“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. We’ll 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 Earthside 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 rather 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 stranglehold 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