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novelty, and relative attractiveness had little to do with the number of propositions she received.
    “Shuttle to Lunar Facility One departing in ten minutes,” a voice said over the public address. Bente put her SRI card in the slot, pressed her thumb to the plate, and pushed herself out of the bar. She didn’t notice the numerous pairs of eyes following her.
    On the shuttle, Bente didn’t need a window seat–she gave hers up to a tourist. At turn-around, during the few minutes of free-fall, Bente made sure she was far, far away from the tourists and others on their first space excursion. Frankly, watching others with space sickness made her sick. She watched the descent to the Moon on a monitor. She could see the original NESA site: a metal dome less than 100 meters in diameter. From this, like a spreading plant, the facility grew. It was a hodgepodge of domes, tunnels, and corridors.
    Occasional windowed boxes that were a few stories tall marked NESA hotels and resorts made to resemble their terrestrial counterparts. The farther the facilities were from the original dome, the newer the construction. A lot of the facility was under the surface, and the parts that weren’t were partially covered with black slag from SRI asteroids. The slag provided extra protection from radiation but still, during solar flares, everyone huddled in shelters under meters of lunar rock.
    NESA Facility Two was a framework about a kilometer away. Occasionally she’d see the sharp sparkle of a welder. Bente caught a glimpse of the SRI area and the shipyard, and saw workers crawling over the carcasses of the destroyed ships. She had a passing acquaintance with some of the dead people. M urdered people , she reminded herself.
    The shuttle landed and the enclosed ramp extended and mated to the ship. Bente let the tourists, giddy with excitement–the space sickness only an acrid memory–de-shuttle first. Then Bente threw her bag over her shoulder and entered the shuttleport. As a resident she skipped lightly through customs and went to the subway. A few minutes later she was in the residential area. She found her parents’ new apartment with little trouble. Since both she and her brother had moved out, they had moved into a smaller domicile.
    When Bente entered her parent’s home, Mozart’s Requiem was playing on the stereo system. H ow fitting , she thought as the mournful basses droned out the dirge that only the son of Leopold could make that beautiful. This might be her swan song with her family if she and her father couldn’t work out their differences.
    Bente’s mother loved Mozart, Beethoven, Bach. Once someone asked her how she felt about Rimsky-Korsakov–her mother almost spat. “Russians,” she said. “The Russians have been conquered by everybody including the Communists. Conquered people can’t write powerful music.” That the listener was a scientist from the University of Moscow didn’t make her any more reticent in expressing her low opinion of Russian composers. Bente had been raised on a combination of classical music and the stuff kids listened to all over the world and even in space. Now, if she happened to hear popular music, she had to wonder if it had gotten worse or her tastes had gotten better.
    She suspected the former.
    “Mother,” she called out, closing the door behind her.
    Bente’s mother came into the foyer of their apartment. Her mother seemed to have gained a few kilos in the months Bente had been gone, and her hair’s blonde color seemed to have faded to a dull shade bordering on gray. Her round face, though, probably would never develop wrinkles.
“Bente, welcome home!” her mother exclaimed, wrapping her arms around her daughter. Bente could literally look down on her head.
Releasing Bente, her mother asked, “How are you?”
“Fine, Mother. Is Father home?”
Mrs. Naguchi shook her head. “Not yet. He’s still at the lab working late. He didn’t know you’d be coming.”
“I should