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right—all four wheels turned—and started up the slope.
    It was slow going. You might think the Earth would have looked friendly, but it didn’t. It looked cold and cruel; it seemed to be mocking us. The batteries, which had started out weak, were getting weaker. Wu’s smile was gone already. The path we had cleared through the tires was useless; the LRV would never make it straight up the slope.
    I climbed down and began clearing an angled switchback. If pulling things on the Moon is hard, throwing them is almost fun. I hopped from tire to tire, slinging them down the hill, while Wu drove behind me.
    The problem was, even on a switchback the corners are steep. The LRV was still twenty yards from the top when the batteries gave out entirely. I didn’t hear it, of course; but when I looked back after clearing the last stretch, I saw it was stopped. Wu was banging on the joystick with both hands. His plastic bag was swollen, and I was afraid it would burst. I had never seen Wu lose it before. It alarmed me. I ran (or rather, hopped) back to help out.
    I started unhooking the jumper cables. Wu stopped banging on the joystick and helped. The supermarket cart had been left at the bottom, but the batteries were light enough in the lunar gravity. I picked up one under each arm and started up the hill. I didn’t bother to look back, because I knew Wu would be following with the other one.
    We burst through the adjacency—the shed door—together; we tore the plastic bags off our heads and spit out the cotton balls. Warm air flooded my lungs. It felt wonderful. But my toes and fingers were on fire.
    â€œDamn and Hell!” Wu said. I had never heard him curse before. “We almost made it!”
    â€œWe can still make it,” I said. “We only lack a few feet. Let’s put these babies on the charger and get some pizza.”
    â€œGood idea,” Wu said. He was calming down. “I have a tendency to lose it when I’m hungry. But look, Irv. Our problems are worse than we thought.”
    I groaned. Two of the batteries had split along the sides when we had set them down. All three were empty; the acid had boiled away in the vacuum of the Moon. It was a wonder they had worked at all.
    â€œMeanwhile, are your toes hurting?” Wu asked.
    â€œMy toes are killing me,” I said.
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    The sixth thing you learn in law school is that cash solves all (or almost all) problems. I had one last hundred-dollar bill hidden in my wallet for emergencies—and if this didn’t qualify, what did? We gave the old man ninety for three more batteries, and put them on fast charge. Then we sent our change (ten bucks) with one of the kids on a bike, for four slices of pizza and two cans of diet soda.
    Then we sat down under an ailanthus and took off our shoes. I was pleased to see that my toes weren’t black. They warmed fairly quickly in the sun. It was my shoes that were cold. The tassel on one of my loafers was broken; the other one snapped when I touched it.
    â€œI’m going to have to bypass some of the electrics on the LRV if we’re going to make it up the hill,” said Wu. He grabbed a piece of newspaper that was blowing by and began to trace a diagram. “According to my calculations, those batteries will put out 33.9 percent power for sixteen minutes if we drop out the nav. system. Or maybe shunt past the rear steering motors. Look at this—”
    â€œI’ll take your word for it,” I said. “Here’s our pizza.”
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    My socks were warm. I taped two plastic bags over my feet this time, while Wu poured the Pond Explorer over the cotton balls. It steamed when it went on, and a cheer went up from the kids on the pile of tires. There were ten or twelve of them now. Frankie was charging them a quarter apiece. Wu paused before putting the cotton ball under his tongue.
    â€œKids,” he said,