At last they got completely suited up, filled the backpack air tanks, and checked out each other's suits from the safety list Doug called up on their wrist display screens.

Now Edith sat beside him in the tractor's unpressurized cockpit. In the eerie light of the airlock, all she could see of Doug was this anonymous lump of reddish-tinged white, like the Pillsbury Doughboy by firelight, topped with a helmet and a gold-tinted visor that reflected her own red-tinged helmet and visor.

"Are you sure you're strong enough to do this?" Edith asked as the noise of the pump faded down to silence.

Doug's voice said in her earphones, "Listen to me, Edith. My body's building up my blood supply. I'm a lot stronger now than I was an hour ago."

"You're sure?"

He laughed. "Yep, I'm absolutely, positively certain. I might be wrong, but I'm sure."

Doug had talked their way past the technician on duty at the main airlock, who wondered why the Big Boss was going outside in the middle of the lunar night with the flatlander news reporter and an insulated container big enough to hold a dead body.

"Lunch," Doug had explained about the container. It held a dozen quarts of fruit juices and soymilk that they had picked up at The Cave on their way to the garage. They had loaded four spare air cylinders onto the tractor's bed, as well: two at normal room pressure and two at the low pressure Edith's standard suit required.

The display light on the panel set into the scuffed metal wall of the huge airlock next to the outside hatch abruptly switched from amber to green.

"Here we go," Doug said as the outer hatch began to slowly slide open. "Once we're underway I'll show you how to operate the tractor. That'll take less than fifteen minutes."

"Driving lessons?" Edith's eyes were focused on the growing gap as the hatch opened wider. It was dark out there, even with her vision already dark-adapted from the red lighting inside the airlock.

"Yeah," he replied. That way, in case anything happens to me you can drive back here."

"Oh.' Edith realized that beneath his casual demeanor Doug was weighing the risks as carefully as he could.

The airlock hatch opened fully and Doug put the tractor in gear. Edith heard no sound at all in the dead vacuum, but she felt the electric motors' vibrations as they turned each of the tractor's wheels individually.

I'm out on the surface of the Moon! she exulted. Her first time, with Captain Munasinghe and the Peacekeepers, she'd been too busy recording her story to appreciate the scenery. Now she looked about and saw nothing but stark desolation. Dusty flat ground, cracked here and there. Rocks of all sizes, from pebbles to boulders. Craterlets, too, as if children had been digging into the ground with sticks and shovels.