At that it was a better fate, he thought, than to finish up in a glass case in the Smithsonian or some NASA museum, slowly corroding in Earth’s thick, murky air while generations of successively more baffled tourists came to stand and gawk…

He said, “What makes you think this old dune buggy is going to work anyhow? It was built to last three days, not thirty years.”

She shrugged. “It was built for temperature extremes and vacuum. What is there to go wrong? Neighbourhood kids stealing the tyres? They built better than they had to, in those days. Look at those old space probes from the 1970s. Pioneer 10 lasted twenty-five years… Anyhow, you better hope. Otherwise, it will be a long walk.”

Geena left the original batteries in place at the back of the vehicle, and set replacements on top of them. The new batteries were an advanced lithium-ion design. She started to hook them up with jump cables, and Henry loped around to help her. It was stiff, clumsy work; the Rover hadn’t been designed for this sort of maintenance, and Henry’s fingers were soon aching as he fought the stiffness of his gloves to manipulate leads and crocodile clips.

They bolted a lightweight TV camera to the Rover’s big, clunky 1970s original, and a new miniaturized comms package. The old antenna still seemed to be serviceable, however. Then they loaded Henry’s gear into the panniers in back of the Rover.

When Henry moved past the camera, a red light glared at him, steady and relentless. Back on Earth, they were already watching him.

Let them. For what they were going to do today, there had been time to prepare no checklists, no simulations, no training. Maybe for the first time in the history of US space exploration — the first since John Glenn anyhow — he and Geena were, truly, heading into the unknown. And there wasn’t a damn thing any of those anal retentive characters at Mission Control could do to help or hinder them, except keep quiet.

Happily, they seemed to know it.

Henry lowered his butt cautiously onto the right-hand of the two bucket seats, and swivelled his legs over the corrugated frame. The pressure in his suit made it starfish, and he had to use a little force to keep his arms by his side. He pulled restraints around his chest and waist.

Half-sitting, half-lying, he tried to relax.

The Rover was noticeably light; when Geena dropped into the left-hand driver’s seat, the whole vehicle bounced, and little sprays of dust scattered around the wheels.

She flicked switches on the console, and dials lit up.

“Left-hand drive,” Henry said.

“What?”

“If the first people on the Moon had been Scottish, you’d be sitting where I am.”

She lifted her gold visor to stare at him.

Then she dropped her visor, put her right hand on the joystick control, and jammed the control forward.