Moonrise

It took some doing. Apparently the word had been sent up from Sava

“You can see anything you want to on the monitors at the control center,” the chief said. He looked quite old to Doug, a little gray mouse of a man who had once been a little dark mouse of an astronaut.

“I could do that back on Earth,” Doug replied gently, standing relaxed in front of the safety chiefs desk. “I’ve come a quarter of a million miles; I don’t want to go back home without putting my boot prints on the lunar surface.”

Wishing that the kid would go away, or at least sit down like a normal person, the chief answered, “Oh. I see.” He ran a hand through his thi

Doug broke into a pleased grin.

“With somebody escorting you, of course,” added the chief.

The safety chief personally led Doug out to the garage where the tractors were housed and maintained. It looked like a big cave to Doug, which is what it had once been. The garage was fairly quiet; most of the tractors were out on the surface, working. Only off in a far comer was there a knot of technicians tinkering with a pair of the spindly-wheeled machines.

“That’s the main airlock.” The chief pointed to a massive steel hatch, big enough to drive a fully-loaded tractor through. Off to one side Doug saw a row of spacesuits hanging on a rack, with a row of gas cylinders standing behind a long bench.

Somehow the bench didn’t look strong enough to support a man’s weight; its legs were frail and spaced too far apart. Then Doug gri

They selected a spacesuit for Doug from the rack of suits waiting empty by the airlock. Although all the suits were white, they looked grimy and hard-used, their helmets scratched and pitted. It took an hour for Doug to suit up and then prebreath the low-pressure mix of oxygen and nitrogen that the suits used. The safety chief explained the need for prebreathing in minute detail, eloquently describing the horrors of the bends, despite Doug’s telling him that he understood the situation.

A taller figure already suited up clumped toward them in thick-soled boots. His visor was up, so Doug could see the man’s face and piercing electric blue eyes. His spacesuit looked brand new, sparkling white with red stripes down the sleeves and legs, like a baseball uniform.

“Oh, Foster, there you are,” said the chief. “This is Douglas Stavenger.”

With the breathing mask still clamped over his lower face, Doug got up from the bench where he’d been sitting and extended his gloved hand. The spacesuited man was almost a full head taller than he.

“Foster Bre

Foster Bre

I’m pleased to meet you,” Doug managed to say from inside his breathing mask. It was like saying hello to a legend. Or a god.

Bre

“It’s okay, Billy,” he said to the chief through the mask. I’ll take him out as soon as we’re done prebreathing. You can go back to your office now.”

The little man nodded. “Right. See you in an hour or so.”

Doug realized it was the chiefs way of telling Bre

“Or so,” said Bre

As the safety chief walked hurriedly toward the hatch that led back to the offices and living quarters, Bre

Feeling confused, Doug asked, “Go where?”

“Prebreathing.”

“Oh!” Glancing at the watch set into the panel on his suit’s left forearm, Doug said, “Twelve minutes.”

Bre

“Only twelve minutes?”

“I’ve been outside all day, kid. There’s not enough nitrogen in my blood to pump up a toy balloon.”

The time crawled by in silence with Doug wanting to ask a half-million questions and Bre

At last Doug’s watch chimed. Bre

“Radio check,” Doug heard in his helmet earphones. He nodded, then realized that Bre

“I hear you loud and clear,” Doug said.

“Ditto,” said Bre

Doug’s heart was racing so hard he worried that Bre

SAVANNAH

The years had been kind to Joa

I’m not ready for nanotherapy yet,” she often quipped, even when assured that exclusive spas in Switzerland were quietly using specialized nanomachines that could scrub plaque from her arteries and tighten sagging muscles without surgery. Such therapy was impossible almost anywhere else on Earth; public fear of nanomachines had led to strict government regulation.

Yet she remained close to Kris Cardenas, even after the former head of Masterson’s nanotech division had left the corporation in frustration at the red tape imposed by ignorant bureaucrats and the increasingly violent public demonstrations against nanotechnology. Cardenas had accepted an endowed chair at Vancouver and from there won her Nobel Prize.

Joa

There was no desk, no computer, no display screen in sight The office was furnished like a comfortable sitting room, with small Sheraton sofas and delicate armchairs grouped around Joa

At the moment, the room’s decor was a cool neocolonia classicism: muted pastels and geometric patterns. At the toucl of a button the hologram systems behind the walls could switch to bolder Caribbean colors or any of a half-dozen other decoration schemes stored in their computer memory The pictures could be changed to any of hundreds catalogued in electronic storage or be transformed into display screens Even the room’s scent could be varied from piney forest tc springtime flowers to salt sea tang, at Joa