"And they're still in your body?"

He nodded. "Zimmerman turned me into a walking experiment. The bugs he put in me are programmed to protect my cells against infection or any other kind of damage."

"And they just stay inside you? Do they reproduce?"

"According to Zimmerman, they rebuild one another when they wear down or become damaged themselves."

"Can you feel them inside you?" Edith asked, grimacing at the thought.

Doug laughed. "No more than you can feel your white blood corpuscles or your alveoli."

"My what?"

"The air sacs in your lungs," Doug said. "Here's your door."

"The Moonbase Hilton," Edith said.

"Is it really that bad?"

She tapped out her combination on the electronic lock. "See for yourself," she said, sliding the door back and motioning him into the room with a sweeping gesture.

Doug propped the tripods on the wall outside the door and stepped into Edith's quarters. It was a standard compartment, roughly ten square meters, maybe a little more. A bunk with built-in dresser drawers, a desk and chair, a sling chair made of lunar plastic, a table that folded into the wall with two stools beneath it, an empty built-in bookcase.

"You've got your own bathroom," Doug said, pointing to the half-open door. "You've got nothing to complain about."

"The shower turns off just when I'm getting relaxed," Edith said.

He shrugged slightly. "That's automatic. Water's not scarce, exactly, but we don't play around with it."

"And then those air blowers come on."

"Electricity's cheap. And the heat is recycled."

"It ain't the Ritz."

"You'd feel better if you had some of your personal things with you."

She agreed with a rueful nod. "I did come kind of light, didn't I?"

Doug went to the wall panel at the head of the bunk and turned on the display. The far wall showed a camera view of the crater floor.

Edith gaped. "Hot spit!"

"Didn't anybody tell you about the smart walls?"

"Well, sure, but I didn't know you could see outside. It's kinda like a window, isn't it?"

Doug pulled one of the stools over to the bunk and began to show Edith how to work the electronic display.

She sat on the edge of the bunk and watched views of the bleak, harsh lunar landscape. Then he started showing videos from Moonbase's library: educational stuff, mostly, although he rippled through a menu of entertainment vids.

"And we have all the university courses available. Some of the lectures are fascinating; they're all illustrated of course, multi-media."

Gradually Edith's attention wandered from the wall screen to Doug. She saw an intense young man, so strong within himself that he didn't even realize the aura he radiated. He's only twenty-five, she told herself. You're damned near ten years older. Well, seven, at least. So what's age got to do with it? another part of her mind answered. You've bedded enough old farts. Maybe robbing the cradle would be fun.