Johansen’s voice trailed off. The candle between them was guttering low. The table was littered with the crumbs of dessert, emptied coffee cups. The restaurant was deserted except for one other couple and the stumpy little robot waiters standing impassively by each table.
Jade had one more question to ask. “I know that nobody ever retrieved the Apollo 11 lunar module. What happened to Sam’s plan?”
Johansen made a tight grin. “The little guy was nobody’s fool. Once the world court decided that the right of salvage was pretty much the same in space as it is at sea, we went to the Moon and laid claim to all the hardware the Apollo astronauts had left behind, at all six landing sites.”
“But it’s all still there,” Jade said. “I’ve been to Tranquility Base. And Gamma and all the others …”
“That’s right.” Johansen’s smile broadened, genuinely pleased. “Sam’s original thought was to auction the stuff off to the highest bidder. The Japanese were hot for it. So was the Smithsonian, of course. And some group of high-tech investors from Texas.”
“So who bought them?”
“Nobody,” Johansen said. “Because Sam got the bright idea of offering it for free to Selene. I think it was still called Moonbase then. Anyway, the people there loved him for it. Thanks to Sam, Selene legally owns all the Apollo hardware resting on the Moon. Those landing sites are big tourist attractions for them.”
“That was generous.”
“Sure was. And, of course, Sam could get just about anything he wanted from Selene for years afterward.”
“I see,” said Jade.
Johansen signaled for the bill. The robot trundled over, digits lighting up on the screen set into its torso. Johansen tapped out his okay on the robot’s keyboard and let the photocell take an impression of his thumbprint. Jade turned off her recorder.
Johansen moved gracefully around the little table and held her chair while she stood up, feeling strangely unhappy that this interview was at an end.
As they strolled slowly down the footpath that led to the hotel where she was staying, Johansen suggested, “How’d you like to go hang gliding tomorrow morning? In this low gravity there’s no danger at all.”
Jade was surprised at how much she wanted to say yes.
“I can’t,” she heard herself say. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
“Oh,” said Johansen, sounding disappointed.
They walked along the footpath in the man-made twilight toward the little cluster of low buildings that was Gunnstown, where her hotel was situated. Johansen pointed out the lights of other towns overhead. In the darkness they could not see that the habitat’s interior curved up and over them.
“They’re like stars,” Jade said, gazing up at the lights.
“Some people even see constellations in them,” he told her. “See, there’s a cat—over there. And the mouse, down further …”
She leaned closer to him as he pointed out the man-made constellations.
“Do you think you’ll ever marry again?” she asked in a whisper.
“Not until I’m certain it will last,” he answered immediately. “I’ve had enough hit-and-runs in my life. I want somebody I can settle down with and live happily ever after.”
Happily ever after, Jade said to herself. Does anyone ever do that? She pulled away from Johansen slightly, thinking of Raki and what she owed him, what she owed herself.
I’m leaving tomorrow. Good. I’ll leave and go out and interview more of Sam’s friends and enemies. I’ll leave and never see this man again. It’s better that way. Six wives! Who can trust a man who’s had six wives?
She felt almost glad that she was leaving habitat Jefferson in the morning.
Almost glad.
Selene City
When Jade got back to her office the next morning there was a message waiting for her. From Spence!
Her heart thumping, she hit the playback tab on her desktop keyboard. Spence’s handsome face appeared on her screen, crinkling a smile at her.
“Hi, Jade. Guess who I ran into right after I saw you off? Larry Karsh. You know, the VCI engineer I told you about. He’s on his way to Selene and he says he has an audio disk that Sam himself recorded. About the time when he opened his honeymoon hotel in Earth orbit. Thought you’d want to listen to it.”
Jade nodded eagerly at Spence’s image.
“Okay, that’s it. Thought you ought to know about it. Larry’s on his way to Selene. Maybe you can get him to let you hear the disk. ’Bye.”
And his image winked out.
Not a word about me, she thought as she stared at the blank screen. Not a word about us. He’s just doing a favor for a friend. Nothing more.
She felt crushed, terribly let down. For long moments she simply sat at her desk trying to fight back the disappointment that threatened to engulf her.
He doesn’t care about me. Not the way I want him to. Not the way I care about him.
Suddenly she felt the shock of realizing that she truly did care about Spence. Am I in love with him? she asked herself. She had no answer.
At last she shook her head, as if trying to clear the cobwebs of emotion that were entangling her. You’re a news reporter, she told herself sternly. Spence has given you a lead on a hot story. Sam’s own voice!
Without even asking Jumbo Jim, she checked the incoming flight arrivals, then made her way to Selene’s spaceport.
Armstrong Spaceport
“Yeah, i worked for Sam for several years back in the old days,” said Larry Karsh.
He was a lean, lanky, long-limbed man with the kind of baby face that would keep him looking youthful into his seventies, Jade thought. She had just barely arrived at the spaceport in time to meet him as he disembarked from the shuttle from habitat Jefferson.
“I’m on my way to the construction base on Mercury,” he’d told her. “Yamagata Corporation’s building a set of solar power satellites there, y’know.”
Jade maneuvered him to the tiny bar set between terminal gates and offered him a drink on Solar News’s expense. He smiled gratefully and asked for orange juice. Selene’s citrus groves were famous off-Earth. Jade had South Pole water.
“Y’know, in a way, Sam was a big factor in my marriage,” Karsh said as he sipped his drink. “But my wife and I could never forgive him for kidnapping our baby. That ended it between Sam and me, for good.”
“Kidnapped your baby?” Jade asked, shocked.
“Oh, T.J.’s none the worse for the experience. He was still in diapers when it happened. Now he’s heading up the Ecological Protection Service on Mars, making sure that the tourists don’t do any harm to the Martian environment so the scientists can keep on studying the life forms in the rocks. He’s a bright young man, my son is.
“Y’know, the power we generate from those sunsats in Mercury orbit will be beamed to the Mars stations. We’ll be providing electrical power for most of the inner solar system, how about that? And we’ll still have plenty left over to power the sailships out to Alpha Centauri and Lalande 21185.”
Jade made approving noises, then asked, “But about Sam … ?”
“Sam? I kinda miss him, sure. But don’t let my wife hear that! She’d just as soon boil Sam in molten sulfur, even after all these years.”
“I can understand that, I guess.”
“Well sure, Sam felt pretty bad about what happened. Or so he said. He even sent me a long letter explaining his side of it. Not a written letter, Sam never liked to commit very much to writing. It’s an audio disk, from his diary.”
“Sam kept a diary?”