Steele, Allen - Shepherd Moon

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file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Allen%20Steele%20-%20Shepherd%20Moon.txt
ALLEN STEELE
SHEPHERD MOON
SHORTLY AFTER THE MONTHLY shuttle from Titan touched down at Herschel Station,
she climbed into her hardsuit and took the elevator up to the surface. She had
made up her mind a couple of weeks earlier-- in fact, she had been rehearsing
the scene in her imagination for many months now, long before she had
consciously reached her decision -- yet there was a moment when the outer hatch
opened in which she almost backed down.
She loved him. In spite of everything he had put her through, she still loved
him. But if she didn't do it now, it would be another eight months before she
got this chance again, and if she waited until then, she would surely go insane.
It was now or never.
Nonetheless, she loved him. . . .
She involuntarily took a deep breath, and that was all it took: the taste of
cold, recycled air, scented with old sweat and the vague machine odor of
recirculation pumps. She hadn't smelled fresh air in almost five years, and
short visits to the station's hydroponics bay couldn't match the recollection of
an early-morning pine forest in upstate New York just before the summer sun
burned off the fog, and even that memory was quickly fading, She had just passed
her sixty-eighth birthday: Not quite an old lady yet, but certainly not getting
any younger, and she didn't want to turn sixty-nine on Mimas.
The ground resembled the cobblestones of an ancient street in Italy, except it
was dirty, gray ice, scored by myriad craters. Ice, dirt, craters; no hills, no
atmosphere, no forests.
No life.
She was beginning to consider herself dead. Her husband . . . whether he was
still alive was debatable.
Guide ropes formed aisles that branched away in all directions. The shuttle
stood on the landing pad about a half-kilometer away, two silver barrels
squatting on spindly landing gear. She was tempted to head straight for it, but
she immediately rejected the notion. She had been married to him for twenty-six
years now, he deserved more than a note left on their cubicle's datascreen. So
she grasped the ropes and, using them to anchor her against the moon's
negligible gravity, hauled herself step by step down the center aisle.
She didn't want to look at the sky. As much as it was his obsession, it was her
damnation. She was afraid that if she allowed herself to look upward, she would
be lured into the trap that had snared him. So she refused to raise her eyes
from the gritty, frozen ground beneath her boots as she pulled herself hand over
hand along the cables out to the place where her husband had set up his easel.
She didn't want to go. Her breath panted loudly within her helmet as she
struggled against the ropes, each exhalation briefly clouding the faceplate of
her helmet. She still loved him. Another step taken; another choice made. She
didn't want to go. Her feet felt like dead weights with every step she took. She
still loved him, and she didn't want to go. . . .
And suddenly, before she was aware of the distance she had overcome, she was
with her husband.
He sat on a metal stool in front of his tripod-mounted easel, his palette
strapped to his lap, his back turned to her. The stool and the easel had been
bolted to the surface, and more straps around his waist kept him from floating
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Allen%20Steele%20-%20Shepherd%20Moon.txt (1 of 5) [11/1/2004 12:28:53 AM]
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分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：5 页 大小：17.54KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-11-23

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