Dhalgren

With his forefinger he hooked down his cap visor and walked off.

Kid was pondering statements to place into the silence, when Kamp apparently decided he'd try: 'I'm afraid I don't know much about poetry.'

Liked him, Kid felt. But for the life of him he didn't know why.

'I read some of Roger's copy, though. But if I started asking questions about it, now, I'd probably just end up looking worse than I already do.'

'Mmmm.' Kid nodded and pondered. 'You get tired of people asking you all those questions?'

'Yes. But it wasn't too bad this evening. At least we were talking about something real. I mean something that happened, today. It's better than all those discussions where they ask you whether, as an astronaut, you believe in long hair, abortions, race relations, or the pill.'

'You're a very public man, aren't you? You say you're not really into the space program any more. But you're doing public relations work for them right now.'

'Exactly what I'm doing. I don't claim to be doing anything else. Except enjoying myself. They're beginning to accept the idea of having a non-conformist doing front work for them.' Kamp glanced around. 'Though I suspect compared to most of you guys here, even some of the ducks up at Rogers, I'm more or less the image of the establishment, folk songs or not, hey? Well, that makes me Bellona's biggest nonconformist. I don't mind.'

'Questions like, did you leave, or were you kicked out — what do you do when people ask you the same questions over and over? Especially the embarrassing ones.'

'If you're a public man, as soon as you get a question more than three times, you figure out the most honest public answer you can give. Especially to the embarrassing ones.'

'Is that a question you get asked a lot?'

'Well,' Kamp mulled, 'more times than three.'

'Then I guess it would be okay to ask you questions about the moon.' Kid grinned.

Kamp nodded. 'Sounds like a pretty safe topic.'

'Can you tell me something about the moon you've never told anybody else before?'

After a second, Kamp laughed. 'Now that is a new one. I'm not sure I know what you mean.'

'You were there. I'd like to know something about the moon that someone could only know what was actually on it. I don't mean anything big. But just something.'

'The whole flight was broadcast. And we were pretty thorough in our report. We tried to take pictures of just about everything. Also, that's a few years ago; and we were only out walking around for six and a half hours.'

'Yeah, I know. I watched it.'

'Then I still don't get you.'

'Well: I could bring a couple of television cameras in here, say, and take a lot of pictures, and report on all the people, tell how many were here or what have you. But afterward, if somebody asked me to tell them something that wasn't in the coverage, I'd close my eyes and sort of picture the place. Then I might say, well, on the back of the counter with the bottles, the bottle second from the left — I don't remember what the label was — but the little cone of glass at the bottom was just above the top of the liquor.' Kid opened his eyes. 'See?'

Kamp ran his knuckles under his chin. 'I'm not used to thinking like that. But it's interesting.'

'Try. Just mention some rock, or collection of rocks, or shape on the horizon that you didn't mention to anyone else.'

'We took photographs of all three hundred and sixty degrees of the horizon—'

'Then something else.'

'It would be easier to tell you something like that about the module. I remember…' Then he cocked his head.

'I guess that would do,' Kid said. 'But I'd prefer it was about the moon.'

'Hey, here's something.' Kamp leaned forward. 'When I got down the ladder — do you remember the foil- covered footpaths that the modules rested on? You say you watched it.'

Kid nodded.

'Well, now, when I was getting some of the equipment out of the auxiliary compartments — I'd been actually on surface maybe a minute, maybe not quite: A lot of people, back before the probe shots, had the idea the moon was covered with dust. But it was purplish brown dirt and rock and gravel. The feet didn't sink at all.'

Kid thought: Translation.

Kid thought: Transition.

'The module's feet were on universal joints, you know? Anyway. The one to the left of the entrance was tilted on a small rock, maybe two inches through. The shadows were pretty sharp. I guess when I was passing by it, my shadow passed over the module foot. And the shadow from the pad, made by the rock it was sitting on, and my shadow, joining it, for just a second made it look like something moved under there. You know? I was excited, see, because I was on the moon. And it just isn't like anything in the training sessions at all. But I do remember for maybe three seconds, while I was going on doing all the things I had to do, thinking, 'There's a moon-mouse, or a moon-beetle under there.' And feeling silly that I couldn't say anything — I was broadcasting all the time, describing what I saw — because there couldn't be anything alive on the moon, right? Like I said, it just took me a couple of seconds to figure out what it really was. But for a moment it was pretty funny. Now there. That's something I never told anybody… no, I think I did mention it once to Neil, when I got back. But I don't think he was listening. And I told it just like a joke.'

Formation. Kid thought: Transformation.

'Is that the sort of thing you mean?'

Kid had expected Kamp to be smiling at the end of his story. But each feature rested just within the limit of sobriety.

'Yes. What are you thinking now?'

'I'm wondering why I told you. But I guess Bellona is the kind of place you come to do something new, right? See new things. Do new things.'

'What do people say about this place, outside? Do people who come back from here tell you all about life under the fog? Who did you talk to that made you want to come?'

'I don't think I've ever met anyone who's actually gone and come back from here — except Ernest Newboy, that morning. We just shook hands in passing and didn't get a chance to talk. I've met some people who were evacuated back at the beginning. Once they stopped trying to cover it on TV, people stopped talking, I guess-people don't talk about it now.'

Kid let his head lean.

'They refer to it,' Kamp said. 'You can be sitting around somebody's living room, in Los Angeles or Salt Lake, talking about this, that, or the other, and somebody might mention somebody he used to know here. A friend of mine in physics, driving down from the University of Montana, said he gave two girl hitch-hikers a lift who told him they were going here. He thought that was very strange, because, the last the paper reported, there was supposed to be some national guards around.'

'That's what I heard too,' Kid said. 'But that was a while before I came. I haven't seen any.'

'How long have you been here?'

'I don't know. It feels like a pretty fair time. But I really couldn't tell you.' Kid shrugged. 'I wish I did know more than that… sometimes.'

Kamp was trying not to frown. 'Roger said you would be an interesting person. You are.'

'I've never met him.'

'So he told me.'

'I guess you don't know how long you're going to stay either?'

'Well now, I haven't really made up my mind. When I came here, I wasn't thinking of the trip exactly as a vacation. But I've been here a few days, and I'll tell you, especially with the business this afternoon, I don't quite know what to make of it.'

'You're interesting too,' Kid said after a moment. 'But I don't know whether it's because you've been to the moon; or just because you're interesting. I like you.'