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,