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."
Chapter 18
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