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Chapters (65)
  1. Annotation
  2. Moonseedby Stephen Baxter
  3. DRAMATIS PERSONAE
  4. PART IBIG WHACK
  5. PART IIARD TOR
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 12
  18. 13
  19. 14
  20. 15
  21. 16
  22. 17
  23. PART IIIEARTH
  24. 1
  25. 2
  26. 3
  27. 4
  28. 5
  29. 6
  30. 7
  31. 8
  32. 9
  33. 10
  34. 11
  35. 12
  36. 13
  37. 14
  38. 15
  39. 16
  40. 17
  41. 18
  42. 19
  43. 20
  44. 21
  45. 22
  46. 23
  47. 24
  48. 25
  49. 26
  50. PART IVMOON
  51. 1
  52. 2
  53. 3
  54. 4
  55. 5
  56. 6
  57. PART VBOTTLENECK
  58. 1
  59. 2
  60. 3
  61. 4
  62. 5
  63. 6
  64. PART VINADEZHDA
  65. AFTERWORD

The eclipse took more than an hour. They could see their home planet as a hole in the stars, ringed by a rainbow of sunlight refracted through the atmosphere. And in the centre of the planet, they could see a faint grey-blue glow: it was the light of the Moon, shining down on the belly of the Pacific. It was an eclipse of the sun by the Earth, a sight no human in all history could have seen before the Apollo adventure, and no human had seen since. A hell of a thing, Henry thought.

24

It was going to take them three days to get to the Moon, just as it had Armstrong and Aldrin.

Three days. There was really no other way to do it, as long as you were constrained by chemical rocket engines: a hard push that burned up your fuel to launch you out of Earth orbit, a slowing climb up to the point where the Earth’s gravity balanced that of the Moon, and then a steady fall down to the Moon itself, where you would have to slow again to enter lunar orbit. Like climbing up one hill and down another, Henry thought.

And as long as humans flew this way, it was going to take them those three days, just as it always had.

Henry tried to sleep.

Geena had hung up three light sleeping bags in the orbital compartment of the Soyuz, where there was just enough room to stretch out straight. Henry climbed into one, and Geena zipped him up, with a reasonable amount of tenderness, and so there he hung, suspended like a bat.

He had supposed that sleeping in zero G would be like the most comfortable bed imaginable, but it didn’t seem to be working out that way. He missed the pressure of a pillow under his head, the security of a heavy duvet over him. Even field trips weren’t like this. He was missing Earth’s heavy gravity field, gluing him safely to that big ball of rock.

And the damn bag was too big. If he’d been Arkady’s size it might have been okay, but he wasn’t. He was rattling around in here, and every time he moved the neck gaped open and cold air rushed in.

Besides, whenever he felt himself drifting away, some deep part of his brain warned him that he was falling, and he clutched at his sleeping bag.

He burrowed deeper into the bag, shutting out the light and noise.

His heart, powerful enough to withstand a planet’s gravity field, was too strong up here. His pulse boomed in his head.