Moonrise

She had no intention of showing her work to anyone but her fellow Moonbase residents. But one of them electronically relayed back to Sava

She had started with ordinary color film, but soon asked her new-found friends in the world of photography to send her black-and-white film, instead. It seemed made to order for the black-and-gray world of the Moon.

With dizzying sudde

When medical tests showed she was physically able to return to Earth, she asked for a postponement. I’m not ready, she said. Psychologically, I’m not prepared to face the return trip.

On the first a

The decision went all the way up to Paul Stavenger, head of Masterson’s space division. In full sympathy with her desire, and prodded by the corporate public relations director, he decided to allow Lana Goodman to stay at Moonbase as long as she wished.

She never returned to Earth.

Lana Goodman become the first person to live on the Moon permanently.

SPACE STATION

The Clippership took off with a thundering roar that was only slightly muted by the passenger cabin’s acoustical insulation. The ship rattled hard enough to blur Paul’s vision for a moment. Pressed flat against the reclined seat, he turned his head to see how Joa

The vibration eased off a good deal, but the bellowing thunder of the rocket engines still shook his i

Paul felt all sensation of weight disappear. One instant he was flattened against the chair, weighing three times normal, the next he was floating lightly against the restraining seat harness.

Joa

Paul gri

She smiled back at him, weakly.

Within fifteen minutes the Clippership made its rendezvous with the space station. The ship lurched slightly once, twice, a third time. Then the co-pilot opened the cockpit hatch and a

“Can I come up and take a look?” Paul asked, unstrapping his seat harness.

“Sure, we’re all finished here,” said the co-pilot.

Paul floated up into the ladderway aisle. The other passengers were unbuckling their harnesses, bobbing up out of their chairs, opening the overhead luggage bins to haul out their gear. Straps snaked weightlessly, as if alive; travel bags and equipment boxes hung in mid-air.

Looking down at Joa

She tried to smile again.

The cockpit was cramped with two seats for the astronauts shoehorned into wall-to-wall instrumentation. But there was a wide transparent port for Paul to look through.

The space station was still unfinished. Paul could see a spacesuited construction team hauling girders and curved sheets of alloy into place along the station’s outermost section, so far distant that they looked like little toy figures. A welding laser flashed briefly. The construction workers all wore maneuvering backpacks so they would not need tethers to keep them from drifting off into space. The Earth hung off to one side, huge and bright blue with parades of pure white clouds marching across the face of the broad ocean. Paul could see specks of islands and, off at the curving horizon, the wrinkled brown stretch of California’s rugged coastline swinging into view.

The station was built in three concentric wheels with a docking area at the hub. Once the construction was finished the station would be spun up so that people in the widest, outermost wheel would feel a normal Earthly gravity. The i

“They’re making good progress,” Paul said.

“Had an accident yesterday,” the pilot told him. “Boom operator got pi

“Was he hurt bad?”

“She,” said the co-pilot. “Ruptured her suit. She was dead before they could get to her.”

Paul shook his head. “How many does that make?”

“Four this year. Six, altogether.”

“Christ, you think they’d be more careful.”

“It’s the new guys, every time. They start hauling big girder around and they’re weightless so they forget they still got mass. And momentum. Get hit by one and it can still cave in your ribs.”

“There hasn’t been much publicity about it back on th ground,” Paul said.

The co-pilot smiled grimly. “Rockledge has a damned tight public relations operation. No reporters up here at all.”

“Still… you’d think they’d be screaming about it.”

“Nah,” said the pilot. “Rockledge insures the workers, pay off the family plenty. Nobody complains.”

“Not yet,” the co-pilot countered.

“The work’s getting done on schedule and within budget from what I hear.”

Paul asked, “Even with the insurance costs factored in?”

The pilot nodded. “Rockledge must’ve factored in a casualty rate when they decided to build this wheel.”

Yeah, Paul thought, and our rental of space in the station must be helping to pay off their insurance premiums.

“It’s a tradeoff,” the co-pilot said, as if he could read Paul’s face. “The sooner they get this station finished and operating the sooner they can rent out all its space. They must’ve figured that the insurance costs are worth it if they can get the job done fast enough.”

“Pretty damned cold-blooded,” Paul muttered. “I don’t think I’d push an operation that way.”

The pilot gri

Masterson Corporation’s space operations division — Paul’s former bailiwick — had rented half the i

Part of Masterson’s rented space was living quarters for its employees. Spartan at best, they were meant to house people who would spend no more than a few months aboard the station.

“It’s not exactly the Ritz,” Paul said to Joa

It was a cubicle about the size of a generous telephone booth. No window, but a small computer terminal built into one bulkhead. Otherwise the walls, floor and ceiling were covered with Velcro and loops for tethering one’s feet. A mesh sleeping bag was stuck to one wall.