The Gods Themselves (23 page)

The Earthman wrinkled his nose slightly as he passed that one. He said, "The dental problem must be severe on the Moon."

"It isn't good," Selene agreed. "If we ever get the chance, we'll select for an edentate jaw."

"Toothlessness?"

"Maybe not entirely. We might keep the incisors and canines for cosmetic reasons and for occasionally useful tasks. They're easily cleaned, too. But why should we want useless molars? It's just a hangover from an Earthie past."

"Are you making any progress in that direction?"

"No," she said, stiffly. "Genetic engineering is illegal. Earth insists."

She was leaning over the railing. "They call this the Moon's playground," she said.

The Earthman looked down. It was a large cylindrical opening with pink smooth walls to which metal bars were attached in what seemed a random configuration. Here and there, a bar stretched across a portion of the cylinder, sometimes across its entire width. It was perhaps four or five hundred feet deep and about fifty feet across.

No one seemed to be paying particular attention either to the playground or to the Earthman. Some had looked at him indifferently as he passed, seeming to weigh his clothed state, his facial appearance, and then had turned away. Some made a casual hand gesture to Selene's direction before turning away, but all turned away. The no-interest signal, however subdued, could not have been more blatant.

The Earthman turned to the cylindrical opening. There were slim figures at the bottom, foreshortened because they were seen from above. Some wore wisps of clothing in red, some in blue. Two teams, he decided. Clearly the wisps served protective functions, since all wore gloves and sandals, protective bands about knees and elbows. Some wore brief bands about the hips, some about the chests.

"Oh," he muttered. "Men and women."

Selene said, "Right! The sexes compete equally but the idea is to prevent the uncontrolled swinging of parts that might hamper the guided fall. There's a sexual difference there which also involves vulnerability to pain. It's not modesty."

The Earthman said, "I think I've read of this."

"You may have," said Selene, indifferently. "Not much seems to get out. Not that
we
have any objection, but the Terrestrial government prefers to keep news of the Moon to a minimum."

"Why, Selene?"

"You're an Earthman. You tell me.... Our theory hereon the Moon is that we embarrass the Earth. Or at least

the Earth government."

On either side of the cylinder now, two individuals were rising rapidly and the patter of light drumbeats was heard in the background. At first, the climbers seemed to be going up a ladder, rung by rung, but their speed increased and by the time they were halfway up, they were striking each hold as they passed, making an ostentatious slapping noise.

"Couldn't do that on Earth as gracefully," said the Earthman, admiringly. "Or at all," he amended.

"It's not just low-gravity," said Selene. "Try it, if you think so. This takes endless hours of practice."

The climbers reached the railing and swung up to a headstand. They performed a simultaneous somersault and began to fall.

"They can move quickly when they want to," said the Earthman.

"Umm," said Selene, through the patter of applause. "I suspect that when Earthmen—I mean the real Earthmen, the ones who have never even visited the Moon—think of moving around the Moon, they think of the surface and of spacesuits. That's often slow, of course. The mass, with the spacesuit added, is huge, which means high inertia and a small gravity to overcome it."

"Quite right," said the Earthman. "I've seen the classic motion pictures of the early astronauts that all school children see and the movements are like those underwater, The picture gets imprinted, even when we know better."

"You'd be surprised how fast we can move on the surface these days, spacesuit and all," said Selene. "And here, underground, without spacesuits, we can move as quickly as on Earth. The slower whip of gravity is made up for by the proper use of muscles."

"But you can move slowly, too." The Earthman was watching the acrobats. They had gone up with speed and were going down with deliberate slowness. They-were floating, slapping the handholds to delay the drop rather than, as before, to accelerate the rise. They reached the ground and two others replaced them. And then two more.

And then two more. From each team alternately, pairs competed in virtuosity.

Each pair went up in unison; each pair rose and fell in a more complicated pattern. One pair kicked off simultaneously to cross the tube in a low parabola, convex upward, each reaching the handhold the other had abandoned, and somehow skimming past each other in mid-air without touching. That evoked louder applause.

The Earthman said, "I suspect I lack the experience to appreciate the finer points of skill. Are these all native Lunarites?"

"They have to be," said Selene. "The gymnasium is open to all Lunar citizens and some immigrants are fairly good, considering. For this kind of virtuosity, however, you must depend on babies that are conceived and born here. They have the proper physical adaptation, at least more than native Earthmen have, and they get the proper childhood training. Most of these performers are under eighteen."

"I imagine it's dangerous, even at Moon-gravity levels."

"Broken bones aren't very uncommon. I don't think there's been an actual death, but there's been at least one case of broken spine and paralysis. That was a terrible accident; I was actually watching— Oh, wait now; we're going to have the ad libs now."

"The what?"

"Till now, we've had set pieces. The climbs were according to a fixed pattern."

The percussion beat seemed softer as one climber rose and suddenly launched into mid-air. He caught a transverse bar one-handed, circling it once vertically, and let

go-

The Earthman watched closely. He said, "Amazing. He gets around those bars exactly like a gibbon."

"A what?" asked Selene.

"A gibbon. A kind of ape; in fact, the only ape still existing in the wild. They—" He looked at Selene's expression and said, "I don't mean it as an insult, Selene; they are graceful creatures."

Selene said, frowning, "I've seen pictures of apes."

"You probably haven't seen gibbons, in motion. ... I dare say that Earthies might call Lunarites 'gibbons* and mean it insultingly, about on the level of what you mean by 'Earthie.' But I don't mean it so."

He leaned both elbows on the railing and watched the movements. It was like dancing in the air. He said, "How do you treat Earth-immigrants here on the Moon, Selene? J mean immigrants who mean to stay here life-long. Since they lack true Lunarite abilities—"

"That makes no difference. Immies are citizens. There's no discrimination; no legal discrimination."

"What does that mean? No
legal
discrimination?"

"Well, you said it yourself. There are some things they can't do. There
are
differences. Their medical problems are different and they've usually had a worse medical history. If they come in middle age, they look—old."

The Earthman looked away, embarrassed. "Can they intermarry? I mean, immigrants and Lunarites."

"Certainly. That is, they can interbreed."

"Yes, that's what I meant."

"Of course. No reason why an immigrant can't have some worthwhile genes. Heavens, my father was an immie, though I'm second-generation Lunarite on my mother's side."

"I suppose your father must have come when he was1quite—Oh,
good Lord
—" He froze at the railing, then drew a shuddering sigh. "I thought he was going to miss that bar."

"Not a chance," said Selene. "That's Marco Fore. He likes to do that, reach out at the last moment. Actually, it's bad form to do that and a real champion doesn't. Still— My father was twenty-two when he arrived."

"I suppose that's the way. Still young enough to be adaptable; no emotional complications back on Earth. From the standpoint of the Earthie male, I imagine it must be rather nice to have a sexual attachment with a—"

"Sexual attachment!" Selene's amusement seemed to cover a very real sense of shock. "You don't suppose my father had sex with my mother. If my mother heard you say that, she'd set
you
right in a hurry."

"But—"

"Artificial insemination was what it was for goodness sake. Sex with an
Earthman?"

The Earthman looked solemn. "I thought you said there was no discrimination."

"That's not discrimination. That's a matter of physical fact. An Earthman can't handle the gravity field properly. However practiced he might be, under the stress of passion, he might revert. I wouldn't risk it. The clumsy fool might snap his arm or leg—or worse, mine. Gene mixtures are one thing; sex is quite another."

"I'm sorry. . . . Isn't artificial insemination against the law?"

She was watching the gymnastics with absorption. "That's Marco Fore again. When he isn't trying to be uselessly spectacular, he really is good; and his sister is almost as good. When they work together it's really a poem of motion. Look at them now. They'll come together and circle the same bar as though they have a single body stretched across. He's a little too flamboyant at times, but you can't fault his muscular control. . . . Yes, artificial insemination is against Earth's law, but it's allowed where medical reasons are involved, and, of course, that's often the case, or said to be."

AU the acrobats had now climbed to the top and were in a great circle just below the railing; all the reds on one side, the blues on the other. All arms on the side of the interior were raised and the applause was loud. Quite a crowd had now gathered at the rail.

"You ought to have some seating arrangement," said the Earthman.

"Not at all. This isn't a show. This is exercise. We don't encourage any more spectators than can stand comfortably about the railing. We're supposed to be down there, not up here."

"You mean you can do that sort of thing, Selene?"

"After a fashion, of course. Any Lunarite can. I'm not as good as they are. I haven't joined any teams— There's going to be the melee now, the free-for-all. This is the really dangerous part. All ten are going to be in the air and each side is going to try to send members of the other side into a fall."

"A real fall."

"As real as possible."

"Are there injuries occasionally?"

"Occasionally. In theory, this sort of thing is frowned upon. That
is
considered frivolous, and we don't have so large a population that we can afford to incapacitate anyone without real cause. Still, the melee is popular and we can't raise the votes to outlaw it."

"Which side do you vote on, Selene?"

Selene blushed. "Oh, never mind. You watch this!"

The percussion rhythm had suddenly grown thunderous and each of the individuals in the huge well darted outward like an arrow. There was wild confusion in mid-air "but when they parted again, each ended firmly on a bar-grip. There was the tension of waiting. One launched; another followed; and the air was filled with flashing bodies again. Over and over it happened.

Selene said, "The scoring is intricate. There is a point for every launch; a point for every touch; two points for every miss inflicted; ten points for a grounding; various penalties for various kinds of fouling."

"Who keeps the score?"

"There are umpires watching who make the preliminary decisions and there are television tapes in case of appeals. Very often even the tapes can't decide."

There was a sudden excited cry when a girl in blue moved past a boy in red and slapped his flank resoundingly. The boy who received the blow had writhed away, but not successfully, and grabbing at a wall bar with improper balance struck that wall ungracefully with his knee.

"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. Atone 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.