“The guy at the bar is still on the clock – and free booze kicks in only if stuff runs out,” Xander said. “There’s no reason to stiff the hotel on this gig.”
“In that case, scotch, single malt, straight,” Sam said. “Marius…?”
“I, er… Mom never minds if I have a sip of wine sometimes…”
“Make it white wine,” Sam said. “He’ll be twenty one in a few short years, we’ll just call this a little retroactive.”
“I’ll get the drinks,” Xander said.
He dived into the crowd by the bar, and Sam and Marius drifted off in the other direction, towards the hypnotic Moon.
“Wow,” Marius said, his eyes wide. “Just… wow. I mean, I looked at pictures of this. NASA has maps on their site, and there are places on the web where you can literally crawl across the entire face of the Moon, and click on every crater, and get all kinds of information, but this is… this is…”
“It’s so
cool
, isn’t it?” Libby sidled up to them, a glass in her hand. “Hi, Sam. Has Andie Mae seen you yet? How did you get
in
here?”
“Xander invited us,” Sam said, his eyes wary. He was not exactly at his ease, in the company of the crew who had ousted him – many of whom he himself had trained into positions of responsibility.
Libby laughed. “So Xander and I are both being subversive, then. I asked Liam up.”
Liam, Andie Mae’s repudiated partner in the ConCom revolution, stepped up behind Libby, lifting his own glass in half salute. “Sam.”
“Liam,” Sam said, nodding acknowledgment.
“It feels like I’ve never seen it before, you know,” Liam said, his eyes back on the Moon. “And yet I have. I know exactly where Apollo 11 landed – there, right at that weird shape, there at the edge of the Sea of Tranquility….”
“And Apollo 15,” Marius said. “Up there, on the ridge. Right between Serenity and the Sea of Rains.”
“Ah, but who can point me to where Apollo 13 landed?” Sam murmured.
Liam turned his head sharply. “Thirteen never…” he began, but Sam was laughing quietly and lifted a hand in a gesture of surrender.
“Peace, children, peace,” he said. “Truth of it is, none of you were even
born
when all of these birds were flying up here. You might have seen it but you never felt it, not real time. We of the last millennium, we who were young once when the Moon was still made of green cheese, to us, it was the true adventure… to you, it’s a story, a movie, Tom Hanks in space…”
“Did you actually watch it? Live? The first landing?” Liam asked.
“Yes,” Sam said, “and I did not understand what I was seeing, I was only a child. It was amazing, because it was unreal, because – well – in the end I suppose it was a story for all of us. A fairy tale of our time. And no, I can’t believe I’m seeing it either. This just feels – unreal – like someone is about to scream ‘Cut!” and the scenery is all going to come down, and they’ll switch off all the lights that are making this glow in here tonight… and they’ll, I don’t know, take us round the back somewhere into a back lot where they filmed the Moon landing all along, like all the conspiracy buffs say…”
“I
liked
the mystery of it all,” Libby said, staring at the huge Moon with a sad expression.
“Everyone’s excited,” Liam said to Libby. “
You
sound… bummed out.”
“I am
kind
of bummed out,” Libby said, cradling her drink. “I mean, just the other day, I was just sitting there, you know, on a beach, in the moonlight, and it was the most romantic thing, sitting there with a guy in that light, and now… now I’ll look up, and I’ll see
this
, remember
this
, and it’s magnificent but the romance is shot. I have half a mind to have a good talk with the androids when they come up – they don’t have a romantic bone in their body…”
“In practical terms, they don’t have any kind of bone in their body,” Marius said awkwardly.
Libby rolled her eyes.
But it was hard to keep one’s attention focused on anything but the thing that filled their sky, and Marius suddenly flung out an arm, pointing to the white orb.
“Tycho!” he yelped. “That’s Tycho Crater! And where’s Clavius?”
“Underneath it,” Xander said, having materialized behind them barely balancing three drinks. Sam relieved him of his own Scotch and of Marius’s glass of wine, passing the latter to its recipient, and then stared at the remaining item in Xander’s hand.
“What,” Sam said, “in the name of everything holy… is
that
?”
“They’re making up new cocktails on the fly up there and giving them weird–ass names,” Xander said with a grin. “I’m pretty sure they’re all unique creations, no two exactly alike. This one… I didn’t dare ask what went into it, but they tell me its name is ‘Origin of Species: Metallica’ – for obvious reasons. ”
“It looks like liquid mercury,” Sam said. “Are you sure they aren’t trying to kill you?”
“It’s not that bad, actually,” Xander said. “Trust me. You haven’t tried the Romulan ale. This is highly superior.”
Sam’s eyebrow went up. “The Romulan ale?” he queried. “Isn’t that… pure synthahol, as it were? Who’s pocketing the change from this?”
“Oh, the Romulan ale they’re giving out free,” Xander said with a grin. “Not sure that’s such a great idea, but people can’t resist trying it. I don’t think anyone is ever going back for seconds, it’s kind of weird. And that whole thing… was my fault. And the replicator’s. I’m surprised the poor thing didn’t blow a gasket when I asked it for one. But it tried its best, I guess. The cocktail I’m not so sure about, up here, is the other one they were making when they were done with mine – they announced it was called ‘24th Century Moonshine’. And it looked like it would lay out a T.rex without half trying.”
“Guys,” Marius blurted, riveted to the changing face of the Moon, so focused on what he was seeing that he was completely oblivious to the fact that he had just rudely interrupted a conversation of people he considered to be his seniors and superiors in the con hierarchy. “Guys. Look. I think we’re rounding the edge – we’re going to the back, to the part that nobody’s seen…”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Sam murmured. “I wouldn’t call a bunch of Apollo astronauts nobody, and there have been a number of them who’ve looked on the ‘dark side’.” He made the air quotes with his free hand as he spoke. “I seem to recall that the first guy who set eyes on it wasn’t hugely impressed. He said it was just like his kid’s sandpit, or something of the sort. I remember feeling very indignant at that, when I first heard it quoted.”
“But there have been pictures,” Xander said, craning forward to see. “I’ve seen pictures taken by various probes they sent. Not so many years ago now, there were really detailed photos. There was a crater – ”
“Dude,” Libby said, staring at the Moon, “take your
pick
. The place is crater stitched to crater. Look at it.”
“This one was different… It was a weird Russian name… I forget…”
“Tsiolkovski,” Marius said faintly, and raised his arm again. “Might
that
be it?”
They watched in awe as the Moon turned below them and offered them a glimpse of a secret face that so few humans had ever seen. Conversation lapsed; there was not, in truth, that much to see, but there was
everything
, they were seeing the invisible, the impossible. A few of the others in the room had realized what was happening and a cheer went up from the crowd at the bar as they all surged towards the windows. Someone’s camera made a small clicking sound close enough to Marius for him to blink at the noise and then mutter something under his breath, searching around for a place to set down his drink. Sam held out his free hand and Marius pushed his glass into it, scrambling for his own phone, lifting it up to take a few frantic shots of the Moon.
“Mom is never going to believe this,” he said breathlessly.
“You’re really going to try to explain tonight to your mother?” Sam asked, amused.
Marius looked so astonished that Sam burst out laughing. “Kid,” he said, “your momma is a great lady but she would not believe a word of this. And if she did, you’re banned from all future conventions while you live under her roof, I hope you realize that…”
“But…”
“I know. You’ll want to tell
someone
. All I can tell you is pick your confidante carefully….”
His voice faded, and Marius finally turned to look.
Andie Mae, cradling something that defied description in a tall glass garnished with a little black cocktail umbrella on a silver toothpick, had joined the group. The concoction in her hand had obviously not been her first drink that night because she was actually smiling as she looked at Sam Dutton.
“Um, it’s called ‘The Dark Side’,” she said, gesturing at the drink in her hand, because it obviously needed explaining. But then she re–focused, and tilted her head a fraction in Sam’s direction. “I might have known you’d find your way up here.”
“Um, I asked…” Xander began helplessly, but Andie Mae waved him down.
“Under the circumstances,” she said, “I kind of understand. How am I doing so far, Sam?”
“Spectacularly,” Sam said, and he meant it sincerely. “Under the circumstances. I know seasoned con Chairs who would have gone to pieces. You’ve taken a king–size lemon and made it into the kind of con lemonade that won’t be forgotten in a hurry.”
“You wish it had been you?”
“It
should
have been me,” Sam said, and it came out far more sharply than he had intended. “Look, cards on the table – I came to see what you’d make of my convention. You have to admit that at the very least I had the right to be curious.”
“And?”
“This is hardly a fair test,” Sam said, “wouldn’t you say?”
“Wait, are you saying that she’d have done
worse
if the droids hadn’t arrived?”
“It might have been ordinary,” Sam said. “And I don’t think the Steel Magnolia would have handled
ordinary
well. You wanted something out of this world, Andie Mae. I’d say you got an answer to your prayers.”
“I would have settled for Schwarzenegger and Spiner,” Andie Mae said.
“Hollywood–made against interstellar alien android invaders?” Xander said. “No contest, really. Ask anyone in the party wing tonight. Seems these
were
the droids you were looking for, only you never thought to offer up the right specifications.”
“We
still
don’t know what it is they’re really after or if they got it or if they
can
get it,” Libby said faintly.
“Can’t you just tell them the answer is 42 and then send them home?” Liam asked.
“You’ve never met Boss, have you,” Libby said. “He’s a little… literal…”
“You’d think he would understand irony, given his…” Sam blinked, shook his head over his drink. “What is it about this particular bar that makes me degenerate into bad puns within half an hour of setting foot in here?”
“Oh, you aren’t alone,” Xander said. “They had quite a chain going up at the bar. You’d think that with
that
hanging over your head you’d stop thinking about what every red–blooded male is supposed to be thinking about all of the time, but guess what? Some stuff just sneaks through anyway. Someone earnestly wanted to know, if you screw in a forest, does that automatically make it a treesome?”
“That would be branching out,” murmured Libby.
“Hah! They didn’t think of that one. But they did ask whether it would just mean that you have to bough to the necessity.”
“Would that be an aldernate lifestyle?”
“Or would it just cause too much pine and suffering?”
Sam glanced at Marius, who was studying the Moon with far too great an intensity, one that spoke eloquently of trying to tune out the conversation. But Sam himself couldn’t resist joining in the pile–up.
“Can we just stop needling everyone and leaf it alone?” he murmured.
Libby giggled.
“Um, just how far would you have to go before someone called you a son of a beech…?” Xander said.
“I don’t ever want to go home,” Libby announced, a wide grin still wreathing her face, and then lost her balance and staggered sideways into Liam, who slipped an arm around her waist.
“I think we’d better sit you down somewhere,” he said.
“About that, going home I mean,” Sam began, and then his head came up sharply as the group by the window was joined by a new member.
“Sam Dutton,” Andie Mae said sweetly, “meet Boss. Boss, this is Sam. He might have been me, if you had pulled this trick last year.”
Boss turned his head a little, looking at one and then the other. “He would have been you?”
“Like Libby said,” Xander muttered. “Literal. What she’s saying is that Sam was the con Chair last year, so he would have been the one in charge, the one you would have met and dealt with, like you have with her right now. The previous leader.”
“Is everything all right?” Libby, who had resisted Liam’s effort to guide her away towards a seat, turned to ask.
“Everything is on schedule,” Boss said. “It will not be long before your world comes into your field of view again, as we round the satellite. I am monitoring the telemetry, and everything is within designated parameters.”
“What are you going to tell
your
children about this joyride?” Libby asked, and then sighed, leaning her head against Liam’s shoulder and closing her eyes.
“We came seeking our ancestors,” Boss said. “We have no ‘children’.”
“But you have a next generation.”
“There is always a next generation,” Boss confirmed.
“So how
do
you procreate?”
“We re–design, improve, develop,” Boss said.
“All logic and no play,” Andie Mae purred. “It’s all
work
. Doesn’t sound like here’s anything at all enjoyable about it.”
“Not a romantic bone in his body,” Libby murmured, her eyes still closed.
Boss tilted his head a little, considering. “I understand. I believe we are fully capable of operating under the parameters which you are describing. Older models may have to be physically modified to fulfill certain kinds of programming requirements, but more advanced ones, such as myself, are able to adapt to requirements. I am able to morph my form into any shape, tool, or appendage necessary for the performance of a specified function.”