Mass media -- Audiences -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Space flight to the moon -- Fiction; Stowaways -- Fiction
He saw no one else of his own class, though that wasn't surprising.
No Workers; no Guards; no one in the gray utilitarian uniforms. Just
Stars in their beautifully unique, individually styled garments. Just
the silent children playing silently like figures moving in an old
three-dimensional movie.
* * * * *
Dorothy Dillon walked past, tall and lithe and the color of melting
copper, her hair a tingling black cloud around bare shoulders. Andy
could have touched her arm. He started to say something, but he
couldn't; she didn't seem to see him.
He clenched his hands and started to yell something after her, but
managed to control himself. Bitterness and resentment crowded the awed
wonderment. Maybe that was the reason Personology strictly forbade
anyone coming to the Moon. It would break illusions. Maybe the Stars
were really just a lot of superior snobs who held their worshippers in
contempt.
Maybe. But Glora Delar wouldn't be like that; she was different; he
knew. Together, they had shared dream adventures that were his and his
alone. Anghar. The Palace of Anghar, the Armies of Vasca. She would be
different.
A sense of timelessness carried him along. There was no day or night,
by contrast. It was always synthetic day. The bubble overhead, the
smooth domed buildings, the walkways and avenues, all radiated a cold
ever-shining light. He hadn't taken the Guard's watch. How long had he
been walking? He didn't feel hungry or thirsty or tired. There was no
measurement in silence, in cold white unchanging light.
He stood by a lake. The scene was like a three-dimensional photograph,
the grass under him like rustling confetti. The big lake's surface
was like smooth shining glass. Swans glided along the glass like
clock-work. Huge water-lilies trembled with a strange regularity of
motion in a slight breeze that was always the same.
Then he saw her--Glora Delar, walking along the shore, only a few feet
away. A sudden weakness overcame him. His knees gave way and he dropped
on a bench. He half rose, sank down. "Glora," he whispered. "Glora--"
She wasn't alone. A man walked with her. The favorite of millions of
women who for some reason found Clifford Marlowe not quite perfect.
Carl Brittain. In the People's Fan Magazine there had been hints that
Glora Delar and Carl Brittain were more than just friends. Brooks had
figured it as being more propaganda.
* * * * *
Jealousy and hate roiled to muddy fear, fear and self-inadequacy, and
Brooks shrank down against the bench, hoping they wouldn't see him. He
wanted to crawl into a dark corner, hide somewhere. There was no dark
corner; everything was bright and white and blazing white light. Here
no man could hide; no man could sleep where there was no night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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