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 Barron 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