“The food’s running low,” Eddie said.
“I keep thinking of things I thought I hated,” Ben said. “Onions, friend chicken, the smell of broccoli boiling, paper cuts.”
“It’s running low,” Eddie said. “Maybe a few more days. We have more oxygen than food.”
They watched the earth above the gray horizon, quiet and blue. Deep dark cracked the surfaces about them. Black slowly rolled into the craters with the drift of the sun.
“And the wind. One thing you can’t learn is how not to live with wind and rain. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have skin.”
Eddie nodded behind his sunshield. “We might get the transmitter back. But I’m tired. Is that a storm do you think? You wouldn’t think there was traffic or concern.”
“The definition of those clouds says storm,” Ben said. “But it’s still very blue.”
“If we can get the transmitter back, at least they’ll know. Better that they know,” Eddie said.
Ben listened to Eddie’s breathing. In their suits and out on the barren basalt maria, he found it difficult to distinguish whose breathing belonged to whom. Sometimes he felt he would fall. He often had the sensation of a sudden change in the axis of balance, much as some people do during sleep, waking just as they’re about to hit bottom.
“We should get back,” Eddie said through his radio.
“We move very slow,” Ben said.
“Yes, very slow,” Eddie said.
Ben said. “We should really at least let them know.”
