Free The Diamond Moon by Paul Preuss

the least important member of Forster’s team, a former stu-dent of the professor’s who’d most probably been recruited primarily for his family’s wealth and connections—and perhaps secondarily for his strong back—but only incidentally for his knowledge of the language of Culture X, which he’d learned to read from Forster himself. Hawkins, naturally, believed that his linguistic ability and scholarly acumen were the reasons for the honor his former teacher had con-ferred upon him.
    He was a bright enough young man, but he was mightily opinionated and, as was often the case with such people, fundamentally shy. He didn’t so much talk as lecture; if he were wound up in his subject, he could even be rather charming at first. But he didn’t know when to stop talking—or how to stop, once he’d run out of things to say. Thus what social advantages he had often turned into liabilities. He was vulnerable.
Marianne Mitchell was also staying at the Interplanetary. In managing an effective introduction to a woman more than two decades younger than he was, it helped Mays to know that she was already among his fans. And that she had a thirst for knowledge.
    It was essential that he approach them together. Mays staked out the hotel bar, making no attempt to hide; as a consequence, for most of one day and a good part of the next he signed books and cocktail napkins, even stray bits of lingerie, until the current crop of autograph seekers was sated. His patience was rewarded: late on the second day of his watch, Hawkins and Marianne entered, sat down, and ordered cocktails. He gave them ten uninterrupted minutes. Then . . .
“You’re Dr. William Hawkins ,” he said, looming sud-denly out of the shadows, wasting no time on subtlety.
     
Hawkins looked up from what did not seem a happy conversation with Marianne. “Yes . . . oh! You’re . . .”
    “If one were to count the number of people who can even begin to read the infamous Martian script, one would need only one hand to do it. And there you would be,” Mays said, sounding immensely pleased with himself. “But sorry , my name’s Mays.”
“Of course, Sir Randolph”—Hawkins almost knocked his chair over, standing up—“won’t you sit down? This is my friend, Miss . . .”
     
“ Terribly rude,” Mays said. “You will forgive me.”
     
“. . . Mitchell.”
     
“Marianne,” Marianne said sweetly. “It’s an honor to meet you, Sir Randolph.”
     
“Why, really .”
     
“Really, yes. Bill and I have talked about you a great deal. I think your ideas are so fascinating.”
    Mays threw Hawkins a quick look; upon hearing this from the woman he’d been trying to impress by cataloguing Mays’s follies, Hawkins suddenly realized how incongruous were his own obsequious noises. Abruptly he straightened his chair and sat down.
    “How good of you to say so . . . Marianne?” A quick nod of her glossy brunette head confirmed that Mays had permission to use her first name. “If there is any secret to my success with the public, it is simply that I have managed to focus attention on some great thinkers of the past, too long neglected. Toynbee, for example. As of course you know.”
“Oh yes. Arnold Toynbee.” She nodded again, more vigorously. She’d definitely heard of Toynbee— mostly from Bill Hawkins.
     
“You’re suggesting, Sir Randolph,” Hawkins suggested for him, “that like Newton, if you have seen farther it is because you stand on the shoulders of giants?”
     
“Mmm . . . well . . .”
     
Hawkins was all heavy humor and undisguised resent-ment. “I’ve heard that Isaac Newton intended that remark to insult his rival, Robert Hooke—who was a dwarf.”
     
“In that case, apparently I am even less like Hooke than like Newton .”
     
Marianne laughed delightedly.
     
Hawkins flushed; she was not laughing with him. “I’ll find a waitress.” He jerked his hand up and looked about.
     
“Bill says you’re here to investigate