FOUR
It wasn't the first time he'd been to the Moon, but he had been in his teens on the last visit. He had to reaccustom himself to the one-sixth gravity, relearning the gliding moonwalk. Out on the surface, in the pressure suits, people had to use the bouncy, from-the-ankles hop made famous by the early lunar explorers. Indoors, the Lunaires had developed the glide as a more esthetically pleasing alternative.
The shuttle had set down on the pad in the middle of Armstrong Crater and the elevator had lowered the ship into the sublunar cavern housing all of the settlement's legal vessels. The armored door had slid shut overhead and a passenger umbilicus had snaked out from the nearest wall. It would have been wasteful to pressurize the entire dock.
Customs check was more thorough than he had remembered. The baggage scan was perfunctory. Between the instruments on the Earth end and those aboard the ship, it was almost impossible to sneak anything larger than a microcrystal through conventional transportation. The questioning required for visa validation was far more searching than he remembered it.
"Purpose for visit?" asked the uniformed agent. The man was ignoring Thor and staring into the screen which gave his face a phosphorescent green tinge.
"I'm going to do some caving," Thor said.
"Is this recreational, professional or scholastic?"
"Scholastic. It's part of my grad work in space-habitation engineering."
The customs man punched a code and Thor knew he was keying a list of the occupations which now required licensing. "You are aware," the man said, "that members of your profession are no longer permitted to travel off Luna except aboard earthbound vessels, aren't you?"
"Very aware," Thor said, still burning over his last interview with the Director of Graduate Studies at Yale. "It's just a formality," the self-important little boob had insisted. "We only wish to cooperate with the government on this. Before we can grant your Ph.D. in your field, you have to sign an agreement to be licensed under the new laws. Licensing would be automatic in any case, but refusal to sign would mean that we could not issue your degree."
"Not to mention that it always looks better when the victim acts content to be shafted," Thor muttered.
"I beg your pardon?" the Director said.
Thor told himself to simmer down. He had nothing to gain by disputing with this nonentity. He had no intention of honoring this atrocity, signed or unsigned. "Show me where to sign." The voice of the customs man brought him back to the here and now.
'How long do you intend to stay on Luna?"
"The full length of the visa, sixty days." He wanted to have as long a grace period as possible before people came looking for him. He saw the man's hand straying toward a pressure plate and had a sinking feeling that he was about to key a truth verifier. Thor had never had clandestine conditioning to defeat truthsnoops. He decided it was time to play his hole card. "I also plan to visit my grandparent's gravesite."
The hand hesitated. "Your grandparents were pioneers out here?"
"Yes. Samuel and Laine Taggart."
The hand withdrew from the truthsnoop You're one of those Taggarts?" The man was enormously impressed. "Don't hide the fact. That's a respected name in these parts. Drop it from time to time and you'll get the best service in all the hotels. Here's your passport and I hope you enjoy your stay, Mr. Taggart." Thor took the carrier with its tiny crystal and sealed it into his coverall.
At the baggage-claim area Thor hired a hovercar to take him to his hotel. He stuck his card in the dashboard slot and said, "Hilton." The car's fans hissed faintly and it rose on a cushion of air. At one-sixth gee, little power was necessary to raise the little craft, and the controlled environment prevented dust from gathering in most places, so that the hovercar's passing was marked only by a slight displacement of air.
The long sublunar tunnels were brightly lit, dotted at intervals with emergency air and pressure stations, against the unlikely event of a failure of the artificial atmosphere or a breaching of the sublunar system. It was believed that only an act of sabotage or a really large meteoroid strike could cause such a failure.
"Hilton," announced the car. They were pulling into an immense undermoon complex, somewhat reminiscent of the interior of the Watts development, but in much better shape. A vast cave had been hollowed out of the lunar interior to form the settlement of Armstrong. Inside was a multitiered structure facing inward upon an open atrium. It was still the most efficient use of large indoor spaces. In the center of the atrium a fountain played, sending thin streams of water to a seemingly impossible height, from which they fell back to the pool below with stately grace, humidifying the air along the way. The sound made by the falling fluid was something Thor would never have associated with water.
Near the Hilton elevator was an entry to one of the Moon's famous birth clinics. Wealthy women frequently moved to the Moon early in pregnancy in order to endure their condition in low-gravity comfort. The low gravity bestowed a multitude of health benefits. Lower back pain, fallen arches, hernias and varicose veins were all but unknown unless one arrived with them. The Lunar settlements did a lively resort trade for Earthies seeking relief from these and other afflictions, but it was only for the wealthy.
The elevator deposited him in a lobby of modest size. No Lunar hotel had to cope with large crowds of guests. He looked for a check-in screen, but found instead an actual human clerk behind a desk. She was young, pretty, Chinese and breathtakingly slender. Native-born Lunaires had no need of the redundant muscle mass of Earthies. "May I help you?" she asked, smiling brilliantly.
"I'm Thor Taggart. I have a reservation."
"Oh, yes, Mr. Taggart. Here, let me key your card." He passed her the card and she crossed to a slot in a console and thrust it in. She moved with a grace that made him feel gross and clumsy. The finest Earth ballet dancer was a lumbering ox compared to an average Lunaire.
"Here, your room is Blue Six." She handed back the card. "I have something else for you here." She opened a drawer marked with a blue stripe and a numeral six and took out a crystal carrier. "This came for you from Chih' Chin Fu."
Thor took the carrier. "How did he—" then a suspicion struck him. "What's your name?"
"Ambrosia Fu."
"I thought as much. Why didn't he send this to me before I left?"
"He couldn't get it to you in time so he sent it along on the same ship that you took."
"And it got here before I did?"
She smiled again and performed a wonderfully expressive shrug. "It didn't go through all those tedious customs formalities. Why bother?"
"Why, indeed? I can see that Fu is going to be a valuable contact. How do I find the Earthlight Room?"
"Just take the elevator up until it doesn't go any higher. The Earthlight Room is the lounge. There's also a restaurant. They have the best view in Armstrong. Is there anything special you'd like for dinner? Irving Fu runs the kitchen.''
"I might have known. No, I'm still a little queasy from the zero-gee."
"Ask the bartender for his Welcome To Luna Special. It works just about every time."
"Is he a Fu, too?"
"No, his name's Miklos, but he's a cousin. I hope you enjoy your stay."
Thor crossed the lobby to an elevator and stepped aside as a group of Hindustanis emerged and exited through the front door of the hotel, which opened onto a broad terrace overlooking the atrium. Beyond the terrace, Thor could see the lazily-arching columns of water from the fountain far below. He got into the elevator and touched the blue plate. Silently, the elevator ascended several levels and opened for him. Because of the step-back of the tiers, the elevator opened directly onto the "outside" terrace.
As he stepped from the elevator, Thor misjudged his stride and went stumbling over to the waist-high balustrade. He caught the railing and was greeted by a dizzying view of the atrium, three hundred feet below. It was frightening, but the worst consequence of a fall from this spot would have been to land atop the scantily-clad lady on the terrace twelve feet below, not at all an unattractive prospect. He reminded himself that a sheer drop of three hundred feet, at one-sixth gee, would kill him as dead as a fall of fifty feet on Earth.
He managed to make his way to his room without further mishap and let himself in. The room was spacious, its walls and ceiling heavily padded to protect careless Earthies like himself. The bed had a thin mattress, all that was necessary in the light gravity. In its center was an odd, orange cushion. Thor got his second fright of the day when the cushion got up and stretched. It was the biggest, most grossly obese tabby cat he had ever seen.
"How'd you get here?" he asked. He tickled it beneath the chin and the cat purred and kneaded the bedspread. He crossed to the screen and keyed the desk. The face of Ambrosia Fu appeared. "Yes, Mr. Taggart?"
"Who's this?" Thor asked, jerking a thumb over his shoulder toward the massive cat, who was now sitting on the bed, licking its left shoulder blade.
"Oh, that's Athos. If you see a lean, stripey gray, that's Porthos and the fluffy, all-white Persian is Aramis."
"How do they get in?"
"We use robot chambermaids, and they never notice the cats. They'll warn us of any human intruders, though. Don't let them con you into feeding them. They scavenge plenty from the kitchens and they ought to be out catching mice anyway."
"You have mice?" Thor asked.
"Oh, not the hotel! We're absolutely vermin-free. But the city has them. Don't worry, they don't carry disease. They're descendants of white lab rats that escaped into the vents and hydroponics fields fifty years ago. They're very smart little beasties."
"I should imagine. Thank you, Miss Fu."
"Just toss Athos out onto the terrace when you want him out. Are you satisfied with the room?"
"Oh. Yes, it's very pleasant. Thank you, Miss Fu." The screen winked out. He turned back in time to see the cat sail off the bed. Sail was the only word for it. It came trotting up to him, bouncing off one tiny foot at a time, its rolls of fat and fluff swaying majestically as it came up to his leg and commenced rubbing and purring. Thor stroked its back. "Haven't been here an hour and I've already made a friend."
The cat's ears perked up, it tensed, its tail twitched, and it launched itself into a fantastic leap, springing twenty feet across the room and clearing the bed by two or three feet. An instant before its front feet struck, Thor saw something white dart from beneath the paws and scurry along the wall. The door was still partly open and the little rat turned and glared at him with feral red eyes before darting out. Athos tried a fast change of direction, but his fat was still obeying Newton's laws of motion and he made a soft splat against the wall before he could work up enough traction to make a dart toward the door. He poked his broad head outside but could see nothing.
"You need to lose some weight, sport," Thor told him. "It was a good try, though. I'll have to tell Miss Fu that this place isn't quite vermin-free after all." Athos looked at him with an expression that said that this was war to the death, and charged off in pursuit of the rat. Thor didn't think much of the fat cat's chances. That had been one smart-looking rat.
He unpacked the few items he had brought and took a shower. He had forgotten how odd water felt here. As if it had the consistency of honey it oozed its way down his body and made its slow way to the drain. Dried, shaved and changed into clean clothes, he felt ready to try the city. He chose an anonymous black jumpsuit of the type worn by at least half the Lunar population and space-dwellers in general. His slick-soled shoes weren't practical here and he reminded himself to buy a pair of the locally-favored soft boots.
Armstrong worked on a round-the-clock schedule, with no attempt at a regulated "day" or "night." With ships coming in at all hours and transports to and from other lunar settlements in constant flux, households and businesses set their own hours for work, sleep and recreation. For convenience, each twenty-four-hour "day" was divided into three eight-hour shifts, observed by all government functions and by almost all manufacturing enterprises using human employees. Which shift was employed for what was largely a matter of individual choice.
Thor decided to explore the city before giving the Earthlight Room a try. He found that it was about the middle of the second shift and he knew that it would be toward the end of the shift that customers began filling up the bars and restaurants. His previous visit to Luna had been years before, and Armstrong had not been one of his stops.
He found the settlement well-populated but not crowded. Unlike the cities of the U.S. and Europe, there were no crowds of idlers, although there were a few ship's crews raucously celebrating the end of lengthy voyages. Clothes were for the most part colorful but functional, without the determinedly eccentric touches so common on Earth. Most people seemed to be intent on some business. There were many visitors and recent emigrants like himself, and he saw quite a few of them entering or leaving the offices of agencies hiring for lunar projects or for projects farther out, on Mars, in the Belt or the even more remote Jovian and Saturnian satellites. The awkward gait of the newcomers was unmistakable.
On impulse, he decided to test the vacuum and try a few of the hiring offices. The first he walked into was a tiny, hole-in-the-wall room with a single, small desk in its center. On the door was a plain sign reading: "Rockbusters, Inc. Work Available." Behind the desk was a man sprawled uncomfortably in a lounge chair. Unlike the vigorously-bouncing Earthies and the gliding Lunaires, this man was plainly used to no gravity at all. He wore a black coverall and vest, both garments sporting a great many pockets along with snap-hooks and tie-straps for fastening things to the person. His coverall had integral stockings instead of the usual boots.
"Looking for work?" the man asked.
"Depends. What do you have to offer?"
The man ran a hand over his slick-shaven scalp. Zero-gee people usually favored little or no hair. "Name of the company kind of says it all, don't it? Rockbusters. That's what we do, we bust rock. We're a hardrock mining outfit. Highgrading, mostly. No smelting or refining, we leave that to others. Company operates out of Avalon. We have sixteen ships now and we're buying four more. Twenty per ship's crew and we work on shares. Pay depends on how much ore you bring back and how high-grade it is."
"What kind of ore do you look for?"
"U-235, mostly. We've found and exploited some of the best rocks in the last ten years. You had any military experience?"
"No. Why, is that desirable?"
The bald man looked at him as if he were simple-minded. "I said we were high-graders, didn't I? No bulk cargoes for Rockbusters. Everybody knows it, too. We get claimjumper raids all the time. There's plenty of boosters and hijackers out there. That's one reason we work on shares. All of us have a stake in defending the cargo. Get a few successful voyages under your belt, you might have enough socked away to buy into a ship of your own. It's hard work and it's dangerous, but it pays. You interested?"
"Maybe. Let me check around. By the way, do you know of a man named Martin Shaw?"
The man stared at him, utterly without expression. "Never heard of him."
Two more hiring offices turned out to be another mining outfit and a freighting company, neither of them as hard-bitten as Rockbusters, Inc., but both looking for people more robust than the standard, First World Earthie. None of them had ever heard of Martin Shaw, either. Pointedly.
The next office came as a surprise. Lettered on the door was, simply: "Sálamis." The man behind the desk rose to shake his hand. He was tall and spare and he wore a silver-gray coverall with high, black boots and shoulderboards striped red and gold. Oddest of all, he wore a holstered pistol at his belt. "Good day, young man. I'm Captain Moore, the enlistment officer."
"Enlistment officer?" Thor said. "I'm Thor Taggart."
The tangled gray eyebrows raised fractionally. "Taggart. I might have known. Those genes stand out. Was General Taggart your grandfather?"
"Yes. I never knew him, though."
"I saw him a few times when I was an enlisted man. I served under two of your uncles and one of your aunts as well. Are you considering carrying on the family tradition and taking up the military profession?"
"To tell you the truth," Thor said, "I just got to Luna a few hours ago. I've been looking into the possibilities of extra-terrestrial employment and happened to notice your office. Just what is Sálamis?"
"Sálamis is an asteroid, approximately twenty kilometers by five kilometers by two, which has become a military establishment. A man your age could do worse than enroll in our academy. After a four-year course you would enter the outerworld armed forces as a commissioned officer."
"Actually, I've spent all the years I want to in universities. Ah, I was wondering, just what do you do? Last I heard, there was no employment for a military force out there. The Space Force and Marines, such as they are, seem to have a monopoly."
"That will change, in time," Moore said, calmly. "Someday, there will be a call for an organized military arm among the space settlements. Until that time, we keep the military tradition alive."
"But, how is all this financed? Are you mercenaries?"
Moore regarded him frostily. "If you mean are we hired guns for anyone with a private war to fight, the answer is decidedly 'No.' We take an occasional security mission, just to keep in practice, but we would never undertake aggressive operations. We have an endowment and find our funding to be adequate." He smiled ruefully. "You'll have noticed that I'm pretty old for a company-grade officer. When I retired from the Spacer Marines, I was a lieutenant colonel. As always, promotion is slow in peacetime. That, too, is a situation I expect to change before long. Until then, there are always a few who prefer the military life."
"If you don't mind my asking, why did you resign a field-grade commission to start at the bottom out here?"
"Actually, I do mind. But I'll make an exception since you're a relative of some of my favorite C.O.'s. I spent my career watching a proud service become a petty police force putting down brushfire insurgencies on Earth and harassing honest settlers out here. Pretty soon, we were going to be down to rounding up political dissidents and guarding them in detention camps. I didn't want to stick around to see that, so I resigned and emigrated. I'd rather spend a career toting a rifle as a private than see my profession prostituted. So that's my story. Now I'll give you some advice. On Sálamis, we go by the old Foreign Legion rules: Never ask a man about his past."
"I'll remember that. And I appreciate your candor. By the way, do they really let you carry a sidearm around here?"
Moore smiled and sat back in his chair. "Only after they've confiscated the power pack. But it's part of an officer's uniform so I wear it anyway. Keep us in mind, Mr. Taggart. You may decide that a military career is what you need after all."
"I'll think about it." As he reached the door, Thor turned back. "By the way, have you ever heard of—oh, forget it."
"You mean Martin Shaw?" Moore asked.
"Yes," Thor said, surprised.
"I never heard of him either," said Moore, solemnly.
By the time Thor had located a clothier's and purchased a pair of soft boots, it was near the end of shift. He decided to give the Earthlight Room a try. The lobby of the Hilton was empty and the same impossibly thin Chinese girl was behind the desk.
"Any messages for me, Miss Fu?" he asked.
She looked up blankly, then smiled. "'Oh, you must be Mr. Taggart."
"Don't you remember?"
"I'm not Ambrosia. I'm her sister. We're twins," she added, unnecessarily.
"Don't tell me, let me guess. Would your name be Nectar?"
"You win no prize for that. No, no messages. Is your room satisfactory?"
"Fine. But there was a rat in it, and Athos was too slow to catch it."
She rolled her eyes upward theatrically. "They're everyplace. And they get smarter every year. There's some kind of weird accelerated evolution going on here. They know all about doors and traps and poisons. I think they'll take over some day."
"Well, should anybody be looking for me while the rats are plotting, I'll be in the Earthlight Room for the next two or three hours." He stepped into the elevator and keyed it for the top level. Above the residential levels, the elevator tube emerged from the step-back of the hotel and for a minute he had a breathtaking view of the entire atrium. Then the tube disappeared into an overhead structure of spidery struts and buttresses. As he passed through the supports, he caught a glimpse of furry, white forms darting among them. Then the elevator was inside the overhead structure, rising through several meters of solid moon rock before entering the bar-restaurant complex. He had gone over the charts provided by his room screen, and he knew that the Earthlight Room was actually part of the spaceport complex, and there were other entrances besides the Hilton tube. On reflection, it only made sense. Modern though it looked, the Earthlight Room was built in one of the oldest structures on the Moon, and a man as shady as Martin Shaw would never frequent a hangout without plenty of bolt-holes.
The elevator let him out on a broad terrace from which steps led down in two directions. To his left was the restaurant, to his right the bar. At his back was a wall of lunar rock, part of a natural cliff. He decided to try the bar first. The view from the top of the steps was fabulous, and he paused for a moment to admire it.
The bar was on a slight rise of ground with a cliff at its back, overlooking the landing pads. Beyond the pads stretched miles of lunar plain, ending abruptly in another towering cliff. Above the far cliff was the impossibly blue sphere of Earth, wreathed in bands of white cloud. He could just make out the eastern coast of Asia, the Malay archipelago and the bulk of Australia. Most of what was visible was blue Pacific.
The bartender was young, with Mediterranean features and curly, black hair. He was polishing a vacuum-blown glass, about two molecules thick and nearly unbreakable. It was made of the same material as the vast window that slanted overhead from the face of the cliff to the lunar surface.
Thor seated himself on one of the spindly stools at the bar. "Are you Miklos?" he asked.
The bartender nodded. "What can I serve you?"
"Ambrosia Fu says your Welcome To Luna Special is good for an upset stomach."
"Just arrived, eh? I'll fix you right up." The bartender turned his back to preserve the mysteries of his craft as he arched liquids for spectacular distances into the goblet he had been polishing. He presented the completed product with a flourish. Thor sampled it and found that it did, indeed, have a settling effect on his stomach.
"That's just what I needed," Thor said. "By the way, I've heard that a certain Martin Shaw frequents this place. I need to meet with him."
"I've never head of any such person," Miklos said, in a low voice. "However, when he doesn't come in, the place where he won't be sitting is that table over there near the base of the window, under the rubber plant." He nodded toward the plant in question.
"When won't he be coming in?" Thor asked in an equally conspiratorial tone.
"He shouldn't be arriving in about an hour and a half," Miklos assured him.
"Good. That gives me plenty of time for dinner. What do you recommend?"
"Since it's your first day, stick with something light. The tempura plate is great. Our tanks raise shrimp better than anything on Earth." He nodded toward the blue ball in the distance.
"I'll be back," Thor said.
An hour and fifteen minutes later, he sat at the table beneath the rubber plant. The tempura had been as advertised and he was beginning to feel acclimatized. That was good, because he had a feeling that he was going to need to be in top form to deal with the mysterious Mr. Shaw.
Idly, he studied the rubber plant. It was a gene-manipulated species which looked identical to the common Earth ornamental plant, but had been engineered to double its oxygen output. Everywhere one looked in the lunar settlements, there were plants springing from pots and planters. They softened the sterile environment, recycled the atmosphere and gradually built up the supply of arable soil.
"Excuse me, sir." Thor looked up and saw a young woman who facially resembled Nectar and Ambrosia. Apparently yet another of the innumerable Fus. "I'm afraid this table is reserved at this hour. If you don't mind, I'll find you another place and bring you a drink on the house."
"I have an appointment with the gentleman in question," he lied.
"Oh, that's different," she said, doubtfully. "Please excuse me." Thor smiled and admired her as she walked gracefully away. This was getting to be better than an old holothriller. But this place was the last where he would have expected to find a classical man of mystery like Shaw.
The Earthlight Room was full at this hour, and most of the patrons were business people, pilots and other officers from the nearby port, and a large gaggle of tourists, instantly recognizable by their clothing and awkward gait. In short, the place was almost absurdly respectable. Even the stripper pirouetting on the little stage didn't detract from the middle-class atmosphere. The old art form was enjoying a revival on the Moon, and dancers from Earth were coming up to practice it, taking advantage of the kinder effect of lunar gravity on Earth dancers past their prime. Thor judged the lovely, dark-haired woman on the stage to be in her mid-forties, but nothing sagged in one-sixth gee. As he could very plainly see, she showed no signs of surgery.
"You're Taggart."
Thor whirled in his chair. Where had the man come from? Just his luck to be staring at a naked woman at the crucial first moment of his meeting with Shaw. To cover his confusion, he gave Shaw what he hoped was an arrogantly evaluating once-over.
Shaw was a man of medium height and sturdy build, dressed in a spacer's coverall absolutely devoid of insignia or ornament. His face was broad, with a dark beard framing his jaw. His cheekbones were wide and his green eyes had the slightest hint of epicanthic fold in their inner corners. His most prominent feature was his broad, bulging forehead, further emphasized by a high hairline. In classical Greek sculpture, such a brow had been the trademark of the higher gods, and it lent tremendous force to his countenance. The head was a bit large for his body, making Shaw appear shorter than he was. Martin Shaw looked like a formidable man.
"That's who I am," Thor said. "Please have a seat. We have business to discuss."
"I think I will, since this is my table. Whether we have business to discuss is another matter. What line of work do you think I'm in, Mr. Taggart?" The waitress brought Shaw a drink and left discreetly.
"It's difficult to say, since nobody's ever heard of you. Chih' Chin Fu told me you might be able to help me. I need to disappear."
"Did he tell you I was a magician?"
"Of sorts. Just hear me out, then tell me if you're interested." Briefly, Thor gave him the story of his doings since the McNaughton party. He omitted most of his financial arrangements, figuring Shaw had no real reason to know those. "Will you help me?" he asked when he was finished.
"I can. The price is two million gold."
Thor nodded. That was about ten times the pre-crisis price for a passage to a typical asteroid world, but he would have been suspicious had Shaw asked much less. Thor was running a fairly high risk of imprisonment, although he had family connections to call on in a worst-case scenario. Shaw was running a far higher risk, and consequently played for higher stakes. An easy, low fee probably would have meant a quick, unceremonious exit from an airlock somewhere outside lunar orbit. "No problem with that. Half now, half on arrival at Avalon."
"Avalon," Shaw said. "So you want to head straight for the action?"
"Being stuck on some remote rock would be a poor start for a new life."
"You're a cautious man. Payment is to this account in Panama." He took out a pad of self-destruct paper, good for twenty-four hours, and wrote out a long number with a stylus. "Make the transfer as soon as you get back to your quarters. This number becomes nonfunctional at the end of the next shift." The intricately-coded numbers used for international gold transfers were untraceable even by the most sophisticated government computers. If Shaw should disappear with the advance, Thor could absorb the loss. Instinct told him that Shaw could be trusted, though. With matters of price settled, they ordered another round and sat back. Thor noticed two men who were not drinking sitting at a nearby table. One was a thin, saturnine man with close-cropped hair and beard. The other was a villainous-looking redhead with a scarred face. Watchdogs.
"For the next few days," Shaw said, "I'll be setting up the operation. Keep up your spelunking. It's good training for the island worlds and that's how we'll engineer your disappearance. We lose a few every year, out caving."
"That's about how I figured it," Thor said. "I'll leave the details up to you."
"You know, Taggart, you have a famous name, but it won't cut any ice out in the Belt. I know more Taggarts, Cianos, Kurodas, Tarkovskys and such than you do. It takes more than a name, out there."
"Not to mention that you don't have much use for rich kids who decide to skin out for cushy jobs in the Belt because they're bored on Earth."
Shaw smiled very slightly. "That, too. They do come in handy as paying customers, though. And in any case, you'll find that cushy jobs are hard to come by out there."
"That suits me. I intend to make my own way. I'm good at what I do and I'm not going to waste my life as a jumped-up bureaucrat for some Earth agency."
"That's good," Shaw said, approval in his manner for the first time. "Maybe young Chih' Chin wasn't wrong about you, after all. He says you spotted some things in your media scan that he'd missed."
"There are still a lot of holes in it," Thor admitted, "but I think we can crack the problem."
"I hadn't been keeping up with the Earth media lately. That's an oversight in an old radical publisher, I admit. I've been more action oriented lately. I think I can clear up one or two things, though, especially about McNaughton." The way he pronounced the name bespoke little affection for the clan.
"That's been the major mystery," Thor said. "Why are they torpedoing their own operation?"
"We'll have plenty of time to talk about it," Shaw said. "We have a long trip ahead of us. Right now, I have other matters to attend to." He glanced at his watch. "Just do your caving, be visible, do all the usual tourist stuff. I'll be in contact in a few days."
As Shaw was leaving Thor called, "Mr. Shaw."
He turned. "Yes?"
"Tell me something: Is it possible to pick a direction and throw a rock around here without hitting a Fu?"
"There isn't a bookmaker on Luna who'd give you odds," Shaw said. As he left, the two watchdogs got up and followed. No employee of the Earthlight Room paid the slightest attention. Shaw might as well have been invisible.