by Neil Clarke
“Clearly not,” George said. “If it were impossible it wouldn’t be happening. The more accurate word is inexplicable.”
“What the hell is—”
“Come on, goofball.” This from Carrie Aldrin No Relation. “You’re acting like you never saw a house before.”
Sometimes, knowing when to keep your mouth shut is the most eloquent expression of wisdom. I shut up.
It took about a million and a half years—or five minutes if you go by merely chronological time—for the tractor to descend the shallow slope and bring us to a stop some twenty meters from the front gate. By then an old man had joined the old woman at the fence. He was a lean old codger with bright blue eyes, a nose like a hawk, a smile that suggested he’d just heard a whopper of a joke, and the kind of forehead some very old men have—the kind that by all rights ought to have been glistening with sweat, like most bald heads, but instead seemed perpetually dry, in a way that suggested a sophisticated system for the redistribution of excess moisture. He had the leathery look of old men who had spent much of their lives working in the Sun. He wore neatly-pressed tan pants, sandals, and a white button-down shirt open at the collar, all of which was slightly loose on him—not enough to make him look comical or pathetic, but enough to suggest that he’d been a somewhat bigger man before age had diminished him, and was still used to buying the larger sizes. (That is, I thought, if there was any possibility of him finding a good place to shop around here.)
His wife, if that’s who she was, was half a head shorter and slightly stouter; she had blue eyes and a bright smile, like him, but a soft and rounded face that provided a pleasant complement to his lean and angular one. She was a just overweight enough to provide her with the homey accoutrements of chubby cheeks and double chin; unlike her weathered, bone-dry husband, she was smooth-skinned and shiny-faced and very much a creature the Sun had left untouched (though she evidently spent time there; at least, she wore gardener’s gloves, and carried a spade).
They were, in short, vaguely reminiscent of the old folks standing before the farmhouse in that famous old painting “American Gothic.” You know the one I mean—the constipated old guy with the pitchfork next to the wife who seems mortified by his very presence? These two were those two after they cheered up enough to be worth meeting.
Except, of course, that this couldn’t possibly be happening.
My colleagues unstrapped themselves, lowered the stairway, and disembarked. The tractor driver, whoever he was, emerged from its cab and joined them. George stayed with me, watching my every move, as I proved capable of climbing down a set of three steps without demonstrating my total incapacitation from shock. When my boots crunched lunar gravel—a texture I could feel right through the treads of my boots, and which served at that moment to reconnect me to ordinary physical reality—Carrie, Oscar, and Nikki patted me on the back, a gesture that felt like half-congratulation and, half-commiseration. The driver came by, too; I saw from the markings on his suit that he was Pete Rawlik, who was assigned to some kind of classified biochemical research in one of our outlabs; he had always been too busy to mix much, and I’d met him maybe twice by that point, but he still clapped my shoulder like an old friend. As for George, he made a wait gesture and went back up the steps.
In the thirty seconds we stood there waiting for him, I looked up at the picket fence, just to confirm that the impossible old couple was still there, and I saw that the golden retriever, which had joined its masters at the gate, was barking silently. That was good. If the sound had carried in vacuum, I might have been worried. That would have been just plain crazy.
Then George came back, carrying an airtight metal cylinder just about big enough to hold a soccer ball. I hadn’t seen any vacuum boxes of that particular shape and size before, but any confusion I might have felt about that was just about the last thing I needed to worry about. He addressed the others: “How’s he doing?”
A babble of noncommital OKs dueled for broadcast supremacy. Then the voices resolved into individuals.
Nikki Hollander said: “Well, at least he’s not babbling anymore.”
Oscar Desalvo snorted: “I attribute that to brain-lock.”
“You weren’t any better,” said Carrie Aldrin No Relation. “Worse. If I recall correctly, you made a mess in your suit.”
“I’m not claiming any position of false superiority, hon. Just giving my considered diagnosis.”
“Whatever,” said Pete Rawlik. “Let’s just cross the fenceline, already. I have an itch.”
“In a second,” George said. His mirrored faceplate turned toward mine, aping eye-contact. “Max? You getting this?”
“Barely,” I managed.
“Outstanding. You’re doing fine. But I need you with me a hundred percent while I cover our most important ground rule. Namely—everything inside that picket fence is a temperature-climate, sea-level, terrestrial environment. You don’t have to worry about air filtration, temperature levels, or anything else. It’s totally safe to suit down, as long as you’re inside the perimeter—and in a few minutes, we will all be doing just that. But once you’re inside that enclosure, the picket fence itself marks the beginning of lunar vacuum, lunar temperatures, and everything that implies. You do not, repeat not, do anything to test the differential. Even sticking a finger out between the slats is enough to get you bounced from the program, with no possibility of reprieve. Is that clear?”
“Yes, but—”
“Rule Two,” he said, handing me the sealed metal box. “You’re the new guy. You carry the pie.”
I regarded the cylinder. Pie?
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did.
The instant we passed through the front gate, the dead world this should have been surrendered to a living one. Sound returned between one step and the next. The welcoming cries of the two old people—and the barking of their friendly golden retriever dog—may have been muffled by my helmet, but they were still identifiable enough to present touches of personality. The old man’s voice was gruff in a manner that implied a past flavored by whiskey and cigars, but there was also a sing-song quality to it, that instantly manifested itself as a tendency to end his sentences at higher registers. The old woman’s voice was soft and breathy, with only the vaguest suggestion of an oldage quaver and a compensatory tinge of the purest Georgia Peach. The dog’s barks were like little frenzied explosions, that might have been threatening if they hadn’t all trailed off into quizzical whines. It was a symphony of various sounds that could be made for hello: laughs, cries, yips, and delighted shouts of George! Oscar! Nikki! Carrie! Pete! So glad you could make it! How are you?
It was enough to return me to statue mode. I didn’t even move when the others disengaged their helmet locks, doffed their headgear, and began oohing and aahing themselves. I just spent the next couple of minutes watching, physically in their midst but mentally somewhere very far away, as the parade of impossibilities passed on by. I noted that Carrie Aldrin No Relation, who usually wore her long red hair beneath the tightest of protective nets, was today styled in pigtails with big pink bows; that Oscar, who was habitually scraggly-haired and two days into a beard, was today perfectly kempt and freshly shaven; that George giggled like a five-year-old when the dog stood up on its hind legs to slobber all over his face; and that Pete engaged with a little mock wrestling match with the old man that almost left him toppling backward onto the grass. I saw the women whisper to each other, then bound up the porch steps into the house, so excitedly that they reminded me of schoolgirls skipping off to the playground—a gait that should have been impossible to simulate in a bulky moonsuit, but which they pulled off with perfect flair. I saw Pete and Oscar follow along behind them, laughing at a shared joke.
I was totally ignored until the dog stood up on its hind legs to sniff at, then snort nasal condensation on, my faceplate. His ears went back. He whined, then scratched at his reflection, then looked over his shoulder at the rest of his p
ack, long pink tongue lolling plaintively. Look, guys. There’s somebody in this thing.
I didn’t know I was going to take the leap of faith until I actually placed the cake cylinder on the ground, then reached up and undid my helmet locks. The hiss of escaping air made my blood freeze in my chest; for a second I was absolutely certain that all of this was a hallucination brought on by oxygen deprivation, and that I’d just committed suicide by opening my suit to vacuum. But the hiss subsided, and I realized that it was just pressure equalization; the atmosphere in this environment must have been slightly less than that provided by the suit. A second later, as I removed my helmet, I tasted golden retriever breath as the dog leaned in close and said hello by licking me on the lips. I also smelled freshly mowed grass and the perfume of nearby flowers: I heard a bird not too far away go whoot-toot-toot-weet; and I felt direct sunlight on my face, even though the Sun itself was nowhere to be seen. The air itself was pleasantly warm, like summer before it gets obnoxious with heat and humidity.
“Miles!” the old man said. “Get down!”
The dog gave me one last lick for the road and sat down, gazing up at me with that species of tongue-lolling amusement known only to large canines.
The old woman clutched the elbow of George’s suit. “Oh, you didn’t tell me you were bringing somebody new this time! How wonderful!”
“What is this place?” I managed.
The old man raised his eyebrows. “It’s our front yard, son. What does it look like?”
The old woman slapped his hand lightly. “Be nice, dear. You can see he’s taking it hard.”
He grunted. “Always did beat me how you can tell what a guy’s thinking and feeling just by looking at him.”
She patted his arm again. “It’s not all that unusual, apricot. I’m a woman.”
George ambled on over, pulling the two oldsters along. “All right, I’ll get it started. Max Fischer, I want you to meet two of the best people on this world or any other—Minnie and Earl. Minnie and Earl, I want you to meet a guy who’s not quite as hopeless as he probably seems on first impression—Max Fischer. You’ll like him.”
“I like him already,” Minnie said. “I’ve yet to dislike anybody the dog took such an immediate shine to. Hi, Max.”
“Hello,” I said. After a moment: “Minnie. Earl.”
“Wonderful to meet you, young man. Your friends have said so much about you.”
“Thanks.” Shock lent honesty to my response: “They’ve said absolutely nothing about you.”
“They never do,” she said, with infinite sadness, as George smirked at me over her back. She glanced down at the metal cylinder at my feet, and cooed: “Is that cake?”
Suddenly, absurdly, the first rule of family visits popped unbidden into my head, blaring its commandment in flaming letters twenty miles high:
THOU SHALT NOT PUT THE CAKE YOU BROUGHT ON THE GROUND—ESPECIALLY NOT WHEN A DOG IS PRESENT. Never mind that the container was sealed against vacuum, and that the dog would have needed twenty minutes to get in with an industrial drill: the lessons of everyday American socialization still applied. I picked it up and handed it to her; she took it with her bare hands, reacting not at all to what hindsight later informed me should have been a painfully cold exterior. I said: “Sorry.”
“It’s pie,” said George. “Deep-dish apple pie. Direct from my grandma’s orchard.”
“Oh, that’s sweet of her. She still having those back problems?”
“She’s getting on in years,” George allowed. “But she says that soup of yours really helped.”
“I’m glad,” she said, her smile as sunny as the entire month ofJuly. “Meanwhile, why don’t you take your friend upstairs and get him out of that horrid suit? I’m sure he’ll feel a lot better once he’s had a chance to freshen up. Earl can have a drink set for him by the time you come down.”
“I’ll fix a Sea of Tranquility,” Earl said, with enthusiasm.
“Maybe once he has his feet under him. A beer should be fine for now.”
“All rightee,” said Earl, with the kind of wink that established he knew quite well I was going to need something a lot more substantial than beer.
As for Minnie, she seized my hand, and said: “It’ll be all right, apricot. Once you get past this stage, I’m sure we’re all going to be great friends.”
“Um,” I replied, with perfect eloquence, wondering just what stage I was being expected to pass.
Sanity?
Dying inside, I did what seemed to be appropriate. I followed George through the front door (first stamping my moonboots on the mat, as he specified) and up the narrow, creaky wooden staircase.
You ever go to parties where the guests leave their coats in a heap on the bed of the master bedroom? Minnie and Earl’s was like that. Except it wasn’t a pile of coats, but a pile of disassembled moonsuits. There were actually two bedrooms upstairs—the women changed in the master bedroom that evidently belonged to the oldsters themselves, the men in a smaller room that felt like it belonged to a teenage boy. The wallpaper was a pattern of galloping horses, and the bookcases were filled with mint-edition paperback thrillers that must have been a hundred years old even then. (Or more: there was a complete collection of the hardcover Hardy Boys Mysteries, by Franklin W. Dixon.) The desk was a genuine antique rolltop, with a green blotter; no computer or hytex. The bed was just big enough to hold one gangly teenager, or three moonsuits disassembled into their component parts, with a special towel provided so our boots wouldn’t get moon-dust all over the bedspread. By the time George and I got up there, Oscar and Pete had already changed into slacks, dress shoes with black socks, and button-down shirts with red bowties; Pete had even put some shiny gunk in his hair to slick it back. They winked at me as they left.
I didn’t change, not immediately; nor did I speak, not even as George doffed his own moonsuit and jumpers in favor of a similarly earthbound outfit he blithely salvaged from the closet. The conviction that I was being tested, somehow, was so overwhelming that the interior of my suit must have been a puddle of flop sweat.
Then George said: “You going to be comfortable, dressed like that all night?”
I stirred. “Clothes?”
He pulled an outfit my size from the closet—tan pants, a blue shortsleeved button-down shirt, gleaming black shoes, and a red bowtie identical to the ones Oscar and Pete had donned. “No problem borrowing. Minnie keeps an ample supply. You don’t like the selection, you want to pick something more your style, you can always have something snazzier sent up on the next supply drop. I promise you, she’ll appreciate the extra effort. It makes her day when—”
“George,” I said softly.
“Have trouble with bowties? No problem. They’re optional. You can—”
“George,” I said again, and this time my voice was a little louder, a little deeper, a little more For Christ’s Sake Shut Up I’m Sick Of This Shit.
He batted his eyes, all innocence and naivete. “Yes, Max?”
My look, by contrast, must have been half-murderous. “Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
It was very hard not to yell. “You know what!”
He fingered an old issue of some garishly-colored turn-of-the-millennium science fiction magazine. “Oh. That mixed drink Earl mentioned. The Sea of Tranquility. It’s his own invention, and he calls it that because your first sip is one small step for Man, and your second is one giant leap for Mankind. There’s peppermint in it. Give it a try and I promise you you’ll be on his good side for life. He—”
I squeezed the words through clenched teeth. “I. Don’t. Care. About. The. Bloody. Drink.”
“Then I’m afraid I don’t see your problem.”
“My problem,” I said, slowly, and with carefully repressed frustration, “is that all of this is downright impossible.”
“Apparently not,” he noted.
“I want to know who these people are, and what they’re doing here.”
He remained supernaturally calm. “No cursing in this house, Max. Minnie doesn’t like it. She won’t throw you out for doing it—she’s too nice for that—but it does make her uncomfortable.”
This is the point where I absolutely know I stamped my foot. “That makes her uncomfortable!?”
He put down the skiffy magazine. “Really. I don’t see why you’re having such a problem with this. They’re just this great old couple who happen to live in a little country house on the Moon, and their favorite thing is getting together with friends, and we’re here to have Sunday night dinner with them. Easy to understand . . . especially if you accept that it’s all there is.”
“That can’t be all there is!” I cried, my exasperation reaching critical mass. “Why not? Can’t ‘Just Because’ qualify as a proper scientific theory?”
“No! It doesn’t!—How come you never told me about this place before?”
“You never asked before.” He adjusted his tie, glanced at the outfit laid out for me on the bed, and went to the door. “Don’t worry; it didn’t for me, either. Something close to an explanation is forthcoming. Just get dressed and come downstairs already. We don’t want the folks to think you’re antisocial . . .”
I’d been exasperated, way back then, because Minnie and Earl were there and had no right to be. I was exasperated now because the more I looked the more impossible it became to find any indication that they’d ever been there at all.
I had started looking for them, if only in a desultory, abstracted way, shortly after Claire died. She’d been the only person on Earth who had ever believed my stories about them. Even now, I think it’s a small miracle that she did. I had told her the story of Minnie and Earl before we even became man and wife—sometime after I knew I was going to propose, but before I found the right time and place for the question. I was just back from a couple of years of Outer-System work, had grown weary of the life, and had met this spectacularly kind and funny and beautiful person whose interests were all on Earth, and who had no real desire to go out into space herself. That was just fine with me. It was what I wanted too. And of course I rarely talked to her about my years in space, because I didn’t want to become an old bore with a suitcase full of old stories. Even so, I still knew, at the beginning, that knowing about a real-life miracle and not mentioning it to her, ever, just because she was not likely to believe me, was tantamount to cheating. So I sat her down one day, even before the proposal, and told her about Minnie and Earl. And she believed me. She didn’t humor me. She didn’t just say she believed me. She didn’t just believe me to be nice. She believed me. She said she always knew when I was shoveling manure and when I was not—a boast that turned out to be an integral strength of our marriage—and that it was impossible for her to hear me tell the story without knowing that Minnie and Earl were real. She said that if we had children I would have to tell the story to them, too, to pass it on.