Free Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds Page B

be speeding along a narrow causeway, arrowing into infinite, swallowing night.
    A few minutes into the crossing the cabin lights dimmed, allowing sleep for those who needed it. Geoffrey amped-up his eyes. He made out the occasional fleeting form in the middle distance, a boulder, escarpment or some other surface feature zipping by. And there were, of course, still communities out here, some of which were among the oldest in the Moon’s short history of human habitation. To the south lay the first of the Apollo landing sites, a shrine to human ingenuity and daring that had remained undisturbed – though now safely under glass – for nearly two centuries. Back when the idea of his visiting the Moon was no more than a distant possibility, Geoffrey had always assumed that, like any good tourist, he would find time to visit the landing site. But that pilgrimage would have to wait until his next visit, however many years in the future that lay.
    He chinged Sunday.
    ‘Geoffrey,’ she said, her figment appearing opposite him. ‘There’s got to be something screwed up with the aug, because it’s telling me your point of origin is the Moon.’
    ‘I’m here,’ Geoffrey said. ‘On the train out of Copernicus. It was . . . a spur-of-the-moment thing.’
    ‘It would have to be.’
    ‘We’ve talked about it often enough, and after the scattering I just decided, damn it, I’m doing this. Took the sleeper up from Libreville.’ He made a kind of half-grimace. ‘Um, haven’t caught you at a bad time, have I?’
    ‘No,’ she said, not quite masking her suspicion. ‘I’m really glad you’ve decided to come and see us at long last. It’s just . . . a surprise, that’s all. It wouldn’t have killed you to call ahead first, though.’
    ‘Isn’t that what I’m doing now?’
    ‘I might be on a deadline here – up to my eyes in work, with no time even to eat, sleep or indulge in basic personal hygiene.’
    ‘If it’s a problem—’
    ‘It’s not, honestly. We’d love to see you.’ He believed her, too. She was clearly pleased that he was visiting. But he didn’t blame her for having a few doubts about the suddenness of it all. ‘Look, I’m guessing it’ll be evening before you arrive in the Zone, with all the tourist crap you have to clear first. Jitendra and I were going to eat out tonight – up for joining us? There’s a place we both like – they do East African, if you’re not sick of it.’
    ‘Sounds great.’
    ‘Call me when you get near the Zone and I’ll meet you at the tram stop. We’ll go straight out to eat, if you’re not too exhausted.’
    ‘I’ll call.’
    ‘Look forward to seeing you, brother.’
    He smiled, nodded and closed the ching bind.
    As the train sped on across the darkness of the Sea of Tranquillity, he delved into his bag again, reaching past the Cessna baseball cap and the Ashanti FC sweatshirt.
    Geoffrey angled the reading light to get a better view into the glove through its wrist opening. The wrist and hand cavity were empty, as he’d thought, all the way down as far as he could see, but the fingers were still obscured by shadow. Then he thought of his pencil and sketchpad further down in the bag, shoved in on the off chance.
    He drew out the sharpened 2B. Glancing up to make sure he was still unobserved, he probed the pencil down into the glove, jabbing around with the sharp end until he found the hole where the index finger began. He continued pushing until he met resistance. Hard to tell, but he didn’t feel that he had gone beyond the first joint after the knuckle.
    Something had to be wadded down there, jammed into the finger’s last two joints. Geoffrey drew out the pencil and tried the next finger along, finding that he couldn’t push the pencil down that one either. The third finger was the same, but the thumb and little finger appeared unobstructed.
    He went back to the first finger, dug the pencil in again. Whatever it was yielded slightly then impeded