He was headed back for Luna the next day.
They'd been indignant, of course. There was Hollywood, and the television networks, and that Terra-Luna Spaceways guy who wanted to get in on all the publicity by offering him a vice-presidency. And the newspaper editors, and the magazine editors, and all the rest of them.
Approximately a billion persons had been tuned in to the Interplanetary network when the emergency landing instructions had been broadcast to him through that system. A billion persons had sat on the edge of their chairs, tensely, as his ship had been brought in.
He and little Lillian had received more publicity in the past twenty-four hours than anyone since Lindbergh.
And the child would be all right now. Before he'd left, checks totaling over a quarter of a million had come in for her. Donations from all over the Earth and from Mars and Venus and even some from the Jupiter satellites.
And offers of adoption. Thousands of them, from rich and poor—even including Marsha Malloy, the video star who'd been singing that song, "Love of White Roses."
Yes, Lillian would be all right. He wouldn't have been able to pay for the medical care she'd needed; but now she had the most capable experts on Earth at her disposal.
They had been indignant when he blasted off again for Luna. They'd wanted to make a hero of him. This leaving on his part they interpreted as modesty—which, come to think of it, would make him all the more of a hero.
Phil Mooney slipped a hand down to his set and flicked it on. He dialed over a dozen different stations. The news programs were all full of him and of Lillian. You'd think, to hear them, that he was the noblest, the most daring, the greatest man since Alexander the Great.
He grinned wryly. One of the reasons he'd been so anxious to leave was to get away before somebody thought to check his set to see what was wrong with it. Why, if anybody had found that it was actually in perfect shape, they'd probably have lynched him.