The stars! I looked up, and beheld the most marvelous sight of the whole trip—the Great Nebula of Orion seen from a distance of less than one hundred and fifty light-years its own width.
A great luminous curtain, fifty degrees across, I could just take it all in with my eye. The central brilliancy as big as the sun, a smaller one above it, and then the whole mass of gas stretching over the sky. The whole thing aglow with the green light of nebulium and blazing with the stars behind it. It was stupendous, beyond words.
I started to call Garth, then saw that he was looking up as well. For almost half an hour I watched, as the edge of the nebula sank below the horizon. Then its light began to dim. Turning, I saw that the sky opposite was already gray. The dawn!
Why, the sun had just set. Then I realized. It was over an hour since we had landed, and a full night would be scarcely two hours and a half. If we were in a summer latitude, the shorter period of darkness was natural enough. And yet it was still hard to believe as, within ten minutes, it was as bright as Earth-light on the moon. Still clearer and clearer grew the light. The stars were almost gone, the center of the nebula only a faint wisp. There were no clouds to give the colors of sunrise, but a bluish-white radiance seemed to be trembling on the eastern horizon.
And then, like a shot, Rigel came up into the sky. The light and heat struck me like something solid, and I turned away. Even with my suit reflecting most of the light away, I felt noticeably warm. The Comet shone like a blinding mirror, so that it was almost impossible to see Garth on the plain below it. Stumbling, and shielding my eyes with my hand, I made my way toward him.
He was standing erect, in his hands two old Lunarian dueling swords. There was hate in his voice as the radio brought it in my ears.
"Dunal, only one of us is going back to the moon."
I stared. Was the heat getting him? "Hadn't we better go inside," I said quietly and somewhat soothingly.
He made no reply, but only held out one of the hilts. I took it dumbly. In that instant he could have struck my head from my body, if he wished.