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Her first glimpse of the Moon, slightly distorted by the walk-
way s clear, curving walls, was of a gently rolling surface. Every
edge was softened by the ubiquitous dust, the result of eons of me-
teoritic churning. It looked almost like a snowfield, she thought.
The shadows were not the deep black she had imagined, but soft-
ened by the reflected glow of the ground. She shouldn t have been
surprised: dark as it was, the light reflected from this lifeless soil
was, after all, the Moonlight that had shone over Earth since the
great impact that had shaped the twin worlds in the first place. So
Siobhan was walking in Moonlight herself. But this bit of the Moon
S U N S T O R M " 5 5
was littered by surface vehicles, fuel tanks, escape bunkers, and
equipment dumps; it was a human landscape.
The walkway terminated at a small blocky structure. Siobhan and
Mario rode the elevator down to an underground tunnel. Here an
open cart mounted on a monorail awaited them. The cart was big
enough for ten, she realized, the shuttle s full complement of eight
passengers plus two crew, and their baggage.
The cart slid into silent motion.
An induction drive, Mario said. Same principle as the Sling.
Endless sunlight and low gravity: the physics behind this little elec-
trical cart might have been invented for the conditions of the Moon.
The tunnel was narrow, lit by fluorescent tubes, and the fused-
rock walls were so close to the cart she could have reached out and
touched them and in perfect safety, for the cart s speed was little
more than walking pace. She was learning that away from Earth,
caution ruled: everything was done slowly and deliberately.
At the end of the tunnel was an airlock, and what Mario called
a dustlock, a small room equipped with brushes, vacuum hoses,
and other devices to clean spacesuits and people of electrostatically
clinging Moon dust. As Mario and Siobhan hadn t been exposed to
the surface, they were able to cycle through this quickly.
The airlock s inner door was marked with a large plaque:
WELCOME TO CLAVIUS BASE
U.S. ASTRONAUTICAL ENGINEERING CORPS
She read on down a list of contributing organizations, from
NASA and the U.S. Air and Space Force to Boeing and var-
ious other private contractors. There was also a rather grudging
acknowledgment, she thought, of the Eurasian, Japanese, Pan-
Arabian, Pan-African, and other space organizations that had put
up more than half the money for this American-led project.
She touched a little roundel that was the logo of the British Na-
tional Space Agency. In recent years the British had discovered a ge-
nius for robotics and miniaturization, and the machine-dominated
5 6 " C L A R K E & B A X T E R
period of renewed lunar and Martian exploration earlier in the cen-
tury had been the glory days of the BNSA and its engineers. But
that period had been brief, and was already over.
Mario caught her eye and grinned. That s the Americans for
you. Never give anybody else credit.
But they were here first, she pointed out.
Oh, yes, there is that.
The inner door slid open to reveal a short, stocky man waiting
for her. Professor McGorran? Welcome to the Moon. She recog-
nized him immediately. This was Colonel Burton Tooke, USASF,
commander of Clavius Base. Aged about fifty, with a severe mili-
tary crew cut, he was a good head shorter than she was, and he
flashed a disarming gap-toothed grin. Call me Bud, he said.
Siobhan said goodbye to Mario, who was returning to his
shuttle, where the beds are softer than anything in Clavius, he
claimed.
Bud Tooke led Siobhan up a flight of stairs, easily negotiated in
one-sixth gravity, to the interior of a dome. They walked along a
narrow roofless corridor. She could see the dome s smooth plastic
some meters above her head, but the space beneath was cluttered
with walkways and partitions. Everything was quiet, the lights sub-
dued; nobody was moving, save Bud and Siobhan.
She said softly, It seems rather appropriate to arrive some-
where as mysterious as the Moon in silence and twilight.
He nodded. Sure. You ll soon be over the Moon-lag, I hope.
It s actually two a.m. here. The middle of our night.
Moon time?
Houston time.
She learned this was a tradition dating back to the days of the
earliest astronauts, who had timed their epic journeys by the clocks
of their homes in Texas; it was a pleasing tribute to those pioneers.
They reached a row of closed doors. Above, a small neon sign
glowed pink: it read contact light. Bud opened a door at random
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