by Ben Bova
Shaking her head like the weary mother superior of a rowdy convent, Monica said, “My god, you kids have it easy nowadays. When I was your age we had to worry about herpes, and chlamydia—and AIDS. Sex was punishable by death in those days!”
Somewhat surprised, Jade said, “But you managed ...”
With a huff, Monica replied, “Sure, we managed. But you had to get a guy’s blood report first. There were even doctors making fortunes faking medical records!”
“That must have been tough,” Jade said.
“Why do you think people got married back then? And then divorced?”
“But Monica, he’ll only be here for another three days. I’ve got to get him to okay the Sam Gunn biography by then!”
Monica’s disapproving expression softened. “I know, honey. I understand. It’s just that I hate to see you using yourself like this. Meaningless sex might seem like fun at first....”
“Sam always said that there’s no such thing as meaningless sex.”
“Sam’s dead, child. And he left a trail of hurt people behind him. Women, mostly.”
Jade had to admit that she was right. “There was one woman I interviewed. She works at Dante’s Inferno, over in Hell Crater. She was Sam’s fiancée. She claims he left her at the altar and went off to the Asteroid Belt.”
“I’ll bet. And what kind of work does she do at Dante’s?” Monica asked, her eyes narrowing.
ISHTAR’S WAS ACKNOWLEDGED to be the finest restaurant not merely in Selene, but the finest in all the Moon. Carved out of the lunar rock at the end of a long corridor, Ishtar’s interior was shaped like a dome, with video screens showing views of the heavens so cunningly devised that it actually looked as though the dome were up on the surface.
The restaurant was small, intimate. Each table was niched into its own semicircular banquette of high, plush lunar pseudo-leather, creating a semicircle of virtually complete privacy. Lovers could snuggle close, although at the prices Ishtar’s charged the restaurant’s clientele was mostly executives who had access to golden expense accounts. All the waiters were human; there were no robots at all, not even as busboys.
“I’ve never had champagne before,” Jade said, with a slight giggle.
Arak al Kashan leaned back in the plush banquette and steepled his long manicured fingers in front of his chin, admiring her from across their damask-covered table.
“You should have it every evening,” Raki said, smiling. “A creature as lovely as you should have oceans of champagne. You should bathe in champagne.”
Jade lifted an eyebrow slightly. “I don’t think there’s that much champagne in Selene.”
“Then you can come to France with me. We’ll rent a chateau and bathe in champagne every night.”
“Oh, I can’t come to Earth,” Jade said lightly.
“I could see to it that you get a much better position with the network. In France. Or in Florida. We could see each other every day if you came to Florida.”
She had already drunk enough champagne to dull the pain of what she had to tell him. “I can never come to Earth, Raki. My bones are too brittle for it.”
His mouth dropped open for an instant, but he immediately recovered his composure.
“Then I must come to Selene more often,” he said gallantly.
Jade accepted the compliment with a smile and a totally unpremeditated batting of her eyelashes. In the center of the restaurant the head waiter supervised the creation of a spectacularly flaming dish that brought murmurs of approval from the watching diners.
He’s a doll! Jade thought to herself. Raki is a handsome, elegant, charming, living doll.
He was also an accomplished lover, as she found later that night, in the suite that the network maintained for visiting executives. Jade felt herself swept away like a cork in a tidal wave under Raki’s experienced hands and tongue. She felt as if she would suffocate; she felt as if her heart would burst in her chest. Electric thrills tingled every square centimeter of her skin.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she floated back to reality. As if awakening from a dream, Jade gradually sensed the bed firmly beneath her, the darkness of the room eased only by the luminous digits of the clock on the night table, the animal heat of the man sleeping next to her naked body.
Jade could make out the form of Raki’s body, coiled like a panther, his face half buried in his pillow.
She took a long shuddering breath. Now you’ve done it, she told herself. It’s over and done with. It was exciting, but it’s finished now. Tomorrow he’ll be leaving. Tomorrow he’ll go back to Earth and you’ll be alone again.
“What’s the matter?” Raki’s voice was whisper-soft.
Startled that he was awake, she said, “What?”
“You were muttering. I thought you might be talking in your sleep.”
Jade almost laughed. “Just talking to myself. Sorry if I woke you.”
“It’s all right,” he said, turning over onto his back.
“You’ll be going home tomorrow.”
“The day after—oh, yes, it’s Tuesday morning now, isn’t it? Yes, tomorrow.”
“Do you live in Orlando?” Jade asked, her voice as flat and unemotional as she could make it.
He laughed softly. “You want to know if I’m married, don’t you?”
“I already know that. I looked up your personnel file.”
“You have access to the files?” He sounded surprised.
“No,” she said. “But I’m a reporter.” “Ah.”
Silence. Jade had watched enough old videos to know that this was the moment the lovers usually lit cigarettes. She wondered what it would taste like, whether she would feel the carcinogens attacking her lungs.
“You know that I am married and have two children,” Raki said. “Statistically, it should be one point seven, but we found it difficult to produce only seven-tenths of a child.”
Jade did not laugh. “Is it a happy marriage?”
“Yes, I’m afraid it is.”
“I’m glad,” she lied.
“As a practicing Moslem,” Raki said lightly, “I can take four wives, you know. The state of Florida would object, I’m sure, but I doubt that the government of Selene would mind.”
“A wife in every port,” Jade muttered. “That might get expensive.”
“My wife is a practicing psychologist. She makes an excellent living. And you, of course, are employed as a reporter....”
“Don’t joke about it!” Jade burst. “It isn’t a joking matter.”
“No, of course not. I’m sorry.”
Silence again.
At length, Raki asked, “What is it you want?”
Jade tried to swallow down the lump in her throat.
Raki turned toward her. “I know I am devilishly handsome and utterly suave and urbane, practically irresistible. But you accepted my invitation to dinner knowing that it would lead here, and you accepted that because you want something from me. What is it?”
Jade blinked back tears.
“It’s happened before, you know,” Raki said. His voice was still gentle, almost sad. “Women seem so willing to offer their bodies in trade.”
“You make it sound dirty.” “Oh no! Not dirty. There’s nothing dirty about making love. It’s just... disappointing.”
“Disappointing?”
He sighed like a heartbroken lover. “I had hoped that you liked me for myself, not for what I could do for you. But I knew better, all along. You want something: a raise in salary, a promotion ... something.”
Jade felt her spirits sinking out of sight.
“Well,” Raki said, “you might as well tell me what it is.”
Confused, Jade stammered, “There ... there was something... I thought...” She did not know what to say.
Raki whispered, “You can tell me. I’m accustomed to being used.”
“It isn’t like that!” Jade burst. “Yes, all right, I admit that I wanted something from you—at first. But now,
now that I know you ...”
Raki smiled in the darkness and reached for her young trembling body. Jade flung herself into his arms and they made love until they both fell asleep exhausted.
“AND THEN WHAT happened?”Monica asked as they walked down the busy corridor from the cafeteria toward her office. It was nearly 0800 hours, the start of the business day. The women were dressed in their business clothes: Monica in comfortably loose black slacks and sweatshirt, Jade in a stylish auburn jumpsuit and glossy thigh-length boots.
“It was morning when we woke up,” Jade answered with a small shrug. “I had to dash back to my place to change for work.”
With an unhappy shake of her head Monica replied, “And Raki’s in Jim’s office bragging about how he screwed you all night long.”
“No! He wouldn’t....”
“Want to bet?”
Jade could not look Monica square in the face. “I’ve got to get to work,” she said. “I’m interviewing that architect at ten sharp.”
“Want to bet?” Monica repeated sternly.
“Yes!” Jade snapped, feeling anger surging within her. “I’ll bet he’s conducting ordinary business with Jim.”
They had reached the door to Solar News’s suite of cubbyhole offices. With a sweeping gesture, Monica ushered Jade through, then led the way past the trio of unoccupied desks to her own office. Gradowsky’s office door was closed, Jade saw.
Monica plopped into her chair and picked the keyboard off the floor.
Jade remained standing, her back to the window that looked into the editing room. No one was in there yet.
“Don’t you ever tell Jumbo that I’ve bugged his office,” Monica said, frowning slightly as she worked the keyboard.
“Bugged it! Why?”
“I might marry the bum one of these days, but that doesn’t mean I altogether trust him.” She pulled a pair of wire-thin headsets from the cabinet in the corner of the room and handed one of them to Jade.
Reluctantly Jade slipped the set over her hair. Monica plugged them both in, then held one earphone to her ear, her head cocked like a fat robin looking for a juicy worm.
“... if I say so myself, I’m a very good teacher.” Raki’s voice. Unmistakable.
“Well, uh, you know she’s just a kid. Got some good ideas, though.” Gradowsky sounded uncomfortable, embarrassed.
“Really? I’ll bet she’s got better ones now.” Raki laughed. Jade heard nothing from Jumbo Jim.
After a brief silence Raki asked, “You said she wants to do a biography?”
“Yeah. Of Sam Gunn. I think ...”
“Sam Gunn! No, that would never wash.”
“I dunno, Raki. She’s already gotten a lot of really good stuff. Sam’s good material. Sex, adventure, excitement.”
Raki made a humming noise. Then, “You think so?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“No, the executive board would never buy it. Half of them hate Sam’s guts, even now, and the other half wouldn’t give a damn.”
“But if you recommended it,” Gradowsky suggested.
“Listen, my friend, I didn’t get this far in the network by sticking my neck out.”
Jade sensed Jumbo Jim shaking his head. “Then what’re you gonna tell her?”
“Me? Nothing?”
“You’re not gonna see her again tonight?”
“Of course not. Why should I?”
Monica’s face looked like a stone carving of vengeance. Jade felt her own cheeks flaming.
“I thought, well, after you had such a good time last night.”
Raki laughed again. It sounded cruel. “The thrill is in the chase, James. Now that I’ve bagged her, what is there to getting her again? No, tonight
I’ll go to Hell Crater and enjoy myself with the professionals. I’ve had enough of little girls who must be taught everything.”
Jade ripped the headset off so hard she thought her ears were coming off with it.
Monica looked as if she would cry. “I’m sorry, honey. But you had to know.”
Jade went through her morning as if disembodied, watching this redheaded young woman from an enormous distance as she made her way down the gray tunnels of Selene, conducted a perfunctory interview with a dull whining architect, then ate a solitary lunch in the darkest corner of the Pelican Bar, speaking to no one, not even a robot waiter. She punched up her order on the keyboard built into the wall of her booth.
There is no one you can trust, Jade told herself. Absolutely no one. Not even Monica. She’s bugged her fiancé’s office. Not one single human being in the whole solar system can be trusted. Not a damned one. I’m alone. I’ve always been alone and I always will be.
A robot brought her lunch tray. She ignored its cheerful programmed banter and it rolled away.
Jade could not eat more than a single mouthful. The food stuck in her throat. The cola tasted flat and sour.
She leaned her head against the back of the booth, eyes filling with tears, alone and lost in a world that had never cared whether she lived or died. It’s not fair! she cried silently. It’s just not fucking goddamned shitting fair.
Life is never fair. She remembered somebody told her that Sam Gunn had often said that. No, not quite. Sam had put it differently. “Life isn’t fair, so the best thing you can do is load the dice in your own favor.” That’s what Sam had said.
Don’t get mad, Jade told herself. Get even.
Grimly she slid out of the booth and headed for the ticket office of Lunar Transport.
“THIS IS G0ING to be kind of tough for me to talk about,” Jade said.
“Don’t give it a second thought, little one,” said Yoni, Mistress of Ecstasy. “Monica filled my ears with the whole story while you were on your way here.”
Here was the employee’s lounge of Dante’s Inferno, the biggest casino/hotel/house of pleasure in Hell Crater. It had been Sam Gunn’s sardonic idea of humor to turn Hell into a complex of entertainment centers. The crater had been named after an eighteenth-century Jesuit astronomer, Maximilian Hell, who once directed the Vienna Observatory.
Jade had overspent her personal credit account to ride the passenger rocket from Selene, after telling Monica what she was going to do. Mother Monica apparently had gotten on the fiber-optic link with Yoni as soon as Jade hung up.
The lounge was small but quite plush. Yoni sat on a small fabric-covered couch; Jade on a softly cushioned easy chair.
Jade had interviewed the Mistress of Ecstasy weeks earlier. Yoni had been left at the altar by Sam Gunn more than twenty years ago. But although she had every reason to hate Sam, she said, “I guess I still have a soft spot in my heart for the little SOB.”
Yoni claimed to be the child of a mystical pleasure cult from deep in the mysterious mountains of Nepal. Actually she had been born in the mining settlement at Aristarchus, of Chinese-American parents from San Francisco. She was tall for an oriental, Jade thought, and her bosom was so extraordinary, even though the rest of her figure was willowy slim, that Jade decided she must have been enhanced by implants. She wore a tight-fitting silk sheath of shining gold with a plunging neckline and skirt slashed to the hip.
She had worn a luxurious auburn wig when Jade had first interviewed her. Now she sat, relaxed, her hair cropped almost as short as a military cut. It was sprinkled with gray. Yoni was still beautiful, although to Jade she seemed awfully elderly for her chosen line of work. Cosmetic surgery had done its best, but there were still lines in her face, veins on the backs of her hands. Her dark almond eyes seemed very knowing, as if they had witnessed every possible kind of human frailty.
“Then you know,” Jade choked out the words, “about Raki... and me.”
Yoni smiled sadly and patted Jade’s knee. “You’re not the first woman to be roughed up by a man.”
“Can you help me?”
Yoni’s almond eyes became inscrutable. “In what way? I won’t risk damaging this house’s reputation just to help you get even with a j
erk.”
Jade blinked at her. “No, that isn’t what I want at all.”
“Then what?”
“I want him to approve my doing a biography of Sam Gunn.”
It was Yoni’s turn to look surprised. “Is that what you’re after?”
“Yes.”
Yoni leaned back in her couch and crossed her long legs. “Let me get this straight. You want me to make him change his mind about this video biography you want to do.”
Jade nodded.
“Why should I help you?”
For a moment Jade had no answer. Then she heard herself say, “For Sam’s sake.”
“For Sam’s sake!” Yoni tilted her head back and laughed heartily. “Why in the name of the seventy-seven devils of Tibet should I care an eyelash about Sam? He’s dead and gone and that’s that.”
Jade said, “I thought you had a soft spot in your heart for him.”
“In my heart, little one. Not my head.”
“You don’t feel any obligation toward Sam?”
“If he were here I’d kick him in the balls. And he’d know why.”
“Even though he gave you the controlling interest in Dante’s Inferno?”
After her interview with Yoni, Jade had accessed all the records she could find about Dante’s. S. Gunn Enterprises, Unlimited, had originally built the place. Yoni had been a licensed prostitute in the European lunar settlement, New Europa, when Sam had briefly fallen in love with her. He had left her at the altar, true enough. He had also left her fifty-five percent of the shares of the newly opened Dante’s Inferno. The rest he had sold off to help finance a venture to the Asteroid Belt.
Yoni gazed up at the smooth, faintly glowing ceiling panels, then across the lounge at the computer-graphics images mounted on the walls. They were all of tall, buxom women, blonde, redheaded, gleaming black hair. They wore leather, or daintily feminine lace, or nothing but jewelry. They were all Yoni, Mistress of Ecstasy, in her various computer-simulated embodiments.
Finally she looked back at Jade. “You’re right,” she admitted. “I owe the little bastard.”
“Then you’ll help me?”
Without answering, Yoni got to her feet and started for the door. “Come on down to my office. I’ll have to look up your john’s file.”
