Flatlander - Larry Niven [83]
I’d admitted to being a liberal and denied being the solar system’s foremost expert on lunar law, inasmuch as I’d never been on the moon. Beyond that, I’d managed to get him talking about himself. He’d never stopped.
The flatlander reporter was a small, rounded man in his early twenties, brown-haired and smooth-shaven. Born in Australia, schooled in England, he’d never been in space. He’d gone from journalism school straight into a job with the BBC. He’d told me about himself at length. This young and he was on his way to the moon! To witness deliberations that could affect all of future history! He seemed eager and innocent. I wondered how many older, more experienced newstapers had turned down his assignment.
Now, suddenly, he was quiet. More: he was leaving fingerprints in the hard plastic chair arms.
The black shadows of the D’Alembert Mountains were coming right at us: broken teeth in a godling’s jaw, ready to chew us up.
We passed low over the mountains, almost between the peaks, and continued to fall. Now the land was chewed by new and old meteorite craters. Light ahead of us became a long line of lighted windows, the west face of Hovestraydt City. Slowing, we passed north of the city and curved around. The city was a square border of light, and peculiar reflections flashed from within the border: mostly greens, some reds, yellows, browns.
The ship hovered and settled east of the city, at the edge of Grimalde’s rim wall. No dust sprayed around us as we touched down. Too many ships had landed here over the last century. The dust was all gone.
Tom Reinecke let go of his chair arms and resumed breathing. He forced a smile. “Thrill a minute.”
“Hey, you weren’t worried, were you? You can’t even imagine the real problems with making this kind of landing.”
“What? What do you mean? I—”
I laughed. “Relax, I was kidding. People have been landing on the moon for a hundred and fifty years, and they’ve only had two accidents.”
We fought politely for room to struggle into our pressure suits.
With a little more warning I would have had a skintight pressure suit made at the taxpayers’ expense. But skintight suits have to be carefully fitted, and that takes time. Luke Garner had given me just ten days to get ready. I’d spent the time on research. I was half-certain that Garner had picked someone else for the job and that he or she had died or gotten sick or pregnant.
Be that as it may: I had bought an inflated suit on the expense account. The other passengers—reporters and conference delegates—were also getting into inflated suits.
Half a dozen lunies and Belters waited to greet us when we climbed down from the air lock. I could see fairly well into the bubble helmets. Taffy wasn’t among them. I recognized people I’d seen only on phone screens. And a familiar voice: cheerful, cordial, mildly accented.
“Welcome to Hovestraydt City,” said the voice of Mayor Hove Watson. “You’ve arrived near dinnertime by the city clocks. I hope to show you around a bit before you begin your work tomorrow.” I had no trouble picking him out of the crowd: a lunie over eight feet tall with thinning blond hair and a cordial smile showing through his helmet and a flowering ash tree on his chest. “You’ve already been assigned rooms, and—before I forget—the city computer’s command name is Chiron. It will be keyed to your voice. Shall we postpone introductions until we can get into shirtsleeves?” He turned to lead the way.
So Taffy hadn’t made it. I wondered if she’d left a message and how long it would be before I reached a phone.
We trooped toward the lights a few hundred yards away. No moondust softened our footfalls. My first look at the moon, and I wasn’t seeing much. Black night around us and a glare of light from the city. But the