The Lotus Caves by John Christopher Page B

open, with relief, as soon as the inner door closed. Steve was already at the food locker, getting a couple of drink capsules. He handed Marty one, and snapped open the top of the other. He drank deeply and said: “That’s good.”
    He did not look happy, though. While Marty drank his, more slowly, he stared out of the front observation port at the dome of the station.
    â€œWe made it,” he said. His voice was flat. “All the way from nowhere to nowhere. Was it worth it, do you think?”

5
    The Impossible Flower
    T HEY WERE BOTH DEPRESSED AND BORED. They sat in the crawler, Steve in the driving seat and Marty on the edge of the bunk, and tried to think of something to do. Through the window Marty could see First Station, the object of their adventure. He did not know what he had been hoping for but whatever it was he had not found it. It had been absurd to think there could be anything worth finding. The only difference between the Bubble and First Station was that the latter was smaller, more cramped, more primitive. It was ­inevitable that this should be so: the Moon with its harshness and changelessness imposed these conditions on anyone who came to live here.
    He felt a wave of misery and nostalgia. It would be wonderful to push open the door of the apartment and see his mother smile in welcome, smell her cooking from the kitchen. She would be worrying about him, he realized, and felt more miserable still. They had been crazy to do it.
    He said: “You seen enough?”
    Steve shrugged. “Guess so.”
    â€œShall we start back? We might as well.”
    â€œI suppose. We ought to let the batteries charge first.”
    This was true. The batteries had run down during their passage through the foothills; not excessively but it was standard procedure to charge up to full before going back into shadow areas. Marty got up and examined the dial. The reading was 82. It would take the photoelectric cells about an hour, he calculated, to bring it up to 100. He thought of suggesting a game of chess but that was something else in which Steve lost interest after the first few minutes. He remembered the journal he had found and pulled it out of the pouch of his discarded spacesuit.
    Steve asked: “What’s that?”
    â€œA book I found in there.”
    â€œInteresting?”
    The writing was very neat and even, a meticulous and dull record of routine events. Weight recorded day by day, converted to Earth poundages. It was depressing to read it; just a further confirmation of the hopelessness of expecting anything exciting to happen here. Marty threw it across to Steve.
    â€œHave a look if you want to. I think I’ll set up a problem.”
    It was a mate-in-four which he had been puzzling over for some time. He thought he saw a way in but it proved a blind alley. The white knight, he was sure, was the key to the solution. He checked over its possible moves with increasing exasperation.
    Steve said: “I wonder who wrote this.”
    â€œCould have been anyone. Does it matter?”
    â€œThere’s an odd piece here. Listen. ‘Crawler patrol with Mike. Twenty-four hours.’ They must have been still working on the Earth day for patrols then. He goes on: ‘It was during his bunk period that I saw it. Or thought I saw it. We came through difficult high ground at 217-092, and I put her through a cleft between two peaks. Then there was high rock on the left, fissured in places. I was concentrating on the terrain immediately ahead because the going was still very tricky, and so I only caught a glimpse. Because everything is so static and unchanging here, any kind of movement attracts attention. I saw it out of the corner of my eye and looked around. It had been visible through one of the side fissures and we were almost past it. I thought I saw it, and I thought I recognized it.’”
    â€œWhat was it?” Marty asked. “One of your