At last the car popped into the yawning airlock at Hell Crater. Pancho hurried through the reception center and out into the main plaza. The domed plaza was circular, which made it seem bigger than the plaza at Selene. Pancho marveled at the crowds that bustled along the shrubbery-lined walkways: elderly couples, plenty of younger singles, whole families with laughing, excited kids. Most of the tourists were stumbling in the low lunar gravity, even in the weighted boots they had rented. Despite the catastrophes that had smitten Earth, there were still enough people with enough wealth to make Hell a profitable resort.
Shaking her head ruefully as she walked toward the medical center, Pancho thought about how Hotel Luna back at Selene was practically bankrupt. It wasn’t enough to a offer first-rate hotel facility on the Moon, she realized. Not anymore. But give people gambling, prostitution, and recreational drugs and they’ll come up and spend their money. Of course, nobody accepted cash. All financial transactions were computerized, which helped keep everybody reasonably honest. For a modest percentage of the gross, the government of Selene policed the complex and saw to it that visitors got what they paid for, nothing more and nothing less. Even the fundamentalists among Selene’s population appreciated the income that kept their taxes low, although they grumbled about the sinful disgrace of Hell.
As Pancho pushed through the lobby door of the Fossel Medical Center, she immediately saw that the center’s clientele consisted almost entirely of two types: senior citizens with chronic complaints, and very beautiful prostitutes—men as well as women—who were required to have their health checked regularly. Pancho was wearing a well-tailored business suit, but still the “working women” made her feel shabby.
She strode up to the reception center, which was nothing more than a set of flat screens set into the paneling of the curved wall. Pancho picked the screen marked visitors and spoke her name slowly and clearly.
“You are expected in Room 21-A,” said a synthesized voice, while the screen displayed a floor plan with Room 21-A outlined in blinking red. “Follow the red floor lights, please.”
Pancho followed the lights set into the floor tiles and found 21-A without trouble. A couple of security people were in the corridor, a man at one end and a woman at the other, both dressed in ordinary coveralls, both trying to look unobtrusive. HSS flunkies, Pancho guessed.
When she opened the door and stepped into the room, though, she was surprised to see not Amanda, but Doug Stavenger.
“Hello, Pancho,” he said, getting up from the chair on which he’d been sitting. “Sorry for all the cloak and dagger business.”
The room was apparently a waiting area. Small, comfortably upholstered chairs lined its walls. A holowindow displayed a view of the Earth in real time. A second door was set into the back wall.
“I was expecting Mandy,” said Pancho.
“She’ll be here in a few minutes.”
Doug Stavenger’s family had created the original Moonbase, the lunar outpost that eventually grew into the nation of Selene. He had been the leader in Moonbase’s brief, successful war against the old United Nations and their Peacekeeper troops, which established the lunar community’s independence from Earth. Stavenger himself had chosen the name Selene for the fledgling lunar nation.
Although he was fully a generation older than Pancho, Stavenger looked no more than thirty: a handsome, solidly built middleweight whose tawny skin was only a shade lighter than Pancho’s. His body was filled with therapeutic nanomachines that destroyed invading microbes, cleared away fats and arterial plaque, rebuilt his tissues to keep him physically youthful. They had saved his life, twice. Officially Stavenger had been retired for many years, although everyone knew he was still a political power broker in Selene. His influence was even felt in the Asteroid Belt and at the fusion-scooping operation in orbit around Jupiter. But he was exiled from Earth; the worldwide ban on nanotechnology meant that no nation on Earth would allow him within its borders.
“What’re you doin’ here?” Pancho asked as she sat in the chair next to Stavenger.
He hesitated a heartbeat, then replied, “I’ll let Amanda tell you.”
“What’s she here for?”