t both the
northern and southern latitudes of the moon. Except for the military
posts and scientific research stations the moon had little value other
than as a vacation land. People came there to rest, to look at the
bizarre landscape through quartz, or occasionally to don spacesuits and
go out on guided exploration trips.

Immediately after checking into their hotel Pell and Kronski got
directions to the office of the Resident Surgeon and prepared to go
there. Ciel looked on quietly as Pell tightened the straps of his
shoulder holster and checked the setting on his freezer.

Ciel said, "I knew it."

"Knew what, honey?" Pell went to the mirror to brush his hair. He wasn't
sure it would materially improve the beauty of his long, knobby, faintly
melancholy face, but he did it any way.

"The minute we get here you have to go out on business."

He turned, kissed her, then held and patted her hand. "That's just
because I want to get it over with. Then I'll have time for you. Then
we'll have lots of time together."

She melted into him suddenly. She put her arms around his neck and held
him tightly. "If I didn't love you, you big lug, it wouldn't be so bad.
But, Dick, I can't go on like this much longer. I just can't."

"Now, baby," he started to say.

There was a knock on the door then and he knew Kronski was ready. He
broke away from her, threw a kiss and said, "Later. Later, baby."

She nodded and held her under lip in with her upper teeth.

He sighed and left.

* * * * *

Pell and Kronski left the hotel and started walking along the winding
tunnel with the side wall of quartz. On their right the huge valley,
with its stark, unearthly landshapes, stretched away. It was near the
end of the daylight period and the shadows from the distant peaks,
across the valley, were long and deep. Some of them, with little
reflected light, seemed to be patches of nothingness. Pell fancied he
could step through them into another dimension.

All about them, even here in the side of the mountain, and behind the
thick quartz, there was the odd, utterly dead silence of the moon.

Their footsteps echoed sparsely in the corridor.

Pell said to Kronski, "Got the story all straight?"

"Like as if it was true."

"Remember the signal?"

"Sure. Soon as you say we're out of cigarettes. What's the matter, you
think I'm a moron, I can't remember?"

Pell laughed and clapped him on the shoulder blade