“Huh…” Now he was speaking my language. “Okay, maybe it’s not so crazy after all. But I don’t have money to invest right now….”

“Oh, I’m not looking for investors. I need someone to test it.”

“And you think I’ve got the dick for the job?”

He rolled his eyes. “I need to know how it feels for the woman.”

“I’m not having sex with you.”

“No, no!” He winced. “I just want you to use it the next time you have sex. Then tell me how it affected your experience.”

“Why don’t you bang a girl and ask her yourself?”

He looked at his shoes. “I don’t have a girlfriend and I’m terrible with women.”

“There are brothels all over Aldrin! High-end, low-end, whatever you want.”

“That’s no good.” He crossed his arms. “I need data from a woman who is having sex for fun. The woman has to be sexually experienced, which you definitely are—”

“Careful…”

“And likely to have sex in the near future. Which, again—”

“Choose your next words wisely.”

He paused. “Anyway. You see what I’m after.”

I groaned. “Can’t I just pay you two thousand slugs?”

“I don’t need money. I need testing.”

I glared at the condom. It looked normal enough. “So it’s effective? You’re sure it won’t break or anything?”

“Oh, definitely. I’ve run it through a battery of tests. Stretching, pressure, friction, you name it.”

A disturbing thought popped into my head. “Wait. Have you used this one?”

“No, but it wouldn’t matter if I had. The cleaning process renders it sterile.”

“Are you kidd—” I stopped myself and took a breath. Then, as calmly as I could, I said, “It would matter, Svoboda. Maybe not biologically, but psychologically.”

He shrugged.

I deliberated for a moment, then finally said, “Okay, it’s a deal. But I’m not promising to run out and get laid.”

“Sure, sure,” he said. “Just…whenever the next time it comes up naturally, you know?”

“Yeah, all right.”

“Excellent!” He picked up the condom box and cleaning device and handed them to me. “Call me if you have any questions.”

I took the items gingerly. Not my proudest moment, but logically speaking there was nothing wrong with it. I was just doing some product testing, right? That’s not weird, right?

Right?

I started to leave. Then I stopped and turned back toward him. “Hey…have you ever heard of something called ZAFO?”

“No, should I have?”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. I’ll drop by tomorrow afternoon to pick up the device.”

“It’s my day off. Want to meet at the park instead? Say, three p.m.?”

“That works,” I said.

“Can I ask what this thing is for?”

“Nope.”

“Okay. See you tomorrow.”

—

Conrad Down 6.

I drove Trigger down the familiar hallways and tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my gut. I knew every crooked hallway, every shop, and every scratch on every wall. I could close my eyes and tell where I was just from echoes and background noise.

I rounded the corner to Crafters Row. The best tradesmen in town worked here, but there were no flashing signs or advertisements. They didn’t need to draw in customers. They got their business through reputation.

I parked in front of CD6-3028, got out, and hesitated at the door. I turned away in a moment of cowardice, steeled myself, then turned back and rang the buzzer.

A man with a weathered face answered the door. He had a well-trimmed beard and wore a white taqiyah (head covering). He stared at me quietly for a moment, then said, “Huh.”

“Good evening, Father,” I said in Arabic.

“Are you in trouble?”

“No.”

“Do you need money?”

“No, Father. I am independent now.”

He furrowed his brow. “Then why are you here?”

“Can a daughter not visit her father simply to honor him?”

“Cut the crap,” he said in English. “What do you want?”

“I need to borrow some welding equipment.”

“Interesting.” He left the door open and walked into the shop. That was as much invitation as I was going to get.

Not much had changed over the years. The fireproofed workshop was hot and cramped, as they all were. Dad’s meticulously organized equipment hung on the walls. A worktable dominated one corner of the room next to a collection of welding masks.

“Come on,” he said. I followed him through the back door into the residence. The tiny living room was palatial compared to my humble shithole.

Dad’s place had two coffin bunks along one wall. Very common among lower-class Artemisians. Not as nice as bedrooms, but they allowed privacy, which was good. I grew up in that house. I did…stuff in that bunk.

He had a cook nook with an actual flame-based stove. One of the few advantages to living in a fireproofed room. Way better than a microwave. You might think a real stove meant tasty meals, but you’d be wrong. Dad did his best, but Gunk is Gunk. There’s only so much you can do with algae.

There was one big change, though. Along the back wall a meter-wide sheet of metal ran from the floor to the ceiling—it wasn’t even close to vertical. I’d estimate 20 to 30 degrees off true.

I pointed to the new feature. “What the hell is that?”

Dad looked over to it. “It’s an idea I came up with a while ago.”

“What’s it for?”

“Work it out.”

Ugh! If I had a slug for every time he’d said that in my life…Never a straight answer—everything had to be a goddamn learning experience.

He crossed his arms and watched me like he always did during these little quizzes.

I walked over and touched the sheet. Very sturdy, of course. He never did anything half-assed. “Two-millimeter sheet aluminum?”

“Correct.”

“So it doesn’t need to handle lateral force…” I ran my finger along the intersection of the sheet and the wall. I felt small bumps every twenty centimeters. “Spot welds? That’s not like you.”

He shrugged. “It might be a stupid idea. I’m not ready to commit.”

Two hooks jutted out from the top of the sheet, just centimeters from the ceiling. “You’re going to hang something on it.”

“Correct. But what?”

I looked it up and down. “This weird angle is the key…got a protractor I could borrow?”

“I’ll save you the trouble,” he said. “It’s twenty-two point nine degrees from vertical.”

“Huh…” I said. “Artemis’s longitude is twenty-two point nine…ah. Okay, I got it.” I turned to face him. “It’s for prayers.”

“Correct,” he said. “I call it a prayer wall.”

The moon always points the same face toward Earth. So, even though we’re in orbit, from our point of view, Earth doesn’t move. Well, technically, it wobbles a bit because of lunar libration, but don’t worry your pretty little head about that. Point is: Earth is fixed in the sky. It rotates in place and goes through phases, but it doesn’t move.

The ramp pointed at Earth so Dad could face Mecca while praying. Most Muslims here just faced west—that’s what Dad had done all my life.

“How will you use it?” I asked. “Special straps or something? I mean—it’s almost vertical.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He put both hands on the prayer wall and leaned forward onto it. “Like this. Simple and easy. And it’s more in keeping with Qiblah than facing west on the moon.”

“Seems silly, Dad. It’s not like Muslims in Australia dig a hole and face down. You think Muhammad’s going to be impressed?”

“Hey,” he said sharply, “if you’re not going to practice Islam, you don’t get to talk about the Prophet.”

“All right, all right,” I said. I pointed to the hooks. “What are those for?”

“Work it out.”

“Ugh!” I said. Then I grudgingly added, “For attaching a prayer rug?”

“Correct.” He walked to a table near the cook nook and sat in one of the chairs. “I don’t want to poke holes in my usual prayer rug, so I ordered another one from Earth. It’ll be here in a few weeks.”

I sat in the other chair, where I’d had countless meals throughout my life. “Do you have a shipping manifest number? I can arrange to get it here faster—”

“No, thanks.”

“Dad, there’s nothing illegal about pulling strings to—”