Amanda asked, “Is your group strong enough to let you do what you just offered to do?”
Nodding, Pancho replied, “Take my word for it.”
Turning to her husband, Amanda said hopefully, “Lars, we could start Helvetia all over again.”
“With a smaller inventory,” he grumbled. “The insurance won’t cover everything we lost.”
“But it’s a start,” Amanda said, smiling genuinely.
Fuchs did not smile back. He looked away from his wife. Pancho thought there was something going on inside his head that he didn’t want Mandy to see.
“I’m going back to prospecting,” he said, his eyes focused on the far wall of the sitting room.
“But—”
“I’ll take Starpower back as soon as the current lease on her is finished.”
“But what about Helvetia?” Amanda asked.
He turned toward her once more. “You’ll have to run Helvetia. You can stay on Ceres while I take the ship out.”
Pancho studied them. There was something going on between them, some hidden agenda someplace, that she couldn’t fathom.
“Lars,” said Amanda, in a very soft voice, “are you certain that this is what you want to do?”
“It’s what I must do, darling.” His voice sounded implacable.
Pancho invited them both to dinner at the Earthview Restaurant, off the hotel’s lobby.
“Strictly a social evening,” she told them. “No talk about Humphries or Ceres or any kind of business at all. Okay?”
They agreed, halfheartedly.
So naturally they talked about business through the entire meal. Pancho’s business.
The standing joke about the Earthview was that it was the finest restaurant within four hundred thousand kilometers. Which was perfectly true: the two other eateries in Selene, up in the Grand Plaza, were mere bistros. Two levels beneath the lunar surface, the Earthview featured sweeping windowalls that displayed holographic views from the Moon’s surface. It was almost like looking through real windows at the gaunt, cracked floor of the giant crater Alphonsus and its worn, slumped ringwall mountains. But the Earth was always in that dark sky, hanging like a splendid glowing jewel of sparkling blue and glowing white, ever changing yet always present.
The Earthview prided itself on having a human staff, no robots in sight. Pancho always felt that a truly top-rate restaurant should use tablecloths, but the Earthview used glittering placemats made of lunar honeycomb metal, thin and supple as silk.
None of them had changed clothes for dinner. Fuchs was still wearing his gray suit, Amanda her turquoise knee-length dress. Pancho, who favored coveralls and softboots, had started the day in a business outfit of chocolate-brown slacks, pale yellow sweater, and light tan suede vest. Amanda had loaned her a light auburn Irish lace stole to “dress up your outfit.”
Once their handsome young waiter had brought their drinks and taken their dinner order, an awkward silence fell over their table. They had agreed not to talk business. What other topic of conversation was there?
Pancho sipped at her margarita and watched the waiter’s retreating back. Nice buns, she thought. Wonder if he’s married?
“So what have you been doing lately, Pancho?” Amanda finally said, more to break the silence than any other reason.
“Me? I’m followin’ up on something Dan Randolph talked about years ago: scoopin’ fusion fuels from Jupiter.”
Fuchs’s ears perked up. “Fusion fuels?”
“Yeah. You know, helium-three, tritium, other isotopes. Jupiter’s atmosphere is full of ’em.”
“That’s a steep gravity well,” said Amanda.
“Tell me about it,” Pancho said. “You know I’ve been approached by some nuts who want to go skimmin’ Jupiter’s atmosphere as a stunt? They even brought a network producer with ’em.”
“Insanity,” Fuchs muttered.
“Yeah, sure.” Pancho pronounced the word shore. “But then there’s a gaggle of scientists who wanta set up a research station in orbit around Jupiter. Study the moons and all.”
“But the radiation,” Amanda said.
“Tight orbit, underneath the Jovian Van Allen belts. Might be doable.”
“Astro would fund this?”
“Hell no!” Pancho blurted. “Universities gotta come up with the funding. We’ll build the sucker.”
“And use it as a platform for mining Jupiter’s atmosphere,” Amanda added.
Pancho smiled at her. Sometimes I forget how smart she is, Pancho thought. I let her sweet face and nice boobs fool me.