He looked unconvinced.
It took me a whole day of fussing and fuming before I bit the bullet and rocketed to the Moon after Sam. And Josella. Pride is one thing, but I just couldn’t stand the thought of Sam chasing that willowy young thing—and catching her. Josella Ecks might think she was smart and cool enough to avoid Sam’s clutches, but she didn’t know our sawed-off Lothario as well as I did.
And it would be just like Sam to try to get the other side’s lawyer to fall for him. Even if he wasn’t bonkers about Josella, he’d want to sabotage her ability to represent his adversary in court.
So I told myself I was doing my job as a judge of the International Court of Justice as I flew to Selene.
I hadn’t been to the Moon in nearly five years, and I was impressed with how much bigger and more luxurious the underground city had grown. Selene’s main plaza had been mostly empty the last time I’d seen it, an immense domed structure of bare lunar concrete rumbling with the echoes of bulldozers and construction crews. Now the plaza—big enough to hold half a dozen football fields—was filled with green trees and flowering shrubbery. On one side stood the gracefully curved acoustical shell of an open-air theater. Small shops and restaurants were spotted along the pleasant winding walk that led through the plaza, all of them decked out with Christmas ornaments. The trees along the walk twinkled with lights.
There were hundreds of people strolling about, tourists walking awkwardly, carefully, in their weighted boots to keep them from stumbling in the one-sixth gravity. A handful of fliers soared high up near the curving dome, using colorful rented plastic wings and their own muscle power to fly like birds. For years Sam had said that tourism would become a major industry in space and at last his prediction was coming true. Christmas on the Moon: the ultimate holiday trip.
The lobby of the Selene Hotel was marvelous, floored with basalt from Mare Nubium polished to a mirror finish. The living quarters were deeper underground than the lobby level, of course. There were no stairs, though; too easy for newcomers unaccustomed to the low gravity to trip and fall. I walked down a wide rampway, admiring the sheets of water cascading noiselessly down tilted panes of lunar glass on either side of the central rampway into spacious fish ponds at the bottom level. Freely flowing water was still a rare sight on the Moon, even though aquaculture provided more of the protein for lunar meals than agriculture did.
Soft music wafted through hidden speakers, and tourists tossed chunks of bread to the fish in the pools, not realizing that sooner or later the fish would be feeding them. I saw that others had thrown coins into the water and laughed to myself, picturing Sam wading in there every night to collect the loose change.
I hadn’t told Sam I was coming, but he must have found out when I booked a suite at the hotel. There were real flowers and Swiss chocolates waiting for me when I checked in. I admired the flowers and gave the chocolates to the concierge to distribute to the hotel’s staff. Let them have the calories.
Even before I unpacked my meager travel bag I put in a call to Sam’s office. Surprisingly, he answered it himself.
“Hi, there!” Sam said brightly, his larger-than-life face grinning at me from the electronic window that covered one whole wall of my sitting room. “What brings you to Selene?”
I smiled for him. “I got lonesome, Sam.”
“Really?”
“And I thought that I’d better make certain you’re not suborning an officer of the court.”
“Oh, you mean Josella?”
“Don’t put on your innocent face for me, Sam Gunn,” I said. “You know damned well I mean Josella.”
His expression went serious. “You don’t have to worry about her. She’s got more defenses than a porcupine. Her arms are a lot longer than mine, I found out.”
He actually looked sad. I felt sorry for him, but I didn’t want him to know it. Not yet. Sam had a way of using your emotions to get what he wanted.
So I said, “I presume you’re free for dinner.”
He sighed. “Dinner, lunch, breakfast, you call it.”
“Dinner. Seven o’clock in the hotel’s restaurant.” All the lunar facilities kept Greenwich Mean Time, which was only an hour off from The Hague.
I had expected Sam to be downcast. I’d seen him that way before, moping like a teenaged Romeo when the object of his desire wouldn’t go along with him. Usually his pining and sighing only lasted until he found a new object of desire; I think twenty-four hours was the longest he’d ever gone in the past. Like a minor viral infection.
But when I got to the restaurant Sam was practically bouncing with excitement. As the maitre d’ led me to the table, Sam jumped to his feet so hard that he rose clear above the table and soared over it, landing on his toes right in front of me like a star ballet dancer. People stared from their tables.
Gracefully, Sam took my hand and bent his lips to it. His lips were curved into a tremendously self-satisfied smile.
Alarm bells went off in my head. Either he’s finally scored with Josella or he’s found a new love. I knew he couldn’t possibly be this happy just to see me again.
Sam shooed the maitre d’ away and helped me into my chair. Then he chugged around the table and sat down, folded his hands and rested his chin on them, and grinned at me as if he was a cat who’d just cornered the canary market.
I saw that there was a chilled bottle of French champagne in a silver bucket next to the table. A waiter immediately brought a dish of caviar and placed it in the center of the table.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Sam cocked an eyebrow at me. “Going on? What do you mean?”
“The champagne and caviar. The grin on your face.”
“Couldn’t that be just because I’m so happy to see you?”
“No it couldn’t,” I said. “Come on, Sam, we’ve known each other too long for this kind of runaround.”
He laughed softly and leaned closer toward me. “He’s coming here.”
“Who’s coming here?”
“Il Papa himself,” Sam whispered.
“The Pope?” My voice squeaked like a surprised mouse.
His head bobbing up and down, Sam said, “William I. The bishop of Rome. Vicar of Christ. Successor to the prince of the Apostles. Supreme pontiff of the universal church. Patriarch of the west, primate of Italy, archbishop and metropolitan of the Roman province, sovereign of the state of Vatican City, servant of the servants of God.” He took a breath. “That one.”
“The Pope is coming here? To the Moon? To Selene?”
“Just got the word from Cardinal Hagerty himself. Pope Bill is coming here to deal with me personally.”
I felt as if I was in free fall, everything inside me sinking. “Oh my God,” I said.
“Nope,” said Sam. “Just His representative.”
It was supposed to be very hush-hush. No news reporters. No leaks. The Pope came incognito, slipping out of Rome in plain clothes and riding to the Moon in a private rocket furnished by Rockledge Industries and paid for by Frank Banners insurance consortium.
For once in his life Sam kept a secret that wasn’t his own. He bubbled and jittered through the two days it took for the Pope to arrive at Selene. Instead of putting him up in the hotel, where he might be recognized, Sam ensconced Pope William, Cardinal Hagerty and their retinue of guards and servants—all male—in a new wing of Selene’s living quarters that hadn’t been opened yet for occupancy.
Their quarters were a little rough, a little unfinished. Walls nothing but bare stone. Some of the electrical fixtures hadn’t been installed yet. But there was comfortable furniture and plenty of room for them.
Suddenly I was a World Court judge in charge of a pretrial hearing again. I set up the meeting in the Pope’s suite, after a half-day of phone discussions with Sam and Cardinal Hagerty. Greg Molina reluctantly came up from Quito; Sam provided him with a special high-energy boost so he could get to us within twenty-four hours.