“Not just the nose,” muttered Dalziel.
“Sorry?”
“Nowt. Summat I meant to ask. Europa, it doesn’t just mean Europe, does it?”
“No. It’s the name of a Phoenician princess who got ravished by Zeus in the form of a bull.”
“Oh aye. I thought I recollected something like that,” said Dalziel with a certain complacency.
Pascoe turned his head to look back to the moon. They were far too distant now to see the orbiting spaceships, and the moon itself had declined from a world to a silver apple hanging in space.
“I can’t believe I’ve really been there,” he said dreamily. “I used to look up at it when I was a kid and have these fantasies. Now I’ll be able to look up and remember... but I doubt if I’ll believe what I remember. What about you, Andy?”
“Oh, I’ll believe right enough,” said Dalziel, who was lying back with his eyes shut, thinking of Nurse Montague and a nice little surprise he might be bringing home for her. “Like yon Yank said, one small step for a man, one mighty jump for an old copper.”
“Leap.”
“Eh?”
“Leap,” repeated Pascoe with that stem pedantry which neither age nor advancement had been able to rid him of. “I think you’ll find it was one giant leap, not one mighty jump.”
“You speak for yourself, lad,” said Andrew Dalziel.
