“No! That’s much worse.” Denison was gasping a little and he could feel his forehead moistening.
Selene said, “Each time you reach the point where you’re about to put your foot down, give a little push with your other foot. That will lengthen your stride and make it all the easier. No, no—watch me.”
Denison paused thankfully and watched Selene, somehow slim and graceful despite the grotesquerie of the suit once she moved, take off into low, loping leaps. She returned and knelt at his feet.
“Now you take a slow step, Ben, and I’ll hit your foot when I want it to shove.”
They tried several times, and Denison said, “That’s worse than running on Earth. I better rest.”
“All right. It’s just that your muscles aren’t used to the proper coordination. It’s yourself you’re fighting, you know, not gravity.… Well, sit down and catch your breath. I won’t take you up much farther.”
Denison said, “Will I do any damage to the pack if I lie down on my back?”
“No, of course not, but it’s not a good idea. Not on the bare ground. It’s only at 120 degrees absolute; 150 degrees below zero, if you prefer, and the smaller the area of contact the better. I’d sit down.”
“All right.” Gingerly, Denison sat down with a grunt. Deliberately, he faced northward, away from the Earth. “Look at those stars!”
Selene sat facing him, at right angles. He could see her face now and then, dimly through the faceplate, when the Earthlight caught it at the proper angle.
She said, “Don’t you see the stars on Earth?”
“Not like this. Even when there are no clouds, the air on Earth absorbs some of the light. Temperature differences in the atmosphere make them twinkle, and city lights, even distant city lights, wash them out.”
“Sounds disgusting.”
“Do you like it out here, Selene? On the surface?”
“I’m not crazy about it really, but I don’t mind it too much, now and then. It’s part of my job to bring tourists out here, of course.”
“And now you have to do it for me.”
“Can’t I convince you it’s not the same thing at all, Ben? We’ve got a set route for the tourists. It’s very tame, very uninteresting. You don’t think we’d take them out here to the slide, do you? This is for Lunarites—and Immies. Mostly Immies, actually.”
“It can’t be very popular. There’s no one here but ourselves.”
“Oh, well. There are particular days for this sort of thing. You should see this place on race days. You wouldn’t like it then, though.”
“I’m not sure I like it now. Is gliding a sport for Immies, particularly.”
“Rather. Lunarites don’t like the surface generally.”
“How about Dr. Neville?”
“You mean, how he feels about the surface?”
“Yes.”
“Frankly, I don’t think he’s ever been up here. He’s a real city boy. Why do you ask?”
“Well, when I asked permission to go along on the routine servicing of the Solar batteries, he was perfectly willing to have me go, but he wouldn’t go himself. I rather asked him to, I think, so I could have someone answer my questions, if there were any, and his refusal was rather strong.”
“I hope there was someone else to answer your questions.”
“Oh, yes. He was an Immie, too, come to think of it. Maybe that explains Dr. Neville’s attitude toward the Electron Pump.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well—” Denison leaned back and kicked his legs up alternately, watching them rise and fall slowly with a certain lazy pleasure. “Hey, that’s not bad. Look, Selene—What I mean is that Neville is so intent on developing a Pump Station on the Moon when the Solar batteries are so adequate for the job. We couldn’t use Solar batteries on the Earth, where the Sun is never as unfailing, as prolonged, as bright, as radiant in all wave lengths. There’s not a single planetary body in the Solar system, no body of any size, that is more suitable for the use of the batteries than the Moon is. Even Mercury is too hot.—But the use does tie you to the surface, and if you don’t like the surface—”
Selene rose to her feet suddenly, and said, “All right, Ben, you’ve rested enough. Up! Up!”
He struggled to his feet and said, “A Pump Station, however, would mean that no Lunarite would ever have to come out on the surface, if he didn’t want to.”
“Uphill we go, Ben. We’ll go to that ridge up ahead. See it, where the Earthlight cuts off in a horizontal line?”