PART EIGHT

_September 21, 1977_

_Dollars Dome--4_ P.M. (_C.S.T._)

He watched her face through the clear plastic of the pressure suit helmet, and tried to identify the “waiting” look. She was too absorbed to see him staring, but she wasn’t just thinking, or daydreaming. Listening? That was how it looked, but not _quite_....

He touched helmets. “What do you hear that I don’t?” he asked.

Lee started slightly, like someone snapped out of daydream. “Hear?” she asked. _Well, it was worth a try_, he thought. Maybe just plain fantasizing, after all?

“_See_ is more like it,” she said. “I was looking at the design they make. I guess I got half-hypnotized, following the lines.”

He looked. When he first looked, before he began watching her instead, he had noticed only a small marble interweaving of ganglion-like ropes of cells. Now the randomness of the arrangement was less apparent; it _could_ hypnotize if you tried to follow the branchings-off and connections between rope-colonies. There was a sense of _almost_-order--

He shook his head and looked away.

“Damn! You know I never really _looked_ at them before. They _do_ get you....”

“Oh, they’re not all like that,” she said quickly. “Just the ones out here. Every time you change the soil or air, _they_ change. One of the tanks in Earth-normal, you’d think it was full of just _dirt_--they’re just scattered through like regular Earth soil microorganisms. But this Moon-type mutation links up this way, and Thad says--” That was at least the twelfth time on the trip he had heard _Thad says_. “--says the things that look kind of like nerves _are_ actually linked up that way--I don’t mean, they’re really like _nerves_, but each rope is a separate colony, and he thinks they might have some kind of communication even, where two ropes connect. Either that or some kind of symbiosis or syzygy or--”

“Thad says all _that_?” Phil broke in, laughing at the earnest-student manner of her recitation.

“And _more_,” she retorted. “But now _you’ll_ never know--We better get back, I guess. I’m supposed to make like respectable for tonight.” She started laughing, and took a step away so helmet contact was broken. He saw the laughter continue, but the sound broke off in the middle. Inside the pressurized half-track, she opened the face-plate, still chuckling. “It gets tougher to get dressed every day,” she said. “I mean, work clothes are fine, but when I have to get _dressed_....”

“Well, take plenty of time,” he said, soberly. “I don’t know what the honorable investigators would make of it if they knew, but it’s a sure bet they’d smell headlines in it.”

“I’ll try to worry about it,” she said. “Phil, you know, it’s the _damnedest_ thing--I suppose I’m in a jam. Or something. I mean, when I think about it, it’s practically classic--the unwed mother bit, and my man is sick-sick-sick--and probably half stoned besides--and here I am taken in by the men in the Moon--maybe that’s what makes it seem like lovely nonsense instead of Something Awful?”

“You’ve been pretty happy the last couple of weeks, kid?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, I have, Phil. And I mean what I was saying--It seems like I _ought_ to be worried and troubled, but--I’m _not_.” She looked away, and back again.

“Phil, I’m not even worried about Johnny. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I don’t mean I don’t _care_. _I do._ Just--it doesn’t _feel_ like anything’s wrong. We’re just apart for a while, that’s all. I don’t mean that’s what I _think_, Phil, just what I--Oh, _you_ understand! You know, Thad says....”

“Does he?” Phil said meaningfully.

“Phil! You don’t think I--? Oh _no_!”

And he actually believed her. She seemed not _too_ startled, but just enough--not _too_ scornful, just the right amount. And her laughter was free.

“Okay,” he said. “I retract. But quit saying it or I’m just as likely to start sulking.” He managed what he thought was a creditable smile.

_Dollars Dome--7_ P.M. (_C.S.T._)

The dining room on arrival days always wore a bloom of festivity. The only decorative extras available were the glowing white onion-lilies provided, one for each table, by the farm section each week (carefully cultivated in defiant evasion of the ubiquitous regulating in-quintuplicate official schedules of production and supplies). But the bright plastic table tops were somehow gayer, the lighting more luminous, even the clatter of dishes and cutlery in some way more cheerfully hungry, at Wednesday dinners.

The big difference of course was not in the place but the people: and not just that they tended to dress a bit more than usual, laugh a bit oftener, talk a bit freer, but that they were _there_, all together.

“Days” in the Dome were marked off by Mexcity’s Central Time; but without external dark-and-light cycles to pattern the twenty-four hours, the Dome worked round the clock, each person fitting his own preferred schedule into the complex of work-to-be-done. Ordinarily, only one section of the dining room was in use; and it was in use at all hours, as groups came and went to and from their elected shifts. But on Wednesdays, any one not absolutely required at his job was fairly sure to attend seven P.M. dinner, after the shuttles came in.

This Wednesday night, in particular, the Dome was out in full force--in party mood, party dress, party manners--to welcome Congressman Ramon McLafferty and his picked crew of super-snoopers.

Dr. Kutler was seated with four of the congressional investigators and three higher-echelon Dome scientists at a round table so close to the speakers’ table that he was literally back-to-back with Lisa Trovi. He confined his own part in the dinner talk to polite replies and concentrated on his uneasy appraisal of the behavior of the Dome people at large, and an amused, but equally uneasy, eavesdropping on the exchanges between Lee and the visiting congressman.

Lisa’s attitude seemed to be in keeping with the peculiar response of the Dome as a whole to the invasion: a sort of high faith that warm welcome and willing liking were enough to absorb anything from outright ill will to malicious fancy to simple self-interest.

That McLafferty fell short of sharing this feeling was evident. _He knew_ the dinner, the gaiety, the enthusiasm that greeted him, were put-up jobs; he accepted them gracefully as his due. And he maintained this knowledge, based on experience, at least half the way through the meal. By that time he was so thoroughly conscious of the deep sincerity of Lee Trovi’s empathetic interest, that the stanchions of isolation supporting his cynicism were sorely shaken. And when he rose to say the expected few words after dinner, he was much too practiced an orator to misinterpret the swell of applause that surrounded him for either the patter of polite boredom, or the too-regular thumping of planned demonstration.

Chris used the moment to lean across and say a single word in Lisa’s ear. From where Phil sat, turned around, right behind her, the word looked like, “Thanks.”

She turned to Chris, eyebrows raised, baffled.

He nodded toward McLafferty.

She cocked her head, shrugged bare shoulders: _What?_

He shook his head slightly. “Later,” he murmured, and sat back, watching her and the speaker, his face carefully neutral. But Phil thought he saw an echo of the same unease he felt himself.

Later, in one of the larger conference rooms, twenty-odd of the banquet elite drank coffee and brandy and listened to newly-arrived music tapes. McLafferty’s crew was staying a week, till the next orbit down; but the congressman himself would leave tomorrow. Conscientiously using his time, he made a point of speaking with everyone in the room, taking notes occasionally with an air of apologetic industry. His manner was briskly efficient, but leisurely--yet somehow it took hardly half an hour’s time to cover the group, and permit him to drift over casually to the circle of chairs where Lee and Phil sat together with Chris and Thad Bourgnese.

“You know, you fellows really have got something here,” McLafferty’s smile should have been engaging; somehow it was not. “One thing,” he said, with a nod at Lee, and a sweep of the arm around the room, “You certainly have the best-looking lady scientists _I’ve_ ever seen!”

Thad grinned. “I can see it now,” he said. “Headline: Congressman Gives Lunar Ladies Blanket Clearance. Or: Selenite Scien_tistes_--hmmm--need a verb with an _S_ and something about Security. Well--” He rose, made a mock-bow to Lisa, who was laughing helplessly. “Beggin’ yer pardon, mum, you bein’ Medic in any case, and not Lab Staff, present comp’ny excepted an’ all that.”

It could have been nasty. It wasn’t ... perhaps because Lisa’s laughter _included_ McLafferty? Or just that comment and reaction were both so spontaneous? Phil couldn’t tell for sure.

Bourgnese excused himself, and went off in the general direction of the redheaded Donovan girl, leaving the seat next to Lisa for the congressman, who had passed with astonishing speed through startlement, chagrin, mild amusement, and suspicion to sudden hilarious delight.

“One thing,” he said, regarding Lee with warm approval, “You folks don’t scare easy.”

She blinked. “What are we supposed to be scared of?”

“Nothing,” he said. “_Absolutely_ nothing.”

And damn if it didn’t sound just like he meant it!

_Rio de Janeiro--12_ A.M. _(S.W.A.T.)_

It was the fourth club that night, and he was positive he had said hello to all the same people at each one. He sat at a single table, watching red and black and orange and blue-green female rumps writhe to rhumba beat and wondered how they contrived to stock each joint with The Crowd between the time he left one and arrived at the next.

No more pub stops, he told himself firmly. Next time he’d go direct, maybe to _Los Gringos_, yes, that was a good bet--tourist trap kind of place The Crowd wouldn’t be caught dead in. Go _straight_ there, find out. If they were there anyhow, he’d _know_....

He could swear those jazzy bottoms out on the dance floor were _exactly_ the same ones he’d watched all night.

He finished his drink, thought about another. Hell with it, make the move _now_, catch ’em off balance. He got up and started to weave his way through the full tables. The band had stopped. People were coming off the floor.

Behind him, a voice he knew said high and clear, snide and cruel, “Well, she always had a yen for Phil Kutler--”

_Gentlemen don’t slug lady bitches_, he told himself, carefully unbunching the muscles in shoulder and upper arm. _Leave it lay, lad. Don’t even look._ He knew he knew the voice, but he did not know _whose_ it was: best to leave it that way.

He dodged past a couple of strangers, got blocked at the next table by a crowd of six sitting down. The high vicious clearness followed him:

“But I’m not so sure that’s it. I can’t say _who_ told me, but it’s someone I _usually listen_ to, and the way _he_ heard it, the reason _Ray_ let that Moon scientist off so easily--”

It died away. Another voice, lower and less clear, urgent in undertone, blocked it off. Johnny’s way was still stopped. He turned, not meaning to; walked back past the table between without wanting to, went up to the red-gown bitch who owned that voice.

The deeper, lower, one, the man at her side had been saying _his_ name.

He smiled, and he knew just how damned unpleasant that smile was.

“Pardon me,” he said. “I believe you were saying something about a friend of mine?”

“Excuse me,” she said coldly. “I don’t believe--” She turned to the white-jacketed man. “Darling, do you--?”

“Yes,” he said wearily. “Johnny Wendt, Linda Har--”

“Forget it,” Johnny said, suddenly sick of the whole thing. Why pick a fight with a perfectly nice guy over a bitch, or a pair of them? “Skip it. I’m sorry. I don’t want to know your friend. Should’ve cut out like I started to. Teach her some manners, hey?”

He turned and started to edge his way past the table again.

“_Bob!_” The high clear vicious voice. _Yeah?_

He grinned. Nobody could say _he_ started this one. He tensed himself for the hand that would touch his shoulder.

_Okay!_ He wheeled back, driving from the shoulder as he turned, with great satisfaction.

_Dollars Dome--11:30_ P.M. _(C.S.T.)_

“Oh, I’m sure you _could_!” Lisa turned to Chris. “Where did Thad take off to before? He usually works this shift, doesn’t he?”

“Usually,” Chris said--a little reluctantly? Phil wondered if the same thought that had crossed his was in the Director’s mind? Thad had left with Rita Donovan; hadn’t Lee noticed? It wasn’t like her to be so tactless, if she had. And, he thought a bit grimly, it was unlikely she had _not_ noticed. _Checking up?_ He felt almost ashamed of thinking it.

“I was just telling Ray I didn’t see why he couldn’t tour some of the labs _now_, if he really wanted to. Thad would probably be in Bio anyhow, and--”

“I imagine Dr. Christensen has a more formal tour ready for tomorrow,” McLafferty broke in smoothly.

“Sort of,” Chris said easily. “But it wouldn’t make any difference that I can see. I’m not sure Bourgnese is working tonight, but I’d be glad to take you around myself any time. We don’t go much by the clock around here.”

“That’s what I was telling him,” Lee said. “Ray was so startled when we came up to daylight again, he asked how we were able to stay on a regular schedule, and I was explaining how it worked.” She stopped and laughed, a rippling silver sound that Phil recognized quickly as the trained professional one. “_He_ said a place like this would suit him fine, because as soon as he saw the sun, he thought it was morning, and he was all ready to start a day’s work. So _I_ said, ‘Why not?’ and--there you are.”

Chris shook his admiringly. “You Mexcity types always flabbergast me. If it was _really_ dawn, and he’d been at an all-night brawl, I’ll bet he’d feel just the same way.”

“Company helps,” said the congressman. “Depends whom you’ve been with all night.”

McLafferty didn’t see it. Probably even Chris didn’t. But Lee winced under the import of the heavy compliment, and threw the briefest pleading sort of glance at Phil.

_Well_, he thought. _Here we go on the white charger again._ He turned to Chris.

“Why don’t you take Mr. McLafferty to see the farm?” he suggested. “You know _that’s_ got to be working now--” All the Maintenance sections would be. “He could see that stuff now, and the labs tomorrow.” To the congressman he explained: “Wednesday night’s the one time the labs run on skeleton staff. The big dinner throws everything out of whack when the ship’s in.” With considerable satisfaction, and at pontifical length, he made clear to the impatient visitor that the obviously special-festive character of the earlier banquet was _not_ quite as special as he’d undoubtedly thought, but a weekly, normal, occurrence.

“This is Saturday night in the Dome,” he wound up. “About the only thing you’d see in the labs now would be tapes and cameras and people tending them. But Maintenance runs all the time, of course. And I’d think from your viewpoint, that part of the routine--that part of the staff, for that matter--would be most--” He hesitated. “What would you call it? Fruitful? Suggestive? Whatever it is, I’ll bet they’ve got the most of it.” He turned to Lee, glanced up at the chrono above the Mall fountain. “About time for us to get back to work--hey, kid?”

She took it smoothly. _And_ gratefully. “I guess so.” The gratitude showed only in her look at him, not in her voice, which held just the _right_ reluctance. “I don’t suppose--?” she said.

“I think the way they’re coming along, by next week they’ll be able to handle the one session on their own,” he said. “Or with me. I blow a mean tape, myself; I just don’t look as good as you tapping my foot to the beat.”

McLafferty, without actually moving a foot, had somehow edged forward, silently questioning.

“Jam session thing we’ve been trying for a group that’s had trouble with schedule adjustment,” Phil explained, marveling at the inventive capacity of the knight-errant. “Idea is to create a regular emotional rhythm each day. Seems to be working out pretty well.... Oh, look, Lee, if you want to cut out this once, I don’t suppose it would--”

“Don’t be silly,” she said firmly. Her smile was snakey-demure. “We wouldn’t want the Investigating Committee to think I don’t earn my pay, would we?”

“She thinks of everything, don’t she?” McLafferty said, smooth as ever. “Tell you what, Chris--why don’t we have a look at your farm while they get organized, and maybe stop in at this session afterwards--If you don’t mind, Doc?”

Phil thought it over. “Don’t see why not. Sure. There’s no actual therapy at this. I don’t think the group would mind. Come on, gal. We’ve got about two minutes now. See you folks later--”

The two of them hurried off, not-hearing Chris calling after them: “Hey, where _is_ this thing?”

“Let you know soon as we do,” Phil muttered.

It was really no problem. They rounded up ten eager listeners in the dining room, and got set up in Lee’s practice room a good ten minutes before the touring party found them.

And Lisa had no trouble getting two theoretical dormitory-mates to go off with her afterwards. “You know,” she said sleepily, “I think this works more for me than for you folks.”

“Night, kids,” Phil said. “Well, Mr. Mc....”

“Call me Mac,” he said grudgingly. It sounded just like, _Your round, man! But don’t walk down any dark alleys_....