Pancho took another sip of champagne while she sorted that out in her mind.
Humphries went on, “I live here whenever I’m at Selene. The research staff uses the other end of the house.”
“But they don’t live here.”
He laughed. “No, they live a few levels up, in… um, more ordinary quarters.”
“And you get the whole place rent-free.”
With a waggle of his free hand, Humphries said, “One of the advantages of wealth.”
“The rich get richer.”
“Or they lose what they’ve got.”
Nodding, Pancho asked, “So what do they research down here?”
“Lunar ecology,” Humphries replied. “They’re trying to learn how to build Earthlike ecologies here on the Moon, underground.”
“Like the Grand Plaza, up topside.”
“Yes. But completely closed-cycle, so you don’t have to put in fresh supplies of water.”
“That’s what all the flowers and trees are about.”
“Right. They’ve been able to make a lovely garden, all right, but it’s incredibly expensive. Very labor-intensive, with no birds or insects to pollinate the plants. The idiots running Selene’s environmental safety department won’t let me bring any up here. As if they could get loose! They’re so stupidly narrow-minded they could look through a keyhole with both eyes.”
Pancho smiled at him, remembering how hard it had been for her to get the approval to bring Elly and her food into Selene. I must be smarter than he is, she thought. Or maybe Selene’s execs just don’t like megazillionaires trying to push them around.
“And those full-spectrum lamps cost a fortune in electricity,” Humphries went on.
“Electricity’s cheap, though, isn’t it?”
Humphries took a long draft of his champagne, then answered, “It’s cheap once you’ve built the solar energy farm up on the surface… and the superconducting batteries to store electrical energy during the night. High capital costs, though.”
“Yeah, but once you’ve got the equipment in place the operating costs are pitiful low.”
“Except for maintenance.”
“Keeping the solar farms clean, up on the surface, you mean. Yeah, I guess that ain’t cheap.”
“Any work on the surface is damned expensive,” he grumbled, bringing his champagne flute to his lips.
“So how rich are you?” she asked abruptly.
Humphries didn’t sputter into his champagne, but he did seem to swallow pretty hard.
Pancho added, “I mean, do you own any of this or are you just livin’ in it?”
He thought a moment before answering. Then, “My grandfather made his fortune in the big dot-corn boom around the turn of the century. Gramps was smart enough to get into the market while it was still rising and get out before the bubble burst.”
“What’s a dot-corn?” Pancho asked.
Ignoring her question, Humphries went on, “My father took his degrees in biology and law. He bought into half a dozen biotech firms and built one of the biggest fortunes on Earth.”
“What’re your degrees in?”
“I have an MBA from Wharton and a JD from Yale.”
“So you’re a lawyer.”
“I’ve never practiced law.”
Pancho felt alarm signals tingling through her. That’s not a straight answer, she realized. But then, what do you expect from a lawyer? She recalled the old dictum: How can you tell when a lawyer’s lying? Watch his lips.
“What do you practice?” she asked, trying to make it sound nonchalant.
He smiled again, and there was even some warmth in it this time. “Oh… making money, mostly. That seems to be what I’m best at.”
Glancing around the luxurious library, Pancho replied, “I’d say you’re purty good at spendin’ it, too.”
Humphries laughed aloud. “Yes, I suppose so. I spend a lot of it on women.”
As if on cue, a generously-curved redhead in a slinky metallic sheath appeared at the doorway to the dining room, a slim aperitif glass dangling empty from one manicured hand. “Say, Humpy, when is dinner served?” she asked poutily. “I’m starving.”
His face went white with anger. “I told you,” he said through clenched teeth, “that I have a business meeting to attend to. I’ll be with you when I’m finished here.”
“But I’m starving,” the redhead repeated.
Glancing at Pancho, Humphries said in a low voice, “I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”
The redhead looked Pancho over from head to toe, grinned, and flounced off.