Moonseed

Jack laughed, and got himself a glare from Jane.

Mike touched Henry’s shoulder. ‘Keep that up and you’ll have a friend for life.’

Mike’s father stuck his head out the door. ‘Snouts to the trough!’

The five of them sat around a table of some polished wood. It might even have been mahogany. But the setting wasn’t too formal – plates and cutlery that didn’t match, paper napkins, the table scattered with sauces and condiments and wine and beer, and a Diet Coke for the kid. The body language of the adults made it clear the soda was some kind of special treat.

Out of his apron, the father, Ted, revealed a shirt and tie. In the middle of the table Ted put out a steaming bowl of what looked like chili, some kind of minced meat with tomatoes, kidney beans, big chunks of onion; there was a choice of tortilla chips or rice. Henry took the chips, some fresh bread, and a couple of healthy ladle-fuls of the chili. He tried a mouthful; it was hot and sharp.

‘I’m impressed,’ he said.

Jane eyed him. ‘You were expecting haggis and kilts.’

‘No. I didn’t think you British were eating beef.’

‘Not beef,’ the father said through a mouthful of chili. ‘It’s quorn. Meat substitute.’ He slapped his belly. ‘Better for you. I’d generally serve up salad but what with all this radiation you can’t get fresh vegetables for love or money –’

Henry sneezed, suddenly. Then sneezed again.

Ted stared. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

Jane said, ‘Serves him right for walking around Edinburgh in a T-shirt.’

‘I get allergic.’ He looked around. ‘You got a cat?’

‘Yes,’ Ted said. ‘Willis. The little beastie isn’t here right now.’

‘Randy little sod,’ Jane said mildly, eyeing her father. ‘Like his owner.’

‘Don’t speak about your father like that,’ said Ted.

‘Doesn’t matter if the cat’s here or not,’ Henry said. Sneeze. ‘One hair is enough.’ Sneeze. ‘Do you have any anti-histamines?’

Ted eyed him. ‘Do I look as if I have any anti-histamines?’

The boy was staring at him. ‘Do you like cats?’

‘No. I loathe cats.’

‘I thought you loathed kids.’

‘I loathe kids and cats. I’m big on loathing. I have a dog, called Rocky. I had to find him a foster home when –’

‘Are cats little assholes too?’

Jane went into glaring-parent mode, but the father was guffawing, and the moment passed.

‘So,’ Ted said. ‘You like Edinburgh?’

Henry thought over his answer. ‘I guess,’ he said. ‘I’m not a city guy. But it has a comfortable scale. It reminds me of Prague.’

Jane laughed. ‘Prague?’

‘Why not Prague?’

‘Just remember,’ Ted said. ‘Edinburgh is all fur coat and no knickers.’

The kid giggled, and Jane said, ‘For God’s sake, Dad.’

‘Well, it’s true.’

Mike leaned to Henry. ‘He’s from Glasgow.’

Now the kid spoke to Henry. ‘So you’re a geologist too, like Uncle Mike.’

‘Yeah. You want to be a geologist when you grow up?’

The kid gave him a pitying look. Jane looked amused.

Henry ploughed on.

‘When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronomer. I used to hang out at weekends at the Griffiths Observatory, above Los Angeles, when my buddies were down on the beach. I even made a map of the Moon, when I was fifteen or so. But real-world astronomy wasn’t for me. I think it was because nobody looks through a telescope any more. I missed the tactile stuff.’ He hesitated. ‘I liked the feel of starlight, light that was a thousand years old, tickling my eye.’

Jane cocked an eyebrow.

‘And if that’s too poetic for you –’

‘Poetry’s fine,’ she said. ‘Just don’t make a habit of it.’

‘Anyhow, I turned to geology. The world is full of rocks you can touch, after all. I majored in geology at Pomona, in Southern California, and UCLA at Berkeley and LA. At UCLA I learned to live like a geologist, which is to say,’ he said to Jack, ‘in the middle of messy oil fields and mines and heat, or cold, and rattlesnakes and poison oak and cow pies …’

The kid’s eyes were pleasingly round. ‘Do you get to see volcanoes?’

Henry said, ‘Not much. I have friends who do that. What I mostly study is the Moon. Do you know about the Moon?’

‘Some.’

‘During the grind at UCLA I visited JPL – the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where they run the space probes out of, and I saw the pictures of the Moon they had there, and it was like being a kid again. So there I was. I wanted to be a geologist, working with Moon rocks. But only one geologist ever flew to the Moon, and that was thirty years ago, and there was no prospect of anybody going back soon.

‘Anyhow after that I was a little stuck. I wasn’t interested in the oil companies which hire most geologists. I decided I had to bite the bullet. I had to go work for the only place specializing in Moon rocks, thirty-year-old collection or not, and that is the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. NASA.’

‘NASA,’ breathed Jack.

‘It’s not as cool as you might think. What I found when I got there was they were throwing out half their collection of Lunar Orbiter and Apollo photographs, maps and mission documents. You wouldn’t believe it. I had to pull them out of the dumpster, literally, forty billion dollars’ worth of trash. NASA is much better at gathering data than storing it …’

Jack looked baffled.

Jane said, ‘You don’t talk to kids much, do you?’