" "As are you, Ken." "As are you, Ken." Her smile was dazzling. She held out her hand and I kissed it; As I had realized earlier, her skin was thin and fragile, projections of her great age upon her. I felt saddened by her suddenly, just standing there. Commander Scheider seemed slightly surprised by the familiarity of the exchange, but he recovered quickly and said, "Well, let's have your crew settled into their cabins. I understand that you and your flight crew will be heading on to Moscow in a few days." "The day after tomorrow, at 19:00 Greenwich Mean Time," K'meh replied. Is there a problem with that scheduling?" "Just give us six hours notification and we'll have a clearance ready for you," said a broad-shouldered man standing with Commander Scheider's party. "Does your ship require any particular type of refueling or maintenance?" "Not that it isn't already getting," Shtamed replied. "It's the atmospheric insertions that really tear them up, and we have a facility at New Boeing Field to do that sort of maintenance work." As we were led into the underground moonbase (a trip which involved a short hop in a tracked tube), I noticed K'meh glancing about nervously. We were shown our temporary quarters, and when the doors closed I dropped my bag and gave her a tight hug. "Feeling claustrophobic?" I asked her. "A little," she admitted. The quaver in her voice gave away just how big "a little" was. "We just spent four days cooped up in a Kangaroo. Compared to that, this is spacious. It's bigger than the entire cabin!" She smiled. |