"You've seen George Prince, Gregg?"
"No. He's assigned A20. But I saw his sister. Snap, no one ever mentioned—"
Snap had heard of her, but he hadn't known that she was listed for this voyage. "A real beauty, so I've heard. Accursed shame for a decent girl to have a brother like that."
I could agree with him there....
It was now six a.m. Snap had been busy all night with routine cosmos-radios from the Earth, following our departure. He had a pile of them beside him.
"Nothing queer looking?" I suggested.
"No. Not a thing."
We were at this time no more than sixty-five thousand miles from the Moon's surface. The Planetara presently would swing upon her direct course for Mars. There was nothing which could cause passenger comment in this close passing of the Moon; normally we used the satellite's attraction to give us additional starting speed.
It was now or never that a message would come from Grantline. He was supposed to be upon the Earthward side of the Moon. While Snap had rushed through with his routine, I searched the Moon's surface with our glass.
But there was nothing. Copernicus and Kepler lay in full sunlight. The heights of the lunar mountains, the depths of the barren, empty seas were etched black and white, clear and clean. Grim, forbidding desolation, this unchanging Moon. In romance, moonlight may shimmer and sparkle to light a lover's smile; but the reality of the Moon is cold and bleak. There was nothing to show my prying eyes where the intrepid Grantline might be.