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Back Moonseed Save as PDF
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

She tried to hurry, forcing Henry forward, across the slippery regolith.

4

Henry became conscious again, long before she got him back to the shelter.

“We have to get back,” were his first words.

“I know. We’re going.”

“I have to start analysing the data.” He looked at the hoses which snaked between their backpacks. “Thanks for saving my life.”

“Pleasure.”

“I don’t think my fall affected the station I set up.”

“You checked as you fell to your doom, did you?”

“Yes,” he said, without irony.

They bounced across the surface of the Moon, back to the shelter.

She parked as close as she could to the shelter. It wasn’t easy to get inside; linked by the hoses with their fragile couplings, they had to move like Siamese twins, taking care over every step.

Once inside, she checked the shelter’s air and took off her helmet and gloves. She could feel a gush of moist heat escaping from the joints at her wrists and neck; it was a relief to shuck off the suit and move freely.

Henry went straight to work. He set up his pc, checked the data link to the remote station he’d set up in the rille, and started tapping at his keyboard. And he prepared some of his samples on slides for his ridiculous high-school microscope.

He worked feverishly. She knew Henry of old; in this mood, whatever his physical state, he wouldn’t be dissuaded. It used to irritate her. In fact she thought of Henry as a workaholic. Well, maybe he was. But right now, she realized, whatever understanding Henry achieved today, here on the Moon, might be crucial for them all.

So she let him work, and contented herself with a health check; he didn’t seem to have been permanently harmed by his brush with the Moonseed.

She tended to her equipment. That pesky Moon dust had continued to etch into her gear, she found. It was now ground deeply into the fabric of her suit, and even when she tried to scrape it out with her fingertips she only succeeded in working it into her fingers and under her nails. The metal seals at wrist and neck were getting quite badly corroded. And the handle of Henry’s geology hammer had had its rubber coating worn away to bare metal.

She recharged her backpack. She took a look at Henry’s, but it was ruined beyond her capability to repair it here. When they next left the shelter they would have to do it bound together once more.

She made some food. A hot drink: camomile tea, one of Henry’s favourites. She made him drink and eat, and he complied, but he didn’t seem to notice what he was being fed.