“All set, sir?” Toby called to the doctor.
“Yes,” Dr. Shepard returned.
Toby clamped shut the airtight door. He revved the motors to launching thrust, and their roar drowned out the quiet hissing of the oxygen out-putter. He fastened his safety belt, told the others to do so, and then was off.
When the painful effects of blast-off were over and the ship was on a smooth trajectory, Toby heard a click of metallic soles along the magnetic floor and braced himself for the unpleasantness he knew was coming.
When Dr. Shepard recognized him, he exclaimed angrily, “You!”
“Yes, it’s I, sir,” Toby admitted. “I knew you and Deb had to get to Luna as quickly as possible.”
The doctor’s lean, angular face reddened. “But you’re incompetent! I thought your license had been revoked! If you believe you’re doing something heroic, Toby, consider also that you’re risking the lives of us who could be of service to those stricken people on Luna!” He paused a moment for breath, then went on. “A person your age has no business flying rocket ships in the first place. It’s a job for older men with mature judgment!”
With that, Dr. Shepard clattered back to his seat in the back, leaving Toby with a feeling of being as incompetent as the doctor had said. He stared glumly out the forward port at the wrinkled witch-face of Luna. Her gaping craters were like taunting eyes, and her jagged mountains appeared to wear the twisted grin of a mocking giant. Even nature herself seemed allied against him.
Suddenly he had company again. It was Deb this time. He studied her pretty face closely, wondering if the inscrutable look on it meant that she was one of that majority of disbelievers or whether perhaps....
“Tell me, Deb,” he said to her, “do you believe that accident was my fault?”