Near Mare Fecundatitus, on the Moon of an Earth, lay the dying man. Fifty yards away stood the single-stage rocket that had borne him here, an atomic strato-jet illegally converted for space flight, the hastily-christened Lunatic. This rocket itself had made its final journey, and in the years to come would be called a monument, but the old man did not consider that. He couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that he might be dying—not yet.
The rocket, and others like it, had once been a dream in his mind, but his perseverance had turned it into a plan on a drawing board, and thence to reality. He had done it. Others had funded it, designed it, built it and flown it, but he had gotten it done, via a lifetime of conniving, convincing, legal and semilegal threats, promotions, swindles, payoffs, backroom deals and compromises... all to get enough funds to enough scientists and engineers and pilots to make it possible. All to get humanity into space, and to land on the Moon for the first time in history. All in order to get him to the Moon, specifically. But he couldn’t take the first flight, as he intended—that honor of being the first human to set foot on the moon had gone to the pilot, Captain Leslie LeCroix. And there wasn’t room on the next flight, nor the next, and after that there was always another reason to keep him on the ground. The other directors of the company he’d founded had never let him risk his bones—his presence on Earth was too valuable to the company and its stockholders... Well, never mind them. He was here at last, on the Moon, where he’d longed to be since childhood.
He lay propped against a small ridge, unable to sit up. The heavy acceleration of space travel, the straining of the ship to defy the grip of Earth’s gravity, had hurt him badly. His hired companions had wanted him to submit to first aid, to bind his cracked ribs and wipe the blood from his lips, but he had made them suit him up instead and place him here, where his achievement lay all around him. The deep black sky above the bright lunar terrain was lightly specked with stars where the Sun and Earthshine did not wash them away. Earth itself hung over the horizon looking like a scrap of blue eggshell, Earth with her “bright blue skies and cool green hills” as the jetmen put it in that catchy song with the off-color lyrics. (He had no way of knowing what that song would become; Rhysling’s final revision of The Green Hills of Earth lay over a decade in the future.)
The old man knew the physical facts, he had studied them often enough. He knew that he was in a place where a feather and a hammer could be dropped from the same height and still fall at the same speed to hit the ground together; a place constrained by physical law, yet beyond Earthly experience. But his knowledge heretofore had been a theoretical framework that was now being richly clothed by direct contact. He dug his gloved hands into the gritty, harsh lunar sand, letting it run through his fingers. He felt, rather than heard, the rushing of the particles as they flowed straight down and settled instantly in clumps on the lunar surface; on Earth, his actions would have raised a small dust cloud, but here there was no atmosphere in which tiny particles could drift and billow, and the outside world was silent. The only noise was his own loud and straining heartbeat, and the hissing of the regulator that fed air into his spacesuit from the bottle strapped to his back. Everything else was still, and at peace.
Peace. He had followed a need all his life, driven by his dreams, and at last he had achieved them; now, as his aged body failed him, his mind was content. He felt that he had transcended every chain that had ever bound him, and his wounds felt light and remote. Gradually, the ship, the sky, and the harsh bright sands of Luna faded as darkness grew in front of him, darkness almost solid enough to touch...
“Delos...? Delos David Harriman.” The impossible voice broke in on his thoughts.
Silly, he thought. I’m getting old—my mind wanders...
But now before him, blocking out ship and sky, was a vision of a figure with wings and shining diadem; a tall, regal but unhuman shape, around which darkness swirled in obscuring clouds. He was a practical man, and respectful of icons only insofar as they suited his needs, but this vision had an undeniable presence that undercut reality, and which told him this was no hallucination.
Harriman blinked hard, still trying to dispel the dream. “Well... I can’t say I was expecting this,” he sighed. “So, which way am I going...?” He broke off. The figure’s wings were black, not red—but still, the traditional color for an angel was white...
“You shall go nowhere at present,” said the contralto voice. “The damage to your body cannot be undone, though your death may be held in abeyance by certain arts which I command. But I perceive that you think me to be a spirit of your culture’s own religious traditions. I am in fact a living being, though from another world.”
“Another world...” said Harriman in wonder. “From within the solar system, or beyond?”
“Rather much beyond,” she said. “I am not from this universe of yours at all.”
“Interdimensional travel?” exclaimed Harriman. He tried to study her more closely, but he seemed to be viewing her, and the landscape beyond, through a black and shifting haze. “How did you manage that?”
“It is hard to explain, particularly in the limited time we have. For now, conceive of the Moon as a symbol, an ideal, and know that wherever this ideal may present itself in infinite possibilities, there some measure of my power and an echo of my presence may reach.”
“In other words,” said Harriman with arched eyebrow, “it’s just magic...?”
If she sensed the sardonic tone in his voice, she did not show it. “Indeed it is.”
“I suppose I’ll have to take your word for that; you are here after all...” Harriman paused. He was starting to get a better sense of her face.
It was an animal’s face, strongly equine but not fully... but still, resolvable as a sort of black unicorn, with cat-slitted turquoise eyes, and wings. This surely had to be a hallucination. On the other hand, the demons of mythology were supposed to be able to take animal forms, and that was perhaps slightly more probable than the odds of an alien transdimensional traveler having evolved to look like a creature of Earthly fantasy. Perhaps she was just making herself look more familiar to him, but if so, why not appear humanoid...?
Harriman blinked. This was all just speculation; he needed more information.
“...But I can tell you’re not entirely a material being, or I wouldn’t be able to hear you through the lack of atmosphere. How are we talking?”
She nodded slightly, as if she had awaited this question. “I have placed a working upon the helmet you wear, that we might communicate. It summons and conjoins meanings from your mind, meanings that most closely match the intent of my words, then it vibrates the vitreous material of your helmet to produce and receive sounds. It is in this way that we perceive and understand each other’s speech.”
Harriman’s eyes narrowed. “You’re reading my mind?”
“No. The spell itself must access the semantic structure of your brain to make these connections, but it does not return other information to me. I cannot perceive your thoughts directly, and would scorn to do so if I could.”
Harriman carefully studied her neutral expression. “I see. So, if you’re not a sort of angel, or otherwise, then why are you here?”
“Ah...” she smiled. “I shall ask first why you are here.”
“Well, Ma’am—is that the right form of address for you?”
“I am properly Princess Regent of the Night, but let us see... Ma’am, contracted from Madam... ‘My Dam...’ That is not inappropriate; proceed.”
So, not only a magical unicorn, he thought, but also a fairy-tale princess. This is one for the books. What else will she expect me to buy?
“Well... Ma’am... ever since I was a boy, I’ve wanted to be here. I used to stare up at the night sky, and watch the Moon, and it didn’t seem that it could be all that far away. Everyone laughed at the idea that humans could rise above the Earth and travel to other worlds, but I believed. I learned as much as I could, and when I couldn’t get things done one way, I tried another. And...” He looked past her at the silver ship, gleaming faintly through the dark haze, and his enthusiasm grew within him despite his caution; he could not keep the passion out of his voice. “It wasn’t easy, all the things I had to do to get here. So many people thought it was a crazy idea, impossible, or a waste of time and money. I had to fight at every step, against bureaucracy, inertia, plain old stubborness... But one way or another, I sold them on the idea, I lived long enough, and I made it all happen.” A calm smile spread over his face. “I’m here at last. I’ve made it to the Moon.”
Her smile grew along with his. “Well, now you may understand better why I am here; it is because of you. I was well aware of the activity of your species once it impinged upon my domain, and I could sense behind it a driving force. A dream as strong as yours was easily detectable, even if only through its effect on the actions of others. It was thus that you caught my attention.
“And now that you are on the Moon and are entirely within the scope of my power, we can at last have a proper conversation. Though we have not met heretofore, I have deduced certain things about you, Delos Harriman. You have an outstanding force of direction, a drive to achieve, and this drive is not always strictly tempered by ethical concerns; do I speak correctly?”
Harriman thought back over his many deeds and deals. He didn’t think he had done that badly, all things considered, but there was that affair with the stamps, for instance, and... He cut off those thoughts; perhaps his visitor’s ‘spell’ was doing more than interpreting semantics. Could he really trust her to not read his mind? Was there any way to tell for sure?
He could control his facial expression, if nothing else. “Ma’am, where I come from, we have something called the Fifth Amendment—”
She smirked. “You need not agree aloud. But attend to me; I do not have much time—more accurately, you do not have much time. You are a... man, is it? A man of business. As such, I put to you a proposition. Had you a new life to live, a young healthy body to support your astonishing mind, and the chance to spend not just one meager hour on the Moon, but as much time as you pleased... would these things be of value to you?”
Harriman’s face, hardened by decades of business negotiation, now showed no emotion. “Sounds like Heaven to me, and rather too good to be true.”
“Heaven? Ah, this is your name for the realms Arcadian. But it is a new life that I now offer you, not an afterlife, and the price I ask is that you shall return with me to my world and enter my service. It will be no perfect paradise, no life of ease, but I suspect that such would not suit you anyway. To passively rest does not seem to be your nature...”
“You want me to work for you? Doing what? I’ve reached the stage of my life in which I’m rather used to being my own boss.”
“Most would count it an honor to be called to my service, however high their station. Be assured that the work I have in mind is commensurate in scope with your bold spirit and bright intellect... and also speaks to that passion you have nursed all your life.” She smiled warmly. “I have guessed what it must have been like for you. Even as your ‘own boss’, have you not encountered resistance? Have you not faced scorn for your beliefs, disdain for what your heart knows to be true? You shall not have to bear such insults under me. Your goals shall never be dismissed as unworthy, or insane, but welcomed in a luminous lunar spirit...”
“‘A luminous lunar spirit...’” repeated Harriman dryly. “Moonshine, in other words...?”
She frowned, and was silent for a time.
“...This word, ‘moonshine...’ for you it carries certain connotations. It is the name of a cheaply-produced and illicit intoxicant, often produced at night. It is a symbol for foolish conceits that may attend the consumption of such a drink.
“But, Delos Harriman, do you not see that it means more in relation to you? You have an uncommon and terrible power. You can coax others to follow your fanciful dreams, and by that means turn them into reality. You stirred the hearts of your fellows and convinced them to pour their best efforts into reaching your goals, and in the process you made the Moon seem a more tantalizing prize than the brightest and most sparkling diamond. You are one to be feared and respected. Oh, I have use for one such as you! Will you not consider that I may have been calling you all your life; that this moonfever that seized you in childhood may have been a hint towards your destiny?”
Harriman, in turn, was silent for a while, trying to take the measure of her face. Her reactions so far had seemed human enough; was that more evidence for her being a supernatural creature of Earthly origin?
“...I never took much stock in destiny, Ma’am. As far as I could ever make out, this world is too messy a place to support things like that. You just do what you can with the time you have. For my part, I just wanted to stay alive long enough to see it happen. The harnessing of atomic energy, the development of passenger strato-jets, the first steps—baby steps for our race—until we could get out beyond our well-trodden globe and explore again. To not just look up at the stars with longing, but to reach out and take hold of them, to take our place as citizens of the galaxy...” His eyes shone as his hands tightly gripped the lunar soil.
“Oh, wondrous!” she said. “I felt the fire in your heart as you spoke those words. I am more determined than ever to get you to work for me. What else may I offer you? You shall have all the perquisites of a high station—personal attendants, a generous stipend, a fiefdom upon the Moon as well as the terrestrial realms...”
While she had been speaking, Harriman had thought of a possible way to test whether she was reading his mind. He just needed a thought that was outrageous enough... There, that was a question that seemed likely to rile her once she comprehended it. Holding it at the front of his mind, he turned the conversation down a different path, smiling with thin lips and glinting eyes.
“Ma’am, as you said, we don’t have a lot of time right now. Perhaps you could you skip the pitch and go right to the catch? What aren’t you telling me?”
She flicked an eyebrow. “Must you really be so captious? Is my offer truly not good enough?”
“Well now, perhaps it isn’t. Are you trying to tempt my soul away from its proper destination here? By taking you up on this offer, am I losing my shot at an eternal paradise in my proper heaven?”
She snorted in contempt. “What awaits you here once you die lies beyond my knowledge, but if there are immortal powers of this world who want you to remain, that they may honor your bold spirit in their own realms, let them appear before us now and state their case. They had best hasten, as your body, even under my preservative arts, cannot retain your spirit for much longer.”
Harriman chuckled. In his experience, the powers of his world, if sapient at all, never responded in any detectable fashion to such demands, and in truth he was not entirely sure about which sort of agent might arrive to claim him if they did, but he was not about to admit this to her.
He paused, ready to speak the thought he’d been holding in his mind, while watching her eyes closely.
“So... while we wait for them to make a counteroffer, let’s get back to what you haven’t been telling me. My ‘culture’s own religious tradition’ has a legend about an infernal rebellion... and your appearance has some points in common with that of the chief malcontent. You’ve only got the one black horn instead of two red ones, but I must ask: Is there any relation? I didn’t get to where I am by backing the wrong—”
“You dare—” She stamped the ground and the world and stars shuddered around him. “Ah, I cannot give my emotions full play; it would shake your feeble frame apart. But you dare to question me in this manner? I do admire boldness in those I choose to serve me, but you forget your position, Delos Harriman. It is not for you to demand justifications of me.”
Harriman had watched the rage grow on her face as he had spoken; she was either a consummate actress, or she had in fact not known what he was going to say before he said it. It wasn’t a perfect test, but it would have to do for now. He drew a deep breath, keeping his poker-face on, and willing his pounding, stuttering heart to beat more softly.
“Well now, you don’t expect me to just accept your offer without knowing more about you and your ability to deliver, do you? I’m just performing my due diligence. If you’re going to be close-lipped about it, that just tells me there’s something queer about your deal.”
Her eyes widened. “You hover at the brink of death, yet you question and quibble, and you insult the one who stands ready to deliver you. Man, your life hangs by a thread!”
“Ma’am, it is especially because my life hangs by a thread that I do this. I have but one life, and before I give control of it over to a magical stranger who says she’s from another dimension, I am going to damned well have some good reasons to believe that I am not choosing a fate worse than death.
“Now, from the way you’re shying away from answering me, I take it that I was right—there was a rebellion and you were on the wrong side of it. This isn’t necessarily a deal killer, but it calls for an explanation. How’d you fall from power, and who’s holding the reins at present? And do you stand an honest chance against the status quo?”
Her bright eyes blazed in the blackness. Harriman felt the surge of her ire and intensity, and was exhilarated. He recalled from his past the long and heated arguments in smoke-filled boardrooms, the matching of wits and words, the threats both blatant and unstated...
He met her fierce gaze in placid silence, and awaited her move.
At length, she hissed through clenched teeth. “Very well, since it pleases you to be willful, I shall grant you this information, but my patience has limits...”
“As you yourself just pointed out, so does mine.”
“...Still your tongue. Know that I am a ruler in exile, and that the power that I claim over the Moon and its reflections, my sister claims with the Sun. Nearly a millennium ago, I ruled the realm at my sister’s side, or so it was meant to be, but never was the night fully respected by her, or by our subjects, as it should be. I raised objection with my sister, but chose my words poorly, and our contention grew. In the end, my sister, using ‘the good of the realm’ as her justification, employed certain arcane devices to sever my connections with the terrestrial realms and leave me sequestered in my lunar palace, with only a small group of my personal guard to attend me...
“Ah, but soon, my thousand-year exile shall draw to a close. My time comes, my stars are waxing in power and will soon be ready to lend me their strength. I shall descend from the Moon and... negotiate with my sister. Should I prevail, I shall want clever, persuasive minds like yours to smoothly arrange the transfer of power, and help to reassure my subjects that I have their best interests at heart in displacing their beloved Sovereign Sun.”
“And what if she wins?” asked Harriman. “Won’t she just do to you again what worked last time?”
“It is unlikely. The elements that banished me certainly lost their cohesion in the very act; my sister could not employ them again by herself, and I speak from direct experience. While she has had a thousand years to plan for my return, so have I, and I can conceive of very little she could do, short of selectively breeding and culling our subjects to make their descendants capable of carrying such a burden. Even then, wielding all the elements at once would be beyond any one of them, and they could not be distributed among several of them without dispersing their power. Even friendship has its limits.
“But even should she prevail... I shall need your support still, for my destiny is to return, whether in triumph or in shame. However things stand in your world, destiny is a working and living force in mine. It cannot be lost.” Though it may sometimes be redirected, she took care not to say to Harriman. “But I do think my chances are are worth the undertaking. Understand that I spoke not idly when I proclaimed myself Regent of the Night; it is the eternal source of my strength. The motto stands inscribed on my lunar throne, Nox Aeterna—though often this phrase is misunderstood. I do acknowledge the power of the day, and its necessity for life, but the Sun must always set, and when it does there shall always be the illimitable blackness beyond the stars. Such is the source of my power, and though my sister’s source is nearer and burns more brightly, mine is much vaster, and shall perdure.” The stars seemed magnified behind her as she spoke.
Harriman’s piercing eyes sparkled in the starlight. “And is your sister a Princess Regent also? Regents for whom?”
She paused, and frowned slightly. “To answer that, I would need to explain more of the cosmology of my world. I doubt that I could convey enough of it in the time we have to give you a true picture. But... there are the powers in the universe that cause other things to circle them, through the weight that they press into the black void, and there are powers that reach out and act through their brilliance to alter the void itself. My sister and I are of the latter sort, our sires and dams the former, and though we do act as their representatives in their abeyance, they are unlikely to reassert any claims they have within any time scale that would matter to you.”
“I see. Well, if you are in control of the night, may I ask why you don’t just go and find another world to rule, somewhere? Is that something possible to you?”
“I do draw my power from the stars, but I do not sojourn far among them. At present, my destiny is in fact bound with the world where my sister and I were both meant to rule... albeit not necessarily at the same time; there my knowledge of the future remains dim. But a beautiful jewel it is, amid the heavens, and our subjects only dimly appreciate what we their Royals accomplish on their behalf in the celestial spheres, and this is perhaps for the best.”
Harriman blinked, reading between the lines of that statement, but keeping it to himself. “Ah. So however large the universe, there’s no place like home, is that it?”
She sighed. “’Tis true. I do wish that she will see things my way this time. But should it come to another contest of strength, I am prepared.” She chuckled softly. “There are few mortals who know this... but there was a time millennia ago when she was banished to her beloved Sun by those very elements, when they were under my control. For ‘the good of the realm,’ you see. Of course, she will not have allowed our subjects to learn that awkward fact...”
Harriman nodded. “The winner writes the history books... the loser hires a new PR department. I get you.”
She smiled ruefully. “One wishes always to tell the truth, not so? But there are ways to present the truth that leave a bad impression, and ways that may show the truth in a more favorable light, or cast a useful shade over facts that might be readily misunderstood by ignorant minds. Oh, do you not see how well we understand each other, Delos Harriman? Kindred spirits we are. I must have you in my service, I simply must!”
Harriman drew breath to reply, but then his heart squeezed hard, gave a few staggering beats, then squeezed again and didn’t stop. He felt as if someone had stabbed him in the chest and was twisting the knife. His face grew grey as the moonscape, grey as death. His medicine... there was no way for him to reach it; it was in his vest pocket and his spacesuit was sealed tightly over it. He wheezed, each breath getting harder to draw, and the greyness flooded across his vision, obscuring even the blackness...
“No! I shall not let you pass like this!” she said.
A surge of hot and tingling energy entered his chest, then the knot of pain unraveled and the blood slowly returned to his head. Harriman drew breath in great desperate gulps of air, fighting down nausea as his heart fluttered like a bird with a broken wing.
“Delos Harriman, your body weakens apace.” He noted the concern in her voice; it sounded genuine. “I now have literal hold of your heart, and only the force of my will keeps it beating rightly for you. You are in the gravest peril. You must accept my offer; the time for negotiation has passed.”
Color slowly returned to Harriman’s ashen face, and the death-panic was fading from his mind. One thing had been settled; if she wasn’t using magic, she had technology that acted like it. There was of course the possibility that this whole conversation had been part of the delirium of death, but he spent little thought on this; if it was true, there was little he could do about it.
He shook his head and rallied himself; it helped that he was rankling at that word must. Principles were worth nothing unless you stood behind them, and this was true even when betting your very last chip...
Harriman drew his back up as straight as he could. “I’m very sorry, ma’am. It may in fact be as generous an offer as you say it is, but... no deal.”
Her eyes widened as if he had slapped her. She shook her head, blinked, drew breath to speak... then she hissed as her eyes narrowed. “You would rather die than enter my service? Truly...?”
Harriman felt the warming force in his chest weaken; his heart was straining by itself once again. But he was an inveterate poker player, and he simply met her fierce gaze coolly.
“I intended you no insult, Ma’am, but I don’t care to form a lasting business relationship under pressure like this. And regardless, I’ve had a good life and I’ve done what I wanted to do with it. I can die happily now; anything more would just be lagniappe. I’ve worked hard and I think I deserve a good long rest...”
“Lagniappe? A... A trinket, a merchant’s treat, a thirteenth rose added to an order of a dozen, and that is how you reckon the worth of my offer! And you intended me no insult!? You insolent, contemptible—” She drew a sharp breath, and stood with gritted teeth... then she suddenly smiled, a terrible bright smile in which Harriman could clearly see her fangs, and an infernal power she seemed, indeed.
She leaned in close, and spoke with deadly softness. “I could just take your mind without your permission. I have done worse.”
Harriman’s calm gaze grew stonier. “So what do you want now—a medal for not doing the wrong thing? A parade, perhaps?”
She was silent again, and shut her eyes, and Harriman sensed a tension in her like the force of a binary star system, each sun tearing the other to shreds, unable to fly together or fly apart. After a while, she fixed him again with a piercing glare, her pupils narrowed to slits of pure black.
“Delos Harriman... know that I am used to getting what I demand when the demand is uttered. I thought to be generous in making an offer to you instead of issuing you an order. Being refused, and refused successfully and without fear, by one so powerless before me... this is a true novelty. In all my millennia, I have not seen the equal of it, and I am unsure whether my rage outmatches my curiosity.”
She paused awhile with eyes shut again, then spoke hesitantly, as if being coached.
“But... You should know that... I regard you highly enough to... To put aside what I wish, and to yield and let your brilliant mind and indomitable spirit fall and crumble into the lunar ash, if that is what you truly desire. Say the word, and I shall release you to your imminent death and go my way.”
Harriman relaxed just a trifle. “Ah. Is it that hard for you to show respect, and not just promise it?”
She gave a grim smile. “My promises are never made lightly, and they are kept though the world drop from under me; I can be a harsh mistress, but I am a fair one.” Her eyes glinted. “But it is true that you would have no way to know that, so I cannot fairly fault you for testing me, insulting though it may seem.”
Harriman nodded, then fell silent. He could still make out behind her the tall vertical silver gleam of the Lunatic, and the undulating hills beyond. This would be a peaceful resting place, and one entirely appropriate as a cap to his life. He could imagine newspaper headlines; tributes, or likely vilifications, written by business associates. Perhaps they’d even put a plaque here on this spot. There’d be no need to bury his corpse; his spacesuit would be all the coffin he would require.
She was looking at him now with a strangely softened expression. Something about it caught his eye, and in a flash the memory came to him. It was that time, too many long years ago in his late teens, not long after his mother had told him that he wouldn’t be able to go to college after all. He recalled seeing his sisters arguing in the living room, something about a ribbon, or a prom, or a slice of pie... Time had blurred the memory, but he remembered seeing his oldest sister looking with casual triumph down at the youngest, whose face was proud and resolute, but whose eyes were shining wet...
Harriman fancied he was seeing an echo, now. The Regent of the Night might well be thousands of years old as she claimed, but Harriman was quite sure that she was still the younger sibling. He felt his tired heart lifting of its own accord. Was she trying to play him with that look of mute and desperate appeal? He took a moment to analyze his feelings. No, there was more to it than just a response to her expression. He realized with interest what was happening to him, then made his choice.
He sighed, and gave her a small but real smile. “You know, Ma’am... I’ve met some first class verbalists in my life. Some of them were even honest business people, but most were just looking to unload a bag of snakes on me. And talking to each one of them was a unique experience and a pleasure. I thought I was beyond all that; it’d become a habit, you see, and the thrill had dimmed over the years.
“When I finally made it here, I was feeling relaxed, content, my dreams attained, all my troubles resolved, ready to die in peace. But now, after talking with you for just a while... why, I feel alive again. It’s just like the old days when I had to finesse every new idea into the skulls of my business partners, by crowbar, scalpel or bludgeon. According to most folks, that should be one of the things I don’t miss. But you were right in what you said, earlier—I’m not a placid, restful man. And there was that thrill of the hunt, the triumph when you got someone else to see it your way, or made ’em do it even if they couldn’t see it...
“Now, I don’t know what the heavenly powers of this world may have waiting for me, but I’m willing to bet it wouldn’t be half so exciting or interesting as arguing with you is turning out to be.
“So, subject to a few conditions, I’ll reconsider your offer—provided it’s still on the table.”
Her eyes glimmered; he saw the flicker of renewed hope under her look of disdain. “I see. So, working for one of the very powers of the sky, albeit in interregnum, no longer troubles your pride?”
Harriman grinned. “Oh hell, pride wasn’t really in it, Ma’am, You just don’t turn all your cards up before you start the game. And the part about exile doesn’t bother me either. It’s no fun to be on the winning side all the time. The struggle is what gets your blood flowing.”
“Indeed it does, and, one may hope, while ’tis still within one’s own body. So, swiftly now, what are these conditions?” Her voice turned as dry as the lunar sands. “Against my better judgement, but to save time in quibbling, you shall retain all the perquisites I mentioned earlier. Do you also wish a medal, perhaps a parade?”
Harriman really wished that he had a cigar, but they were tucked in his vest pocket next to his medicine. “Well, the perks are certainly welcome. And I must fairly admit, you’ve been pretty decent to me so far. There were any number of times you could have shaken me up a lot more than you did—”
“In sooth, I was strongly tempted to do exactly that. However, so close are you to bodily death, I could not risk even a pretense lest I lose you entirely. Still, it would be wise for you not to goad me further at present.”
“...I see. Even so, I want you to extend me that same courtesy wherever we’re going. I’m rather enjoying being a gadfly, and I want to keep that same privilege to intrigue you even if it infuriates you. In the long run, I think you’ll be glad you did it.”
She smirked, with narrowed eyes. “That really is the sort of position that must be earned, and re-earned continuously...” And I wager, she thought, that you shall think differently of it when you are physically in my realm and my wrath fully shakes your bones for the first time. “But, granted. Next?”
“Next... Well, let’s talk about the work I’ll be doing. I’m fine with helping you in your negotiations, and I’m sure I can come up with a few tricks to help improve your image in the eyes of the public. But there’s got to be more to it than that.
“You see, I’ve done a fair job here—not as much as I wanted, but good enough. There are colonies on Mars and Venus, and the Harriman & Strong Corporation has its name on eighty-seven percent of space-travel related patents. It’s all in their hands now; the stars are in Humanity’s reach, if they have the guts to go out and grab them.
“But the other price that I want is that you let me show the way to your people. I want to build another space program in your realm, and I want your full cooperation—but it can’t be just for you, and there I am adamant. It’s all well and good for you and your sister to be queens of the cosmos, and destined rulers of the world, but I want your subjects to have the power to walk among the stars as well.”
Her face betrayed no hint of a mad, gleeful smile. “Ah, you know not all of what you ask. My little ones are quite bound to verdant soil and blue skies, and they not only do not share such dreams, but would actively resist them. Even my own attendants in my lunar palace long for the return from the Moon to the terrestrial realms, and there are few who truly look outward. I would of course give you all possible support, but—You are determined in this...? Very well. We may be biting the sod with the stalk on this one, Delos Harriman, but I accept your terms.”
“Deal’s done, then. What’s next? Do we sign it in blood?”
“Hold; I can spare no time. I must work to consolidate your spirit and memories...” A soft glow surrounded Harriman’s head and torso. His scalp prickled as a sharp heat surrounded him and worked inwards, pulsing with regular rhythm as dreamlike images arose in his mind, glimpses of the past, people and places he hadn’t seen or thought of in years.
“There,” she said. “The process has begun and shall take some time to complete. You shall feel lassitude growing upon you, this is to be expected. Now, as to ‘signing in blood,’ only your essence can travel with me; neither paper nor blood could accompany us, so our words must be our bond until I have created for you a new physical vessel... Speaking of which, have you any requests in that regard?”
“So giving me a younger version of what I have isn’t an option? Well...” Harriman was already feeling weary; a warm peaceful feeling was flowing over him and it was harder to think clearly. “I suppose that doesn’t matter so much to me; I didn’t ask to be made how I am right now. If I have a sharp brain to think about my environment and a strong healthy body to alter it with, that’s enough. Hell, being reborn as a winged demon like you could be fun.”
“A... demon. You think—” Ah, that is... very amusing, she thought. I shouldn’t spoil this. “Ahem. A ‘winged demon’ like me it shall be—and mens sana in corpore sano shall certainly be granted to you; you would be of no help to me otherwise. Anything else?”
“Nope, I’m ready to go and get to work on those tough problems you mentioned.” Harriman yawned and blinked. “As long as I don’t wind up pushing—or pulling—a plow, I’ll be happy...”
She snickered. “This shall not be a concern for you. But sleep now; my spell reaches its culmination... Sleep, Delos Harriman, my Moonshiner.”
The darkness swiftly faded, leaving only the small white spacesuit and the gray landscape around the silver ship. Nothing that was visible had changed; nothing at all to mark just what else had passed from that world when Harriman’s spirit departed from it.
~~~~~
Charlie Cummings, chief engineer of the Lunatic on her first and final Moon run, emerged from the ship, descended the hull-mounted ladder, and stared out over the rough terrain in the direction of Luna City, invisible over the horizon, but detectable by the lights that reflected from the hills nearby it. There, about forty miles away, a new life free of legal encumbrances waited for Charlie and Captain McIntyre, and there Mr. Harriman could finally get some medical help, whether he wanted it or not. Charlie hoped to hell that he would pull through. Old Pop had fought so hard to get here, despite his bum ticker and all those meddling so-and-sos who wanted to tell him how to spend his own money. He deserved a chance to take some time and enjoy it.
Charlie waved at the small ridge where he and McIntyre had set the old man at his fervent insistence, but Harriman did not wave back. Charlie loped off towards him at a brisk pace. He approached the seated figure, bent over him, then touched helmets with him and spoke... then spoke again, then gently shook him. He waited.
He looked at the spacesuit’s chest-mounted instrument panel, checked a gauge that showed the suit’s rate of oxygen consumption... then he stopped, hand resting on the still form on the ground below him, and did not move for a while.
Charlie gently reached behind Harriman’s suit, moving the frail figure as easily and carefully as if it were a paper doll, and with practiced hands removed the compressed air container. The dead should be treated with decorum, but air on the the Moon is a precious commodity, always to be reserved for us, the living. Charlie arranged Harriman’s arms, clasping his hands over his chest, then reached to his own suit. From a side pocket he drew forth a thick carpenter’s pencil. He looked about, then down at the air container, which still bore its shipping tag. He tore this off and rested it blank side up on the bottle. He thought a while, then, slowly, with deliberate motions necessary when writing with the thick-fingered gloves of a spacesuit, he scrawled out a verse that also appears on a high hill in Samoa, on many versions of Earth:
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will!
This be the verse you grave for me—
Here he lies where he longed to be.
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
Charlie drew out his suit’s utility knife, and pinned the rough epitaph into the coarse dirt besides the corpse. Turning with no particular haste, he loped gently back to the Lunatic, climbed the ladder, and entered and shut the airlock. A few minutes later, he re-emerged, followed by Captain McIntyre, who left the airlock open behind them. Together, they donned skis for ease of movement upon the lunar sands, and headed off in the direction of Mare Crisium and the lights of Luna City, which glowed like a beacon of warmth and safety on the horizon, easily outshining the faint, cold and scattered stars of the sky.
Author's Note
I had several directions in which to take this story; the most poignant was to present things so that Nightmare Moon could not rescue Harriman, but only commiserate with him as he slipped into death. However, considering the direction of Heinlein's later works, I think this version is entirely appropriate—Heinlein explicitly placed his own oeuvre within the scope of the Big Big Picture, and if Gay Deceiver can travel to Oz, if John Sterling can meet Hazel Stone and shake her hand, then I think that sending Nightmare Moon to save D. D. Harriman is justifiable.
For those disinclined to do a web search, the epitaph is Robert Louis Stevenson's Requiem.
