“Like flying,” he said. The pattern of light and dark on either side was moving backward in a blur. He looked briefly to one side, then the other, trying to convert the sensation of a backward flight of the surroundings into one of a forward flight of his own. Then, as soon as he succeeded, he found he had to look forward hastily at the Earth to regain his sense of balance. “I suppose that’s not a good comparison to use to you. You have no experience of flying on the Moon.”
“Now I know, though. Flying must be like gliding—I know what that is.”
She was keeping up with him easily.
Denison was going fast enough now so that he got the sensation of motion even when he looked ahead. The Moonscape ahead was opening before him and flowing past on either side. He said, “How fast do you get to go in a glide?”
“A good Moon-race,” said Selene, “has been clocked at speeds in excess of a hundred miles an hour—on steeper slopes than this one, of course. You’ll probably reach a top of thirty-five.”
“It feels a lot faster than that somehow.”
“Well, it isn’t. We’re leveling off now, Ben, and you haven’t fallen. Now just hang on; the glider will die off and you’ll feel friction. Don’t do anything to help it. Just keep going.”
Selene had barely completed her remarks when Denison felt the beginning of pressure under his boots. There was at once an overwhelming sensation of speed and he clenched his fists hard to keep from throwing his arms up in an almost reflex gesture against the collision that wasn’t going to happen. He knew that if he threw up his arms, he would go over backward.
He narrowed his eyes, held his breath till he thought his lungs would explode, and then Selene said, “Perfect, Ben, perfect. I’ve never known an Immie to go through his first slide without a fall, so if you do fall, there’ll be nothing wrong. No disgrace.”
“I don’t intend to fall,” whispered Denison. He caught a large, ragged breath, and opened his eyes wide. The Earth was as serene as ever, as uncaring. He was moving more slowly now—more slowly—more slowly—
“Am I standing still now, Selene?” he asked. “I’m not sure.”
“You’re standing still. Now don’t move. You’ve got to rest before we make the trip back to town.… Damn it, I left it somewhere around here when we came up.”
Denison watched her with disbelief. She had climbed up with him, had glided down with him. Yet he was half-dead with weariness and tension, and she was in the air with long kangaroo-leaps. She seemed a hundred yards away when she said, “Here it is!” and her voice was as loud in his ears as when she was next to him.
She was back in a moment, with a folded, paunchy sheet of plastic under her arm.
“Remember,” she said, cheerily, “when you asked what it was on our way up and I said we’d be using it before we came down?” She unfolded it and spread it on the dusty surface of the Moon.
“A Lunar Lounge is its full name,” she said, “but we just call it a lounge. We take the adjective for granted here on this world.” She inserted a cartridge and tripped a lever.
It began to fill. Somehow Denison had expected a hissing noise, but of course there was no air to carry sound.
“Before you question our conservation policies again,” said Selene, “this is argon also.”
It blossomed into a mattress on six, stubby legs. “It will hold you,” she said. “It makes very little actual contact with the ground and the vacuum all around will conserve its heat.”
“Don’t tell me it’s hot,” said Denison, amazed.
“The argon is heated as it pours in, but only relatively. It ends up at 270 degrees absolute, almost warm enough to melt ice, and quite warm enough to keep your insulated suit from losing heat faster than you can manufacture it. Go ahead. Lie down.”
Denison did so, with a sensation of enormous luxury.
“Great!” he said with a long sigh.
“Mamma Selene thinks of everything,” she said.
She came from behind him now, gliding around him, her feet placed heel to heel as though she were on skates, and then let them fly out from under her, as she came down gracefully on hip and elbow on the ground just beside him.