The hologram went mute. Chris canted his head sideways, pretended to pout.
There was a perceptible lag, and then Scotty answered. “Craziness, but winding down. We lost a couple to the first days of zero gee. They’re on drugs. I’ve been demonstrating the exercise routines. I’ve figured out that funny yoga that keeps your core muscles hard, but my client is having trouble with that. He can’t learn the lunar shuffle until we’re actually on the Moon.”
Alex Griffin laughed knowingly. Kendra missed that warm laughter. Her own father had been austere and demanding, descended from a line of Tongan war chiefs. “You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.”
“Not exactly danger…” Scotty drifted for a moment, and then focused on them again. “Listen, this is going to be great. We’ll all be together for the first time in what… seven years?”
“You’re sure your client is good with that?” Alex asked.
Scotty said, “I’ll see him through the game. Afterward, Foley Mason’s meeting us. He’ll escort my client back to Earth.”
“He’s a good man,” Alex said. “Did I ever tell you about the time in Cairo…?”
“This is expensive, Alex,” Millicent chided gently. “Old war stories later, please.”
“We can listen to all of them again when I see you,” Scotty said. “I can find plenty to do aboard ship to keep me busy for two weeks until you two can get up…”
“And then it’s party time,” Kendra said.
Once upon a time, there had been plans to get Scotty’s folks to the Moon. One big happy family, with the low gee offering another decade of life. But things kept getting in the way, and now there seemed little hope. “How are things there, Mom?” Her voice might have been just a little too careful.
“Fine, dear,” Millicent said. “Just some more tests, and I’ll be through the first round of chemo. There’s a new… I’m not sure, some kind of nanotech, exploiting genetic instability in the cancer cells.” Despite her optimistic tone Millicent’s voice stumbled, just a bit, on the word “cancer.”
Alex finally interrupted the uneasy silence that followed. “The doctor’s not worried, so I’m not going to be. We’ll be there.”
“All right,” Kendra said, then squinted through the window. “I’m coming up on the dock. Good talking to you- can we try again in a couple of days?”
Millicent squinted at her. “Everything all right, darling?”
Kendra sighed. “I just… miss you all.” She forced herself to smile, and focused on her adopted parents. “Mom, Dad-let me have a minute with Scotty, would you?”
“Sure, hon,” Millicent said.
Alex nodded. “We’ll talk next week.”
The two older folks winked off. Scotty alone remained.
“So… how are you, really?” she asked. “Are you ready for this?”
“I’m heading up,” he said. “I wouldn’t if I had any doubts.”
“Nightmares?”
“Got them under control. How about you, hon?”
That question caught her off guard. “What?”
“How are the nightmares?”
She felt as if he’d knocked the air out of her chest. “That’s not fair, Scotty.”
“Why not? You’ve certainly spent enough time worried about my welfare.”
“You ran away, Scotty.” Almost before the words crossed her lips, she regretted them.
Scotty laughed without humor. “I wasn’t going to be much good to anyone up there, least of all you. I didn’t need to be a quarter-million miles from Earth to work a desk job.”
After the accident, that would have been about all he was qualified for, too. No more surface travel. No vast, razor-like moonscapes and pinpoint stars for Scotty. Life here was hard enough without stress-induced phobias. All the headshrinks agreed that he should go home. Even if it cost a damned fine marriage.
“Are people still talking? If so, I’m sorry.” A pause. “I miss you. And that’s the truth.”
“Me, too. There really hasn’t been anyone much…” She trailed off. Dammit, she didn’t have to explain herself. Lunar relationships were a lot like the ones that formed in Antarctic stations: intense and temporary. Human beings did the best they could. But even given the circumstances, Kendra had always thought they had something special. Something that might have endured, even if they’d had to go to Earth to nurture it.
She felt her eyes mist, and wanted off the line before she wiped them in front of him. “I don’t have time for this right now. Let’s back off before we start fighting.”
He nodded. “I’ll be up there soon. We’ll get it all worked out. Promise.”
She sighed, and managed to smile. “We’d better. I can still kick your butt in thumb-wrestling.”
“Only if you cheat.”
They shared a time-delayed laugh, and the mood genuinely lightened. A good point to end things, while they were still smiling. “Bye, Earthman.”
“Bye, Moonmaid.”
The line winked off.
10
November 5, 2085
The lander arrived precisely on time: a spiderlegged caterpillar settling in a fountain of dust on a wide red double-spiral target pad. The shuttlecar rolled up against its side. Automated flanges locked into place. The doors opened in sequence, three sets, sealing behind the passengers as they boarded a car that looked like a silver sausage. The car ran them to the base airlock and another triple airlock.
At first Kendra saw only two exceptionally statuesque women striding down the ramp, one Asian with straight black shoulder-length hair, the other European with brilliant red hair of similar length and texture. Both were conspicuously muscular with fashionable fat padding. Then they stepped apart, revealing a tiny man-no more than five foot two-walking just behind them as if they were a royal guard.
Even in rumpled travel clothes, Xavier radiated theatricality. Somehow he transformed his typical newbie’s lunar clumsiness into performance art, bouncing and then awkwardly catching his balance with every other step. His escorts were better at it.
Still, she could tell that he struggled to remain unimpressed by his surroundings.
“Mr. Xavier?” Kendra asked.
“Just Xavier, please.” He was beautiful for a man, shaven-headed, with blond eyebrows capping a delicate face. His eyes were a brilliant blue, intense and intelligent. He was small-boned, barely rising to her shoulder, but already flirting with her. “My assistants are Wu Lin and Magique. Magique does not speak.”
“Welcome to Heinlein base,” Kendra said.
Xavier’s angelic little face split in a smile. “I have to admit I thought I’d been everywhere and seen everything. These last weeks have opened my eyes.”
Kendra and her holographic assistant exchanged an expression of surprise.
Kendra said, “We have a pretty tight schedule today, but we want to get you to the game center, and then to your rooms.”
He nodded. “That would be fine.”
They waited for the luggage pods to be loaded onto their vehicle, and then boarded a tube-car for the gaming center.
“I understand that we’ll have privacy?”
“Yes. Much nicer than the dormitories,” Kendra said. “Your own private crater.”
His answering smile was pornographic. “Perhaps you’d care to show it to me.”
“One crater’s pretty much like another,” she kept her voice light and pleasant. “Not luxurious, but hopefully adequate.”
