Shoot at the Moon by William F. Temple

Author:William F. Temple
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

chapter eight

Two people tried to speak simultaneously to isolated little me, blotting intelligibility from each other and sounding like a small angry mob.

“One at a time, please,” I said to the mike. “Lou first.”

“Naturally,” Thomson whipped back, disobediently, sarcastically.

Lou said, “You’re way off beam, love. Alter course by ten or twelve degrees to your right.”

I obeyed and sought her again. If she could see the runabout, then any time now I should be able to see her. Within seconds I picked up a tiny white speck near the horizon; it was probably both of them.

The guess was confirmed as I raced on. Slowly the speck enlarged and split in two.

“All right, Lou, I’ve got you in my sights.”

“And about time, Franz. It’s been the other way around long enough.”

“I’ll make up for it—don’t worry. Off to you now. Tommy, what did you want?”

“Me? Nothing. Nothing I’m likely to find in this godforsaken ash heap. It’s just that you told me to keep in touch—remember?”

Yes, I remembered. Poor devil, he was odd man out now, and keeping in touch with anyone at all was his problem.

“Okay, Tommy,” I said quietly.

When I could discern the Marleys as shapes rather than specks,

they appeared curiously squat. Then I realized that they were foreshortened, reclining and resting with feet toward me on the slope of a hump.

As the runabout covered the final couple hundred yards, they arose and walked down the gentle slope to meet it. Each was carrying something which looked like a thick golden rod.

The slighter figure was Lou, of course; somehow she projected femininity even through her stiff-jointed space suit. She made that anonymous, sexless thing walk like a woman. At least, so it seemed to me. Maybe my imagination contributed something.

Niggardly I spared a brief glance for Marley. Obviously he was still full of excitement, but it was all inward now. He had his dreams too, and his attention was absorbed by them. He was walking only automatically.

I drew up beside them. They entered separately through the small air lock at the rear. Lou flopped in the seat beside me, relaxing her grip on her golden rod. Slowly it became thicker, like an unrolling parchment.

I helped her to remove her helmet. Warm air wafted up from the collar. She was a bit flushed and perspiring. I held her tightly and kissed her. It was like trying to embrace an armored Joan of Arc, but the kiss part of it was all right. She reacted as though we hadn’t seen each other in months.

Then she murmured, “It’s wonderful, darling. I’ve never been so close to real happiness before.”

It was as though she’d assumed that happiness, by some natural law, was destined to be kept at arm’s length from her and that only now was it dawning on her that it could come within arm’s reach.

Her father occupied best part of a brace of seats behind, still helmeted, still silent in his wonderful private world.

Lou commented, “He’s just achieved his life’s ambition. He’ll never again be so happy as he is now.

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