Habitat New Chicago

“SURE, I KNEW SAM—BRIEFLY,” RUSSELL CHRISTOPHER SAID as he and Jade stood on the edge of the playground. “This ball field wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Sam.”

Jade was at Solar News’s virtual reality center. Like Christopher, she was wearing a full-sensor VR helmet and gloves. While she was still in the low lunar gravity of Selene, she could see and feel everything that Christopher saw and felt, standing at the playground in the New Chicago habitat, a quarter-million miles from the Moon.

“You said something about Sam being a grandfather?” Jade asked. Then she had to wait for an annoying three seconds for Christopher’s reply to reach her.

He was a good-looking man, Jade thought: tall and lean, with an earnest, honest-looking face and clear light blue eyes. He reminded Jade of Spence.

“Grandfathered,” Christopher replied at last. “I said Sam was grandfathered, not a grandfather.”

“What do you mean?”

Again the interminable three-second delay.

“It’s kind of complicated,” said Christopher.

I’ll never get the story out of him like this, Jade thought. It’ll take a week, with this time lag.

“Look,” she said, “why don’t you just tell me the whole story in your own words. Can you do that?”

“Sure,” Christopher answered, after another three seconds.