Moonseed. Stephen Baxter

But it was a loch. Artificial. Used to dump their sewage in it –’

      ‘And drown witches.’

      ‘Actually, yes. They drained it, to make the New Town.’

      ‘So, lunch …’

      It was still early. After a debate they settled on a Seattle’s Best Coffee outlet, which Henry was surprised to find here, and they drank lattes and ate immense chocolate chip cookies.

      It was a relief to get in out of the cold.

      ‘Your work seems to be going better,’ she said.

      ‘You mean I’m not complaining so much.’

      ‘How come?’

      He couldn’t see any way to escape, so he pulled a package from his jacket pocket, and told her the truth.

      It was a courier package from Houston. It contained a tape and a transcript of a conversation with Jays Malone, in which the old guy had evidently done his very best to ransack his memories, and provide Henry with the context he needed.

      He tried to explain this to Jane. ‘Geology is about decrypting a tangled story: how a rock was formed, how it got where it was and what happened to it since is as important as what it’s made of. That’s what we call context. And that’s what Jays has given me here.’ He scratched his head. ‘I’m no fan of Man-in-Space. Not when it cuts into good unmanned science missions.’

      ‘Including your own.’

      ‘Yes. But the astronauts weren’t bad geologists, on the whole, when they tried. Pilots are trained to be observers, after all, and they all had strong, flexible minds. I suspect they competed with each other to turn in good performances as scientists.’

      Jane leafed through the little package, complete with a few sketch maps and diagrams in Jays’s spidery old man’s hand. There was a brief note in there, which Jane now found.

      She eyed Henry. ‘So who’s Geena?’

      He winced. ‘My ex-wife.’

      She nodded, impassive, and handed him the note. ‘So what is this? Is she building a bridge?’

      Henry glanced at the note again. Geena was about to go into purdah, working as a capcom on the current Station mission, and beginning the long process of training for her next flight …

      ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not a bridge. This is Geena waving farewell from the far side of the ravine. Good luck with your life.’

      ‘Sad,’ Jane said.

      ‘History.’

      ‘I think I’m starting to understand you,’ she said, studying him.

      He felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny. ‘You are?’

      ‘You really are a true scientist. You like figuring out how the world works. You like the fact that it works logically at all. You find that comforting.’

      He rubbed his cheek. ‘I guess that’s true. Take the Moon. The Moon is very different from the Earth, but the basic principles still apply. Like stratigraphy –’

      ‘Like what?’

      ‘On Earth, in general, younger formations lie on top of older formations. Think about the Grand Canyon. A big slice down through millions of years of sedimentary layers, older under younger, older under younger. And it’s the same on the Moon. The big impact that created the Mare Imbrium, for instance, pretty much blanketed the Moon with debris – all of about the same age. So you can tell almost at a glance, anywhere on the Moon, whether a given unit is younger or older than Imbrium. When I learned for the first time that on the Moon, the logic of geology works just the same as in Arizona … well. Isn’t it something?’

      ‘It is to you anyhow. And you’re talking too much again.’

      ‘I have the feeling,’ he said slowly, ‘you are diagnosing me as an anal retentive.’

      ‘I’m not diagnosing. I’m just trying to understand.’

      He ran his spoon around the crusted rim of his cup. ‘I guess we don’t have much in common.’

      ‘I think you’re wrong.’

      ‘You do?’

      ‘I seem to be tuned in to patterns in the universe too. Trends and laws. The difference is,’ she said, ‘I don’t take much comfort out of what the patterns tell me about the future.’

      They were silent for a while.

      She leaned forward. ‘Do you have to go back to work?’

      ‘Yes.’ He thought about it. ‘No, not necessarily.’

      ‘Maybe we could skip dinner.’

      He looked into her eyes. ‘Oh.’

      She said nothing.

      He thought it over. ‘Let me pick up the tab.’

      ‘No. My shout.’

      They stood up.

      

      They went back to Henry’s hotel room, in the Balmoral.

      It was … memorable.

      She was tender, loving, funny. Whereas Geena had always had that chilling air of assessing his athletic prowess the whole time.

      But it wasn’t as if they were obvious soul mates. Jane was smart, and logical, but she was obviously coming to quite different conclusions about the world from his own.

      Maybe they were complementary, somehow.

      He remembered a story, he thought by Plato. How, at the beginning of time, human beings were split in two, by a malevolent god, into halves: male and female. They ran around the Earth thereafter, searching blindly, never happy.

      Unless the two halves of a whole, by chance, met up and joined. Once joined, they were complete, and would never part again.

      With Jane, it felt like that.

      He hardly knew her, he realized. But he felt comfortable in her silence.

      

      Later, lying beside her, he found himself thinking about the liquefaction patch.

      He’d been up there, to the Seat, two or three times a week since they first found that puddle. And every time he’d found it had grown.

      It was hard to be precise – much of the spread was subsurface – and he was only measuring with shoe leather anyhow. But he was pretty sure the growth was exponential. Doubling every few days.

      He recalled Jane’s question about telling somebody.

      What the hell was this? And how, indeed, could it be stopped?

      Because if it couldn’t –

      He started to worry.

      He leaned over in bed, and picked up the phone. ‘Can you tell me how to get an outside line?’

      He got out of bed, and padded to the cupboard where he’d hung up his jacket. In his wallet he had a card with the number of VDAP, the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program at the US Geological Survey.

      He dialled the number, and tapped the card on his teeth. ‘Never leave home without it … Hey.’ He checked his watch. ‘Sorry to disturb you so early. Could you put me through to Blue Ishiguro?’

      II

      Henry emerged from the lab’s fluorescent harshness into bright afternoon daylight. In his rental car he drove the short distance to Holyrood Park, and, pulling on his rad-proof poncho, walked up the Seat, leaving the traffic noises behind.