—Marcus Aurelius
To Barbara, with all my love
Wednesday 1 December 1999:
0900 hrs UT
THE DIGITAL CLOCK on Kinsman's desk said nine. Not that the arbitrary time made any physical difference in the under- ground community. Up on the surface of the Moon it was sundown, the beginning of a night that would last three hundred thirty-six hours. But here, safely underground, a man-made day was just beginning in the community called Selene.
As the highest-ranking American on the Moon, Colonel Kinsman was entitled to a private office. R was small and functional. There was a desk tucked into one corner, but he rarely sat at it. He preferred slouching on the plastic foam couch that was set against one wall. It had been one of the first products of Selene's recycling facility. The plastic had originally come from packing crates hauled up from Earth. The foam was a fire-retardation spray that had outlived its useful life and had been replaced by a fresh unit. A Belgian chemist, a visitor to Selene several years earlier, had hit on the method of converting the foam to a comfortable padding for furniture.
There was no file cabinet in the office. No paper in sight. Not only was paper a rare and valuable commodity a quarter- million miles from the nearest forest, but Kinsman hated "paper shuffling." He preferred to talk out problems face to face. A computer terminal sat on his desk, linked to Selene's mainframe. Its display screen also served as a picture screen for the telephone. Another phone terminal was at Kinsman's elbow, on the stand beside the couch. Two slingchairs com- pleted the office's furnishings. The floor was covered with hardy, close-cropped grass, more practical than esthetic: green plants provided vital oxygen in this underground out- post on an airless world.
Three of the office's rock walls were covered with large display screens. One showed Earth as it appeared from Selene's main dome, up on the surface. The other two were blank at the moment.
Kinsman was sprawled on the foam couch, one arm stretched lazily along its back cushions. He was no longer as lean as he had been on Earth; his middle was starting to fill out. His dark hair was touched with gray, and he still wore it rather longer than Aerospace Force regulations permitted. There was no insignia of rank on his blue coveralls; it was not necessary: everyone in the underground community knew him on sight—even the Russians.
His face was long, slightly horsey, with narrow-set gray- blue eyes, a nose that he had never liked, and a smile that he had learned to use many years earlier.
Facing him, sitting on the front four centimeters of a slingchair, was one of Selene's permanent residents, Ernie Waterman, a civilian engineer. Tall, angular, gloomy. He looks like Ichabod Crane, thought Kinsman. He smiled as he said, "Ernie, I don't like hounding you but Selene can't truly be self-sufficient until the water factory's brought up to full capacity."
Waterman's voice was edgy, ready for an argument. "So it's my fault? If we bring up more equipment from Earth ..."
"Wish we couid." Kinsman glanced at the blue crescent glowing on the wall screen behind the engineer. "Dear old General Murdock and his friends in Washington say no. Too heavy and too expensive. We're on our own. But there's no reason why we can't build our own equipment right here in the shops, is there?"
Waterman gave a guarded smile that was close to being a grimace. "An optimist, yet. Okay, look, so we've got some raw materials and some trained people. But where's the six million other things we need? We don't have tooling. We don't have supplies. It takes us four times longer to do anything because we always have to start from scratch. I can't pick up the phone and order the stainless steel I need. Or the wiring. Or the copper or tungsten. We've got to make do with what we can mine out of these rocks."
"I know," said Kinsman.
"So it takes time."
"But you've been at it two years now."
Waterman's voice went up a notch. "Now don't start blaming everything on me! I've only been up here a year and I've been on this job six months. I'm supposed to be retired . . ."
"Whoa, whoa, cool down," Kinsman soothed. "I didn't mean you personally. And you know you were going rock- happy in retirement, Ernie. You're not a man of leisure." Make him smile. No fights with the volunteer help.
The engineer's long face unfolded slightly into a small grin. "Yeah, well maybe it was getting to me. But what bothered me most was your blue-suit skyboys trying to make like engineers. Those idiotic solar ovens . . ."
