"You're the second person to ask me that since my coming to the Moon. Yes, I did. Not intimately. I've known others who've met him. Oddly enough, their opinion usually coincided with mine. For a person who is apparently idolized by the planet, Hallam inspired little personal liking on the part of those who knew him."
"Little? None at all, I think," said the Earthman.
Gottstein ignored the interruption. "It was my job, at the time-or at least, my assignment from the senator-to investigate the Electron Pump and see if its establishment and growth were accompanied by undue waste and personal profit-taking. It was a legitimate concern for what was essentially a watch-dog committee, but the senator was, between us, hoping to find something of damage to Hallam. He was anxious to decrease the strangle-hold that man was gaining on the scientific establishment. There, he failed."
"That much would be obvious. Hallam is stronger than ever right now."
"There was no graft to speak of; certainly none that could be traced to Hallam. The man is rigidly honest"
"In that sense, I am sure. Power has its own market value not necessarily measured in credit-bills."
"But what interested me at the time, though it was something I could not then follow up, was that I did come across someone whose complaint was not against Hallam's power, but against the Electron Pump itself. I was present at the interview, but I did not conduct it You were the complainant, were you not?"
The Earthman said, cautiously, "I remember the incident to which you refer, but I still don't remember you."
"I wondered then how anyone could possibly object to the Electron Pump on scientific grounds. You impressed me sufficiently so that when I saw you on the ship, something stirred; and then, eventually, it came back. I have not referred to the passenger list but let me check my memory. Aren't you Dr. Benjamin Andrew Denison?"
The Earthman sighed. "Benjamin Allan Denison. Yes. But why does this come up now? The truth is, Commissioner, I don't want to drag up matters of the past. I'm here on the Moon and rather anxious to start again; from the start, if necessary. Damn it, I considered changing my name."
"That wouldn't have helped. It was your face I recognized. I have no objection to your new life, Dr. Denison. I would not in any way interfere. But I would like to pry a little for reasons that do not directly involve you. I don't remember, quite, your objection to the Electron Pump. Could you tell me?"
Denison's head bent. The silence lengthened itself and the Commissioner-Appointee did not interrupt He even stifled a small clearing of the throat.
Denison said, "Truly, it was nothing. It was a guess I made; a fear about the alteration in the intensity of the strong nuclear field. Nothing!"
"Nothing?" Gottstein did clear his throat now. "Please don't mind if I strive to understand this. I told you that you interested me at the time. I was unable to follow it up then and I doubt that I could dig the information out of the records now. The whole thing is classified-the senator did very poorly at the time and he isn't interested in publicity over it. Still, some details come back. You were once a colleague of Hallam's; you were not a physicist."
"That's right. I was a radiochemist. So was he."
"Stop me if I remember incorrectly, but your early record was a very good one, right?"
"There were objective criteria in my favor. I had no illusions about myself. I was a brilliant worker."
"Amazing how it comes back. Hallam, on the other hand, was not."
"Not particularly."
"And yet afterward things did not go well with you. In fact, when we interviewed you-I think you volunteered to see us-you were working for a toy manufacturer-"
"Cosmetics," said Denison, in a strangled voice. "Male cosmetics. That didn't help gain me a respectful hearing."
"No, it wouldn't. I'm sorry. You were a salesman."
"Sales manager. I was still brilliant, I rose to vice-president before breaking off and coming to the Moon."
"Did Hallam have something to do with that? I mean with you leaving science?"
"Commissioner," said Denison. "Please! It really doesn't matter any longer. I was there when Hallam first discovered the tungsten conversion and when the chain of events began that led to the Electron Pump. Exactly what would have happened if I had not been there, I can't say. Hallam and I might both have been dead of radiation poisoning a month later or of a nuclear explosion six weeks later. I don't know. But I was there and, partly because of me, Hallam is what he is now; and because of my part in it, I am what I am now. The hell with the details. Does that satisfy you? Because it will have to."
"I think it satisfies me. You had a personal grudge against Hallam, then?"
"I certainly had no affection for him, in those days. I have no affection for him now, for that matter."
"Would you say, then, that your objection to the Electron Pump was inspired by your anxiety to destroy Hallam."
