She recalled her mind to the present. Edmond had made a joke. Let her too try lightening things. She grinned. “I know where various bodies were shoveled under.” She had, in fact, enjoyed putting the screws on Commissioner Zacharias till he leaned on the governor.Seeing Edmond serious again, she released what rose within her: “And eventually, you know, eventually I got through to … the download. In spite of the woes he’s having with Fireball, he found time for whatever he did behind the scenes to get the ban lifted.” Guthrie’s analog, the ghost of Uncans, had remembered—She swallowed. “I think mainly you’ve got him to thank.”
“Speaking with him that first time, it was not easy for you,” Edmond said. “None of this was. I could feel. Sometimes at night, beside me, you caught your breath.”
He had been aware, then. He had been so fully aware that he kept still. Her eyes stung. “Oh, darling, you, you’ve thanked me aplenty already for my part.”
“Yes,” he replied slowly, “but never before have I thanked you for why you did it.”
“For excellent reasons,” she said in her briskest tone. “Science. Adventure. Kaino’s wish as well as yours. A liberating precedent. A healthy kick to the fat gut of the Lunar Authority. All in all, a very worthy cause.”
“My cause. I am going. I will be gone for months, perhaps in danger. You do not want this.”
She looked straight at the Cro-Magnon face. “However, you do,” she said.
He nodded. “Exactly. I am not glad to leave you, but I am glad to go. Does that make sense to you? You hate it, but for my sake you worked for it. You—you love me that much.”
The blood beat in her temples. “I don’t hold with caging eagles,” was the best response she could find. “No, bears, in this case.” She leaned across the table and rumpled the iron-gray hair. “Good ol’ bear!”
“I … only want to stay … I understand,” he mumbled.
“And I understand that you understand, and that makes me happy,” she said, blinking the tears away from the sight of him. “Okay, ‘Mond, let’s enjoy. Drink up and we’ll go in search of dinner.” Day was becoming dusk. When they rose, Dagny felt the weight on her bones. In none of her earlier returns had Earth been this heavy. Well, time in the centrifuge and time in the medical program did not stop time. Maybe she’d never again come back here from the Moon. But not to worry about that, she told herself. Not now, this now that she had with her man.
Sacajawea was the best that Fireball could provide, a Venus-class transport, well-designed, soundly built, but not one of the fantastic new torchcraft that would have made the crossing in a pair of weeks. Those were still few and committed for long periods ahead. Sacajawecfs main service had been in the Asteroid Belt. For the journey to Rydberg’s rock she accelerated at less than one-fifth g, to spare the Lunarians aboard, until she attained trajectory speed; thereafter she fell free for more than a hundred daycycles before the hour came to brake for rendezvous.
Weightless that long, no matter how diligently he exercised, a Terrestrial would have taken six or seven rehabilitative weeks back on Earth to regain his full strength, skeletal and muscle mass, coordination, reflexes, body chemistry. At that, he would risk some of the changes being irreversible; resilience varies among individuals. A Lunarian, returned to his own home, would have done better, but not recovered overnight. To meet whatever they were going to meet, Beynac and his men should arrive in good condition. Besides, gravity would be feeble at their goal. Thus everyone was much in the whirly.
That machine had barely room in its compartment for a three-meter swing radius. Wire strands held a narrow platform, opposite which a one-tonne lead sphere counterrotated at the end of an adjustable arm. You did most of your drill parallel to the board, pushups, bicycles, mass-lifting with arms and legs. For the standing motions you rose very carefully; if the brain goes fast through a sudden drop in weight of some sixty percent, vertigo and nausea are the least ofthe possible consequences, and you must likewise be wary of Coriolis force. Although your belt and its leash, attached to the center post, kept you from being slung off, a bone-breaking accident could easily happen. It was well to hold onto that post during your knee bends and jogs. You certainly required it when you stood on your head and your heart pushed blood upward more or less as nature intended.