Terry Bisson - I Saw The Light

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I Saw the Light

by Terry Bisson

I saw the light. So did you. Everybody did.

Remember where you were the first time you saw it? Of course you do. I was living in Arizona,

Tucson, more or less retired. I was throwing sticks. They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but

who would want to? There aren't any new tricks, just the old tried and true. "Good boy, Sam," I would

say, and he would say "woof," and there we would go again. I used to amuse myself thinking it was Sam

who was teaching me to throw, but I don't think that any more. It was night, and desert nights are bright,

even with a quarter moon. Sam stopped, halfway back to me, dropped his stick and began to howl. He

was looking up, over my head. I turned and looked up toward the moon, and you know the rest. There it

was, blinking in threes: dot dot dot, twice a minute. On the Moon, where no one had been in thirty years.

Twenty nine, eight months, and four days, exactly; I knew, because I had been the last to leave, the one

who locked the door behind me.

· · · · ·

Sam's a big yellow mutt; his first name is Play it Again, so I always call him by his last. He was a parting

gift from my third ex, who was himself a parting gift from my second. Lunar subcrust engineers shouldn't

marry: our peculiar talents take us to too many faraway places. Or to one, anyway.

"Come on boy," I said, and we headed back into the minimally furnished condo I call home, leaving

the stick behind—even though sticks are not all that easy to find in Arizona, or for that matter on the

Moon.

· · · · ·

The light on the Moon was front page news the next morning—dot dot dot—and by the third day it was

estimated that all but a tiny fraction of Earth's six point four billion had seen it. UNASA confirmed that

the light was not from Marco Polo Station (I could have told them that) but from a spot almost a hundred

kilometers away, on the broad, dark plain of the Sinus Medii: the exact center of the Moon as seen from

Earth.

I figured there would have to be an investigation, so I made a few calls. I was not really hopeful, but

you never knew. I still had a few friends in the Agency. I was hoping that, if nothing else, this light would

get us back to the Moon. It wasn't only or even primarily for myself that I was hoping; it was for

humanity, all of us, past and future. It seemed a shame to learn to soar off the planet and then quit.

Okay, so it's not soaring: it's more like a push-up, grunting and heaving, but you know what I mean.

· · · · ·

First Contact: strange lights on the Moon: may we have your attention, please. The tabs speculated, the

pundits punded, and UNASA prepared the first international expedition since the abandonment of Marco

Polo in 20—. I had made, as I mentioned, a few calls, but I hadn't really expected anything. A

sixty-one-year-old woman does not exactly fit the profile for space flight and lunar exploration. So

Imagine, as they say, My Surprise, when the phone rang. It was Berenson, my Russian-English boss from

the old days. I knew him immediately by his accent even though it had been twenty-nine years eight

months and seven days.

"Bee!?" (Which is what we called him.)

"I requested you as number two for the tech team. Logistically this is a cake walk and age is not a

problem, if you're still in shape. There will be five altogether, three SETI and two tech."

"How soon?" I asked, trying to hide my excitement.

"Start packing."

I hung up and screamed, or howled, or whatever. Sam came running. "I'm going back to the Moon!"

I said.

"Woof!" he said, jowls flopping; as always, happier for me than for himself.

· · · · ·

Our trip was put together with a minimum of publicity and fanfare. We were due at Novy Mir in less than

a week. I wasn't to tell anyone where I was going. Of course, I had already told Sam.

"I'm leaving you here with Willoughby," I said. "I'll be back soon. Three, four weeks max.

Meanwhile, you be good, hear?"

"Where are you going, exactly?" My next door neighbor, Willoughby, is a retired FBI agent, a type

that both hates and loves secrets, depending on who is keeping them, and why.

"An old lover," I said, with a wink. It was one of my better moments.

· · · · ·

Zero G felt perfectly normal; you don't forget how to fly, just as you don't forget how to walk. I felt ten

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