_Moon Man Takes Decision Over Congress
Quizzer at SAC Subcommittee Hearing_
Mexcity, Sep. 6: “Chris” Christensen, Research Director at U.S.A.A.’s
Moon Dome, swapped questions and answers here today with Ray
McLafferty, East Chile Congressman, whose chances of election to the
Senate may hang on the outcome of the special hearings now being
conducted by his SAC subcommittee on Space Security.
Reporters present at the closed hearing agreed generally that the
scientist won this round. In answer to Committee queries, he outlined
a solid Security plan in operation now, and invited the whole
committee to come and see for themselves what conditions were.
Confronted with the till now mysterious “evidence” which initiated
Rep. McLafferty’s interest in Moon Security--a news item on new
research with “Mars-bugs,” which violated Top-Secret classification,
according to Rep. McLafferty--Dr. Christensen said that the contents
of the article had _not_ been classified, due to laxity in the SAC
offices.
The material, he explained--in spite of the obvious lack of interest
of some Committee members--had been contained in a Special Report
submitted by him to SAC for approval and financing on June 19 of
this year: Dr. Christensen’s proposal at that time concerned the
newly enlarged Biological Section, in charge of research on the
Martian micro-organisms (“Mars-bugs”) brought back in the ill-starred
_Colombo_ by Col. Johnny Wendt. The Moon Research Director requested
permission to move the Department, bugs and all, to an Earth
laboratory where Security would be maintained more effectively, and
the expansions then under consideration might be effected with a
great deal less expense.
His report was “not accepted,” said Dr. Christensen. Instead, he was
granted additional sums for personnel on the Moon. Apparently the
original report was never “processed” officially in the SAC office at
all, but Dr. Christensen testified that copies were made there, and
that he saw one himself which had been typed in that office.
The scientist added that some of the personnel funds had been applied
to expansion of the psychiatric staff of the Dome, in an effort to
solve the psychogenic problems that have made extended quarterly
Earth leaves mandatory for Dome personnel. The statement anticipated
queries from the Subcommittee regarding Security provisions during
such leaves. Dr. Christensen said there was _no_ way to insure strict
Security while the leave system was in operation.
_Rockland--Tuesday, September 6, 10_ P.M. (_E.D.S.T._)
Johnny set the heli down on the lawn gently, feeling his way almost by
touch, without the field lights. He switched off the ignition, and got
his bag out of the trunk space behind the seat. Picked up the pile of
newspapers, climbed to the ground.
Half way to the house, he heard the noise in the trees and stopped.
“Who’s there?”
“Colonel Wendt?”
“Who are you?”
A man, middle-sized, middle-aged, middle-anything, as far as the
moonlight revealed him, came from the trees.
“Colonel Wendt?” he said again.
“You’re on private property, mister.”
“You are Colonel John Wendt?”
“What’s it to you? I said you’re trespassing. Now--_get out_!”
“Colonel Wendt, I am a duly sworn deputy of....”
That was as much as he managed. Johnny dropped the bag and papers, and
swung with the same motion. The middling man went down like a ripped
sack of flour.
Johnny grinned. He rubbed his fist, pleased. _First damn time I’ve felt
half-alive_, he thought, _since_....
It was just as well not to think back that far.
He picked up the papers, grabbed the suitcase again, and let himself
into the house. He turned lights on, prowled through the rooms, looking
for--what? He wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, it wasn’t there. Everything
normal, just as they left it. Lee’s things still in the closet. _Well,
what did you think? That she’d teleport them out?_
He switched on the field lights, went back outside. The man was gone.
Johnny turned back sharply, went in and got the key, locked up behind
him this time when he came out. Went five steps and turned back,
unlocked the door, went into his den, and came out a few minutes later
with a gun full of bird shot. He held it conspicuously in plain sight
while he locked up again. Then he paced off the distance to the heli,
watching the trees to the right and left of the path closely.
“Don’t mind shooting anybody trespassing on my property,” he remarked
aloud.
He was out on the field when he heard the crackling twigs of the man’s
retreat. He smiled. Maybe instead of putting the ship up, he ought to
take off and....
A brawl wouldn’t solve anything.
But it sure as Hell would _feel_ good.
He flexed his shoulders, felt muscles tighten, and decided regretfully
that he’d better get back in the house and stay there.
He hangared the heli, locked the garage, and went back indoors. Then he
took the stack of newspapers and spread them on the coffee table in the
living room. They were full of it, all right.
CHRISTY TOPS McLFTY.
WENDT TO BE CALLED.
McLAFFERTY WILL GO TO MOON DOME
SCIENTIST LAYS BLAME FOR ‘LEAKS’ TO SAC
He read with particular interest one headed, DR. C. SAYS WENDT SEDATION
WAS S.O.P. SECURITY MEASURE, where he learned for the first time that
sedation for the trip was ordinarily limited to the self-powered
shuttle trips at each end: all other passengers on the shuttle that
carried him and Lisa to the Moon had been awake in the _Messenger_, and
all but himself, coming down. According to Chris, the precaution was
taken in his case to avert possible efforts by “any agents of other
powers” to get information they thought Col. Wendt might possess.
Chris also explained that his trip had been “only a visit,” but it
sounded so phony, no one would ever believe it. Again Johnny grinned;
Chris was always a scrapper, when they got him mad.
Damn, but a good old-fashioned street fight would make a new man out of
him....
And get him subpoenaed. He figured to stay in the house for a while.
One paper had pictures of Lisa’s appearance at World Dome on Saturday,
and a review, which mentioned the presence of Dr. Kutler among the
U.S.A.A. party at the performance. “Miss Trovi was escorted by Dr.
Thaddeus Bourgnese, Chief Biochemist at U.S.A.A. Dome,” it said right
afterwards.
_Well, whaddya know? We’re makin’ time, hey?_
He was startled at how calm he felt about it all.
When he found the wire from her in the facs chute, with last Tuesday’s
date on it, he did not want to open it. He almost threw it out. _Leave
well enough alone. It’s done, it’s over. Forget it._ He had already
told her so. His own wire would be in her hands by now.
He wound up putting the envelope, unopened, in his desk drawer.
Tomorrow, he could decide what to do with it.
He did not drink. He went to bed at midnight, cold sober. To his
surprise, he fell asleep without trouble, and slept well all night.
_Dollars Dome--Monday, September 5, 9:30_ P.M. (_C.S.T._)
_Okay babe if that’s how you want it. It was fun while it lasted,
I guess. My least sincere congratulations to whoever--whoops,
whomever--the lucky man may be._
_Easy come, easy go, babe._
_Better luck next round._
_Johnny_
She must have read it through fifty times, looking for something, some
clue, somewhere in it, that would explain what it meant. Because it
_couldn’t_ mean what it said. That didn’t make sense.
She knew there were thirty-nine words in it. There’d been a movie
or book once called _Thirty-nine Steps_. A movie--she saw it at the
Museum. Thirty-nine steps to where? Out. Right out, obviously. But....
Why? Because it was _Johnny_, that’s why!
There just wasn’t any other reason to find.
The phone buzzed. Phil. She’d promised to call him back, hadn’t she?
“Hey, kid, you hungry yet?” he asked.
“N-nnoo. Thanks, Phil.”
“Well, how about a drink? A walk in the Mall? The way I feel tonight,
gal, I’ll even go dancing with you....”
She kept shaking her head, but she smiled.
“Phil, you’re sweet, but I think I better....”
“I think you better listen to Doctor. Turn on your screen?”
“Phil, honestly, I--”
“Let’s put it this way. _I’ll_ go have a drink. Then I’ll come pick
you up. We’ll do whatever you want to do. Or just sit and talk. But be
ready in fifteen minutes, or you’ll find out--” He made that improbable
leer of his. “--I ain’t like no lily myself. Hate to go banging doors
down, but”--he shrugged fatalistically “--sometimes, you know...? See
you. Fifteen minutes.” And he switched off before the seed of laughter
turned to tears or gave her voice enough to answer.
She tried to call back, but he wasn’t in, or didn’t answer. She washed
her face, and got dressed. She was just putting lipstick on when he
knocked.
She nodded casually at the envelope on the bed.
“May I?”
“Go ahead.”
She watched in the mirror while he read, saw pain flush his face and
retire, and the doctor face take over.
For a moment, she was certain that his pain was for her, and felt an
answering surge of--gratitude? Then she told herself not to be foolish;
Phil had plenty of reason for pain of his own when Johnny pulled one
like this.
They wound up in his office. Two days before lunar sundown, the view
from this side of the Dome was a sharp contrast in near light and far
dark; but even the still-lit portion of the Moon’s surface was without
glare, since the shadowless Dome itself filtered the rays of the
low-lying sun to give the moonscape from this window almost the look of
atmosphered land.
They sat in front of the window, with the inside lights off, and talked.
They talked all around it, brushing it lightly just once in a while.
She knew he would not push; but she also knew that she _had_ to talk to
him, now. He wanted to give her reassurance and friendship; but this
time she really needed advice.
He was rambling on about a theory of heart disease he had seen in a
journal of psychosomatic medicine, when the right moment came.
“Phil?” she broke in.
He stopped talking. That was all. No question, no look her way, even.
He knew she was ready.
“Phil, listen, this mess is--well, I don’t know if I mean it’s worse
than you think, or better? If I could just tell for sure what he really
wants--I mean--Phil, does he mean it? Or is he going to change his mind
next week, and come yell for mama?”
“You probably know the answer to that one better than I do.”
“I guess I already answered it,” she admitted.
Silence. Then:
“So I guess _I_ have to decide what I’ll do when he does?”
“Or you could just decide what to do _now_.”
“How do you mean--? Well, yes, I hadn’t thought of that.” She heard her
own short laugh, like that of a stranger. “I’ll have to have someplace
to go. And my things are all--well, that doesn’t matter. There’s plenty
of _money_,” she said angrily. “That helps, doesn’t it?”
“Where were you thinking of going?”
“Well, I _wasn’t_. I wasn’t _thinking_. And I kind of resent you making
me start now.”
Nothing. She looked at him. He was looking at her, smiling. An old
friend. He _knew_.
He didn’t know everything, though.
“Phil?”
“Hmmm?”
“Remember that time I had lunch with you, right about when Chris was
down?”
“Yes.”
“Remember I said Johnny might have to--to face up to something he
wouldn’t like?”
“Yes?”
“Well--I--I’m pregnant, Phil. I thought so then, but I wasn’t sure.”
_Well_, she thought gleefully, _I did it at last_! Phil Kutler had
jumped forward in his chair, just like any _normal_ man.
“You thought so in _June_?” He was absolutely _staring_! “How far along
_are_ you then?”
“Well--four and a half months or so, around there, I guess.”
“Stand up.”
She did.
“Yeah. I guess so,” he said, and sat back again. “It _could_ be--at
four-and-a-half--with _you_. I’ll be damned!” He was watching her
closely, and, she realized, with a warmth of affection that made all
the rest of the mess _much_ easier. “So?” he said. “For heaven’s sake,
sit down, Lee. I’ve had my look.” She sat. “Now: I guess that means
you--”
“It doesn’t mean anything one way or the other, Phil. It just means
that whatever the rest means is _more_ so, that’s all.” Here she was on
solid ground. _This_ part she’d thought out beforehand, and carefully.
“The thing is, Phil, that other time even, when I first _thought_ I
might be pregnant, I realized I couldn’t go through with it the way
things were.”
She saw his slight start, and smiled. “I don’t mean _that_. I meant
_marrying_ him. I--”
She had kept herself beautifully under control up to then, but suddenly
everything inside was clogging up. “I--” She stood up. She walked
around the room, sat down at last on the couch, behind his back. “I
decided,” she said carefully, “that unless things changed a _lot_ at
home, if it turned out I was, I would just leave, and not--I mean, not
even _tell_ him.”
“But you didn’t. Hold up! _Does he know or not?_”
She shook her head. “No.” She looked up at him, feeling awfully foolish
for some reason. But it made _sense_, it all made sense, this part of
it. She’d thought it all through, and through again. “Look, Phil, I
wasn’t just being--well, emotional. I really meant it that way. But
then, right at that time, Chris came down, and Johnny agreed to the
trip--and then he kept putting it off, all summer long, and every time
I thought, ‘He won’t do it after all,’ he’d set a date, and every
time it got close--well, you _know_.” She had to stop, and get the
clogged-up stuff clear inside again.
Phil just stood there. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she groped
for it with her hand, held on to it _hard_, and found she could talk
again.
“Don’t you _see_, Phil?” Her voice was a wail, but she didn’t care. Her
face was streaked with tears; it didn’t matter. “Don’t _you_ see? I--I
couldn’t let _Johnny’s_ child grow up with--oh _Hell_!--with _Johnny_
for a father. The way he’s been. _Could I?_”
“Oh, you poor kid!”
Lisa was silent a moment. Then: “This won’t stop me dancing, I think?”
“No ... no reason it should, for a while.”
She took a deep breath. “All right. I want the job, Phil ... and the
sooner I get started the better. Lisa Trovi, Famed Tri-Di Star, will
give an impromptu recital in just one hour....”
_Dollars Dome--Monday, September 5, 11_ P.M. (_C.S.T._)
Mounting with the beat of the bongos, she climbed to the pinnacle
in step with the quickening pulse of the piano; then poised,
spread-winged, against the high-flying clarinet’s sharp sweetness.
The big wings rustled, swayed, started to move slowly back and
forth to the pounding measure of the muffled bass. Back on the drum
thump--forward on the twinkle of the cymbal--arms pumping faster,
stronger, with each beat, while the bass jumped the tempo and the
cymbals turned from tinkles to a crash.
The clarinet slid up and off the top of a final run; the piano faded
slowly to a hush; the bongos fell in line behind the bass and cymbals.
Then they stopped.
For one measure there was silence from them all. The single sound in
the crowded room was the flapping beat of the great gauze wings.
Drums crashed--like the surf, like thunder, like an earthquake, like a
bursting dam. With a final sweep of wing-width, Lisa leaped forward,
beating and fluttering, beating with the arm-wings, a-flutter in a mist
of multi-hued chiffon--leaped out and downward, turning and twisting
with the slowing slant of the widespread wings.
From the midstage high riser down to the floor, she floated like a
dragonfly, drifted like a leaf.
She landed like a bright bird fallen to earth, in a deep crouch. Then
with the final cymbal-clang she thrust upward, outstretched on toetips,
arms back and open, head proud and lifted, her whole face brilliant
with the afterglow of music, of dancing, of climbing, of flight down to
earth.
* * * * *
They clustered around her, smiling and cheering. Somebody stayed at the
bongos, tapping out a light-mood intricate rhythm. Someone else went to
the piano, and began to mesh trills with the bongo jokes.
Two of the men lifted the dancer--veils, wings, and radiance--onto
their shoulders and paraded her around the practice room.
In the deep armchairs shoved back to the wall, three couples sat in
intertwined delight, watching, clapping, cheering the impromptu,
cakewalk-conga-line that followed the accolade around the room.
Two women went out quietly and returned with a wheeled cart of
sandwiches, cool bottles, frosted glasses, coffee and cakes. The men
put down the dancer and claimed their own girls from the cart. One pair
took over an armchair vacated by a dreamy couple who left the party,
holding each other’s waists with secret smiles.
Other pairs settled down, or wandered off. A crowd around the cart
sorted out into more couples, and at last left a mixed group, six or
eight, perhaps, standing and laughing and eating, drinking, unpaired
yet.
Lee gobbled shamelessly, suddenly famished. She sat alone in the midst
of the small group, watching, delighted, as the joy of her climb and
fall spread to all the rest.
The darkhaired doctor stood a pace apart, just outside the laughing
group, watching _her_. The hunger in his eyes found no matching thirst
in hers; it flickered, and died.
The group remaining settled down to shop talk. Lisa left; Phil went
with her. At the door of her room she turned and smiled that marvelous
marvelling radiance. “They felt it, Phil,” she said. “They felt it
_with_ me!”
He nodded and smiled back and watched her go in.
_Acapulco--Wednesday, September 7, 8_ P.M. (_C.S.T._)
“Kutler? Sure.... Hi, Phil, what’s up?”
“How private is this wire?”
“Hardly at all.”
“Well--Did you call my friend?”
Kutler’s friend--Johnny? Chris couldn’t think who else it would be.
“Tried to. Been trying. Jerk doesn’t answer.”
“Figures. He wired. Yesterday, very negative,” Phil said. “Got his
information mixed up, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah. I can see how that would work. Well, he’ll get the source
material Sunday.”
“I don’t know. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m not sure
about sending it now?”
“Oh.” _Damn this open beam anyhow!_ “I don’t see,” he started
thoughtfully, and Phil added:
“I’m not the only one. In fact, it wasn’t my idea originally.”
“Oh?” _Oh!_ The fat was _really_ in now, then? “Well, whatever you
think,” he said reluctantly. “Damn, I wish I was up there!”
“Yeah. Look, there’s one other thing. That therapist I asked you to get
me.... I’ve got an application from--”
“Which therap--?”
“Good. I hoped you hadn’t done anything yet. I’ve got a hell of a good
applicant. _She’s worked with me before._ I just wondered if I could
hire on my own, or if it had to be done through Mexcity?”
“Wellll--I don’t know--” Then it all fell into place. “Look, Phil, I’ll
have to check on that,” he said. “I gather you want a fast answer?”
“I’m afraid we might lose this girl if it goes through channels; I
don’t know how long she can wait.”
“Will she wait till I get back up?”
“I’m sure she could do that much.”
“Right. I’ll check on it here, and we’ll get it worked out when I get
home.”
Chris talked a few more minutes with Bourgnese, about routine lab
affairs, and switched off. Across the room, Jed was waiting with raised
eyebrows. “What was _that_ bit?”
“Damn that open beam! I wish I could have had two minutes with Kutler
alone. Sounds like Wendt heard the news on his own--or didn’t like
her wire--or anything. I gather he flipped, anyhow, and either she
doesn’t want to go home, or Phil doesn’t think she should, or Johnny’s
threatened something, or--I don’t know. But that bit about the girl
who used to work for Phil--that’s how Johnny met Lee. She was doing
some kind of dance therapy with a group of Kutler’s. So I assume he’s
thinking of using her now. Up there. I don’t know...?”
“You _don’t_?” Jed was clearly amused.
“Okay, so you were kidding about a job for her up there, but how’s it
going to look--?”
“You’re slippin’, fella,” the General said. “Think it through, man,
think it through.”
_Inside-Outside_: Like it’s a meteor shower of secrets from space
all over town this week ... not to say out-of-town.... Those
stories you heard about ex-Astronaut (Col.) Johnny Wendt chasing
the subpoena server off the family acres with a ray gun might be
slightly exaggerated.... Seems all Johnny did was pop him one, but
the SAC boys are takin’ it hard anyhoo.... Be a leetle charitable,
fellas: they tell me Johnny’s had a hard time lately. Not even one
dancing girl left to his name.... And speaking of dancing girls,
yummy Lisa Trovi, whose name has been linked with Wendt’s off and
on, is still Mooning over us. Her name came off the downbound
_Messenger_ passenger list at the last moment on Thursday for the
second week in a row.... Kid just can’t get herself down to Earth,
I guess, after the way she wowed ’em in World Dome.... Or it could
be like “Chris” Christensen figures he needs a good hostess for Ray
McLafferty’s visit next week?... Ragin’ Ray takes off Sunday week to
make the Moon scene for a one-night stand, but he’s taking a bunch of
the boys along to stay a week and have a good look at the Security
plumbing.... Somebody complained about leaks.... Christensen goes up
tomorrow. We put our dough on this boy, after hearing him softsell
the subcommittee on Tuesday, to get things set up for Ray’s party in
a week easy....
_from the syndicated capitol
gossip column, “Phlip Asides From Inside,”
by Lenny Phlip, Mexcity, September 10, 1977_
Moon Dome
September 15, 1977