Part 20 (1/2)

”And?”

”And he was interested. Relaxed and interested. Whatever he has on his mind, it isn't involuted.”

”You're sure of that? Yet the Commissioner got to him before I did. You consider that good?”

”Why should I consider it bad? An open invitation to a meeting of some sort delivered in front of a couple of dozen Lunarites isn't particularly involuted, either.”

Neville leaned back with his hands clasped at the nape of his neck. ”Selene, please don't insist on making judgments, when I don't ask you to. It's irritating. The man is not a physicist in the first place. Did he tell you he was?”

Selene paused to think. ”I called him a physicist. He didn't deny it but I don't recall that he actually said he was. And yet-and yet, I'm sure sure he is.” he is.”

”It's a lie of omission, Selene. He may be a physicist in his own mind, but the fact is that he isn't trained as a physicist and he doesn't work as one. He has had scientific training; I'll grant him that; but he has no scientific job of any kind. He couldn't get one. There isn't a lab on Earth that would give him working room. He happens to be on Fred Hallam's crud-list and he's been top man there for a long time.”

”Are you sure?”

”Believe me, I checked. Didn't you just criticize me for taking so long. . . . And it sounds so good that it's too good.”

”Why too good? I don't see what you're getting at.”

”Doesn't it seem to you we ought to trust him? After all, he's got a grievance against Earth.”

”You can certainly argue that way, if your facts are right.”

”Oh, my facts are right, at least in the sense that they're what turns up, if you dig for them. But maybe we're supposed supposed to argue that way.” to argue that way.”

”Barren, that's disgusting. How can you weave-these conspiracy theories into everything? Ben didn't sound-”

”Ben?” said Neville, sardonically.

”Ben!” repeated Selene, firmly. ”Ben didn't sound like a man with a grievance or like a man trying to make me think he sounded like a man with a grievance.”

”No, but he managed to make you think he was someone to be liked. You did say you liked liked him, didn't you? With emphasis? Maybe that's exactly what he was trying to do.” him, didn't you? With emphasis? Maybe that's exactly what he was trying to do.”

”I'm not that easy to fool and you know it.”

”Well, I'll just have to wait till I I see him.” see him.”

”The h.e.l.l with you, Barron. I've a.s.sociated 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. Well 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, h.e.l.l, why don't you keep your room in better condition?” And she left.

6.

”I would like,” said Gottstein, ”to offer you some Earth-side 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 a.s.suming 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-n ”Not yet quite mine, sir.”

”Still, my congratulations. Yet I can't help wondering why you have asked to see me.”

”We were s.h.i.+pmates. 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 rattier 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 a.s.signment 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 strangle-hold 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 s.h.i.+p, something stirred; and then, eventually, it came back. I have not referred to the pa.s.senger list but let me check my memory. Aren't you Dr. Benjamin Andrew Denison?”

The Earthman sighed. ”Benjamin Allan 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. d.a.m.n it, I considered changing my name.” 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. d.a.m.n 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 you. I don't remember, quite, your objection to the Electron Pump. Could you tell me?”

Denison's head bent. The silence lengthened itself and the Commissioner-Appointee did not interrupt He even stifled a small clearing of the throat.

Denison said, ”Truly, it was nothing. It was a guess I made; a fear about the alteration in the intensity of the strong nuclear field. Nothing!”

”Nothing?” Gottstein did clear his throat now. ”Please don't mind if I strive to understand this. I told you that you interested me at the time. I was unable to follow it up then and I doubt that I could dig the information out of the records now. The whole thing is cla.s.sified-the senator did very poorly at the time and he isn't interested in publicity over it. Still, some details come back. You were once a colleague of Hallam's; you were not a physicist.”

”That's right. I was a radiochemist. So was he.”