The tomorrow people : $b a science fiction novelMerril, Judith
Science
The tomorrow people : $b a science fiction novel
Merril, Judith
Mars (Planet) -- Fiction; Psychological fiction; Science fiction; Space travelers -- Fiction
He was keeping his brain busy. _Fine. But what happens next?_
“--enough to hold shape on a frame, you could work the whole thing with
a pushbutton--”
The whitejacket type looked as impatient as she felt.
“--Give it a kind of dead man’s brake,” Johnny rattled on, impervious,
“so it won’t work during blast--”
Whitejacket gave her a pleading look. She took a deep breath. “Hey,”
she said. “Mister! You know which way to the Dome? I’m a stranger here
myself--”
He grinned, shook his head as if to wake himself up. “Sure. Right down
this aisle, lady. Step right through the double doorway to your right
... ea-ea-ea-zee does it. You are now breathing the fresh pure air
of Kansas City, imported direct to the Moon for the benefit of Dr.
Christensen’s walking talking researching exiles. Siberia was never
like this either. Well, how do you like it?”
_I don’t know_, she thought. _I’m too busy liking you._ She made
herself stand still, not look around. If she looked, if she seemed to
notice anything different, it would go away. _Oh, Johnny!_ she thought,
remembering suddenly, sharply, the man who had gone to Mars.
_But he’s still that way, lots of times_, she defended automatically,
even to herself; and told herself right back, _Sure he is--on Earth!_
But they weren’t on Earth: they were on the Moon, and Johnny hadn’t
even been able to listen to _talk_ about space for a year and a half
now without flipping his lid....
_Never mind_, she stopped herself. She didn’t have to understand it;
she could just be grateful for it.
“All right, snotty, _be_ blasé,” she said aloud. “Me, I’m a greenhorn.
I’m impressed.” And she was, too. Startling, how anything could be so
much like what you expected, but so much--what--so much more _real_.
Like seeing art-book reproductions of Degas’ dancers, and suddenly
finding yourself in front of a full-scale canvas, alive with the breath
and brush of the artist. And even now, all she was seeing was through
the protective refraction of the great air dome. She wondered if
visitors could ever get outside....
“Hey, babe, stop staring and come say hello to the nice man.”
She turned and smiled at Chris, with what she meant to be only a
sideways glance at Johnny. His face was open and relaxed and easy ... a
face she remembered from long long ago, and saw now only for fleeting
moments in great privacy and dim light. But even while she watched, it
disappeared under the familiar mask.
“You’ll have to excuse the lady,” he was saying to Chris. “It’s her
first experience as visiting firelady off the planet of her birth,
and....”
“I’m just Moon-struck,” she broke in. “Hello, Chris. I ... it ... well,
_thanks_ for asking us.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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