"Now Maggie is going to recondition it again. But her repairs will be honest and her work guaranteed and she'll sell it for what it is-worn out, rebuilt, not standard. Maybe it will fetch ten thousand, gross. After fair charges for parts and labor, if the net she splits with me is more than three thousand, I'll be flabbergasted-and it might be a net loss. A gamble."
I told a number of sincere lies and managed (I think) to convince Jinx that we were not lodge brothers and that I was not asking for discounts on anything and that I had come by that fez by accident, at the last minute-found it in the Volvo when I hired it.
(Unspoken assumption: Mr. Rasmussen had hired that wagon in Luna City, then had left his headpiece in it when he turned in the Volvo at Golden Rule.)
I added that the owner's name was in the fez and I intended to return it to him.
Jinx asked, "Do you have his address?"
I admitted that I did not-just the name of his temple, embroidered on the fez.
Jinx stuck out his hand. "Give it to me; I can save you the trouble... and the expense of mailing a package back Earth-side."
"How?"
"Happens I know somebody who's bouncing a jumpbug to Luna City on Saturday. The Nobles' convention adjourns on Sunday, right after they dedicate their Luna City Hospital for Crippled and Birth-Damaged Children. There'll be a lost-and-found at the convention center; there always is. Since his name is in it, they'll get it to him-before Saturday evening, because that's the night of the drill team competition... and they know that a drill team member-if he is one-without his fez is as undressed as a bar hostess without her G-string."
I passed the red hat over to him.
I thought that would be the end of it.
More hassle before we could get rolling for Lucky Dragon Pressure-no pressure suits. As Jinx put it: "Last night I okayed your using those leaky sieves because it was Hobson's Choice- it was risk it, or leave you to die. Today we could use them the same way-or we could even bring the buggy into the hangar and load you in without using suits. Of course that wastes an awful mass of air. Then do it again at the far end ... for an even greater air cost; their hangar is bigger."
I said I would pay. (I didn't see how I could avoid it.)
"That's not the point. Last night you were in the cab twenty minutes... and it took a full bottle to keep air around you. Late last night the Sun was just barely rising; this morning it's five degrees high. Raw sunlight is going to be beating against the side of that cab all the way to Lucky Dragon. Oh, Gretchen will drive in shadow all she can; we don't raise dumb kids. But any air inside the cabin would heat up and swell and come pouring out the cracks. So normal operation is to pressurize your suit but not the cabin, and use the cabin just for shade.
"Now I won't lie to you; if I had suits to sell, I would insist that you buy three new suits. But I don't have suits. Nobody in this pressure has suits for sale. Less than a hundred fifty of us; I would know. We buy suits in Kong and that's what you should do."
"But I'm not in Kong."
I had not owned a pressure suit for more than five years. Permanent habitants of Golden Rule mostly do not own pressure suits; they don't need them, they don't go outside. Of course there are plenty of staff and maintenance who keep pressure suits always ready the way Bostonians keep overshoes. But the usual habitant, elderly and wealthy, doesn't own one, doesn't need one, wouldn't know how to wear one.
Loonies are another breed. Even today, with Luna City over a million and some city dwellers who rarely if ever go outside, a Loonie owns his suit. Even that big-city Loonie knows from infancy that his safe, warm, well-lighted pressure can be broached-by a meteor, by a bomb, by a terrorist, by a quake or some other unpredictable hazard.
If he's a pioneering type like Jinx, he's as used to a suit as is an asteroid miner. Jinx didn't even work his own tunnel farm; the rest of his family did that. Jinx habitually worked outside, a pressure-suited, heavy-construction mechanic; "Happy Chance Salvage" was just one of his dozen-odd hats. He was also the "Dry Bones Ice Company," "Henderson's Overland Cartage Company," "John Henry Drilling, Welding, and Rigging Contractors"-or you name it and Jinx would invent a company to fit.
(There was also "Ingrid's Swap Shop" which sold everything from structural steel to homemade cookies. But not pressure suits.)
Jinx worked out a way to get us to Lucky Dragon: Ingrid and Gwen were much the same size except that Ingrid was temporarily distended around the equator. She had a pregnancy pressure suit with an external corset that could be let out. She also had a conventional suit she wore when not pregnant, one she could not get into now-but Gwen could.
Jinx and I were about of a height, and he had two suits, both first quality Goodrich Luna. I could see that he was about as willing to lend me one as a cabinetmaker is to lend tools. But he was under pressure to work something out, or he was going to have us as paying guests... and then as non-paying guests when our money ran out. And they didn't really have room for us even while I could still pay.
It was after ten the next morning before we suited up and climbed into the rolligon-me in Jinx's second best, Gwen in Ingrid's not-pregnant suit, and Bill in a restored antique that had belonged to the founder of Dry Bones Pressure, a Mr. Soupie McClanahan, who had come to Luna long, long ago, before the Revolution, as an involuntary guest of the government.
The plan was for each of us to get other temporary coverings at Lucky Dragon Pressure, wear them to HKL, and send them back via the public bus, while Gretchen took these suits back to her father after she let us off at Lucky Dragon. Then, tomorrow, we would be in Hong Kong Luna and able to buy pressure suits to fit our needs.
I spoke to Jinx about payment. I could almost hear the numbers clicking over in his skull. Finally he said, "Senator, I tell you what. Those suits that came in your heap-not worth much. But there's some salvage in the helmets and in some of the metal fittings. Send my three suits back to me in the shape in which you got 'em and we'll call it even. If you think it is."
I certainly thought it was. Those Michelin suits had been okay-twenty years ago. To me, today, they were worth nothing.
It left just one problem-Tree-San.
I had thought that I was going to have to be firm with my bride-an intention not always feasible. But I learned that, while Jinx and I had been working out what to do about pressure suits, Gwen had been working out what to do about Tree-San ... with Ace.
I have no reason to think Gwen seduced Ace. But I'm sure Eloise thought so. However, Loonies have had their own customs about sex since back in the days when men outnumbered women six to one-by Lunar customs all options in sexual matters are vested in women, none in men. Eloise did not seem angry, just amused-which made it none of my business.
As may be. Ace produced a silicone rubber balloon with a slit through which he inserted Tree-San, pot and all, then heat-sealed it-with an attachment for a one-liter air bottle. There was no charge, even for the bottle. I offered to pay, but Ace just grinned at Gwen and shook his head. So I don't know. I don't care to inquire.
Ingrid kissed us all good-bye, made us promise to come back. It seemed unlikely. But a good idea.
Gretchen asked questions the whole trip and never seemed to watch where she was driving. She was a dimpled, pigtailed blonde, a few centimeters taller than her mother but still padded with baby fat. She was much impressed by our travels. She herself had been to Hong Kong Luna twice and once all the way to Novylen where people talked funny. But next year, when she would be going on fourteen, she was going to go to Luna City and look over the studs there-and maybe bring home a husband. "Mama doesn't want me to have babies by anyone at Dry Bones, or even Lucky Dragon. She says it's a duty I owe my children to go out and fetch in some fresh genes. Do you know about that? Fresh genes, I mean."