Wyatt flinched and turned his head away. When he dared to look again there was a filter lens over the port. Actually it must have slid into place at once, or the raw glare would have blinded him. And now space seemed to be brimming over with light, all the blackness hidden beyond that golden blaze.
He could see Makvern's craft, still in position ahead and to one side, its polished rim flashing and glittering. It seemed to skim through the ocean of light like a fleeting shadow, and Wyatt found himself mesmerized by the illusion that he, too, was being buoyed up and whirled along, a chip on the floods of heaven.
Brinna hunched brooding over her controls and never gave it all a second look. Wyatt realized that of course this was an old story to her. She must have seen suns all over the galaxy and consider them no more interesting than street lamps.
It was not an old story to Wyatt. He was still frightened to death of being where he was, but even the fear was getting lost in the overwhelming wonder and magnificence of it. He craned his neck around to peer at the actual sun itself, but that was behind them and the ports on that side of the cockpit were blacked out completely. All he could see were shaking veils of fire that sprang out suddenly to cover half his field of vision and then fell back, streaming in golden streams. He thought these must be solar prominences, or part of the corona. The golden flood of light spread out and out and he could not see any end to it, though he knew there must be one. Rushing obliquely ahead of the craft was a thin black knife-edged blade cutting sharp across the radiance, and he knew that that was their own shadow.
There was the light, and Makvern's craft, and the shadow, and nothing else. Then a white curved thing like a gnawed bone slid into view, and he knew it was the edge of the Moon.
They headed toward it. For the first time Wyatt had something by which to estimate their speed. Whatever it was in miles per hour, it was too damned fast. The Moon fairly sprang at them. He could see craters opening and weird jagged mountains shooting up, exactly like pictures of growing plants taken with a strobe camera. The flinty peaks glinted like rows of teeth. Wyatt's heart came up in his throat. He understood that Makvern and Brinna must know what they were doing, and he was determined not to yell, but he found himself trying to push his feet through the floor in an involuntary gesture of putting on brakes.
The two craft tilted and swung across the face of the Moon—it was only the airlessness of space and the brilliance of the reflecting sunlight, Wyatt knew, that made the surface seem close enough to reach out and pick up the perfectly defined chunks of broken pumice as they passed. Plains, craters, pinnacles and ranges, blinding white or etched with inky shadow, flashed beneath them and then they were on top of the terminus and over it and it was night again, black, black, black and hung with stars.
Wyatt shook himself, feeling dazed. It was like a plunge into deep water, stunning. The filter shield slid automatically away from the window. He looked out at the hind side of the Moon, glimmering mysteriously in the eternal starshine, and was not very surprised to see that it looked very much like the familiar face.
Once more the two craft tilted and swung, and Wyatt saw the ship.