（外文电子版资料）Steele, Allen - Shepherd Moon (ss).pdf

ALLEN STEELE SHEPHERD MOON SHORTLY AFTER THE MONTHLY shuttle from Titan touched down at Herschel Station, she climbed into her hardsuit and took the elevator up to the surface. She had made up her mind a couple of weeks earlier-- in fact, she had been rehearsing the scene in her imagination for many months now, long before she had consciously reached her decision -- yet there was a moment when the outer hatch opened in which she almost backed down. She loved him. In spite of everything he had put her through, she still loved him. But if she didnt do it now, it would be another eight months before she got this chance again, and if she waited until then, she would surely go insane. It was now or never. Nonetheless, she loved him. . . . She involuntarily took a deep breath, and that was all it took: the taste of cold, recycled air, scented with old sweat and the vague machine odor of recirculation pumps. She hadnt smelled fresh air in almost five years, and short visits to the stations hydroponics bay couldnt match the recollection of an early-morning pine forest in upstate New York just before the summer sun burned off the fog, and even that memory was quickly fading, She had just passed her sixty-eighth birthday: Not quite an old lady yet, but certainly not getting any younger, and she didnt want to turn sixty-nine on Mimas. The ground resembled the cobblestones of an ancient street in Italy, except it was dirty, gray ice, scored by myriad craters. Ice, dirt, craters; no hills, no atmosphere, no forests. No life. She was beginning to consider herself dead. Her husband . . . whether he was still alive was debatable. Guide ropes formed aisles that branched away in all directions. The shuttle stood on the landing pad about a half-kilometer away, two silver barrels squatting on spindly landing gear. She was tempted to head straight for it, but she immediately rejected the notion. She had been married to him for twenty-six years now