Free Gravitational Constantly: A Novella by J.A. Weddle Page B

… well, listen, did anyone else besides Bo ever hear anything up there? Have you ever heard anything up there?”
    The old man licked his lips, crooked his head sideways, and gave me a long look. “Listen, son, I've heard tales from all sorts of people all over the world, this one and the one below. Some people will tell you they saw their grandma's ghost when they were a little boy or UFOs hovered over their house for an hour one summer night when they were fourteen. I've had men tell me they saw mermaids out on the oil rigs back on Earth. There is always somebody willing to see or hear something that isn't there; the key is that they are willing.”
    “So there have been others here on Luna that have heard things?” I asked.
    He ran his hand over his face and wiped his mouth. “The point is, lad—”
    “You didn't answer my question. Have you heard anything up here?” I interrupted.
    The old man smiled and puffed in defeat. He looked up, studying the infrastructure of steel and glass that loomed high above our heads. “You're from Earth, right?”
    I nodded confirmation.
    “Did you ever lie in bed at night and listen to the crickets as you drifted off to sleep?”
    “Yeah, so?” I shrugged.
    “So did you enjoy listening to them as you fell into peaceful sleep?”
    “I suppose so, yeah. What's the point?”
    “The point is, lad, the crickets weren't talking to you. They weren't there to sing you a fucking lullaby. They just were!” The old man was hot under the collar now. I had stirred something inside him that he hadn't said in a long time.
    “Okay … so you're saying you have—”
    “They're just crickets, lad. That's all they are.” He paused and looked up again, this time outside the feat of strength that held Luna together. “I like to hear them like everyone else, but the only difference is that I don't try to imagine what they are saying. You follow me?”
    I gave a nod. “Yeah,” was all that I managed.
    He looked me over again as if he were measuring me for some length of cut or concrete mixture. Then he chiseled out a tough grin and surrendered a nod of approval. “Good,” he said and gave a spit of saliva as his stamp of approval. “I think you'll be all right.” Something caught his eye and he looked toward the crew laying the pipe in the conduit. “What the hell is that?!,” he yelled at the men. “I said threaded! Threaded, not spliced damn it!” And with that he was off, pacing toward his crew and cursing with every step.
     
    On the shuttle ride back, I tried to wrap my head around what the old man had told me. There was something simple and poignant about his words. He said everything by saying nothing at all. I only hoped it would give me the words to tell Cara how I felt. I wanted to make her understand what the old man had said. I wanted to make her understand that we weren't supposed to understand, that she wasn't supposed to find her parents and that she was chasing a dream that was just an echo on air waves that weren't made of air at all. But how do you tell a little girl that she can't have her dream? No one has that right, and certainly not a boy stuck in a dream himself.
     
    ...
     
    The shuttle crept to a stop above the gate's top strut bars and power couplings. Cara and I sat in silence looking at the spectacle before our eyes. The airspace above Luna looked like a field full of fireflies in mid-July, with blinking shuttles drifting lazily through the night sky searching for their partners. Once in a while two shuttles would find each other in the darkness and their lights would flash and exchange a kiss. Then they would fly off to some other part of the bridge to work on something else. It was going to happen I realized.
     
    “Pretty, isn't it?” Cara asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
    I sat thinking about her question for a moment and the only response I could muster was “perfect.” The chance I'd ever see anything so spectacular in my life again