world of sound impinged on the ears of the ship’s occupants.
Shortly afterward, the access ramps slid smoothly from the walls to
connect the ship to the reception bays.
Thirty minutes after clearing arrival formalities, Hunt emerged
from an elevator high atop one of the viewing domes that dominated
the surface of Ptolemy Main Base. For a long time he gazed soberly
at the harsh desolation in which man had carved this oasis of life.
The streaky blue and white disk of Earth, hanging motionless above
the horizon, suddenly brought home to him the remoteness of places
like Houston, Reading, Cambridge, and the meaning of everything
familiar, which until so recently he had taken for granted. In his
wanderings he had never come to regard any particular place as
home; unconsciously he had always accepted any part of the world to
be as much home as any other. Now, all at once, he realized that he
was away from home for the first time in his life.
As Hunt turned to take in more of the scene below, he saw that he
was not alone. On the far side of the dome a lean, balding figure
stood staring silently out over the wilderness, absorbed in
thoughts of its own. Hunt hesitated for a long time. At last he
moved slowly across to stand beside the figure. All around them the
mile-wide clutter of silver-gray metallic geometry that made up the
base sprawled amid a confusion of pipes, girders, pylons, and
antennae. On towers above, the radars swept the skyline in endless
circles, while the tall, praying-mantislike laser transceivers
stared unblinkingly at the heavens, carrying the ceaseless
dialogues between the base computers and unseen communications
satellites fifty miles up. In the distance beyond the base, the
rugged bastions of Ptolemy’s mountain wall towered above the plain.
From the blackness above them, a surface transporter was sliding
toward the base on its landing approach.
Eventually Hunt said: “To think-a generation ago, all this was just
desert.” It was more a thought voiced than a statement.
Danchekker did not answer for a long time. When he did, he kept his
eyes fixed outside.
“But man dared to dream . . .” he murmured slowly. After a pause he
added, “And what man dares to dream today, tomorrow he makes come
true.”
Another long silence followed. Hunt took a cigarette from his case
and lit it. “You know,” he said at last, blowing a stream of smoke
slowly toward the glass wall of the dome, “it’s going to be a long
voyage to Jupiter. We could get a drink down below-one for the
road, as it were.”
Danchekker seemed to turn the suggestion over in his mind for a
while. At length he shifted his gaze back within the confines of
the dome and turned to face Hunt directly.
“I think not, Dr. Hunt,” he said quietly.
Hunt sighed and made as if to turn.
“However, . . .” The tone of Danchekker’s voice checked him before
he moved. He looked up. “If your metabolism is capable of
withstanding the unaccustomed shock of nonalcoholic beverages, a
strong coffee might, ah, perhaps be extremely welcome.”
It was a joke. Danchekker had actually cracked a joke!
“I’ll try anything once,” Hunt said as they began walking toward
the door of the elevator.
chapter nineteen
Embarkation on the orbiting Jupiter Five command ship was not
scheduled to take place until a few days later. Danchekker would be
busy making final arrangements for his team and their equipment to
be ferried up from the Lunar surface. Hunt, not being involved in
these undertakings, prepared an itinerary of places to visit during
the free time he had available.
The first thing he did was fly to Tycho by surface transporter to
observe the excavations still going on around the areas of some of
the Lunarian finds, and to meet at last many of the people who up
until then had existed only as faces on display screens. He also
went to see the deep mining and boring operations in progress not
far from Tycho, where engineers were attempting to penetrate to the
core regions of the Moon. They believed that concentrations of rich