It had been sheer persistence alone that had made his present visit possible. In what way then was Demerest's case different?
Bergen said, "I suppose you have your junketing problems on Luna City, too?"
"Very little," said Demerest. "Your average politician isn't as anxious to travel a half-million-mile round trip as he is to travel a ten-mile one."
"I can see that," agreed Bergen, "and it's more expensive out to the Moon, of course…In a way, this is the first meeting of inner and outer space. No Ocean-man has ever gone to the Moon as far as I know and you're the first Moonman to visit a sub-sea station of any kind. No Moon-man has ever been to one of the settlements on the continental shelf."
"It's a historic meeting, then," said Demerest, and tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
If any leaked through, Bergen showed no sign. He rolled up his sleeves as though to emphasize his attitude of informality (or the fact that they were very busy, so that there would be little time for visitors?) and said, "Do you want coffee? I assume you've eaten. Would you like to rest before I show you around? Do you want to wash up, for that matter, as they say euphemistically?"
For a moment, curiosity stirred in Demerest; yet not entirely aimless curiosity. Everything involving the interface of Ocean-Deep with the outside world could be of importance. He said, "How are sanitary facilities handled here?"
"It's cycled mostly; as it is on the Moon, I imagine. We can eject if we want to or have to. Man has a bad record of fouling the environment, but as the only deep-sea station, what we eject does no perceptible damage. Adds organic matter." He laughed.
Demerest filed that away, too. Matter was ejected; there was therefore ejection tubes. Their workings might be of interest and he, as a safety engineer, had a right to be interested.
"No, he said, "I don't need anything at the moment. If you're busy-"
"That's all right. We're always busy, but I'm the least busy, if you see what I mean. Suppose I show you around. We've got over fifty units here, each as big as this one, some bigger-"
Demerest looked about. Again, as in the 'scaphe, there were angles everywhere, but beyond the furnishings and equipment there were signs of the inevitable spherical outer wall. Fifty of them!
"Built up," went on Bergen, "over a generation of effort. The unit we're standing in is actually the oldest and there's been some talk of demolishing and replacing it. Some of the men say we're ready for second-generation units, but I'm not sure. It would be expensive-everything's expensive down here-and getting money out of the Planetary Project Council is always a depressing experience."
Demerest felt his nostrils flare involuntarily and a spasm of anger shot through him. It was a thrust; surely. Luna City's miserable record with the PPC must be well known to Bergen.
But Bergen went on, unnoticing. "I'm a traditionalist, too-just a little bit. This is the first deep-sea unit ever constructed. The first two people to remain overnight on the floor of an ocean trench slept here with nothing else beyond this bare sphere except for a miserable portable fusion unit to work the escape hatch. I mean the air lock, but we called it the escape hatch to begin with-and just enough controls for the purpose. Reguera and Tremont, those were the men. They never made a second trip to the bottom, either; stayed Topside forever after. Well, well, they served their purpose and both are dead now. And here we are with fifty people and with six months as the usual tour of duty. I've spent only two weeks Topside in the last year and a half."
He motioned vigorously to Demerest to follow him, slid open a door which moved evenly into a recess, and took him into the next unit. Demerest paused to examine the opening. There were no seams that he could notice between the adjacent units.
Bergen noted the other's pause and said, "When we add on our units, they're welded under pressure into the equivalent of a single piece of metal and then reinforced. We can't take chances, as I'm sure you understand, since I have been given to understand that you're the head safe-"
Demerest cut him off. "Yes," he said. "We on the Moon admire your safety record."
Bergen shrugged. "We've been lucky. Our sympathy, by the way, on the rotten break you fellows had. I mean that fatal-"
Demerest cut him off again. "Yes."
Bergen, the Moon-man decided, was either a naturally voluble man or else was eager to drown him in words and get rid of him.
"The units," said Bergen, "are arranged in a highly branched chain-three-dimensional actually. We have a map we can show you, if you're interested. Most of the end units represent living-sleeping quarters. For privacy, you know. The working units tend to be corridors as well, which is one of the embarrassments of having to live down here.
"This is our library; part of it, anyway. Not big, but it's got our records, too, on carefully indexed and computed microfilm, so that for its kind it's not only the biggest in the world, but the best and the only. And we have a special computer to handle the references to meet our needs exactly. It collects, selects, coordinates, weighs, then gives us the gist.
"We have another library, too, book films and even some printed volumes. But that's for amusement."
A voice broke in on Bergen's cheerful flow. "John? May I interrupt?"
Demerest started; the voice had come from behind him. Bergen said, "Annette! I was going to get you. This is Stephen Demerest of Luna City. Mr. Demerest, may I introduce my wife, Annette?"
Demerest had turned. He said stiffly, a little mechanically, "I'm pleased to meet you, Mrs. Bergen." But he was staring at her waistline.
Annette Bergen seemed in her early thirties. Her brown hair was combed simply and she wore no makeup. Attractive, not beautiful, Demerest 'noted vaguely. But his eyes kept returning to that waistline.
She shrugged a little. "Yes, I'm pregnant, Mr. Demerest. I'm due in about two months."
"Pardon me," Demerest muttered. "So rude of me…I didn't-" He faded off and felt as though the blow had been a physical one. He hadn't expected women, though he didn't know why. He knew there would have to be women in Ocean-Deep. And the ferry pilot had said Bergen's wife was with him.
He stammered as he spoke. "How many women are there in Ocean-Deep, Mr. Bergen?"
"Nine at the moment," said Bergen. "All wives. We look forward to a time when we can have the normal ratio of one to one, but we still need workers and researchers primarily, and unless women have important qualifications of some sort-"
"They all have important qualifications of some sort, dear," said Mrs. Bergen. "You could keep the men for longer duty if-"
"My wife," said Bergen, laughing, "is a convinced feminist but is not above using sex as an excuse to enforce equality. I keep telling her that that is the feminine way of doing it and not the feminist way, and she keeps saying-Well, that's why she's pregnant. You think it's love, sex mania, yearning for motherhood? Nothing of the sort. She's going to have a baby down here to make a philosophical point."
Annette said coolly, "Why not? Either this is going to be home for humanity or it isn't going to be. If it is, then we're going to have babies here, that's all. I want a baby born in Ocean-Deep. There are babies born in Luna City, aren't there, Mr. Demerest?"
Demerest took a deep breath. "I was born in Luna City, Mrs. Bergen."
"And well she knew it, " muttered Bergen.
"And you are in your late twenties, I think?" she said.
"I am twenty-nine," said Demerest.
"And well she knew that, too," said Bergen with a short laugh. "You can bet she looked up all possible data on you when she heard you were coming."
"That is quite beside the point," said Annette. "The point is that for twenty-nine years at least children have been born in Luna City and no children have been born in Ocean-Deep."