

“Ready?” said Selene. Her gauntleted hand was between his shoulders.

“Ready,” said Denison faintly.

“Then off you go,” she said. She pushed and Denison felt himself begin to move. He moved quite slowly at first. He turned toward her, wobbling, and she said, “Don’t worry. I’m right at your side.”

He could feel the ground beneath his feet—and then he couldn’t. The glider had been activated.

For a moment he felt as though he were standing still. There was no push of air against his body, no feel of anything sliding past his feet. But when he turned toward Selene again, he noticed that the lights and shadows to one side were moving backward at a slowly increasing speed.

“Keep your eyes on the Earth,” Selene’s voice said in his ear, “till you build up speed. The faster you go, the more stable you’ll be. Keep your knees bent... You’re doing very well, Ben.”

“For an Immie,” gasped Denison. “How does it feel?”

“Like flying,” he said. The pattern of light and dark on either side was moving backward in a blur. He looked briefly to one side, then the other, trying to convert the sensation of a backward flight of the surroundings into one of a forward flight of his own. Then, as soon as he succeeded, he found he had to look forward hastily at the Earth to regain his sense of balance. “I suppose that’s not a good comparison to use to you. You have no experience of flying on the Moon.”

“Now I know, though. Flying must be like gliding—I know what that is.”

She was keeping up with him easily.

Denison was going fast enough now so that he got the sensation of motion even when he looked ahead. The Moonscape ahead was opening before him and flowing past on either side. He said, “How fast do you get to go in a glide?”

“A good Moon-race,” said Selene, “has been clocked at speeds in excess of a hundred miles an hour—on steeper slopes than this one, of course. You’ll probably reach a top of thirty-five.”

“It feels a lot faster than that somehow.”

“Well, it isn’t. We’re leveling off now, Ben, and you haven’t fallen. Now just hang on; the glider will die off and you’ll feel friction. Don’t do anything to help it. Just keep going.”

Selene had barely completed her remarks when Denison felt the beginning of pressure under his boots. There was at once an overwhelming sensation of speed and he clenched his fists hard to keep from throwing his arms up in an almost reflex gesture against the collision that wasn’t going to happen. He knew that if he threw up his arms, he would go over backward.

He narrowed his eyes, held his breath till he thought his lungs would explode, and then Selene said, “Perfect, Ben, perfect. I’ve never known an Immie to go through his first slide without a fall, so if you do fall, there’ll be nothing wrong. No disgrace.”

“I don’t intend to fall,” whispered Denison. He caught a large, ragged breath, and opened his eyes wide. The Earth was as serene as ever, as uncaring. He was moving more slowly now—more slowly—more slowly—

“Am I standing still now, Selene?” he asked. “I’m not sure.”

“You’re standing still. Now don’t move. You’ve got to rest before we make the trip back to town.... Damn it, I left it somewhere around here when we came up.”

Denison watched her with disbelief. She had climbed up with him, had glided down with him. Yet he was half-dead with weariness and tension, and she was in the air with long kangaroo-leaps. She seemed a hundred yards away when she said, “Here it is!” and her voice was as loud in his ears as when she was next to him.

She was back in a moment, with a folded, paunchy sheet of plastic under her arm.

“Remember,” she said, cheerily, “when you asked what it was on our way up and I said we’d be using it before we came down?” She unfolded it and spread it on the dusty surface of the Moon.

“A Lunar Lounge is its full name,” she said, “but we just call it a lounge. We take the adjective for granted here on this world.” She inserted a cartridge and tripped a lever.

It began to fill. Somehow Denison had expected a hissing noise, but of course there was no air to carry sound.

“Before you question our conservation policies again,” said Selene, “this is argon also.”

It blossomed into a mattress on six, stubby legs, “It will hold you,” she said. “It makes very little actual contact with the ground and the vacuum all around will conserve its heat.”

“Don’t tell me it’s hot,” said Denison, amazed.

“The argon is heated as it pours in, but only relatively. It ends up at 270 degrees absolute, almost warm enough to melt ice, and quite warm enough to keep your insulated suit from losing heat faster than you can manufacture it. Go ahead. Lie down.”

Denison did so, with a sensation of enormous luxury.

“Great!” he said with a long sigh.

“Mamma Selene thinks of everything,” she said.

She came from behind him now, gliding around him, her feet placed heel to heel as though she were on skates, and then let them fly out from under her, as she came down gracefully on hip and elbow on the ground just beside him.

Denison whistled. “How did you do that?”

“Lots of practice! And don’t you try it. You’ll break your elbow. I warn you though. If I get too cold, I’m going to have to crowd you on the lounge.”

“Safe enough,” he said, “with both of us in suits.”

“Ah, there speaks my brave lecher.... How do you feel?”

“All right, I guess. What an experience!”

“What an experience? You set a record for non-falls. Do you mind if I tell the folks back in town about this?”

“No. Always like to be appreciated.... You’re not going to expect me to do this again, are you?”

“Right now? Of course not I wouldn’t myself. Well just rest awhile, make sure your heart action is back to normal, and then we’ll go back. If you’ll reach your legs in my direction, I’ll take your gliders off. Next time, I’ll show you how to handle the gliders yourself.”

“I’m not sure that there will be a next time.”

“Of course there’ll be. Didn’t you enjoy it?”

“A little. In between terror.”

“You’ll have less terror next time, and still less the time after, and eventually you’ll just experience the enjoyment and I’ll make a racer out of you.”

“No, you won’t. I’m too old.”

“Not on the Moon. You just look old.”

Denison could feel the ultimate quiet of the Moon soaking into him as he lay there. He was facing the Earth this time. Its steady presence in the sky had, more than anything else, given him the sensation of stability during his recent glide and he felt grateful to it.

He said, “Do you often come out here, Selene? I mean, by yourself, or just one or two others? You know, when it isn’t fiesta time?”

“Practically never. Unless there are people around, this is too much for me. That I’m doing it now, actually, surprises me.”

“Uh-huh,” said Denison, noncommittally.

“You’re not surprised?”

“Should I be? My feeling is that each person does what he does either because he wants to or he must and in either case that’s his business, not mine.”

“Thanks, Ben. I mean it; it’s good to hear. One of the nice things about you, Ben, is that for an Immie, you’re willing to let us be ourselves. We’re underground people, we Lunarites, cave people, corridor people. And what’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing.”

“Not to hear the Earthies talk. And I’m a tourist guide and have to listen to them. There isn’t anything they say that I haven’t heard a million times, but what I hear most of all”—and she dropped into the clipped accents of the typical Earthie speaking Planetary Standard—“But, dear, however can all you people live in caves all the time? Doesn’t it give you a terrible closed-in feeling? Don’t you ever want to see blue sky and trees and ocean and feel wind and smell flowers—”

“Oh, I could go on and on, Ben. Then they say, ‘But I suppose you don’t know what blue sky and sea and trees are like so you don’t miss them.’... As if we don’t receive Earth-television and as if we don’t have full access to Earth-literature, both optical and auditory—and olfactory sometimes, too.”

Denison was amused. He said, “What’s the official answer to remarks like that?”

“Nothing much. We just say, ‘We’re quite used to it, madam.’ Or ‘sir’ if it’s a man. Usually it’s a woman. The men are too interested in studying our blouses and wondering when we take them off, I suppose. You know what I’d like to tell the idiots?”

“Please tell me. As long as you have to keep the blouse on, it being inside the suit, at least get that off your chest.”

“Funny, funny word play! ... I’d like to tell them, ‘Look, madam, why the hell should we be interested in your damned world? We don’t want to be hanging on the outside of any planet and waiting to fall off or get blown off. We don’t want raw air puffing at us and dirty water falling on us. We don’t want your damned germs and your smelly grass and your dull blue sky and your dull white clouds. We can see Earth in our own sky when we want to, and we don’t often want to. The Moon is our home and it’s what we make it; exactly what we make it. We own it and we build our own ecology, and we don’t need you here being sorry for us going our own way. Go back to your own world and let your gravity pull your breasts down to your knees.’ That’s what I’d say.”

Denison said, “All right. Whenever you get too close to saying that to some Earthie, you come say it to me and you’ll feel better.”

“You know what? Every once in a while, some Immie suggests that we build an Earth-park on the Moon; some little spot with Earth-plants brought in as seeds or seedlings; maybe some animals. A touch of home—that’s the usual expression.”

“I take it you’re against that.”

“Of course, I’m against it. A touch of whose home? The Moon is our home. An Immie who wants a touch of home had better get back to his home. Immies can be worse than Earthies sometimes.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Denison.

“Not you—so far,” said Selene.

There was silence for a moment and Denison wondered if Selene were going to suggest a return to the caverns. On the one hand, it wouldn’t be long before he would feel a fairly strenuous craving to visit a rest-room. On the other, he had never felt so relaxed. He wondered how long the oxygen in his pack would hold out.

Then Selene said, “Ben, do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“Not at all. If it’s my private life that interests you, I am without secrets. I’m five-foot-nine, weigh twenty-eight pounds on the Moon, had one wife long ago, now divorced, one child, a daughter, grown-up and married, attended University of—”

“No, Ben. I’m serious. Can I ask about your work?”

“Of course you can, Selene. I don’t know how much I can explain to you, though.”

“Well— You know that Barron and L—”

“Yes, I know,” said Denison, brusquely.

“We talk together. He tells me things sometimes. He said you think the Electron Pump might make the Universe explode.”

“Our section of the Universe. It might convert a part of our Galactic arm into a quasar.”

“Really? Do you really think so?”

Denison said, “When I came to the Moon, I wasn’t sure. Now I am. I am personally convinced that this will happen.”

“When do you think it will happen?”

“That I can’t say exactly. Maybe a few years from now. Maybe a few decades.”

There was a short silence between them. Then Selene said, in a subdued voice, “Barron doesn’t think so.”

“I know he doesn’t. I’m not trying to convert him. You don’t beat refusal to believe in a frontal attack. That’s Lament’s mistake.”

“Who’s Lament?”

“I’m sorry, Selene. I’m talking to myself.”

“No, Ben. Please tell me. I’m interested. Please.”

Denison turned to one side, facing her. “All right,” he said. “I have no objection to telling you. Lamont, a physicist back on Earth, tried in his way to alert the world to the dangers of the Pump. He failed. Earthmen want the Pump; they want the free energy; they want it enough to refuse to believe they can’t have it.”

“But why should they want it, if it means death?”

“All they have to do is refuse to believe it means death. The easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists. Your friend, Dr. Neville, does the same thing. He dislikes the surface, so he forces himself to believe that Solar batteries are no good—even though to any impartial observer they would seem the perfect energy source for the Moon. He wants the Pump so he can stay underground, so he refuses to believe that there can be any danger from it.”

Selene said, “I don’t think Barron would refuse to believe something for which valid evidence existed. Do you really have the evidence?”

“I think I do. It’s most amazing really, Selene. The whole thing depends on certain subtle factors of quark-quark interactions. Do you know what that means?”

“You don’t have to explain. I’ve talked so much to Barron about all sorts of things that I might be able to follow.”

“Well, I thought I would need the Lunar proton synchrotron for the purpose. It’s twenty-five miles across, has superconducting magnets, and can dispose of energies of 20,000 Bev and more. It turns out, though, that you people have something you call a Pionizer, which fits into a moderately sized room and does all the work of the synchrotron. The Moon is to be congratulated on a most amazing advance.”

“Thank you,” said Selene, complacently. “I mean on behalf of the Moon.”

“Well, then, my Pionizer results can show the rate of increase of intensity of strong nuclear interaction; and the increase is what Lament says it is and not what the orthodox theory would have it be.”

“And have you shown it to Barron?”

“No, I haven’t. And if I do, I expect Neville to reject it. He’ll say the results are marginal. He’ll say I’ve made an error. He’ll say that I haven’t taken all factors into account. He’ll say I’ve used inadequate controls.... What he’ll really be saying is that he wants the Electron Pump and won’t give it up.”

“You mean there’s no way out.”

“Of course there is, but not the direct way. Not Lamont’s way.”

“What’s that?”

“Lament’s solution is to force abandonment of the Pump, but you can’t just move backward. You can’t push the chicken back into the egg, wine back into the grape, the boy back into the womb. If you want the baby to let go of your watch, you don’t just try to explain that he ought to do it—you offer him something he would rather have.”

“And what’s that?”

“Ah, that’s where I’m not so sure. I do have an idea, a simple idea—perhaps too simple to work—based on the quite obvious fact that the number two is ridiculous and can’t exist.”

There was a silence that lasted for a minute or so and then Selene, her voice as absorbed as his, said, “Let me guess your meaning.”

“I don’t know that I have any,” said Denison.

“Let me guess, anyway. It could make sense to suppose that our own Universe is the only one that can exist or does exist, because it is the only one we live in and directly experience. Once, however, evidence arises that there is a second Universe as well, the one we call the para-Universe, then it becomes absolutely ridiculous to suppose that there are two and only two Universes. If a second Universe can exist, then an infinite number can. Between one and the infinite in cases such as these, there are no sensible numbers. Not only two, but any finite number, is ridiculous and can’t exist.”

Denison said, “That’s exactly my reas—” And silence fell again.

Denison heaved himself into a sitting position and looked down on the suit-encased girl. He said, “I think we had better go back to town.”

She said, “I was just guessing.”

He said, “No, you weren’t. Whatever it was, it wasn’t just guessing.”

11

Barron Neville stared at her, quite speechless for a while. She looked calmly back at him. Her window panorama had been changed again. One of them now showed the Earth, a little more than half full.

Finally, he said, “Why?”

She said, “It was an accident, really, I saw the point and I was too enthusiastic not to speak. I should have told you days ago but I was afraid your reaction would be exactly what it is.”

“So he knows. You fool!”

She frowned. “What does he know? Only what he would have guessed sooner or later—that I’m not really a tourist guide—that I’m your Intuitionist. An Intuitionist who knows no mathematics, for heaven’s sake. So what if he knows that? What does it matter if I have intuition? How many times have you told me that my intuition has no value till it is backed by mathematical rigor and experimental observation? How many times have you told me that the most compelling intuition could be wrong? Well, then, what value will he place on mere Intuitionism?”

Neville grew white, but Selene couldn’t tell whether that was out of anger or apprehension. He said, “You’re different. Hasn’t your intuition always proved right? When you were sure of it?”

“Ah, but he doesn’t know that, does he?”

“He’ll guess it. He’ll see Gottstein.”

“What will he tell Gottstein? He still has no idea of what we’re really after.”

“Doesn’t he?”

“No.” She had stood up, walked away. Now she turned to him and shouted, “No! It’s cheap of you to imply that I would betray you and the rest. If you don’t accept my integrity then accept my common sense. There’s no point in telling them. What’s the use of it to them, or to us, if we’re all going to be destroyed?”

“Oh, please, Selene!” Neville waved his hand in disgust. “Not that.”

“No. You listen. He talked to me and described his work. You hide me like a secret weapon. You tell me that I’m more valuable than any instrument or any ordinary scientist. You play your games of conspiracy, insisting that everyone must continue to think me a tourist guide and nothing more so that my great talents will always be available to the Lunarites. To you. And what do you accomplish?”

“We have you, haven’t we? How long do you suppose you would have remained free, if they—”

“You keep saying things like that. But who’s been imprisoned? Who’s been stopped? Where is the evidence of the great conspiracy you see all around you? The Earth-men keep you and your team from their large instruments much more because you goad them into it than out of any malice on their part. And that’s done us good, rather than harm, since it’s forced us to invent other instruments that are more subtle.”

“Based on your theoretical insight, Selene.”

Selene smiled. “I know. Ben was very complimentary about them.”

“You and your Ben. What the hell do you want with that miserable Earthie?”

“He’s an Immigrant. And what I want is information. Do you give me any? You’re so damned afraid I’ll be caught, you don’t dare let me be seen talking to any physicist; only you, and you’re my— For that reason only, probably.”

“Now, Selene.” He tried to manage a soothing tone, but there was far too much impatience to it.

“No, I don’t care about that really. You’ve told me I have this one task and I’ve tried to concentrate on it and sometimes I think I have it, mathematics or not. I can visualize it; the kind of thing that must be done—and then it slips away. But what’s the use of it, when the Pump will destroy us all anyway.... Haven’t I told you I distrusted the exchange of field intensities?”

Neville said, “I’ll ask you again. Are you ready to tell me that the Pump will destroy us? Never mind might, never mind ‘could’; never mind anything but ‘will.’ ”

Selene shook her head angrily. “I can’t. It’s so marginal. I can’t say it will. But isn’t a simple ‘might’ sufficient in such a case?”

“Oh, Lord.”

“Don’t turn up your eyes. Don’t sneer! You’ve never tested the matter. I told you how it might be tested.”

“You were never this worried about it till you started listening to this Earthie of yours.”

“He’s an Immigrant. Aren’t you going to test it?”

“No! I told you your suggestions were impractical. You’re not an experimentalist, and what looks good in your mind doesn’t necessarily work in the real world of instruments, of randomness, and of uncertainty.”

“The so-called real world of your laboratory.” Her face was flushed and angry and she held her clenched fists at chin-level. “You waste so much time trying to get a vacuum good enough—There’s a vacuum up there, up there on the surface where I’m pointing, with temperatures that, at times, are halfway down toward absolute zero. Why don’t you try experiments on the surface?”

“It would have been useless.”

“How do you know? You just won’t try. Ben Denison tried. He took the trouble to devise a system he could use on the surface and he set it up when he went to inspect the Solar batteries. He wanted you to come and you wouldn’t. Do you remember? It was a very simple thing, something even I could describe to you now that it’s been described to me. He ran it at day-temperatures and again at night-temperatures and that was enough to guide him to a new line of research with the Pionizer.”

“How simple you make it sound.”

“How simple it is. Once he found out I was an Intuitionist, he talked to me as you never did. He explained his reasons for thinking that the strengthening of the strong nuclear interaction is indeed accumulating catastrophically in the neighborhood of Earth. It will only be a few years before the Sun explodes and sends the strengthening, in ripples—”

“No, no, no, no,” shouted Neville. “I’ve seen his results and I’m not impressed.”

“You’ve seen them?”

“Yes, of course. Do you suppose I let him work in our laboratories without making sure I know what he’s doing? I’ve seen his results and they’re worth nothing. He deals with tiny deviations that are well within the experimental error. If he wants to believe that those deviations have significance and if you want to believe them, go ahead. But no amount of belief will make them have that significance if, in fact, they don’t.”

“What do you want to believe, Barron?”

“I want the truth.”

“But haven’t you decided in advance what the truth must be by your own gospel? You want the Pump Station of the Moon, don’t you, so that you need have nothing to do with the surface; and anything that might prevent that is not the truth—by definition.”

“I won’t argue with you. I want the Pump Station, and even more—I want the other. One’s no good without the other. Are you sure you haven’t—”

“I haven’t.”

“Will you?”

Selene whirled on him again, her feet tapping rapidly on the ground in such a way as to keep her bobbing in the air to the tune of an angry clatter.

“I won’t tell him anything,” she said, “but I must have more information. You have no information for me, but he may have; or he may get it with the experiments you won’t do. I’ve got to talk to him and find out what he is going to find out. If you get between him and me, you’ll never have what you want. And you needn’t fear his getting it before I do. He’s too used to Earth thinking; he won’t make that last step. I will.”

“All right. And don’t forget the difference between Earth and Moon, either. This is your world; you have no other. This man, Denison, this Ben, this Immigrant, having come from Earth to the Moon, can, if he chooses, return from Moon to Earth. You can never go to the Earth; never. You are a Lunarite forever.”

“A Moon-maiden,” said Selene, derisively.

“No maiden,” said Neville. “Though you may have to wait a long while before I confirm the matter once again.”

She seemed unmoved at that.

He said, “And about this big danger of explosion. If the risk involved in changing the basic constants of a Universe is so great, why haven’t the para-men, who are so far advanced beyond us in technology, stopped Pumping?”

And he left.

She faced the closed door with bunched jaw muscles. Then she said, “Because conditions are different for them and for us, you incredible jerk.” But she was speaking to herself; he was gone.

She kicked the lever that let down her bed, threw herself into it and seethed. How much closer was she now to the real object for which Barren and those others had now been aiming for years?

No closer.

Energy! Everyone searched for energy! The magic word! The cornucopia! The one key to universal plenty! ... And yet energy wasn’t all.

If one found energy, one could find the other, too. If one found the key to energy, the key to the other would be obvious. She knew the key to the other would be obvious if she could but grasp some subtle point that would appear obvious the moment it was grasped. (Good heavens, she had been so infected by Barren’s chronic suspicion that even in her thoughts she was calling it “the other.”)

No Earthman would get that subtle point because no Earthman had reason to look for it.

Ben Denison would find it for her, then, without finding it for himself.

Except that— If the Universe was to be destroyed, what did anything matter?

12

Denison tried to beat down his self-consciousness. Time and again, he made a groping motion as though to hitch upward the pants he wasn’t wearing. He wore only sandals and the barest of briefs, which were uncomfortably tight. And, of course, he carried the blanket.

Selene, who was similarly accoutered, laughed. “Now, Ben, there’s nothing wrong with your bare body, barring a certain flabbiness. It’s perfectly in fashion here. In fact, take off your briefs if they’re binding you.”

“No!” muttered Denison. He shifted the blanket so that it draped over his abdomen and she snatched it from him.

She said, “Now give me that thing. What kind of a Lunarite will you make if you bring your Earth puritanism here? You know that prudery is only the other side of prurience. The words are even on the same page in the dictionary.”

“I have to get used to it, Selene.”

“You might start by looking at me once in awhile, without having your glance slide off me as though I were coated with oil. You look at other women quite efficiently, I notice.”

“If I look at you—”

“Then you’ll seem too interested and you’ll be embarrassed. But if you look hard, you’ll get used to it, and you’ll stop noticing. Look, I’ll stand still and you stare. I’ll take off my briefs.”

Denison groaned, “Selene, there are people all around and you’re making intolerable fun of me. Please keep walking and let me get used to the situation.”

“All right, but I hope you notice the people who pass us don’t look at us.”

“They don’t look at you. They look at me all right. They’ve probably never seen so old-looking and ill-shaped a person.”

“They probably haven’t,” agreed Selene, cheerfully, “but they’ll just have to get used to it.”

Denison walked on in misery, conscious of every gray hair on his chest and of every quiver of his paunch. It was only when the passageway thinned out and the people passing them were fewer in number that he began to feel a certain relief.

He looked about him curiously now, not as aware of Selene’s conical breasts as he had been, nor of her smooth thighs. The corridor seemed endless.

“How far have we come?” he asked.

“Are you tired?” Selene was contrite. “We could have taken a scooter. I forget you’re from Earth.”

“I should hope you do. Isn’t that the ideal for an immigrant? I’m not the least bit tired. Hardly the least bit tired at any rate. What I am is a little cold.”

“Purely your imagination, Ben,” said Selene, firmly. “You just think you ought to feel cold because so much of you is bare. Put it out of your head.”

“Easy to say,” he sighed. “I’m walking well, I hope.”

“Very well. I’ll have you kangarooing yet.”

“And participating in glider races down the surface slopes. Remember, I’m moderately advanced in years. But really, how far have we come?”

“Two miles, I should judge.”

“Good Lord! How many miles of corridors are there altogether?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know. The residential corridors make up comparatively little of the total. There are the mining corridors, the geological ones, the industrial, the mycological.... I’m sure there must be several hundred miles altogether.”

“Do you have maps?”

“Of course there are maps. We can’t work blind.”

“I mean you, personally.”

“Well, no, not with me, but I don’t need maps for this area; it’s quite familiar to me. I used to wander about here as a child. These are old corridors. Most of the new corridors—and we average two or three miles of new corridors a year, I think—are in the north. I couldn’t work my way through them, without a map, for untold sums. Maybe not even with a map.”

“Where are we heading?”

“I promised you an unusual sight—no, not me, so don’t say it—and you’ll have it. It’s the Moon’s most unusual mine and it’s completely off the ordinary tourist trails.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve got diamonds on the Moon?”

“Better than that.”

The corridor walls were unfinished here—gray rock, dimly but adequately lit by patches of electroluminescence. The temperature was comfortable and at a steady mildness, with ventilation so gently effective there was no sensation of wind. It was hard to tell here that a couple of hundred feet above was a surface subjected to alternate frying and freezing as the Sun came and went on its grand biweekly swing from horizon to horizon and then underneath and back.

“Is all this airtight?” asked Denison, suddenly uncomfortably aware that he was not far below the bottom of an ocean of vacuum that extended upward through all infinity.

“Oh, yes. Those walls are impervious. They’re all booby-trapped, too. If the air pressure drops as much as ten per cent in any section of the corridors there is such a hooting and howling from sirens as you have never heard and such a flashing of arrows and blazing of signs directing you to safety as you have never seen.”

“How often does this happen?”

“Not often. I don’t think anyone has been killed through air-lack for at least five years.” Then, with sudden defensiveness, “You have natural catastrophes on Earth. A big quake or a tidal wave can kill thousands.”

“No argument, Selene.” He threw up his hands. “I surrender.”

“All right,” she said. “I didn’t mean to get excited.... Do you hear that?”

She stopped, in an attitude of listening.

Denison listened, too, and shook his head. Suddenly, he looked around. “It’s so quiet. Where is everybody? Are you sure we’re not lost?”

“This isn’t a natural cavern with unknown passageways. You have those on Earth, haven’t you? I’ve seen photographs.”

“Yes, most of them are limestone caves, formed by water. That certainly can’t be the case of the Moon, can it?”

“So we can’t be lost,” said Selene, smiling. “If we’re alone, put it down to superstition.”

“To what?” Denison looked startled and his face creased in an expression of disbelief.

“Don’t do that,” she said. “You get all lined. That’s right. Smooth out. You look much better than you did when you first arrived, you know. That’s low gravity and exercise.”

“And trying to keep up with nude young ladies who have an uncommon amount of off-time and an uncommon lack of better things to do than to go on busmen’s holidays.”

“Now you’re treating me like a tourist guide again, and I’m not nude.”

“At that, even nudity is less frightening than Intuitionism. ... But what’s this about superstition?”

“Not really superstition, I suppose, but most of the people of the city tend to stay away from this part of the corridor-complex.”

“But why?”

“Because of what I’m going to show you.” They were walking again. “Hear it now?”

She stopped and Denison listened anxiously. He said, “You mean that small tapping sound? Tap—tap— Is that what you mean?”

She ran ahead in slow, loping strides with the slow-motion movement of the Lunarite in unhurried flight. He followed her, attempting to ape the gait.

“Here—here—”

Denison’s eye followed Selene’s eagerly pointing finger. “Good Lord,” he said. “Where’s it coming from?”

There was a drip of what was clearly water. A slow dripping, with each drip striking a small ceramic trough that led into the rock wall.

“From the rocks. We do have water on the Moon, you know. Most of it we can bake out of gypsum; enough for our purposes, since we conserve it pretty well.”

“I know. I know. I’ve never yet been able to manage one complete shower. How you people manage to stay clean I don’t know.”

“I told you. First, wet yourself. Then turn off the water and smear just a little detergent on you. You rub it— Oh, Ben, I’m not going through it yet again. And there’s nothing on the Moon to get you all that dirty anyway.... But that’s not what we’re talking about. In one or two places there are actually water deposits, usually as ice near the surface in a mountain shadow. If we locate it, it drips out. This one has been dripping since the corridor was first driven through, and that was eight years ago.”

“But why the superstition?”

“Well, obviously, water is the great material resource on which the Moon depends. We drink it, wash with it, grow our food with it, make our oxygen with it, keep everything going with it. Free water can’t help but get a lot of respect. Once this drip was discovered, plans to extend the tunnels in this direction were abandoned till it stopped. The corridor walls were even left unfinished.”

“That sounds like superstition right there.”

“Well—a kind of awe, maybe. It wasn’t expected to last for more than a few months; such drips never do. Well, after this one had passed its first anniversary, it began to seem eternal. In fact, that’s what it’s called: ‘The Eternal.’ You’ll even find it marked that way on the maps. Naturally people have come to attach importance to it; a feeling that if it stops it will mean some sort of bad fortune.”

Denison laughed.

Selene said, warmly, “No one really believes it, but everyone part-believes it. You see, it’s not really eternal and it must stop some time. As a matter of fact, the rate of drip is only about a third of what it was when it was first discovered, so that it is slowly drying. I imagine people feel that if it happened to stop when they were actually here, they would share in the bad fortune. At least, that’s the rational way of explaining their reluctance to come here.”

“I take it that you don’t believe this.”

“Whether I believe it or not isn’t the point. You see I’m quite certain that it won’t stop sharply enough for anyone to be able to take the blame. It will just drip slower and slower and slower and no one will ever be able to pinpoint the exact time when it stopped. So why worry?”

“I agree with you.”

“I do, however,” she said, making the transition smoothly, “have other worries, and I’d like to discuss them with you while we’re alone.” She spread out the blanket and sat on it, cross-legged.

“Which is why you really brought me here?” He dropped to hip and elbow, facing her.

She said, “See, you can look at me easily now. You’re getting used to me. ... And, really, there were surely times on Earth when near nudity wasn’t something to be exclaimed over.”

“Times and places,” agreed Denison, “but not since the passing of the Crisis. In my lifetime—”

“Well, on the Moon, do as the Lunarites do is a good enough guide for behavior.”

“Are you going to tell me why you really brought me here? Or shall I suspect you of planning seduction?”

“I could carry through seduction quite comfortably at home, thank you. This is different. The surface would have been best, but getting ready to go out on the surface would have attracted a great deal of attention. Coming here didn’t, and this place is the only spot in town where we can be reasonably safe from interruption.” She hesitated.

“Well?” said Denison.

“Barren is angry. Very angry, in fact.”

“I’m not surprised. I warned you he would be if you told him that I knew you were an Intuitionist. Why did you feel it so necessary to tell him?”

“Because it is difficult to keep things for long from my— companion. Probably, though, he doesn’t consider me that any longer.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, it was turning sour anyway. It’s lasted long enough. What bothers me more—much more—is that he violently refuses to accept your interpretation of the Pionizer experiments you ran after the surface observations.”

“I told you the way it would be.”

“He said he had seen your results.”

“He glanced at them and grunted.”

“It’s rather disillusioning. Does everyone just believe what he wants to?”

“As long as possible. Sometimes longer.”

“What about you?”

“You mean, am I human? Certainly. I don’t believe I’m really old. I believe I’m quite attractive. I believe you seek out my company because you think I’m charming—even when you insist on turning the conversation to physics.”

“No! I mean it!”

“Well, I suspect Neville told you that the data I had gathered were not significant beyond the margin of error, which makes them doubtful, and that’s true enough.... And yet I prefer to believe they have the meaning I expected them to have to begin with.”

“Just because you want to believe that?”

“Not just because. Look at it this way. Suppose there is no harm in the Pump, but that I insist on thinking there is harm. In that case, I will turn out to be a fool and my scientific reputation will be badly damaged. But I am a fool in the eyes of the people who count, and I have no scientific reputation.”

“Why is that, Ben? You’ve hinted around the tale several times. Can’t you tell me the whole story?”

“You’d be surprised how little there is to tell. At the age of twenty-five I was still such a child that I had to amuse myself by insulting a fool for no reason other than that he was a fool. Since his folly was not his fault, I was the greater fool to do it. My insult drove him to heights he couldn’t possibly have scaled otherwise—”

“You’re talking of Hallam?”

“Yes, of course. And as he rose, I fell. And eventually, it dropped me to— the Moon.”

“Is that so bad?”

“No, I rather think it’s good. So let’s say he did me a favor, long-way round.... And let’s get back to what I’m talking about. I’ve just explained that if I believe the Pump to be harmful and am wrong, I lose nothing. On the other hand, if I believe the Pump to be harmless and am wrong, I will be helping to destroy the world. To be sure, I’ve lived most of my life already and I suppose I can argue myself into believing that I have no great cause to love humanity. However, only a few people have hurt me, and if I hurt everyone in return that is unconscionable usury.

“Then, too, if you’d rather have a less noble reason, Selene, consider my daughter. Just before I left for the Moon, she had applied for permission to have a child. She’ll probably get it and before long I’ll be—if you don’t mind my saying so—a grandfather. Somehow I’d like to see my grandchild have a normal life expectancy. So I prefer to believe the Pump is dangerous and to act on that belief.”

Selene said, intensely, “But here’s my point. Is the Pump dangerous or is it not? I mean, the truth, and not what anyone wants to believe.”

“I should ask you that. You’re the Intuitionist. What does your intuition say?”

“But that’s what bothers me, Ben. I can’t make it really certain either way. I tend to feel the Pump is harmful, but maybe that’s because I want to believe that.”

“All right. Maybe you do. Why?”

Selene smiled ruefully and shrugged her shoulders. “It would be fun for Barron to be wrong. When he thinks he’s certain, he’s so vituperatively certain.”

“I know. You want to see his face when he’s forced to back down. I’m well aware of how intense such a desire can be. For instance, if the Pump were dangerous and I could prove it, I might conceivably be hailed as the savior of humanity, and yet I swear that I’d be more interested in the look on Hallam’s face. I’m not proud of that feeling so I suspect that what I’ll do is insist on an equal share of the credit with Lamont, who deserves it after all, and confine my pleasure to watching Lament’s face when he watches Hallam’s face. The pettishness will then be one place removed.... But I’m beginning to speak nonsense.... Selene?”

“Yes, Ben?”

“When did you find out you were an Intuitionist?”

“I don’t quite know.”

“You took physics in college, I imagine.”

“Oh, yes. Some math, too, but I was never good at that. Come to think of it, I wasn’t particularly good in physics, either. I used to guess the answers when I was desperate; you know, guess what I was supposed to do to get the right answers. Very often, it worked and then I would be asked to explain why I had done what I did and I couldn’t do that very well. They suspected me of cheating but could never prove it.”

“They didn’t suspect Intuitionism?”

“I don’t think so. But then, I didn’t either. Until—well, one of my first sex-mates was a physicist. In fact, he was the father of my child, assuming he really supplied the sperm-sample. He had a physics problem and he told me about it when we were lying in bed afterward, just to have something to talk about, I suppose. And I said, ‘You know what it sounds like to me?’ and told him. He tried it just for the fun of it, he said, and it worked. In fact, that was the first step to the Pionizer, which you said was much better than the proton synchrotron.”

“You mean that was your idea?” Denison put his finger under the dripping water and paused as he was about to put it in his mouth. “Is this water safe?”

“It’s perfectly sterile,” said Selene, “and it goes into the general reservoir for treatment. It’s saturated with sulfates, carbonates, and a few other items, however. You won’t like the taste.”

Denison rubbed his finger on his briefs. “You invented the Pionizer?”

“Not invented. I had the original concept. It took lots of development, mostly by Barren.”

Denison shook his head. “You know, Selene, you’re an amazing phenomenon. You should be under observation by the molecular biologists.”

“Should I? That’s not my idea of a thrill.”

“About half a century ago, there came the climax to the big trend toward genetic engineering—”

“I know. It flopped and was thrown out of court. It’s illegal now—that whole type of study—insofar as research can be made illegal. I know people who’ve done work on it just the same.”

“I dare say. On Intuitionism?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Ah. But that’s my point. At the height of the push for genetic engineering, there was this attempt to stimulate Intuitionism. Almost all the great scientists had intuitive ability, of course, and there was the feeling that this was the single great key to creativity. One could argue that superior capacity for intuition was the product of a particular gene combination and there were all sorts of speculations as to which gene combination that was.”

“I suspect that there are many possible types that would satisfy.”

“And I suspect that if you are consulting your intuition here, you are correct. But there were also those who insisted that one gene, or one small related group of genes, was of particular importance to the combination so that you might speak of an Intuition Gene.... Then the whole thing collapsed.”

“As I said.”

“But before it collapsed,” Denison went on, “there had been attempts to alter genes to increase the intensity of Intuitionism and there were those who insisted that some success had been achieved. The altered genes entered the gene pool, I’m positive, and if you happened to inherit— Were any of your grandparents involved in the program?”

“Not as far as I know,” said Selene, “but I can’t rule it out. One of them might have been, for all I can say. ... If you don’t mind, I’m not going to investigate the matter. I don’t want to know.”

“Perhaps not. The whole field grew fearfully unpopular with the general public and anyone who can be considered the product of genetic engineering would not exactly be greeted gladly.... Intuitionism, they said, for instance, was inseparable from certain undesirable characteristics.”

“Well, thank you.”

“They said. To possess intuition is to inspire a certain envy and enmity in others. Even as gentle and saint-like an Intuitionist as Michael Faraday aroused the envy and hatred of Humphry Davy. Who’s to say that it doesn’t take a certain flaw in character to be capable of arousing envy. And in your case—”

Selene said, “Surely, I don’t rouse your envy and hatred?”

“I don’t think so. What about Neville, though?”

Selene was silent.

Denison said, “By the time you got to Neville, you were well-known as an Intuitionist, I suppose.”

“Not well known, I would say. Some physicists suspected it, I’m sure. However, they don’t like to give up credit here any more than on Earth, and I suppose they convinced themselves, more or less, that whatever I had said to them was just a meaningless guess. But Barron knew, of course.”

“I see.” Denison paused.

Selene’s lips twitched. “Somehow I get the feeling that you want to say: ‘Oh, that’s why he bothers with you.’ ”

“No, of course not, Selene. You’re quite attractive enough to be desired for your own sake.”

“I think so, too, but every little bit helps and Barron was bound to be interested in my Intuitionism. Why shouldn’t he be? Only he insisted I keep my job as tourist guide. He said I was an important natural resource of the Moon and he didn’t want Earth monopolizing me the way they monopolized the synchrotron.”

“An odd thought. But perhaps it was that the fewer who knew of your Intuitionism, the fewer would suspect your contribution to what would otherwise be put to his sole credit.”

“Now you sound like Barron himself!”

“Do I? And is it possible he gets rather annoyed with you when your Intuitionism is working particularly well.”

Selene shrugged. “Barron is a suspicious man. We all have our faults.”

“Is it wise to be alone with me, then?”

Selene said, sharply, “Now don’t get hurt because I defend him. He doesn’t really suspect the possibility of sexual misbehavior between us. You’re from Earth. In fact, I might as well tell you he encourages our companionship. He thinks I can learn from you.”

“And have you?” asked Denison, coldly.

“I have.... Yet though that may be his chief reason for encouraging our friendship, it isn’t mine.”

“What’s yours?”

“As you well know,” said Selene, “and as you want to hear me say, I enjoy your company. Otherwise, I could get what I want in considerably less time.”

“All right, Selene. Friends?”

“Friends! Absolutely.”

“What have you learned from me, then? May I know?”

“That would take awhile to explain. You know that the reason we can’t set up a Pump Station anywhere we want to is that we can’t locate the para-Universe, even though they can locate us. That might be because they are much more intelligent or much more technologically advanced than we are—”

“Not necessarily me same thing,” muttered Denison.

“I know. That’s why I put in the ‘or.’ But it might also be that we are neither particularly stupid nor particularly backward. It might be something as simple as the fact that they offer the harder target. If the strong nuclear interaction is stronger in the para-Universe, they’d be bound to have much smaller Suns and, very likely, much smaller planets. Their individual world would be harder to locate than ours would be.

“Or then again,” she went on, “suppose it’s the electromagnetic field they detect. The electromagnetic field of a planet is much larger than the planet itself and is much easier to locate. And that would mean that while they can detect the Earth, they can’t detect the Moon, which has no electromagnetic field to speak of. That’s why, perhaps, we’ve failed to set up a Pump Station on the Moon. And, if their small planets lack a significant electromagnetic field, we can’t locate them.”

Denison said, “It’s an attractive thought.”

“Next, consider the inter-Universal exchange in properties that serves to weaken their strong nuclear interaction, cooling their Suns, while strengthening ours, heating and exploding our Suns. What might that imply? Suppose they can collect energy one-way without our help but only at ruinously low efficiencies. Under ordinary circumstances that would therefore be utterly impractical. They would need us to help direct concentrated energy in their direction by supplying tungsten-186 to them and accepting plutonium-186 in return. But suppose our Galactic arm implodes into a quasar. That would produce an energy concentration in the neighborhood of the Solar system enormously greater than now exists and one that might persist for over a million years.

“Once that quasar forms, even a ruinously low efficiency becomes sufficient. It wouldn’t matter to them, therefore, whether we are destroyed or not. In fact, we might argue that it would be safer for them if we did explode. Until we do, we might end the Pump for any of a variety of reasons and they would be helpless to start it again. After the explosion, they are home free; no one could interfere.... And that’s why people who say, ‘If the Pump is dangerous, why don’t those terribly clever para-men stop it?’ don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“Did Neville give you that argument?”

“Yes, he did.”

“But the para-Sun would keep cooling down, wouldn’t it?”

“What does that matter?” said Selene, impatiently. “With the Pump, they wouldn’t be dependent on their Sun for anything.”

Denison took a deep breath. “You can’t possibly know this, Selene, but there was a rumor on Earth that Lament received a message from the para-men to the effect that the Pump was dangerous, but that they couldn’t stop it. No one took it seriously, of course, but suppose it’s true. Suppose Lamont did receive such a message. Might it be that some of the para-men were humanitarian enough to wish not to destroy a world with cooperating intelligences upon it, and were prevented by the opposition of an oh-so-practicai majority?”

Selene nodded. “I suppose that’s possible.... All this I knew, or rather, intuited, before you came on the scene. But then you said that nothing between one and the infinite made any sense. Remember?”

“Of course.”

“All right. The differences between our Universe and the para-Universe. He so obviously in the strong nuclear interaction that so far it’s all that’s been studied. But there is more than one interaction; there are four. In addition to the strong nuclear, there is the electromagnetic, the weak nuclear, and the gravitational, with intensity ratios of 130:1:10⁻¹⁰:10⁻⁴². But if four, why not an infinite number, with all the others too weak to be detectable or to influence our Universe in any way.”

Denison said, “If an interaction is too weak to be detectable or to exert influence in any way, then by any operational definition, it doesn’t exist.”

“In this Universe,” said Selene, with a snap. “Who knows what does or does not exist in the para-Universe? With an infinite number of possible interactions, each of which can vary infinitely in intensity compared to any one of them taken as standard, the number of different possible Universes that can exist is infinite.”

“Possibly the infinity of the continuum; aleph-one, rather than aleph-null.”

Selene frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It’s not important. Go on.”

Selene said, “Instead, then, of trying to work with the one para-Universe that has impinged itself on us and which may not suit our needs at all, why don’t we instead try to work out which Universe, out of all the infinite possibilities, best suits us, and is most easily located. Let us design a Universe, for after all whatever we design must exist, and search for it.”

Denison smiled. “Selene, I’ve thought of exactly the same thing. And while there’s no law that states I can’t be completely wrong, it’s very unlikely that anyone as brilliant as myself can be completely wrong when anyone as brilliant as yourself comes to exactly the same conclusion independently.... Do you know what?”

“What?” asked Selene.

“I’m beginning to like your damned Moon food. Or getting used to it, anyway. Let’s go back home and eat, and then we can start working out our plans.... And you know what else?”

“What?”

“As long as we’ll be working together, how about one kiss—as experimentalist to intuitionist.”

Selene considered. She said, “We’ve both of us kissed and been kissed a good many times, I suppose. How about doing it as man to woman?”

“I think I can manage that. But what do I do so as not to be clumsy about it? What are the Moon-rules for kissing?”

“Follow instinct,” said Selene, casually.

Carefully, Denison placed his arms behind his back and leaned toward Selene. Then, after a while, he placed his arms behind her back.

13

“And then I actually kissed him back,” said Selene, thoughtfully.

“Oh, did you?” said Barren Neville, harshly. “Well, that’s valor beyond the call of duty.”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t that bad. In fact,” (and she smiled) “he was rather touching about it. He was afraid he would be clumsy and began by putting his arms behind his back so that he wouldn’t crush me, I suppose.”

“Spare me the details.”

“Why, what the hell do you care?” she fired up, suddenly. “You’re Mister Platonic, aren’t you?”

“Do you want it differently? Now?”

“You needn’t perform to order.”

“But you had better. When do you expect to give us what we need?”

“As soon as I can,” she said, tonelessly.

“Without his knowing?”

“He’s interested only in energy.”

“And in saving the world,” mocked Neville. “And in being a hero. And in showing everybody. And in kissing you.”

“He admits to all that. What do you admit to?”

“Impatience,” said Neville, angrily. “Lots of impatience.”

14

“I am glad,” said Denison, deliberately, “that the daytime is over.” He held out his right arm and stared at it, encased in its protective layers. “The Lunar Sun is one thing I can’t get used to and don’t want to get used to. Even this suit seems a natural thing to me in comparison.”

“What’s wrong with the Sun?” asked Selene.

“Don’t tell me you like it, Selene!”

“No, of course not. I hate it. But then I never see it. You’re an— You’re used to the Sun.”

“Not the way it is here on the Moon. It shines out of a black sky here. It dazzles the stars away, instead of muffling them. It is hot, hard, and dangerous. It is an enemy, and while it’s in the sky, I can’t help but feel that none of our attempts at reducing field intensity will succeed.”

“That’s superstition, Ben,” said Selene, with a distant edge of exasperation. “The Sun has nothing to do with it. We were in the crater shadow anyway and it was just like night. Stars and all.”

“Not quite,” said Denison. “Anytime we looked northward, Selene, we could see that stretch of Sunlight glittering; I hated to look northward, yet the direction dragged at my eyes. Every time I looked at it I could feel the hard ultraviolet springing at my viewplate.”

“That’s imagination. In the first place there’s no ultraviolet to speak of in reflected light; in the second, your suit protects you against radiation.”

“Not against heat. Not very much.”

“But it’s night now.”

“Yes,” said Denison with satisfaction, “and this I like.” He looked about with a continuing wonder. Earth was in the sky, of course, in its accustomed place; a fat crescent, now, bellying to the southwestward. The constellation Orion was above it, a hunter rising up out of the brilliant curved chair of Earth. The horizon glittered in the dim crescent-Earth light.

“It’s beautiful,” he said. Then: “Selene, is the Pionizer showing anything?”

Selene, who was looking at the skies with no comment, stepped toward the maze of equipment that, over the past three alternations of day and night, had been assembled there in the shadow of the crater.

“Not yet,” she said, “but that’s good news really. The field intensity is holding at just over fifty.”

“Not low enough,” said Denison.

Selene said, “It can be lowered further. I’m sure that all the parameters are suitable.”

“The magnetic field, too?”

“I’m not sure about the magnetic field.”

“If we strengthen that, the whole thing becomes unstable.”

“It shouldn’t. I know it shouldn’t.”

“Selene, I trust your intuition against everything but the facts. It does get unstable. We’ve tried it.”

“I know, Ben. But not quite with this geometry. It’s been holding to fifty-two a phenomenally long time. Surely, if we begin to hold it there for hours instead of minutes, we ought to be able to strengthen the magnetic field tenfold for a period of minutes instead of seconds.... Let’s try.”

“Not yet,” said Denison.

Selene hesitated, then stepped back, turning away. She said, “You still don’t miss Earth, do you, Ben?”

“No. It’s rather odd, but I don’t. I would have thought it inevitable that I miss blue sky, green earth, flowing water—all the cliche adjective-noun combinations peculiar to Earth. I miss none of them. I don’t even dream about them.”

Selene said, “This sort of thing does happen sometime. At least, there are Immies who say they experience no homesickness. They’re in the minority, of course, and no one has ever been able to decide what this minority has in common. Guesses run all the way from serious emotional deficiency, no capacity to feel anything; to serious emotional excess, a fear to admit homesickness lest it lead to breakdown.”

“In my case, I think it’s plain enough. Life on Earth was not very enjoyable for two decades and more, while here I work at last in a field I have made my own: And I have your help.... More than that, Selene, I have your company.”

“You are kind,” said Selene, gravely, “to place company and help in the relationship you do. You don’t seem to need much help. Do you pretend to seek it for the sake of my company?”

Denison laughed softly. Tin not sure which answer would flatter you more.”

“Try the truth.”

“The truth is not so easy to determine when I value each so much.” He turned back to the Pionizer. “The field intensity still holds, Selene.”

Selene’s faceplate glinted in the Earthlight. She said, “Barren says that non-homesickness is natural and the sign of a healthy mind. He says that though the human body was adapted to Earth’s surface and requires adjustment to the Moon, the human brain was not and does not. The human brain is so different, qualitatively, from all other brains that it can be considered a new phenomenon. It has had no time to be really fixed to Earth’s surface and can, without adjustment, fit other environments. He says that enclosure in the caverns of the Moon may actually suit it best of all, for that is but a larger version of its enclosure in the cavern of the skull.”

“Do you believe that?” asked Denison, amused.

“When Barron talks, he can make things sound very plausible.”

“I think it can be made equally plausible to claim that the comfort to be found in the caverns of the Moon is the result of the fulfillment of the return-to-the-womb fantasy. In fact,” he added, thoughtfully, “considering the controlled temperature and pressure, the nature and digestibility of the food, I could make a good case for considering the Lunar colony—I beg your pardon, Selene—the Lunar city a deliberate reconstruction of the fetal environment.”

Selene said, “I don’t think Barren would agree with you for a minute.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t,” said Denison. He looked at the Earth-crescent, watching the distant cloud banks on edge. He fell into silence, absorbed in the view, and even though Selene moved back to the Pionizer, he remained in place. He watched Earth in its nest of stars and looked toward the serrated horizon where, every once in a while, it seemed to him he saw a puff of smoke where a small meteorite might be landing.

He had pointed out a similar phenomenon, with some concern, to Selene during the previous Lunar night. She had been unconcerned.

She said, “The Earth does shift slightly in the sky because of the Moon’s libration and every once in a while a shaft of Earth-light tops a small rise and falls on a bit of soil beyond. It comes into view like a tiny puff of rising dust. It’s common. We pay no attention.”

Denison had said, “But it could be a meteorite sometimes. Don’t meteorites ever strike?”

“Of course they do. You’re probably hit by several every time you’re out. Your suit protects you.”

“I don’t mean micro-dust particles. I mean sizable meteorites that would really kick up the dust. Meteorites that could kill you.”

“Well, they fall, too, but they are few and the Moon is large. No one has been hit yet.”

And as Denison watched the sky and thought of that, he saw what, in the midst of his momentary preoccupation, he took to be a meteorite. Light streaking through the sky could, however, be a meteorite only on Earth with its atmosphere and not on the airless Moon.

The light in the sky was man-made and Denison had not yet sorted out his impressions when it became, quite clearly, a small rocket-vessel sinking rapidly to a landing beside him.

A single suited figure emerged, while a pilot remained within, barely seen as a dark splotch against the highlights.

Denison waited. The etiquette of the spacesuit required the newcomer joining any group to announce himself first.

“Commissioner Gottstein here,” the new voice said, “as you can probably tell from my wobble.”

“Ben Denison here,” said Denison.

“Yes. I thought as much.”

“Have you come here looking for me?”

“Certainly.”

“In a space-skipper? You might—”

“I might,” said Gottstein, “have used Outlet P-4, which is less than a thousand yards from here. Yes, indeed. But I wasn’t looking only for you.”

“Well, I won’t ask for the meaning of what you say.”

“There’s no reason for me to be coy. Surely you have not expected me to be uninterested in the fact that you have been carrying on experiments on the Lunar surface.”

“It’s been no secret and anyone might be interested.”

“Yet no one seems to know the details of the experiments. Except, of course, that in some way you are working on matters concerning the Electron Pump.”

“It’s a reasonable assumption.”

“Is it? It seemed to me that experiments of such a nature, to have any value at all, would require a rather enormous setup. This is not of my own knowledge, you understand. I consulted those who would know. And, it is quite obvious, you are not working on such a setup. It occurred to me, therefore, that you might not be the proper focus of my interest. While my attention was drawn to you, others might be undertaking more important tasks.”

“Why should I be used as distraction?”

“I don’t know. If I knew, I would be less concerned.”

“So I have been under observation.”

Gottstein chuckled. “That, yes. Since you have arrived. But while you have been working here on the surface, we have observed this entire region for miles in every direction. Oddly enough, it would seem that you, Dr. Denison, and your companion, are the only ones on the Lunar surface for any but the most routine of purposes.”

“Why is that odd?”

“Because it means that you really think you’re doing something with your gimcrack contraption, whatever it is. I can’t believe that you are incompetent, so I think it would be worth listening to you if you tell me what you are doing.”

“I am experimenting in para-physics, Commissioner, precisely as rumor has it. To which I can add that so far my experiments have been only partly successful.”

“Your companion is, I imagine, Selene Lindstrom L., a tourist guide.”

“Yes.”

“An unusual choice as an assistant.”

“She is intelligent, eager, interested, and extremely attractive.”

“And willing to work with an Earthman?”

“And quite willing to work with an Immigrant who will be a Lunar citizen as soon as he qualifies for that status.”

Selene was approaching now. Her voice rang in their ears. “Good day, Commissioner. I would have liked not to overhear, and intrude on a private conversation, but, in a spacesuit, overhearing is inevitable anywhere within the horizon.”

Gottstein turned. “Hello, Miss Lindstrom. I did not expect to talk in secrecy. Are you interested in para-physics?”

“Oh, yes.”

“You are not disheartened by the failures of the experiment.”

“They are not entirely failures,” she said. “They are less a failure than Dr. Denison thinks at present.”

“What?” Denison turned sharply on his heel, nearly overbalancing himself and sending out a spurt of dust.

All three were facing the Pionizer now, and above it, just about five feet above it, light shone like a fat star. Selene said, “I raised the intensity of the magnetic field, and the nuclear field remained stable in being—then eased further and further and—”

“Leaked!” Denison said. “Damn it. I didn’t see it happen.”

Selene said, “I’m sorry, Ben. First you were lost in your own thoughts, then the Commissioner arrived, and I couldn’t resist the chance of trying on my own.”

Gottstein said, “But just what is it that I see there?”

Denison said, “Energy being spontaneously given off by matter leaking from another Universe into ours.”

And even as he said that the light blinked out and many yards away, a farther, dimmer star came into simultaneous being.

Denison lunged toward the Pionizer, but Selene, all Lunar grace, propelled herself across the surface more efficiently and was there first. She killed the field structure and the distant star went out.

She said, “The leak-point isn’t stable, you see.”

“Not on a small scale,” said Denison, “but considering that a shift of a light-year is as theoretically possible as a shift of a hundred yards, one of a hundred yards only is miraculous stability.”

“Not miraculous enough,” said Selene, flatly.

Gottstein interrupted. “Let me guess what you’re talking about You mean that the matter can leak through here, or there, or anywhere in our Universe—at random.”

“Not quite at random, Commissioner,” said Denison. “The probability of leakage drops with distance from the Pionizer, and rather sharply I should say. The sharpness depends on a variety of factors and I think we’ve tightened the situation remarkably. Even so, a flip of a few hundred yards is quite probable and, as a matter of fact, you saw it happen.”

“And it might have shifted to somewhere within the city or within our own helmets, perhaps.”

Denison said, impatiently, “No, no. The leak, at least by the techniques we use, is heavily dependent on the density of matter already present in this Universe. The chances are virtually nil that the leak-position would shift from a place of essential vacuum to one where an atmosphere even a hundredth as dense as that within the city or within our helmets would exist. It would be impractical to expect to arrange the leak anywhere but into a vacuum in the first place, which is why we had to make the attempt up here on the surface.”

“Then this is not like the Electron Pump?”

“Not at all,” said Denison. “In the Electron Pump there is a two-way transfer of matter, here a one-way leak. Nor are the Universes involved the same.”

Gottstein said, “I wonder if you would have dinner with me this evening, Dr. Denison?”

Denison hesitated. “Myself only?”

Gottstein attempted a bow in the direction of Selene but could accomplish only a grotesque parody of it in his spacesuit. “I would be charmed to have Miss Lindstrom’s company on another occasion, but on this one I must speak with you alone, Dr. Denison.”

“Oh, go ahead,” said Selene, crisply, as Denison still hesitated. “I have a heavy schedule tomorrow anyway and you’ll need time to worry about the leak-point instability.”

Denison said, uncertainly, “Well, then—-Selene, will you let me know when your next free day is?”

“I always do, don’t I? And we’ll be in touch before then anyway.... Why don’t you two go on? I’ll take care of the equipment.”

15

Barren Neville shifted from foot to foot in the fashion made necessary by the restricted quarters and by the Moon’s gravity. In a larger room under a world’s stronger pull, he would have walked hastily up and back. Here, he tilted from side to side, in a repetitive back-and-forth glide.

“Then you’re positive it works. Right, Selene? You’re positive?”

“I’m positive,” said Selene. “I’ve told you five times by actual count.”

Neville didn’t seem to be listening. He said in a low, rapid voice, “It doesn’t matter that Gottstein was there, then? He didn’t try to stop the experiment?”

“No. Of course not.”

“There was no indication that he would try to exert authority—”

“Now, Barron, what kind of authority could he exert? Will Earth send a police force? Besides—oh, you know they can’t stop us.”

Neville stopped moving, stood motionless for a while. “They don’t know? They still don’t know?”

“Of course they don’t. Ben was looking at the stars and then Gottstein came. So I tried for the field-leak, got it, and I had already gotten the other. Ben’s setup—”

“Don’t call it his setup. It was your idea, wasn’t it?”

Selene shook her head. “I made vague suggestions. The details were Ben’s.”

“But you can reproduce it now. For Luna’s sake, we don’t have to go to the Earthie for it, do we?”

“I think I can reproduce enough of it now so that our people can fill it in.”

“All right, then. Let’s get started.”

“Not yet. Oh, damn it, Barron, not yet.”

“Why not yet?”

“We need the energy, too.”

“But we have that.”

“Not quite. The leak-point is unstable; pretty badly unstable.”

“But that can be fixed up. You said so.”

“I said I thought it could.”

“That’s good enough for me.”

“Just the same, it would be better to have Ben work out the details and stabilize it.”

There was a silence between them. Neville’s’ thin face slowly twisted into something approaching hostility. “You don’t think I can do it? Is that it?”

Selene said, “Will you come out on the surface with me and work on it?”

There was another silence. Neville said, unsteadily, “I don’t appreciate your sarcasm. And I don’t want to have to wait long.”

“I can’t command the laws of nature. But I think it won’t be long.... Now if you don’t mind, I need my sleep. I’ve got my tourists tomorrow.”

For a moment, Neville seemed on the point of gesturing to his own bed-alcove as though offering hospitality, but the gesture, if that was what it was, did not really come to birth and Selene made no sign of understanding or even anticipating. She nodded wearily, and left.

16

“I had hoped, to be frank,” said Gottstein, smiling over what passed for dessert—a sticky, sweet concoction— “that we would have seen each other more often.”

Denison said, “It is kind of you to take such an interest in my work. If the leak-instability can be corrected, I think my achievement—and that of Miss Lindstrom—will have been a most significant one.”

“You speak carefully, like a scientist. ... I won’t insult you by offering the Lunar equivalent of a liqueur; that is the one approximation to Earth’s cuisine I have simply made up my mind not to tolerate. Can you tell me, in lay language, what makes the achievement significant?”

“I can try,” said Denison, cautiously. “Suppose we start with the para-Universe. It has a more intense strong nuclear interaction than our Universe has so that relatively small masses of protons in the para-Universe can undergo the fusion reaction capable of supporting a star. Masses equivalent to our stars would explode violently in the para-Universe which has many more, but much smaller, stars than ours does.

“Suppose, now, that we had a much less intense strong nuclear interaction than that which prevails in our Universe. In that case, huge masses of protons would have so little tendency to fuse that a very large mass of hydrogen would be needed to support a star. Such an anti-para-Uni-verse—one that was the opposite of the para-Universe, in other words—would consist of considerably fewer but of far larger stars than our Universe does. In fact, if the strong nuclear interaction were made sufficiently weak, a Universe would exist which consisted of a single star containing all the mass in that Universe. It would be a very dense star, but relatively non-reactive and giving off no more radiation than our single Sun does, perhaps.”

Gottstein said, “Am I wrong, or isn’t that the situation that prevailed in our own Universe before the time of the big bang—one vast body containing all the universal mass.”

“Yes,” said Denison, “as a matter of fact, the anti-para-Universe I am picturing consists of what some call a cosmic egg; or ‘cosmeg’ for short. A cosmeg-Universe is what we need if we are to probe for one-way leakage. The para-Universe we are now using with its tiny stars is virtually empty space. You can probe and probe and touch nothing.”

“The para-men reached us, however.”

“Yes, possibly by following magnetic fields. There is some reason to think that there are no planetary magnetic fields of significance in the para-Universe, which deprives us of the advantage they have. On the other hand, if we probe the cosmeg-Universe, we cannot fail. The cosmeg is, itself, the entire Universe, and wherever we probe we strike matter.”

“But how do you probe for it?”

Denison hesitated. “That is the part I find difficult to explain. Pions are the mediating particles of the strong nuclear interaction. The intensity of the interaction depends on the mass of the pions and that mass can, under certain specialized conditions, be altered. The Lunar physicists have developed an instrument they call the Pionizer, which can be made to do just such a thing. Once the pion’s mass is decreased, or increased for that matter, it is, effectively, part of another Universe; it becomes a gateway, a crossing point. If it is decreased sufficiently, it can be made part of a cosmeg-Universe and that’s what we want.”

Gottstein said, “And you can suck in matter from the— the—cosmeg-Universe?”

“That part is easy. Once the gateway forms, the influx is spontaneous. The matter enters with its own laws and is stable when it arrives. Gradually the laws of our own Universe soak in, the strong interaction grows stronger, and the matter fuses and begins to give off enormous energy.”

“But if it is super-dense, why doesn’t it just expand in a puff of smoke?”

“That, too, would yield energy, but that depends on the electromagnetic field and in this particular case the strong interaction takes precedence, because we control the electromagnetic field. It would take quite a time to explain that.”

“Well, then, the globe of light that I saw on the surface was cosmeg material fusing?”

“Yes, Commissioner.”

“And that energy can be harnessed for useful purposes?”

“Certainly. And in any quantity. What you saw was the arrival in our Universe of micromicrogram masses of cosmeg. There’s nothing, in theory, to prevent our bringing it over in ton-lots.”

“Well, then, this can be used to replace the Electron Pump.”

Denison shook his head. “No. The use of cosmeg energy also alters the properties of the Universes in question. The strong interaction gradually grows more intense in the cosmeg-Universe and less intense in ours as the laws of nature cross over. That means that the cosmeg slowly undergoes fusion at a greater rate and gradually warms up. Eventually—”

“Eventually,” sad Gottstein, crossing his arms across his chest and narrowing his eyes, thoughtfully, “it explodes in a big bang.”

“That’s my feeling.”

“Do you suppose that’s what happened to our own Universe ten billion years ago?”

“Perhaps. Cosmogonists have wondered why the original cosmic egg exploded at some one point in time and not at another. One solution was to imagine an oscillating Universe in which the cosmic egg was formed and then at once exploded. The oscillating Universe has been eliminated as a possibility and the conclusion is that the cosmic egg had to exist for some long period of time and then went through a crisis of instability which arose for some unknown reason.”

“But which may have been the result of the tapping of its energy across the Universes.”

“Possibly, but not necessarily by some intelligence. Perhaps there are occasional spontaneous leaks.”

“And when the big bang takes place,” said Gottstein, “can we still extract energy from the cosmeg-Universe?”

“I’m not sure, but surely that is not an immediate worry. The leakage of our strong-interaction field into the cosmeg-Universe must very likely continue for millions of years before pushing it past the critical point. And there must be other cosmeg-Universes; an infinite number, perhaps.

“What about the change in our own Universe?”

“The strong interaction weakens. Slowly, very slowly, our Sun cools off.”

“Can we use cosmeg energy to make up for that?”

“That would not be necessary, Commissioner,” said Denison, earnestly. “While the strong interaction here in our Universe weakens as a result of the cosmeg pump, it strengthens through the action of the ordinary Electron Pump. If we adjust the energy productions of the two then, though the laws of nature change in the cosmeg-Universe and in the para-Universe, they do not change in ours. We are a highway but not the terminus in either direction.

“Nor need we be disturbed on behalf of the terminuses’. The para-men on their side may have adjusted themselves to the cooling off of their Sun which may be pretty cool to begin with. As for the cosmeg-Universe, there is no reason to suspect life can exist there. Indeed, it is by inducing the conditions required for the big bang that we may be setting up a new land of Universe that will eventually grow hospitable to life.”

For a while, Gottstein said nothing. His plump face, in repose, seemed emotionless. He nodded to himself as though following the line of his own thoughts.

Finally, he said, “You know, Denison, I think this is what will set the world on its ear. Any difficulty in persuading the scientific leadership that the Electron Pump is destroying the world should now disappear.”

Denison said, “The emotional reluctance to accept that no longer exists. It will be possible to present the problem and the solution at the same time.”

“When would you be willing to prepare a paper to this effect if I guarantee speedy publication?”

“Can you guarantee that?”

“In a government-published pamphlet, if no other way.”

“I would prefer to try to neutralize the leak-instability before reporting.”

“Of course.”

“And I think it would be wise,” said Denison, “to arrange to have Dr. Peter Lament as co-author. He can make the mathematics rigorous; something I cannot do. Besides, it was through his work that I took the course I have followed. One more point, Commissioner—”

“Yes.”

“I would suggest that the Lunar physicists be involved. One of their number, Dr. Barren Neville, might well be a third author.”

“But why? Aren’t you introducing unnecessary complications now?”

“It was their Pionizer that made everything possible.”

“There can be appropriate mention of that.... But did Dr. Barren actually work on the project with you?”

“Not directly.”

“Then why involve him?”

Denison looked down and brushed his hand thoughtfully over the weave of his pants leg. He said, “It would be the diplomatic thing to do. We would need to set up the cosmeg pump on the Moon.”

“Why not on Earth?”

“In the first place, we need a vacuum. This is a one-way transfer and not a two-way as in the case of the Electron Pump, and the conditions necessary to make it practical are different in the two cases. The surface of the Moon has its vacuum ready-made in vast quantities; while to prepare one on Earth would involve an enormous effort.”

“Yet it could be done, couldn’t it?”

“Secondly,” said Denison, “if we have two vast energy sources from opposite directions with our own Universe between, there would be something like a short circuit if the two outlets were too close together. Separation by a quarter-million miles of vacuum, with the Electron Pump operating only on Earth and the cosmeg pump operating only on the Moon, would be ideal—in fact, necessary. And if we are to operate on the Moon, it would be wise, even decent, to take the sensibilities of the Lunar physicists into account. We ought to give them a share.”

Gottstein smiled. “Is this the advice of Miss Lindstrom?”

“I’m sure it would be, but the suggestion is reasonable enough to have occurred to me independently.”

Gottstein rose, stretched, and then jumped in place two or three times in the eerily slow fashion imposed by Lunar gravity. He flexed his knees each time. He sat down again and said, “Ever try that, Dr. Denison?”

Denison shook his head.

“It’s supposed to help the circulation in the lower extremities. I do it whenever I feel my legs may be going to sleep. I’ll be heading back for a short visit to Earth before long and I’m trying to keep from getting too used to Lunar gravity.... Shall we talk of Miss Lindstrom, Dr. Denison?”

Denison said in a quite changed tone, “What about her?”

“She is a tourist guide.”

“Yes. You said so earlier.”

“As I also said, she is an odd assistant for a physicist.”

“Actually, I’m an amateur physicist only, and I suppose she is an amateur assistant.”

Gottstein was no longer smiling. “Don’t play games, Doctor. I have taken the trouble to find out what I can about her. Her record is quite revealing, or would have been if it had occurred to anyone to look at it before this. I believe she is an Intuitionist.”

Denison said, “Many of us are. I have no doubt you are an Intuitionist yourself, after a fashion. I certainly know that I am, after a fashion.”

“There is a difference, Doctor. You are an accomplished scientist and I, I hope, am an accomplished administrator.... Yet while Miss Lindstrom is enough of an Intuitionist to be useful to you in advanced theoretical physics, she is, in actual fact, a tourist guide.”

Denison hesitated. “She has little formal training, Commissioner. Her Intuitionism is at an unusually high level but it is under little conscious control.”

“Is she the result of the one-time genetic engineering program?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if that were so, however.”

“Do you trust her?”

“In what way? She has helped me.”

“Do you know that she is the wife of Dr. Barron Neville?”

“There is an emotional connection; not a legal one, I believe.”

“None of the connections are what we would call legal here on the Moon. The same Neville you want to invite as third author of the paper you are to write?”

“Yes.”

“Is that merely a coincidence?”

“No. Neville was interested in my arrival and I believe he asked Selene to help me in my work.”

“Did she tell you this?”

“She said he was interested in me. That was natural enough, I suppose.”

“Does it occur to you, Dr. Denison, that she may be working in her own interests and in those of Dr. Neville?”

“In what way would their interests differ from ours? She has helped me without reservation.”

Gottstein shifted position and moved his shoulders as though he were going through muscle-pulling exercises. He said, “Dr. Neville must know that a woman so close to himself is an Intuitionist. Wouldn’t he use her? Why would she remain a tourist guide, if not to mask her abilities—for a purpose.”

“I understand Dr. Neville frequently reasons in this fashion. I find it difficult to suspect unnecessary conspiracies.”

“How do you know they are unnecessary.... When my space-skipper was hovering over the Moon’s surface just before the ball of radiation formed over your equipment, I was looking down at you. You were not at the Pionizer.”

Denison thought back. “No, I wasn’t I was looking at the stars; rather a tendency of mine on the surface.”

“What was Miss Lindstrom doing?”

“I didn’t see. She said she strengthened the magnetic field and the leak finally broke through.”

“Is it customary for her to manipulate the equipment without you?”

“No. But I can understand the impulse.”

“And would there have been some sort of an ejection?”

“I don’t understand you.”

“I’m not sure I understand myself. There was a dim sparkle in the Earthlight, as though something was flying through the air. I don’t know what.”

“I don’t either,” said Denison.

“You can’t think of anything that might naturally have to do with the experiment that—”

“No.”

“Then what was Miss Lindstrom doing?”

“I still don’t know.”

For a moment, the silence was heavy between them. Then the Commissioner said, “As I see it then, you will try to correct the leak-instability and will be thinking about the preparation of a paper. I will get matters into motion at the other end and on my shortly forthcoming visit to Earth will make arrangements to have the paper published and will alert the government.”

It was a clear dismissal. Denison rose and the Commissioner said easily, “And think about Dr. Neville and Miss Lindstrom.”

17

It was a heavier star of radiation, a fatter one, a brighter one. Denison could feel its warmth on his faceplate, and backed away. There was a distinct x-ray component in the radiation and though this shielding should take care of that there was no point in placing it under a strain.

“I guess we can’t question it,” he muttered. “The leak-point is stable.”

“I’m sure of it,” said Selene, flatly.

“Then let’s turn it off and go back to the city.”

They moved slowly and Denison felt oddly dispirited. There was no uncertainty any more; no excitement. From this point on, there was no chance of failure. The government was interested; more and more, it would be out of his own hands.

He said, “I suppose I can begin the paper now.”

“I suppose so,” said Selene, carefully.

“Have you talked to Barren again?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Any difference in his attitude?”

“None at all. He will not participate. Ben—”

“Yes?”

“I really don’t think it’s any use talking to him. He will not cooperate in any project with the Earth government.”

“But you’ve explained the situation?”

“Completely.”

“And he still won’t.”

“He’s asked to see Gottstein, and the Commissioner agreed to an interview after he returns from his Earth visit. We’ll have to wait till then. Maybe Gottstein can have some effect on him, but I doubt it.”

Denison shrugged, a useless maneuver inside his space-suit. “I don’t understand him.”

“I do,” said Selene, softly.

Denison did not respond directly. He shoved the Pionizer and its attendant apparatus into its rocky shelter and said, “Ready?”

“Ready.”

They slipped into the surface entrance at Outlet P-4 in silence and Denison climbed down the entry ladder. Selene dropped past him, braking in quick holds at individual rungs. Denison had learned to do that, but he was dispirited and climbed down in a kind of rebellious refusal to accept acclimation.

They removed their suits in the staging areas, placed them in their lockers. Denison said, “Would you join me for lunch, Selene?”

Selene said uneasily, “You seem upset. Is something wrong?”

“Reaction, I think. Lunch?”

“Yes, of course.”

They ate in Selene’s quarters. She insisted, saying, “I want to talk to you and I can’t do it properly in the cafeteria.”

And when Denison was chewing slowly at something that had a faint resemblance to peanut-flavored veal, she said, “Ben, you haven’t said a word, and you’ve been like this for a week.”

“No, I haven’t,” said Denison, frowning.

“Yes, you have.” She looked into his eyes with concern. “I’m not sure how good my intuition is outside physics, but I suppose there’s something you don’t want to tell me.”

Denison shrugged. “They’re making a fuss about all this back on Earth. Gottstein has been pulling at strings as tough as cables in advance of his trip back. Dr. Lament is being lionized, and they want me to come back once the paper is written.”

“Back to Earth?”

“Yes. It seems I’m a hero, too.”

“You should be.”

“Complete rehabilitation,” said Denison, thoughtfully, “is what they offer. It’s clear I can get a position in any suitable university or government agency on Earth.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“It’s what I imagine Lament wants, and would enjoy, and will certainly get. But I don’t want it.”

Selene said, “What do you want then?”

“I want to stay on the Moon.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the cutting edge of humanity and I want to be part of that cutting edge. I want to work at the establishment of cosmeg pumps and that will be only here on the Moon. I want to work on para-theory with the kind of instruments you can dream up and handle, Selene. ... I want to be with you, Selene. But will you stay with me?”

“I am as interested in para-theory as you are.” Denison said, “But won’t Neville pull you off the job now?”

“Barren pull me off?” She said, tightly, “Are you trying to insult me, Ben?”

“Not at all.”

“Well, then, do I misunderstand you? Are you suggesting that I’m working with you because Barron ordered me to?”

“Didn’t he?”

“Yes, he did. But that’s not why I’m here. I choose to be here. He may think he can order me about but he can only do so when his orders coincide with my will, as in your case they did. I resent his thinking he can order me otherwise, and I resent your thinking it, too.”

“You two are sex-partners.”

“We have been, yes, but what has that to do with it? By that argument, I can order him about as easily as he me.”

“Then you can work with me, Selene?”

“Certainly,” she said, coldly. “If I choose to.”

“But do you choose to?”

“As of now, yes.”

And Denison smiled. “The chance that you might not choose to, or even might not be able to, is, I think, what has really been worrying me this past week. I dreaded the end of the project if it meant the end of you. I’m sorry, Selene, I don’t mean to plague you with a sentimental attachment of an old Earthie—”

“Well, there’s nothing old Earthie about your mind, Ben. There are other attachments than sexual. I like being with you.”

There was a pause and Denison’s smile faded, then returned, perhaps a thought more mechanically. “I’m glad for my mind.”

Denison looked away, shook his head slightly, then turned back. She watched him carefully, almost anxiously.

Denison said, “Selene, there’s more than energy involved in the cross-Universe leaks. I suspect you’ve been thinking about that.”

The silence stretched out now, painfully, and finally Selene said, “Oh, that—”

For a while the two stared at each other—Denison embarrassed, Selene almost furtive.

18

Gottstein said, “I haven’t got my Moon-legs quite yet, but this isn’t anything compared to what it cost me to get my Earth-legs. Denison, you had better not dream of returning. You’ll never make it.”

“I have no intention of returning, Commissioner,” said Denison.

“In a way, it’s too bad. You could be emperor by acclamation. As for Hallam—”

Denison said, wistfully, “I would have liked to see his face, but that’s a small ambition.”

“Lamont, of course, is receiving the lion’s share. He’s on the spot.”

“I don’t mind that. He deserves a good deal.... Do you think Neville will really join us?”

“No question. He’s on his way at this moment. ... Listen,” Gottstein’s voice dropped one conspiratorial note in pitch. “Before he comes, would you like a bar of chocolate?”

“What?”

“A bar of chocolate. With almonds. One. I have some.”

Denison’s face, from initial confusion, suddenly lit with comprehension. “Real chocolate?”

“Yes.”

“Certain—” His face hardened. “No, Commissioner.”

“No?”

“No! If I taste real chocolate then, for the few minutes it’s in my mouth, I’m going to miss Earth; I’m going to miss everything about it. I can’t afford that. I don’t want it. ... Don’t even show it to me. Don’t let me smell it or see it.”

The Commissioner looked discomfited. “You’re right.” He made an obvious attempt to change the subject. “The excitement on Earth is overwhelming. Of course, we made a considerable effort to save Hallam’s face. He’ll continue to hold some position of importance, but he’ll have little real say.”

“He’s getting more consideration than he gave others,” said Denison, resignedly.

“It’s not for his sake. You can’t smash a personal image that has been built to a level of such importance; it would reflect on science itself. The good name of science is more important than Hallam either way.”

“I disapprove of that in principle,” said Denison, warmly. “Science must take what blows it deserves.”

“A time and place for— There’s Dr. Neville.”

Gottstein composed his face. Denison shifted his chair to face the entrance.

Barron Neville entered solemnly. Somehow there was less than ever of the Lunar delicacy about his figure. He greeted the two curtly, sat down, and crossed his legs. He was clearly waiting for Gottstein to speak first.

The Commissioner said, “I am glad to see you, Dr. Neville, Dr. Denison tells me that you refused to append your name to what I am sure will be a classic paper on the cosmeg pump.”

“No need to do so,” said Neville. “What happens on Earth is of no interest to me.”

“You are aware of the cosmeg pump experiments? Of its implications?”

“All of them. I know the situation as well as you two do.”

“Then I will proceed without preliminaries. I have returned from Earth, Dr. Neville, and it is quite settled as to what will be the course of future procedure. Large cosmeg pump stations will be set up on three different places on the Lunar surface in such a way that one will always be in the night-shadow. Half the time, two will be. Those in the night-shadow will be constantly generating energy, most of which will simply radiate into space. The purpose will be not so much to use the energy for practical purposes, as to counteract the changes in field intensities introduced by the Electron Pump.”

Denison interrupted. “For some years, we will have to overbalance the Electron Pump to restore our section of the Universe to the point at which it was before the pump began operation.”

Neville nodded. “Will Luna City have the use of any of it?”

“If necessary. We feel the Solar batteries will probably supply what you need, but there is no objection to supplementation.”

“That is land of you,” said Neville, not bothering to mask the sarcasm. “And who will build and run the cosmeg pump stations?”

“Lunar workers, we hope,” said Gottstein.

“Lunar workers, you know,” said Neville. “Earth workers would be too clumsy to work effectively on the Moon.”

“We recognize that,” said Gottstein, “We trust the men of the Moon will cooperate.”

“And who will decide how much energy to generate, how much to apply for any local purpose, how much to radiate away? Who decides policy?”

Gottstein said, “The government would have to. It’s a matter of planetary decision.”

Neville said, “You see, then, it will be Moonmen who do the work; Earthmen who run the show.”

Gottstein said, calmly, “No. All of us work who work best; all of us administer who can best weigh the total problem.”

“I hear the words,” said Neville, “but it boils down anyway to us working and you deciding.... No, Commissioner. The answer is no.”

“You mean you won’t build the cosmeg pump stations?”

“Well build them, Commissioner, but they’ll be ours. Well decide how much energy to put out and what use to make of it.”

“That would scarcely be efficient. You would have to deal constantly with the Earth government since the cosmeg pump energy will have to balance the Electron Pump energy.”

“I dare say it will, more or less, but we have other things in mind. You might as well know now. Energy is not the only conserved phenomenon that becomes limitless once universes are crossed.”

Denison interrupted. “There are a number of conservation laws. We realize that.”

“I’m glad you do,” said Neville, turning a hostile glare in his direction. “They include those of linear momentum and angular momentum. As long as any object responds to the gravitational field in which it is immersed, and to that only, it is in free fall and can retain its mass. In order to move in any other way than free fall, it must accelerate in a non-gravitational way and for that to happen, part of itself must undergo an opposite change.”

“As in a rocketship,” said Denison, “which must eject mass in one direction in order that the rest might accelerate in the opposite direction.”

“I’m sure you understand, Dr. Denison,” said Neville, “but I explain for the Commissioner’s sake. The loss of mass can be minimized if its velocity is increased enormously, since momentum is equal to mass multiplied by velocity. Nevertheless, however great the velocity, some mass must be thrown away. If the mass which must be accelerated is enormous in the first place, then the mass which must be discarded is also enormous. If the Moon, for instance—”

“The Moon!” said Gottstein, explosively.

“Yes, the Moon,” said Neville, calmly. “If the Moon were to be driven out of its orbit and sent out of the Solar system, the conservation of momentum would make it a colossal undertaking, and probably a thoroughly impractical one. If, however, momentum could be transferred to the cosmeg in another Universe, the Moon could accelerate at any convenient rate without loss of mass at all. It would be like poling a barge upstream, to give you a picture I obtained from some Earth-book I once read.”

“But why? I mean why should you want to move the Moon?”

“I should think that would be obvious. Why do we need the suffocating presence of the Earth? We have the energy we need; we have a comfortable world through which we have room to expand for the next few centuries, at least. Why not go our own way? In any case, we will. I have come to tell you that you cannot stop us and to urge you to make no attempt to interfere. We shall transfer momentum and we shall pull out. We of the Moon know precisely how to go about building cosmeg pump stations. We will use what energy we need for ourselves and produce excess in order to neutralize the changes your own power stations are producing.”

Denison said, sardonically, “It sounds kind of you to produce excess for our sake, but it isn’t for our sake, of course. If our Electron Pumps explode the Sun, that will happen long before you can move out of even the inner Solar system and you will vaporize wherever you are.”

“Perhaps,” said Neville, “but in any case we will produce an excess, so that won’t happen.”

“But you can’t do that,” said Gottstein, excitedly. “You can’t move out. If you get out too far, the cosmeg pump will no longer neutralize the Electron Pump, eh, Denison?”

Denison shrugged. “Once they are as far off as Saturn, more or less, there may be trouble, if I may trust a mental calculation I have just made. It will, however, be many years before they recede to such a distance and by that time, we will surely have constructed space stations in what was once the orbit of the Moon and place cosmeg pumps on them. Actually, we don’t need the Moon. It can leave—except that it won’t.”

Neville smiled briefly. “What makes you think we won’t? We can’t be stopped. There is no way Earthmen can impose their will on us.”

“You won’t leave, because there’s no sense to doing so. Why drag the entire Moon away? To build up respectable accelerations will take years where the Moon-mass is concerned. You’ll creep. Build starships instead; miles-long ships that are cosmeg-powered and have independent ecologies. With a cosmeg momentum-drive, you can then do wonders. If it takes twenty years to build the ships, they will nevertheless accelerate at a rate that will enable them to overtake the Moon’s place within a year even if the Moon starts accelerating today. The ships will be able to change course in a tiny fraction of the time the Moon will.”

“And the unbalanced cosmeg pumps? What will that do to the Universe?”

“The energy required by a ship, or even by a number, will be far less than that required by a planet and will be distributed throughout large sections of the Universe. It will be millions of years before any significant change takes place. That is well worth the maneuverability you gain. The Moon will move so slowly it might as well be left in space.”

Neville said, scornfully, “We’re in no hurry to get anywhere—except away from Earth.”

Denison said, “There are advantages in having Earth as a neighbor. You have the influx of the Immigrants. You have cultural intercourse. You have a planetary world of two billion people just over the horizon. Do you want to give all that up?”

“Gladly.”

“Is that true of the people of the Moon generally? Or just of you? There’s something intense about you, Neville. You won’t go out on the surface. Other Lunarites do. They don’t like it particularly, but they do. The interior of the Moon isn’t their womb, as it is in your case. It isn’t their prison, as it is yours. There is a neurotic factor in you that is absent in most Lunarities, or at least considerably weaker. If you take the Moon away from Earth, you make it into a prison for all. It will become a one-world prison from which no man—and not you only—can emerge, not even to the extent of seeing another inhabited world in the sky. Perhaps that is what you want.”

“I want independence; a free world; a world untouched by the outside.”

“You can build ships, any number. You can move outward at near-light velocities without difficulty, once you transfer momentum to the cosmeg. You can explore the entire Universe in a single lifetime. Wouldn’t you like to get on such a ship?”

“No,” said Neville, with clear distaste.

“Wouldn’t you? Or is it couldn’t? Is it that you must take the Moon with you wherever you go. Why must all the others accept your need?”

“Because that’s the way it’s going to be,” said Neville.

Denison’s voice remained level but his cheeks reddened. “Who gave you the right to say that? There are many citizens of Luna City who may not feel as you do.”

“That is none of your concern.”

“That is precisely my concern. I am an Immigrant who will qualify for citizenship soon. I do not wish to have my choice made for me by someone who cannot emerge on the surface and who wants his personal prison made into a prison for all. I have left Earth forever, but only to come to the Moon, only to remain a quarter-million miles from the home-planet. I have not contracted to be taken forever away for an unlimited distance.”

“Then return to Earth,” said Neville, indifferently. “There is still time.”

“And what of the other citizens of Luna? The other Immigrants?”

“The decision is made.”

“It is not made.... Selene!”

Selene entered, her face solemn, her eyes a little defiant.

Neville’s legs uncrossed. Both shoes came down flat upon the ground.

Neville said, “How long have you been waiting in the next room, Selene?”

“Since before you arrived, Barron,” she said.

Neville looked from Selene to Denison and back again. “You two—” he began, finger pointing from one to the other and back.

“I don’t know what you mean by you two,” said Selene, “but Ben found out about the momentum quite a while ago.”

“It wasn’t Selene’s fault,” said Denison. “The Commissioner spotted something flying at a time when no one could possibly have known he would be observing. It seemed to me that Selene might be testing something I was not thinking of and transfer of momentum eventually occurred to me. After that—”

“Well, then, you knew,” said Neville. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does, Barron,” said Selene. “I talked about it with Ben. I found that I didn’t always have to accept what you said. Perhaps I can’t ever go to Earth. Perhaps I don’t even want to. But I found I liked it in the sky where I could see it if I wanted to, I didn’t want an empty sky. Then I talked to others of the Group. Not everybody wants to leave. Most people would rather build the ships and let those go who wish to go while allowing those to remain behind who wish to remain.”

Neville’s breath was coming hard. “You talked about it. Who gave you the right to—”

“I took the right, Barron. Besides, it doesn’t matter any more. You’ll be outvoted.”

“Because of—” Neville rose to his feet and took a menacing step toward Denison.

The Commissioner said, “Please don’t get emotional, Dr. Neville. You may be of Luna, but I don’t think you can man-handle both of us.”

“All three,” said Selene, “and I’m of Luna, too. I did it, Barron; not they.”

Then Denison said, “Look, Neville— For all Earth cares, the Moon can go. Earth can build its space stations. It’s the citizens of Luna City who care. Selene cares and I care and the rest. You are not being debarred from space, from escape, from freedom. In twenty years at the outside, all who want to go will go, including you if you can bring yourself to leave the womb. And those who want to stay will stay.”

Slowly, Neville seated himself again. There was the look of defeat on his face.

19

In Selene’s apartment, every window now had a view of the Earth. She said, “The vote did go against him, you know, Ben. Quite heavily.”

“I doubt that he’ll give up, though. If there’s friction with Earth during the building of the stations, public opinion on the Moon may swing back.”

“There needn’t be friction.”

“No, there needn’t. In any case, there are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass. We’ve passed this one safely, I think, and we’ll be sorry about the others as they come and as they can be foreseen. Once the starships are built, the tension will surely subside considerably.”

“We’ll live to see that, I’m sure.”

“You will, Selene.”

“You, too, Ben. Don’t overdramatize your age. You’re only forty-eight.”

“Would you go on one of the starships, Selene?”

“No. I’d be too old and I still wouldn’t want to lose Earth in the sky. My son might go.... Ben.”

“Yes, Selene.”

“I have applied for a second son. The application has been accepted. Would you contribute?”

Denison’s eyes lifted and looked straight into hers. She did not look away. He said, “Artificial insemination?”

She said, “Of course.... The gene combination should be interesting.”

Denison’s eyes dropped. “I would be flattered, Selene.”

Selene said, defensively, “That’s just good sense, Ben. It’s important to have good gene combinations. There’s nothing wrong with some natural genetic engineering.”

“None at all.”

“It doesn’t mean that I don’t want it for other reasons, too.... Because I like you.”

Denison nodded and remained silent.

Selene said, almost angrily, “Well, there’s more to love than sex.”

Denison said, “I agree to that. At least, I love you even with sex subtracted.”

And Selene said, “And for that matter, there’s more to sex than acrobatics.”

Denison said, “I agree to that, too.”

And Selene said, “And besides— Oh, damn it, you could try to learn.”

Denison said softly, “If you would try to teach.”

Hesitantly, he moved toward her. She did not move away.

He stopped hesitating.