James P Hogan. Inherit The Stars. Giant Series #1

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

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