He shook his head. “No. I’m alone. Even if that were not the case, Earthies are no great thrill to me.”
She looked at him again. He was fiftyish and there was a weary look about him which only his bright, inquisitive eyes seemed to belie. He had the unmistakable look of the Earthman, laden down with gravity. She said, “ ‘Earthie’ is a Moon-expression, and not a very nice one.”
“I’m from Earth,” he said, “so I can use it without offense, I hope. Unless you object.”
Selene shrugged as though to say: Please yourself.
She had the faintly oriental look about the eyes so many of the Moon-girls had, but her hair was the color of honey and her nose was prominent. She was undeniably attractive without being in any way classically beautiful.
The Earthman was staring at the nameplate she wore on the blouse covering the upper slope of her high, not-too-large left breast. She decided it was really the name-plate he was looking at, not the breast, though the blouse was semi-transparent when it caught the light at a particular angle and there was no garment beneath it.
He said, “Are there many Selenes here?”
“Oh, yes. Hundreds, I think. Also Cynthias, Dianas, and Artemises. Selene is a little tiresome. Half the Selenes I know are called ‘Silly’ and the other half ‘Lena.’ ”
“Which are you?”
“Neither. I am Selene, all three syllables. SELL-uh-nee,” she said, coming down heavily on the first syllable, “to those who use my first name at all.”
There was a small smile on the Earthman’s face that sat there as though he weren’t quite used to it. He said, “And what if anyone asks you if you sell any, Selene?”
“They never ask me that again!” she said, firmly.
“But do they ask you?”
“There are fools always.”
A waitress had reached their table and had placed the dishes before them with quick, smooth motions.
The Earthman was visibly impressed. He said to the waitress, “You make them seem to float down.”
The waitress smiled and moved on.
Selene said, “Don’t you try to do the same. She’s used to the gravity and can handle it.”
“And if I try, I’ll drop everything? Is that it?”
“You’ll make a gorgeous mess,” she said.
“Well, I won’t try.”
“There’s a good chance someone will before long, and the plate will flow down to the floor and they’ll grab for it and miss, and ten to one knock themselves out of their chair. I’d warn them, but it never helps and they’re just all the more embarrassed. Everyone else will laugh—the tourists, that is, because the rest of us have seen it too often to find it funny and because it’s just a cleanup job.”
The Earthman was lifting his fork carefully. “I see what you mean. Even the simplest motions seem queer.”
“Actually, you get used to it quickly enough. At least to little things like eating. Walking is harder. I never saw an Earthman run efficiently out here. Not really efficiently.”
For a while they ate in silence. Then he said, “What does the L. stand for?” He was looking at her nameplate again. It said, “Selene Lindstrom L.”
“It just means Luna,” she said, rather indifferently, “to distinguish me from the immigrants. I was born here.”
“Really?”
“That’s nothing to be surprised about. We’ve had a working society here for over half a century. Don’t you think babies are born here? We have people here who were born here and are grandparents.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-two,” she said.
He looked startled, then mumbled, “Of course.”
Selene raised her eyebrows. “You mean you understand? Most Earthmen have to have it explained.”
The Earthman said, “I know enough to know that most of the visible signs of aging are the result of the inexorable victory of gravity over tissue—the sagging of cheek and the drooping of breast. With the Moon’s gravity one-sixth that of Earth, it isn’t really hard to understand that people will stay young-looking.”
Selene said, “Only young-looking. It doesn’t mean we have immortality here. The life-span is about that of Earth, but most of us are more comfortable in old age.”
“That’s not to be dismissed. ... Of course, there are penalties, I suppose.” He had just taken his first sip of his coffee. “You have to drink this—” He paused for a word and must have discarded it, for he used none.
“We could import food and beverages from Earth,” she said, amused, “but only enough to feed a fraction of us a fraction of the time. There’d be no point to that when we can use the space for more vital items. Besides, we’re used to this crud. ... Or were you going to use a still stronger word?”
“Not for the coffee,” he said. “I was going to save that for the food. But crud will do.... Tell me,” Miss Lindstrom. I didn’t see any mention on the tour itinerary of the proton synchrotron.”
“The proton synchrotron?” She was finishing her coffee and her eyes were beginning to slide round the room, as though estimating the moment for getting them all to their feet again. “That’s Terrestrial property and it’s not open to tourists.”
“You mean that it’s off-limits to Lunarites.”
“Oh, no. Nothing of the sort. Most of its staff are Lunarites. It’s just that it’s the Terrestrial government that sets the rules. No tourists.”
“I’d love to see it,” he said.
She said, “I’m sure you would.... You’ve brought me luck; not one item of food, not one blessed man or woman has hit the floor.”
She got to her feet and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be leaving in about ten minutes. Please leave the plates where they are. There are rest rooms for those who wish to use them and then we will visit the food-processing plants where meals such as you have just eaten are made possible.”
2
Selene’s quarters were small, of course, and compact; but they were intricate. The windows were panoramic; star scenes that changed slowly and very randomly, never having any relationship to any real constellation. Each of the three windows could be made to undergo telescopic magnification, when Selene so desired.
Barren Neville hated that part of it. He would tend to turn it off rather savagely and say, “How can you stand it? You’re the only one I know who has the bad taste to do such a thing. It’s not as though these nebulae and star clusters exist, even.”
And Selene would shrug, coolly, and say, “What’s existence? How do you know the ones out there exist? Besides it gives me a sensation of freedom and motion. May I have that in my own quarters if I choose?”
Then Neville would mumble something and make a halfhearted attempt to restore the controls to where he had found them and Selene would say, “Let it go!”
The furniture was in smooth curves, and the walls were abstractly decorated in low-key, unobtrusive colors. Nowhere was there any representation of anything that might be considered a living thing.
“Living things are Earth,” Selene would say, “not the Moon.”
Now, when she entered, she found, as so often, Neville there; Barron Neville, resting on the flimsy couch with one sandal on. The other lay beside him where it had dropped, and there was a line of red marks on his abdomen, just over his umbilicus, where he had been meditatively scratching.
She said, “Get us some coffee, won’t you, Barron?” and slipped out of her own clothes in a long, graceful wiggle accompanied by a sigh of relief, letting them drop to the ground and then kicking them into the corner with one toe.