objections) on that preposterous historical novel. But it seemed a pity to break off now, while everyone was in a receptive mood.
"If you all feel the same way about it," said the Commodore, "I'll call another witness."
"I'll second that" was the quick reply from Barrett, who now considered himself safe from further inquisition. Even the poker players were in favor, so the Clerk of the Court pulled another name out of the coffeepot in which the ballot papers had been mixed.
He looked at it with some surprise, and hesitated before reading it out.
"What's the matter?" said the Court. "Is it your name?"
"Er - no," replied the Clerk, glancing at learned Counsel with a mischievous grin. He cleared his throat and called: "Mrs. Myra Schuster!"
"Your Honor - I object!" Mrs. Schuster rose slowly, a formidable figure even though she had lost a kilogram or two since leaving Port Roris. She pointed to her husband, who looked embarrassed and tried to hide behind his notes. "Is it fair for him to ask me questions?"
"I'm willing to stand down," said Irving Schuster, even before the Court could say "objection sustained."
"I am prepared to take over the examination," said the Commodore, though his expression rather belied this. "But is there anyone else who feels qualified to do so?"
There was a short silence; then, to Hansteen's surprised relief, one of the poker players stood up.
"Though I'm not a lawyer, your Honor, I have some slight legal experience. I'm willing to assist."
"Very good, Mr. Harding. Your witness."
Harding took Schuster's place at the front of the cabin, and surveyed his captive audience. He was a well-built, tough-looking man who somehow did not fit his own description, that he was a bank executive. Hansteen had wondered, fleetingly, if this was the truth.
"Your name is Myra Schuster?"
"Yes."
"And what, Mrs. Schuster, are you doing on the Moon?"
The witness smiled.
"That's an easy one to answer. They told me I'd weigh only twenty kilos here-so I came."
"For the record, why did you want to weigh twenty kilos?"
Mrs. Schuster looked at Harding as if he had said something very stupid.
"I used to be a dancer once," she said, and her voice was suddenly wistful, her expression faraway. "I gave that up, of course, when I married Irving."
"Why 'of course,' Mrs. Schuster?"
The witness glanced at her husband, who stirred a little uneasily, looked as if he might raise an objection, but then thought better of it.
"Oh, he said it wasn't dignified. And I guess he was right-the kind of dancing I used to do."
This was too much for Mr. Schuster. He shot to his feet, ignoring the Court completely, and protested: "Really, Myra! There's no need - "
"Oh, vector it out, Irv!" she answered, the incongruously oldfashioned slang bringing back a faint whiff of the nineties. "What does it matter now? Let's stop acting and be ourselves. I don't mind these folks knowing that I used to dance at the 'Blue Asteroid' - or that you got me off the hook when the cops raided the place."
Irving subsided, spluttering, while the Court dissolved in a roar of laughter which his Honor did nothing to quell. This release of tensions was precisely what he had hoped for; when people were laughing, they could not be afraid.
And he began to wonder still more about Mr. Harding, whose casual yet shrewd questioning had brought this about. For a man who said he was not a lawyer, he was doing pretty well. It would be interesting to see how he performed in the witness box, when it was Schuster's turn to ask the questions.
Chapter 11
At last there was something to break the featureless flatness of the Sea of Thirst. A tiny but brilliant splinter of light had edged itself above the horizon, and as the dust-skis raced forward, it slowly climbed against the stars. Now it was joined by another - and a third. The peaks of the Mountains of Inaccessibility were rising over the edge of the Moon.
As usual, there was no way of judging their distance; they might have been small rocks a few paces away, or not part of the Moon at all, but a giant, jagged world, millions of kilometers out in space. In reality, they were fifty kilometers distant; the dust-skis would be there in half an hour.
Tom Lawson looked at them with thankfulness. Now there was something to occupy his eyes and mind; he felt he would have gone crazy if he had had to stare at this apparently infinite plain for