He recalled a conversation with Ella Tollen, an acquaintance of Lilo’s, at a party. “I’m not at all interested in a person’s inner life,” Ella had said in her flat monotone. “We’re all the same underneath, we have the same messy feelings and emotions. The surface is the only thing that varies and that’s really all I care about, it’s the only thing that’s at all original or creative.”
Well, he was satisfied, most of the time. If there were times he saw an unfamiliar expression on Lilo’s face, times when she looked frustrated or unhappy, times when he suspected that she was withholding something important from him…he could ignore that. It was their surfaces, their external images, that had brought them together.
Lilo opened her large blue eyes suddenly and stared vacantly at him until a look of comprehension passed over her face. She glanced up at the screen and gasped. “My God,” she said, looking at the lunar image. “Mike, look at that. I didn’t think…” She sank back into her seat and continued to gaze at the image.
Mike smiled tolerantly. Lilo’s education had been so sparse that she, upon landing at the space station, had been under the impression that it was the ship that would take them to the moon. He had explained to her that an object of that size would encounter difficulties in landing on any large body. God only knew what she was thinking now. He hoped she would find enough to do to keep her from getting bored.
“Are you feeling all right?” Kira said to the image of Hidey on the phone screen. She waited, and the image at last nodded.
“Well enough. I’ve been getting to bed early, I’ve been eating three meals a day, I do exercises every morning.” Hidey glanced at the ashtray next to his chair. He winced and she knew he was regretting that he had not moved it out of sight of the screen. “And I’ve cut down my smoking. Just a couple with my morning coffee and one after dinner.”
“But you promised you’d quit altogether,” she said, forgetting about the three-second delay and missing part of his next sentence.
“…Rina every afternoon, she had supper here last night.” He paused. “I am cutting down, Kira. Look, if I haven’t quit by the time you get back, I’ll go for conditioning, I promise. That ought to convince you. I don’t like having my will bent by a bunch of psycho-technicians, but I’ll do it for you.”
She had heard that before. Hidey had gone once already, after the coronary. The conditioning had lasted six months. “You could at least smoke the tobacco substitutes.” But she knew the answer to that too. They might taste the same, but they did not feel the same. He missed the nicotine.
For a person with his training and aptitudes, Hidey certainly seemed to have a streak of perversity. He had worked to extend life and health, yet he insisted on putting his own in jeopardy. Jim’s theory, explained to her during
his last visit, was that Hidey was unconsciously punishing himself for defying the inevitability of death. She preferred to believe that her husband had acquired a bad and not easily broken habit.
“Tell me how Rina is,” she went on.
“Fine,” he said three seconds later. “She’s growing fast, we went and bought some new overalls and shoes last week. She got into a fight with a little boy who kept picking on the younger children and I don’t think he’ll be doing it again. She wants to cross-breed some peas in the spring and I’ll help her on that. It all started when she asked me why she has black hair and brown eyes instead of green eyes and brown hair, like you.”
Kira smiled. “I miss her.”
“You should call her more often,” he said as she spoke.
“I’ve been busy, but that’s no excuse. I’ll call her tonight.”
“She really missed you this past Christmas, I guess you know. You won’t recognize her when you get back. Come to think of it, you won’t recognize the neighborhood. Most of the houses further up are finally gone. They’ll be farming the land in the spring. I figure we’ll probably have to move in two or three years.”
I should go home, she thought suddenly, in a panic. What am I doing up here, on a fool’s mission? She looked at Hidey’s hair, now almost completely gray, the lines around his eyes, the looseness of his skin. I could be down there, helping Hidey, making him well.
But that, after all, was part of the reason she was here.
She leaned forward. “I miss you, Hidey, more than I can stand sometimes, more than I miss Rina, I think.” She reached out with her hand to the screen.
Simone had only been back from Earth for a day. Al had tried his best to make her first day back a good one. He had taken her out on the surface for a walk, then treated her, along with his recently arrived brother Mike and his wife, Lilo, to a fairly expensive dinner at one of the hotels. He had not asked her where she had gone. He could guess; to see her son. Simone was trying to mend some of the bridges she had burnt behind her, in case she might need them again.
She had been quiet most of the day, even during dinner. She was courteous to Lilo and the two seemed to get along. Even Al had found himself liking the young woman in spite of himself. As soon as he and Simone had returned to their room, however, she had lapsed into silence. She sat now in one of the chairs, staring ahead of her, apparently unwilling to read, or call some friends, or do any of the things she usually did.
“What is it?” he said finally, not really expecting an answer.
“Can you not guess?”
“Why don’t you let me help you? I haven’t brought it up before, I figured you would. But I can’t just sit by and watch you like this. At least talk to me, let it out.” He drew his chair nearer to her and grasped her hand.
“You know what it is I must get used to, Al. Give me time. I shall adjust.”
“You think you won’t be going on one of the starships, but you may be wrong. I don’t think you should jump to conclusions before they issue the final list.”
“Al, you are being the fool. I do not have to wait until then. They were undecided about me, for what reason I do not know. They finally put me on the preliminary list, but do you honestly believe that anyone will be going about whom they have such doubts?”
“If they didn’t think you should go at all, they wouldn’t have bothered to put you on the preliminary list.”
“Perhaps they do not want someone who has left a child.”
“That’s ridiculous. June Eaglefeather is on the list and has a good chance, and she left three children. They do consider individual circumstances, you know.”
“June Eaglefeather is one of our best selenologists as well as being one of the few native Americans to apply.”
He released her hand. “Damn it, Simone, this is stupid. Everybody on the ships, when you come right down to it, will be leaving someone behind.” He stopped, realizing that this was probably the wrong thing to say.
“I do not want to discuss it. She looked away from him.
“Well, I do. I think there might be a chance, I don’t know, but I’m willing to try. I think maybe I can get you on the final list.”
He might be sticking his neck out, maybe even risking his own chance by saying this. Interceding for Simone might be taken as evidence that he did not trust the committee, or that his personal attachments were too strong to allow him to go on the journey. On the other hand, not trying to help someone he loved might work against him.
He had already received a note from a group of astrophysicists on the committee telling him that in all likelihood he would be on that final list. He had been elated, knowing that if the group of specialists had made such a recommendation, his chances with the whole committee were excellent. He had not hidden it from Simone, he could not have anyway. She would have noticed the difference in him. The worry had been lifted from him, his life’s work would not be cut off.
But he might have to leave the woman he loved. The reasonable decisions they had made earlier about such an eventuality faded in his mind. He wanted to help her but did not know what to do. He would have to leave it up to her, and do what she asked.
“No, I’m not. I can suggest that I need you with me. I’ll be careful.”
“They will only ignore you and make sure that you do not go. I will not have you risk your chance for me. I do not know if I would have risked mine for you.”
Al tried to ignore that painful admission. “You don’t understand,” he said. “I’ll say I need you as a partner in my work. It’s true. How often have we exchanged ideas, how often have you pointed out something to me that started me thinking differently?”
“No. I shall not have you intercede for me. If I am meant to go, I will go, but I think I am not meant to leave with you.” She gazed past him and he found it unusually difficult to read the expression in her dark eyes.
“You’ve been talking to Ahmed too much,” Al mumbled. Ahmed’s fatalism about almost anything sometimes went against all reason. The man was capable of exerting enormous energy in constructing a prototype of an improved lunar surface vehicle, for example, but when the time came to test it, Ahmed would mumble something about how the model was meant to fail or meant to succeed. It was a common enough attitude among the Arab scientists and technicians. It did not keep them from doing a fine job and it was comforting when they failed at a given task. Even those who were not Arabs fell into a fatalistic mood often enough, and it was a strangely contagious attitude among the members of the closely knit and cooperative lunar community. Even Al had succumbed to it at times.
Ahmed was on the preliminary list too. His fatalism did not prevent him from hoping. Now Simone, used to creating her own destiny, had succumbed to it. Al sighed. It was probably much simpler than that. Simone had never asked a favor in her life and found it easier than most to live with the consequences of her actions. She would not be obligated to anyone.
“There is nothing you can do,” Simone said in a flat voice.
What she meant, of course, was that there was nothing he should do.
Ed stopped at the end of the corridor and looked down at his son Isaac. The boy stared straight ahead at the heavy metal doors in front of them. The child wore his usual expression, one of somber curiosity. At times, Ed still felt almost intimidated by his seemingly rational son, at least until Isaac would, with a gesture or a few words, remind Ed that he was only a small child after all.
Al, on his way to a laboratory nearby, had accompanied them and so had Lilo, Mike’s wife. Al was being very quiet. He seemed lost in thought and murmured only perfunctory responses to Lilo’s attempts at conversation. He’s worried, Ed thought, something to do with Simone. Ed had sensed that without even asking what the problem was, knowing that Al would discuss his situation when he was ready to do so and not before.
Lilo, standing next to Al, seemed to shine. Her red hair glittered under the harsh lighting of the corridor and her silvery gray tunic contrasted with Al’s dull gray shirt and shorts.
Lilo had got along beautifully with Isaac from the time they first met. It was easy to understand why. She had listened apparently fascinated, to the boy’s recitation of what he had discovered on the moon, interrupting him only to ask questions. Isaac had quickly assumed the role of teacher and Lilo the role of a student. The young woman was obviously more at ease questioning the child rather than another adult, who might have found her lack of education appalling.
The words on the metal doors were in Russian. Ed put a hand on Isaac’s shoulder. “This is the morgue,” he explained. “When people die here, it’s easiest just to freeze them up here as soon after death as possible. Burial on the surface is more difficult, so people are brought here, or to other places like it, instead. Sometimes they’re sent back to Earth if their relatives want that and can afford it, but a lot of them prefer to stay here and say so in their wills. That’s because they’ve come to think the moon is their real home.”
“Why do they die?” Isaac asked.
“For the same reasons people on Earth do,” Ed replied. “They become sick, or an accident happens, or they’re very old. You can live longer up here, because lunar gravity is easier on your system and your environment is under more control, but sooner or later you die.”
“Do you have to be so morbid?” Lilo said.
“It’s a fact. It’s part of the life cycle, after all.”
“And something we could well do without,” Lilo muttered.
“Kira says people don’t have to die,” Isaac said.
“Maybe they won’t in the future, at least not as soon,” Ed responded. “Your aunt is working on ways to make people live longer. Look at your uncle Hidey. Fifty years ago, people would have thought of him as extremely old and he might not have been alive today. But he has years ahead of him, if he takes care of himself. By the time you’re his age, you might look no older than me.”
“He shouldn’t smoke,” Isaac said.
“Well,” Lilo said, moving closer to the boy, “he has a bad habit. Lots of people do. I notice you like to eat a lot of candy.”
“Sometimes,” the boy said.
“Even when you know it’s bad for your teeth. Someday you’ll have to have new ones put in at the rate you’re going, and that’s damned painful.”
“I know.”
“And don’t you sometimes eat too much and get sick?”
Isaac glared. “I guess,” he conceded.
“Make a trade with your uncle,” Lilo went on “If you stop eating candy, maybe he’ll stop his smoking.”
“Why did we come here?” Isaac asked Ed, apparently wanting to change the subject.
“Because your grandfather’s inside this room. When he died, some Russian friends brought him here. They put him into a cryonic cylinder.” His voice shook slightly at the last words. For a moment, Ed felt almost as he had when Paul had died. His stomach contracted slightly, then loosened. It had been a long time, more than twenty years.
“Why didn’t you bring him back to Earth?” Isaac said.
“I think he would have rather stayed here. He spent his whole life studying the stars, and we thought he would have wanted it this way.”
“Can we go inside?”
“Not today. I have to get permission for that. But I thought you should see where your grandfather is. He was a fine person.” Ed suddenly felt adrift and alone, wondering what his life would have been like if Paul had lived, remembering all the times he had wanted to talk with him and could not.
“I’ve been inside,” Al said to Isaac, breaking his monosyllabic near-silence at last. “You can’t see your grandfather, except for the outline of his head. He’s standing upright in the cylinder, but he’s covered except for his face.”
“Why’d you go inside?” the boy asked.
“I wanted to see him when I first came here to study, so I did. I saw him again about a month ago to tell him I might be going on the interstellar expedition. He would have wanted to go himself.”
“But he couldn’t hear you,” Isaac said scornfully. Ed winced.
“I know that,” Al said patiently. “But it made me feel a little better. You’ll understand someday.”
Ed glanced at Isaac, who was already growing restive. He could not really expect the boy to understand. It was only a doorway to him; and behind it rested a man the boy had never known, a distant relation as far as he was concerned. Isaac did not understand death. He had never known anyone who had died, not even a pet animal, and he probably could not see that the concept had anything to do with him. Ed could recall, dimly, his own feelings on the subject as a boy. People simply disappeared, as if they had gone on a journey, never to return. But that was before Paul had died, and Jon Aschenbach, years afterward, and Ed’s close friend Mel Gladstein in Boston, a victim of a fanatic’s attack on an underwater suburb of the large city. They had all disappeared.
Carole was gone, and he could only blame himself. That was what he believed when he was completely conscious, so consequently he tried to remain as unconscious as possible, most of the time.
Jim Swenson wandered along the beach adjacent to his hotel, watching his bare feet make impressions in the sand, heel first, toes curling. Behind him the reddish-brown ocean waters erased the prints already made. He ignored the signs of warning posted at intervals on the beach, careless of his own welfare. Several people were lying on towels on the sand, brown lizards exposing their bodies to the ultraviolet light. No one swam, or even chanced wading near the waterline on the wet surface under Jim’s feet. It was not safe to get too close to Florida’s waters. Jim did not care.
He chewed the pasty substance in his month and at last felt an almost painful clarity and energy flood his mind. No, he did not want that; he waited to blur his feelings, not sharpen them. They might be calling me now, they might have my ticket ready. He turned around. He was suddenly repelled by the sight of the small, worn old hotel two hundred feet down the beach. Not yet, he did not want to go back there just yet. He could always take a later flight anyway. He spat out the paste and watched it drift on the water. Then he began to walk toward a nude woman lying on the sand.
She lay with her eyes dosed. Her brown hair was sun-streaked and crushed under her head. As he came closer, he saw the uneven ends of her hair, probably dried out and broken from too much exposure to the sun. Her skin was dark brown; her muscular body gleamed with oil and sweat. He stood over her for a moment, then, as he started to walk away, she opened her eyes and looked at him.
“What’s your problem.”
“I thought you looked like somebody I knew,” Jim lied.
“Sure I do. I think you just want somebody to talk to. You look kind of sad. You can sit down if you want.” The woman motioned with her hand.
He sat down. At close range, the woman looked somewhat younger than he had thought, no more than twenty, or so. Her brown eyes glanced at him, then closed again.
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