“Which is why you’re hiding here in Selene,” Ingrid replied.
With a Huck Finn grin, Sam acknowledged, “Until I can recoup my fortune and deal with all those malicious lawsuits.”
“Malicious?” Ingrid laughed. “You owe Masterson Aerospace seven hundred million for the spacecraft you leased. Forty-three million—and counting—to Rockledge Industries for expenses on the orbital hotel that you haven’t paid for in more than two years. Nine million—”
“Okay, okay,” Sam conceded. “But how can I settle with them when they’ve got all my assets frozen?”
“That’s your problem,” said Ingrid.
“Why don’t we discuss it over dinner?” Sam suggested, his grin turning sly.
“Dinner? With you? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Scared?”
She hesitated, then glanced at me. I caught her meaning. She didn’t want to be alone with Sam.
“Sam,” I said, “we have a lot to talk about. I’ve got a working model just about finished, but to build a real machine I’m going to need some major funding and—”
Sam’s no dummy. He caught on immediately. “Okay, okay. You come to dinner, too.”
Turning back toward Ingrid, he asked, “Is that all right with you? Now you’ll have a chaperone.”
Ingrid smiled brightly. “That’s perfectly fine with me, Mr. Gunn.”
The earthview is the oldest and, to my mind, still the best restaurant in Selene. On Earth, the higher you are in a building the more prestigious and expensive; that’s why penthouses cost more than basement apartments—on Earth. On the Moon, though, the surface is dangerous: big temperature swings between sunlight and shadow, ionizing radiation constantly sleeting in from the Sun and stars, micrometeoroids peppering the ground and sandpapering everything exposed to them.
So in Selene, prestige and cost increase as you go down, away from the surface. The Earthview took in four full levels: its main entrance was on the third level below the Grand Plaza, and an actual human maitre d’ guided you to tables set along the winding descending rampway that led all the way down to the seventh level.
The place got its name from the oversized screens that studded the walls, showing camera views of the surface with the Earth hanging big and blue and majestic in the dark lunar sky. I never got tired of gazing at Earth and its ever-changing pattern of dazzling white clouds shifting across those glittering blue oceans.
Sam had reserved the best table in the place, down at the very lowest level. While we waited for Ingrid to arrive, Sam and I had a drink: lunar “rocket fuel” with carbonated water for me and plain South Pole water for Sam. He pumped me for everything I knew about her.
“I didn’t realize she’s working for lawyers at first,” I said. “She told me she’s an ethicist, and a Bishop in the New Lunar Church.”
“A Bishop? That’s enough to give a man religion, almost,” Sam mused.
“I never heard of the New Lunar Church before. Must be something new.”
“Fundamentalist,” Sam said knowingly. “Connected to the New Morality back Earthside.”
“She did say something about blasphemy.”
“Blasphemy?”
“In connection with the matter transmitter.”
“Blasphemy,” Sam muttered.
I took a sip of my drink. “Sam, there’s something I’ve got to ask you.”
“Ask away,” he said blithely.
“Why do you want a matter transmitter? I mean, what in the world do you plan to do with it? You can’t use it for people—”
“Why not?”
“It’s too dangerous. We don’t know enough about entanglement to risk people. Not even volunteers.”
“Maybe there are some pets in Selene we can test it with,” Sam muttered.
“Pets?” I shuddered at the idea of sending a dog or cat into the device I was building. Even a goldfish. Maybe the bio labs have some mice, I thought.
“Relax,” Sam said, smiling easily. “I don’t want to send people through space. Or pets. Just certain kinds of paperwork.”
“Paperwork?”
“Legal tender. Money.” He screwed up his face in a thoughtful frown for a moment. Then, “Legal documents too, I guess.”
“Why?”
“Tax haven.” Sam smiled his happiest, sunniest smile. “I’m going to turn Selene into a tax haven for all those poor souls down on Earth who’re trying to hide their assets from their money-grabbing governments.”
“A tax shelter? Selene?”
“Sure. Earthside governments won’t let you carry your money off-planet. They won’t even allow you to bring letters of credit or any other papers that can be transformed into money.”
“It’s all done electronically,” I murmured, reaching for my drink again.
“Right. And taxed electronically. Every goddamned financial transaction between Earth and the Moon is monitored by those snake-eyed tax collectors and their computers.”
“That’s Earthside law, Sam.” “Yeah, sure. But if a person could send money or its equivalent from Earth to the Moon through a matter transmitter, privately, instantaneously, with nobody else knowing about it…” He leaned back in his chair and gave me that sly smile of his.
“Money would stream into Selene,” I realized. “Money that people want to hide from their tax collectors.”
“Selene could get very wealthy, very fast.”
“The governments on Earth would be furious,” I said.
“Right again. But what can they do about it? They tried to muscle Selene once with Peacekeeper troops and got their backsides whipped.”
“But…”
“Besides, the richer Selene gets, the more Earthside politicians we can buy.”
“Bribery?”
“Lubrication,” Sam corrected. “Money is the oil that smoothes the machinery of government.”
“Bribery,” I said, firmly.
Sam shrugged.
A tax haven. A shelter for the fortunes that wealthy Earthsiders wanted to hide from their governments. It was wrong. Insidious. Definitely evil. But it could work!
And it could even result in more funding being available for Selene University. More funding for my research.
If I could make a matter transmitter.
“So how’s the zapper coming along?” Sam asked, reaching for his South Pole water.
For the next fifteen minutes or so I nattered on about entanglement and the bench model I was almost ready to test. Sam appeared to listen closely; he asked questions that showed he understood most of what I was telling him.
Then all of a sudden he looked past my shoulder and his eyes went wide as pie plates. I turned in my chair. Ingrid MacTavish was coming down the rampway toward our table.
Even in the modest pure white floor-length outfit she was wearing she looked spectacular. Radiant. Heads turned as she followed the maitre d’ past the other tables. And not just men’s heads, either. Ingrid looked like a glowing golden-haired empress proceeding regally toward her throne. She was even followed by a quartet of acolytes, all of them women, all of them dressed in unadorned white suits. Compared to Ingrid they looked like four dumpy troglodytes.
Sam bounded to his feet and held her chair for her, making the normally impassive maitre d’ frown at him. The acolytes seated themselves at the next table.
“Bishop MacTavish,” Sam murmured as she sat down.
“Mr. Gunn,” she replied. Then, with a nod toward me, “Dr. Townes.”
I swallowed hard and tried to say something but no words came out. All I could do was smile and hope I didn’t look like a complete idiot.
Sam was at his charming best all through dinner. Not a word about his legal troubles. Or about the matter transmitter. He regaled us both with improbable tales of his past misadventures.
Despite myself, I felt intrigued. “Tell us about the black hole, Sam,” I begged. “What really happened to you?”