THE EARTHVIEW RESTAURANT
Her last night in Selene, before she returned to Earth, Anita was invited to dinner at the Earthview restaurant by Douglas Stavenger and his wife.
Anita was delighted by the invitation, and pleasantly surprised by the restaurant. Most of Selene reminded Anita of Coober Pedy, the opal-mining town in South Australia that had been carved out of the multihued veins of opal, underground where the residents could escape the summer’s blistering heat. But where the opal-rich stone of Coober Pedy was bright and colorful, Selene was drab: the lunar rock was mostly shades of gray, and the endless corridors and chambers were dismally narrow, their ceilings depressingly low.
The Earthview restaurant was very different. It had started as a huge natural cave, but the residents of Selene had enlarged and improved it in every way. There were five tiers of tables, with winding rampways connecting them. The plastic tablecloths, manufactured from lunar raw materials, looked and felt like crisp white linen. Selene-made tableware and wineglasses sparkled on every table in the light of lamps designed to flicker like candles.
Human waiters in dark suits and squat little robot aides moved up and down the ramps with quiet efficiency. The smoothed rock walls supported sweeping flat screens that showed the view outside, on the floor of the giant ringwalled plain of Alphonsus: the stark barren grandeur of the pitted, dusty lunar surface with the gorgeous blue and white beauty of Earth hanging in the utterly black sky.
A dark-clad waiter led Anita to the table where Douglas Stavenger and his wife were already seated. Stavenger rose and introduced, “This is my wife, Edith. Edith, meet Anita Halleck.”
As Halleck took the chair the waiter was holding for her, she stared at blond, smiling Mrs. Stavenger and asked, “Aren’t you Edie Elgin, the newscaster?”
Edith’s smile brightened. “I used to be. Haven’t done much lately. I’m sort of retired. But it’s good to be recognized.”
“I’ve enjoyed the newscasts you’ve done from Selene.”
Douglas Stavenger asked, “How do you like the restaurant, Mrs. Halleck?”
“Please call me Anita.”
“Fine. And I’m Doug.” Pointing to his wife, Stavenger added, “But she’d prefer Edith. Edie is just for the news nets.”
“Very well, then,” said Anita. “Edith.”
“So what do you think of this place?” he asked again, full of youthful eagerness.
“It’s spectacular! I didn’t expect anything so … so … opulent.”
“It’s our one luxury here in Selene,” Stavenger said, grinning. Then he added, “Well, this and the swimming pool up in the Main Plaza.”
“I can see why people want to come up here after they’ve retired,” Halleck said.
“Too many of them,” Stavenger said, sobering. “More than we can handle.”
Edith said, “We’re building new living spaces for them, but there’s still lots more applying for residency than we can make room for.”
“They’re running away from the disasters back Earthside,” Stavenger muttered.
A human waiter took their orders, and their food and drinks were delivered by one of the little flat-topped robots that trundled nimbly among the tables.
“I understand you’ve been talking with Dr. Cardenas,” Stavenger prompted, between bites of his catfish filets.
“Yes,” said Halleck. “We’re going to see if her nanomachines can build the mirror segments we need.”
“For the big telescopes you’re gonna hang out in space,” Edith said.
Interferometer, Halleck corrected silently as she nodded at Mrs. Stavenger. But then she thought, Well, they actually are telescopes, aren’t they? We’ll simply be using them differently.
“Kris’s bugs will build your mirror,” said Stavenger. “She’s a wonder with nanotechnology.”
Halleck heard herself ask, “Doesn’t it worry you? Just a bit?”
“Worry? About nanomachines?”
“Yes. You’re a completely enclosed community here. If some of those nanobugs got loose, they could destroy everything, couldn’t they? Wipe you out. Kill everyone.”
Stavenger glanced at his wife before answering. Then, in very measured tones, he replied, “That is a possibility, of course. That’s why we’re very careful with nanomachines. We have very strict safeguards in place. The only time we’ve had any problems was when someone deliberately tried to kill people with nanomachines.”
“Your father was murdered by them, wasn’t he?” Halleck asked.
“My father was murdered by a madman who used nanomachines as the murder weapon, yes,” Stavenger said tightly.
Edith chimed in. “You might’s well say that guns kill people on Earth.”
“Well, they do, don’t they?”
“Only if some killer uses them to commit murder.”
Halleck pointed out, “That’s why so many nations on Earth have banned gun ownership.”
“You think nanotech should be banned here in Selene, the way it is on Earth?” Stavenger challenged.
Halleck sidestepped with, “If it were, I wouldn’t be able to get my mirrors built by nanomachines.”
Hunching over the table toward her, Stavenger said earnestly, “We need nanotechnology here. Nanomachines pull the oxygen we breathe out of the regolith. They manufacture water for us—”
“But you were refining oxygen from the regolith and manufacturing water before you started using nanotechnology, weren’t you?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “But it was much more expensive and limited. We could never have expanded Selene to the size it is today without nanotechnology.”
“Yes, I see.”
“Nanotechnology saves lives, too, you know,” Stavenger went on. “Nanomachines have saved my life. More than once.”
“I see,” Halleck repeated. So it’s true, she thought; his body’s filled with nanomachines, too.
Edith made a bright smile and said, “We’ve made a deal with the little bugs, Anita. They help us and we keep ’em under control.”
“It’s worked very well for us,” Stavenger added.
Trying to make her voice light, pleasant, Halleck said, “I understand. You’ve done very well with nanotechnology.”
And she thought that nanotechnology was going to be very useful to her, as well.