Selene nodded. “I suppose that’s possible.... All this I knew, or rather, intuited, before you came on the scene. But then you said that nothing between one and the infinite made any sense. Remember?”
“Of course.”
“All right. The differences between our Universe and the para-Universe. He so obviously in the strong nuclear interaction that so far it’s all that’s been studied. But there is more than one interaction; there are four. In addition to the strong nuclear, there is the electromagnetic, the weak nuclear, and the gravitational, with intensity ratios of 130:1:10−10:10−42. But if four, why not an infinite number, with all the others too weak to be detectable or to influence our Universe in any way.”
Denison said, “If an interaction is too weak to be detectable or to exert influence in any way, then by any operational definition, it doesn’t exist.”
“In this Universe,” said Selene, with a snap. “Who knows what does or does not exist in the para-Universe? With an infinite number of possible interactions, each of which can vary infinitely in intensity compared to any one of them taken as standard, the number of different possible Universes that can exist is infinite.”
“Possibly the infinity of the continuum; aleph-one, rather than aleph-null.”
Selene frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It’s not important. Go on.”
Selene said, “Instead, then, of trying to work with the one para-Universe that has impinged itself on us and which may not suit our needs at all, why don’t we instead try to work out which Universe, out of all the infinite possibilities, best suits us, and is most easily located. Let us design a Universe, for after all whatever we design must exist, and search for it.”
Denison smiled. “Selene, I’ve thought of exactly the same thing. And while there’s no law that states I can’t be completely wrong, it’s very unlikely that anyone as brilliant as myself can be completely wrong when anyone as brilliant as yourself comes to exactly the same conclusion independently.... Do you know what?”
“What?” asked Selene.
“I’m beginning to like your damned Moon food. Or getting used to it, anyway. Let’s go back home and eat, and then we can start working out our plans.... And you know what else?”
“What?”
“As long as we’ll be working together, how about one kiss—as experimentalist to intuitionist.”
Selene considered. She said, “We’ve both of us kissed and been kissed a good many times, I suppose. How about doing it as man to woman?”
“I think I can manage that. But what do I do so as not to be clumsy about it? What are the Moon-rules for kissing?”
“Follow instinct,” said Selene, casually.
Carefully, Denison placed his arms behind his back and leaned toward Selene. Then, after a while, he placed his arms behind her back.
13
“And then I actually kissed him back,” said Selene, thoughtfully.
“Oh, did you?” said Barren Neville, harshly. “Well, that’s valor beyond the call of duty.”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t that bad. In fact,” (and she smiled) “he was rather touching about it. He was afraid he would be clumsy and began by putting his arms behind his back so that he wouldn’t crush me, I suppose.”
“Spare me the details.”
“Why, what the hell do you care?” she fired up, suddenly. “You’re Mister Platonic, aren’t you?”
“Do you want it differently? Now?”
“You needn’t perform to order.”
“But you had better. When do you expect to give us what we need?”
“As soon as I can,” she said, tonelessly.
“Without his knowing?”
“He’s interested only in energy.”
“And in saving the world,” mocked Neville. “And in being a hero. And in showing everybody. And in kissing you.”
“He admits to all that. What do you admit to?”
“Impatience,” said Neville, angrily. “Lots of impatience.”
14
“I am glad,” said Denison, deliberately, “that the daytime is over.” He held out his right arm and stared at it, encased in its protective layers. “The Lunar Sun is one thing I can’t get used to and don’t want to get used to. Even this suit seems a natural thing to me in comparison.”
“What’s wrong with the Sun?” asked Selene.
“Don’t tell me you like it, Selene!”
“No, of course not. I hate it. But then I never see it. You’re an— You’re used to the Sun.”
“Not the way it is here on the Moon. It shines out of a black sky here. It dazzles the stars away, instead of muffling them. It is hot, hard, and dangerous. It is an enemy, and while it’s in the sky, I can’t help but feel that none of our attempts at reducing field intensity will succeed.”
“That’s superstition, Ben,” said Selene, with a distant edge of exasperation. “The Sun has nothing to do with it. We were in the crater shadow anyway and it was just like night. Stars and all.”
“Not quite,” said Denison. “Anytime we looked northward, Selene, we could see that stretch of Sunlight glittering; I hated to look northward, yet the direction dragged at my eyes. Every time I looked at it I could feel the hard ultraviolet springing at my viewplate.”
“That’s imagination. In the first place there’s no ultraviolet to speak of in reflected light; in the second, your suit protects you against radiation.”
“Not against heat. Not very much.”
“But it’s night now.”
“Yes,” said Denison with satisfaction, “and this I like.” He looked about with a continuing wonder. Earth was in the sky, of course, in its accustomed place; a fat crescent, now, bellying to the southwestward. The constellation Orion was above it, a hunter rising up out of the brilliant curved chair of Earth. The horizon glittered in the dim crescent-Earth light.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. Then: “Selene, is the Pionizer showing anything?”
Selene, who was looking at the skies with no comment, stepped toward the maze of equipment that, over the past three alternations of day and night, had been assembled there in the shadow of the crater.
“Not yet,” she said, “but that’s good news really. The field intensity is holding at just over fifty.”
“Not low enough,” said Denison.
Selene said, “It can be lowered further. I’m sure that all the parameters are suitable.”
“The magnetic field, too?”
“I’m not sure about the magnetic field.”
“If we strengthen that, the whole thing becomes unstable.”
“It shouldn’t. I know it shouldn’t.”
“Selene, I trust your intuition against everything but the facts. It does get unstable. We’ve tried it.”
“I know, Ben. But not quite with this geometry. It’s been holding to fifty-two a phenomenally long time. Surely, if we begin to hold it there for hours instead of minutes, we ought to be able to strengthen the magnetic field tenfold for a period of minutes instead of seconds.... Let’s try.”
“Not yet,” said Denison.
Selene hesitated, then stepped back, turning away. She said, “You still don’t miss Earth, do you, Ben?”