The Gods Themselves

Chapter 20

"Where were his eyes?" demanded Selene indignantly. "He didn't see her coming."
The action grew hotter and the Earthman tired of trying to make sense of the knotted flights. Occasionally, a leaper touched a bar and did not retain his hold. Those were the times when every spectator leaned over the railing as though ready to launch himself into space in sympathy. At one time, Marco Fore was struck in the wrist and someone cried "Foul!"
Fore missed his handhold and fell. To the Earthman's eyes, the fall, under Moon-gravity, was slow, and Fore's lithe body twisted and turned, reaching for bar after bar, without quite making it. The others waited, as though all maneuvering was suspended during a fall.
Fore was moving quite rapidly now, though twice he had slowed himself without quite being able to maintain a handhold.
He was nearly to the ground when a sudden spidery lunge caught a transverse bar with the right leg and he hung suspended and swinging, head downward, about ten feet above the ground. Arms outspread, he paused while the applause rang out and then he had twisted upright and jumped into a rapid climb.
The Earthman said, "Was he fouled?"
"If Jean Wong actually grabbed Marco's wrist instead of pushing it, it was a foul. The umpire has ruled a fair block, however, and I don't think Marco will appeal. He fell a lot farther than he had to. He likes these last-minute saves and someday he'll miscalculate and hurt himself. . . . Oh, oh."
The Earthman looked up in sudden inquiry, but Selene's eyes weren't upon him. She said, "That's someone from the Commissioner's office and he must be looking for you."
"Why - "
"I don't see why he should come here to find anyone else. You're the unusual one."
"But there's no reason - " began the Earthman.
Yet the messenger, who had the build of an Earthman himself or an Earth-immigrant, and who seemed uneasy to be the center of the stares of a couple of dozen slight, nude figures who seemed to tinge their scorn with indifference, came directly toward him.
"Sir," he began. "Commissioner Gottstein requests that you accompany me - "
5
Barren Neville's quarters were somehow harsher than Selene's. His books were on bold display, his computer-outlet was unmasked in one comer, and his large desk was in disarray. His windows were blank.
Selene entered, folded her arms, and said, "If you live like a slob, Barren, how do you expect to have your thoughts neat?"
"I'll manage," said Barron, grumpily. "How is it you haven't brought the Earthman with you?"
"The Commissioner got to him first. The new Commissioner."
"Gottstera?"
"That's right. Why weren't you ready sooner?"
"Because it took time to find out. I won't work blind."
Selene said, "Well, then, we'll just have to wait."
Neville bit at a thumbnail and then inspected the result severely. "I don't know whether I ought to like the situation or not. . . . What did you think of him?"
"I liked him," said Selene, definitely. "He was rather pleasant, considering he was an Earthie. He let me guide him. He was interested. He made no judgments. He didn't patronize . . . And I didn't go out of my way to avoid insulting him, either,"
"Did he ask any further about the synchrotron?"
"No, but then he didn't have to."
"Why not?"
"I told him you wanted to see him, and I said you were a physicist. So I imagine he'll ask you whatever he wants to ask you when he sees you."
"Didn't he think it strange that he should be talking to a female tourist guide who just happens to know a physicist?"
"Why strange? I said you were my sex-partner. There's no accounting for sex attraction and a physicist may well condescend to a lowly tourist guide."
"Shut up, Selene."
"Oh -  Look, Barren, it seems to me that if he were spinning some sort of fancy web, if he approached me because he planned to get to you through me, he would have shown some trace of anxiety. The more complicated and silly any plot, the more rickety it is and the more anxious the plotter. I deliberately acted casual. I talked about everything but the synchrotron. I took him to a gymnastics show."
"And?"
"And he was interested. Relaxed and interested. Whatever he has on his mind, it isn't involuted."
"You're sure of that? Yet the Commissioner got to him before I did. You consider that good?"
"Why should I consider it bad? An open invitation to a meeting of some sort delivered in front of a couple of dozen Lunarites isn't particularly involuted, either."
Neville leaned back with his hands clasped at the nape of his neck. "Selene, please don't insist on making judgments, when I don't ask you to. It's irritating. The man is not a physicist in the first place. Did he tell you he was?"
Selene paused to think. "I called him a physicist. He didn't deny it but I don't recall that he actually said he was. And yet - and yet, I'm sure he is."
"It's a lie of omission, Selene. He may be a physicist in his own mind, but the fact is that he isn't trained as a physicist and he doesn't work as one. He has had scientific training; I'll grant him that; but he has no scientific job of any kind. He couldn't get one. There isn't a lab on Earth that would give him working room. He happens to be on Fred Hallam's crud-list and he's been top man there for a long time."
"Are you sure?"
"Believe me, I checked. Didn't you just criticize me for taking so long . . . And it sounds so good that it's too good."
"Why too good? I don't see what you're getting at."
"Doesn't it seem to you we ought to trust him? After all, he's got a grievance against Earth."
"You can certainly argue that way, if your facts are right."
"Oh, my facts are right, at least in the sense that they're what turns up, if you dig for them. But maybe we're supposed to argue that way."
"Barren, that's disgusting. How can you weave-these conspiracy theories into everything? Ben didn't sound - "
"Ben?" said Neville, sardonically.
"Ben!" repeated Selene, firmly. "Ben didn't sound like a man with a grievance or like a man trying to make me think he sounded like a man with a grievance."
"No, but he managed to make you think he was someone to be liked. You did say you liked him, didn't you? With emphasis? Maybe that's exactly what he was trying to do."
"I'm not that easy to fool and you know it."
"Well, I'll just have to wait till I see him."
"The hell with you, Barron. I've associated with thousands of Earthies of all kinds. It's my job. And you have no reason whatsoever to speak sarcastically about my judgment. You know you have every reason to trust it."
"All right. Well see. Don't get angry. It's just that we'll have to wait now. . . . And as long as we do," he rose lithely to his feet, "guess what I'm thinking?"
"I don't have to." Selene rose as smoothly, and with an almost invisible motion of her feet slid sideways, well away from him. "But think it by yourself. I'm not in the mood."
"Are you annoyed because I've impugned your judgment?"
"I'm annoyed because -  Oh, hell, why don't you keep your room in better condition?" And she left.
6
"I would like," said Gottstein, "to offer you some Earth-side luxury, Doctor, but, as a matter of principle, I have been allowed to bring none. The good people of the Moon resent the artificial barriers imposed by special treatment for men from Earth. It seems better to soothe their sensibilities by assuming the Lunarite pose as far as possible though I'm afraid my gait will give me away. Their confounded gravity is impossible."
The Earthman said "I find this so also. I congratulate you on your new post - n
"Not yet quite mine, sir."
"Still, my congratulations. Yet I can't help wondering why you have asked to see me."
"We were shipmates. We arrived not so long ago on the same vessel."
The Earthman waited politely.
Gottstein said, "And my acquaintance with you is a longer one than that. We met - briefly - some years ago."
The Earthman said quietly, "I'm afraid I don't recall - "
"I'm not surprised at that. There is no reason for you to remember. I was, for a time, on the staff of Senator Burt, who headed - still heads, in fact - the Committee on Technology and the Environment. It was at a time when he was rattier anxious to get the goods on Hallam - Frederick Hallam."
The Earthman seemed, quite suddenly, to sit a little straighter. "Did you know Hallam?"
"You're the second person to ask me that since my coming to the Moon. Yes, I did. Not intimately. I've known others who've met him. Oddly enough, their opinion usually coincided with mine. For a person who is apparently idolized by the planet, Hallam inspired little personal liking on the part of those who knew him."
"Little? None at all, I think," said the Earthman.
Gottstein ignored the interruption. "It was my job, at the time - or at least, my assignment from the senator - to investigate the Electron Pump and see if its establishment and growth were accompanied by undue waste and personal profit-taking. It was a legitimate concern for what was essentially a watch-dog committee, but the senator was, between us, hoping to find something of damage to Hallam. He was anxious to decrease the strangle-hold that man was gaining on the scientific establishment. There, he failed."
"That much would be obvious. Hallam is stronger than ever right now."
"There was no graft to speak of; certainly none that could be traced to Hallam. The man is rigidly honest"
"In that sense, I am sure. Power has its own market value not necessarily measured in credit-bills."
"But what interested me at the time, though it was something I could not then follow up, was that I did come across someone whose complaint was not against Hallam's power, but against the Electron Pump itself. I was present at the interview, but I did not conduct it You were the complainant, were you not?"
The Earthman said, cautiously, "I remember the incident to which you refer, but I still don't remember you."
"I wondered then how anyone could possibly object to the Electron Pump on scientific grounds. You impressed me sufficiently so that when I saw you on the ship, something stirred; and then, eventually, it came back. I have not referred to the passenger list but let me check my memory. Aren't you Dr. Benjamin Andrew Denison?"
The Earthman sighed. "Benjamin Allan Denison. Yes. But why does this come up now? The truth is, Commissioner, I don't want to drag up matters of the past. I'm here on the Moon and rather anxious to start again; from the start, if necessary. Damn it, I considered changing my name."
"That wouldn't have helped. It was your face I recognized. I have no objection to your new life, Dr. Denison. I would not in any way interfere. But I would like to pry a little for reasons that do not directly involve you. I don't remember, quite, your objection to the Electron Pump. Could you tell me?"
Denison's head bent. The silence lengthened itself and the Commissioner-Appointee did not interrupt He even stifled a small clearing of the throat.
Denison said, "Truly, it was nothing. It was a guess I made; a fear about the alteration in the intensity of the strong nuclear field. Nothing!"
"Nothing?" Gottstein did clear his throat now. "Please don't mind if I strive to understand this. I told you that you interested me at the time. I was unable to follow it up then and I doubt that I could dig the information out of the records now. The whole thing is classified - the senator did very poorly at the time and he isn't interested in publicity over it. Still, some details come back. You were once a colleague of Hallam's; you were not a physicist."
"That's right. I was a radiochemist. So was he."
"Stop me if I remember incorrectly, but your early record was a very good one, right?"
"There were objective criteria in my favor. I had no illusions about myself. I was a brilliant worker."
"Amazing how it comes back. Hallam, on the other hand, was not."
"Not particularly."
"And yet afterward things did not go well with you. In fact, when we interviewed you - I think you volunteered to see us - you were working for a toy manufacturer - "
"Cosmetics," said Denison, in a strangled voice. "Male cosmetics. That didn't help gain me a respectful hearing."
"No, it wouldn't. I'm sorry. You were a salesman."
"Sales manager. I was still brilliant, I rose to vice-president before breaking off and coming to the Moon."
"Did Hallam have something to do with that? I mean with you leaving science?"
"Commissioner," said Denison. "Please! It really doesn't matter any longer. I was there when Hallam first discovered the tungsten conversion and when the chain of events began that led to the Electron Pump. Exactly what would have happened if I had not been there, I can't say. Hallam and I might both have been dead of radiation poisoning a month later or of a nuclear explosion six weeks later. I don't know. But I was there and, partly because of me, Hallam is what he is now; and because of my part in it, I am what I am now. The hell with the details. Does that satisfy you? Because it will have to."
"I think it satisfies me. You had a personal grudge against Hallam, then?"
"I certainly had no affection for him, in those days. I have no affection for him now, for that matter."
"Would you say, then, that your objection to the Electron Pump was inspired by your anxiety to destroy Hallam."
Denison said, "I object to this cross-examination."
"Please? Nothing of what I ask is intended to be used against you. This is for my own benefit because I am concerned about the Pump and about a number of things."
"Well, then, I suppose you might work out some emotional involvement. Because I disliked Hallam I was ready to believe that his popularity and greatness had a false foundation. I thought about the Electron Pump, hoping to find a flaw."
"And you therefore found one?"
"No," said Denison forcefully, bringing his fist down on the arm of the chair and moving perceptibly upward from his seat in reaction. "Not 'therefore.' I found a flaw but it was an honest one. Or so it seemed to me. I certainly didn't invent a flaw merely to puncture Hallam."
"No question of inventing, Doctor," said Gottstein soothingly. "I don't dream of making such an implication. Yet we all know that in trying to determine something on the boundary line of the known, it is necessary to make assumptions. The assumptions can be made over a gray area of uncertainty and one can shade them in one direction or another with perfect honesty, but in accord with - uh - the emotions of the moment. You made your assumptions, perhaps, on the anti-Hallam edge of the possible."
"This is a profitless discussion, sir. At the time, I thought I had a valid point. However, I am not a physicist. I am - was - a radiochemist"
"Hallam was a radiochemist, too, but he is now the most famous physicist in the world."
"He's still a radiochemist A quarter-century out of date."
"Not so, you. You worked hard to become a physicist"
Denison smoldered. "You really investigated me."
"I told you; you impressed me. Amazing how it comes back. But now I'll pass on to something a little different Do you know a physicist named Peter Lamont?"
Reluctantly - "I've met him."
"Would you say he was brilliant, too?"
"I don't know him well enough to say and I hate to overuse the word."
"Would you say he knew what he was talking about?"
"Barring information to the contrary, I would say, yes."
Carefully, the Commissioner leaned back in his seat. It had a spindly look about it and by Earth standards it would not have supported his weight. He said, "Would you care to say how you came to know Lamont? Was it by reputation only? Did you meet?"
Denison said, "We had some direct conversations. He was planning to write a history of the Electron Pump; how it started; a full account of all the legendary crap that's grown up around it. I was flattered that Lamont came to me; that he seemed to have found out something about me. Damn it, Commissioner, I was flattered that he knew I was alive. But I couldn't really say much. What would have been the use? I would have gained nothing but some sneers and I am tired of it; tired of brooding; tired of self-pity."
"Do you know anything about what Lamont has been doing in the last few years?"
"What is it you're thinking of, Commissioner?" asked Denison, cautiously.
"About a year ago, maybe a little more, Lamont spoke to Burt. I am not on the senator's staff any longer, but we see each other occasionally. He talked to me about it. He was concerned. He thought Lamont might have made a valid point against the Electron Pump and yet could see no practical way of taking up the matter. I, too, was concerned - "
"Concern everywhere," said Denison, sardonically.
"But now, I wonder. If Lamont talked to you and - "
"Stop! Stop right there, Commissioner. I think I see you sidling toward a point and I don't want you to move any further. If you expect me to tell you that Lamont stole my idea, that once again I am being treated badly, you are wrong. Let me tell you as forcefully as I can; I had no valid theory. It was purely a guess. It worried me; I presented it; I was not believed; I was discouraged. Since I had no way of demonstrating its value, I gave up. I did not mention it in my discussion with Lamont; we never went past the early days of the Pump. What he came up with later, however much it may have resembled my guess, was arrived at independently. It seems to be much more solid and to be based on rigid mathematical analysis. I lay claim to no priority; to none"
"You seem to know about Lamont's theory."
"It made the rounds in recent months. The fellow can't publish and no one takes him seriously, but it was passed along the grapevine. It even reached me."
"I see, Doctor. But I take it seriously. To me the warning was second time round, you understand. The report of the first warning - from you - had never reached the senator. It had nothing to do with financial irregularities, which were what was then on his mind. The actual head of " the investigating panel - not myself - considered it - you will forgive me - crackpot. I did not. When the matter came up again, I grew disturbed. It was my intention to meet with Lamont, but a number of physicists whom I consulted - "
"Including Hallam?"
"No, I did not see Hallam. A number of those I consulted advised me that Lamont's work was utterly without foundation. Even so, I was considering seeing him when I was asked to take up this position, and here I am, and here you are. So you see why I had to see you. In your opinion is there merit in the theories advanced by yourself and by Dr. Lamont?"
"You mean is continued use of the Electron Pump going to blow up the Sun, or maybe the entire arm of the Galaxy?"
"Yes, that's exactly what I mean."
"How can I tell you? All I have is my own guess, which is just a guess. As for Lamont's theory, I have not studied it in detail; it-has not been published. If I saw it, the mathematics might be beyond me . . . Besides, what's the difference? Lamont won't convince anyone. Hallam has ruined him as earlier he ruined me, and the public generally would find it against their short-term interest to believe him even if he went over Hallam's head, so to speak. They don't want to give up the Pump, and it's a lot easier to refuse to accept Lamont's theory than to try to do something about it."
"But you're still concerned about it, aren't you?"
"In the sense that I think we might indeed destroy ourselves and that I wouldn't like to see that happen, of course."
"So you've come to the Moon, now, to do something that Hallam, your old enemy, would prevent your doing on Earth."
Denison said, slowly, "You, too, like to make guesses."
"Do I?" said Gottstein, indifferently. "Perhaps I am brilliant, too. Is my guess correct?"
"It may be. I haven't given up hope of returning to science. If anything I do were to lift the specter of doom from mankind, either by showing that it does not exist or that it does exist and must be removed, I would be pleased."
"I see. Dr. Denison, to discuss another point at the moment, my predecessor, the retiring Commissioner, Mr. Montez, tells me that the growing edge of science is here on the Moon. He seems to think a disproportionate quantity of the brains and initiative of mankind is here."
"He may be right," said Denison. "I don't know."
"He may be right," agreed Gottstein, thoughtfully, "If so, doesn't it strike you that this may be inconvenient for your purpose. Whatever you do, men may say and think it was accomplished through the Lunar scientific structure. You personally might gain little in the way of recognition, however valuable the results you present . . . Which, of course, would be unjust."
"I am tired of the rat-race of credit, Commissioner Gottstein. I want some interest in life, more interest than I can find as vice-president in charge of Ultra-sonic Depilatories. I'll find it in a return to science. If I accomplish something in my own eyes, I will be satisfied."
"Let us say that that would be insufficient for me. What credit you earn, you should receive; and it should be quite possible for me, as Commissioner, to present the facts to the Terrestrial community in such a way a$ to preserve for you what is yours. Surely you are human enough to want what is your own."
"You are kind. And in return?"
"You are cynical. But justly so. In return I want your help. The retiring Commissioner, Mr. Montez, is not certain as to the lines of scientific research being undertaken on the Moon. Communications between the peoples of Earth and Moon are not perfect, and coordination of the efforts on both worlds is clearly for the benefit of all. It is understandable that there's distrust, I suppose, but if you can do anything to break down that distrust, it will be as valuable to us as your scientific findings might be."
"Surely, Commissioner, you can't feel that I'm the ideal man to bear witness to the Lunarites as to how fair-meaning and well-disposed the Earth's scientific establishment is."
"You mustn't confuse one vengeful scientist with the men of the Earth as a whole, Dr. Denison. Let's put it this way. I would appreciate being kept aware of your scientific findings so that I could help you retain your fair share of credit; and in order to understand your findings properly - I am not a professional scientist myself, remember - it would be helpful if you were to explain them in the light of the present state of science on the Moon. Is it agreed?"
Denison said, "You ask a hard thing. Preliminary results, prematurely disclosed, whether through carelessness or over-enthusiasm, can do tremendous harm to a reputation. I would hate to talk about anything to anyone until I was sure of my ground. My earlier experience with the committee on which you served would certainly encourage me to be cautious."
"I quite understand," said Gottstein, heartily. "I would leave it to you to decide when I might usefully be informed . . . But I have kept you late and you probably want to sleep."
Which was a dismissal. Denison left, and Gottstein looked after him thoughtfully.