So I told her no. Or would have, in a perfect world where I actually follow my short list of things I never do. What I did instead was get up and put my arms around her from behind and say:
"You handled that very well. If you'd cried, I'd have kicked your butt all the way to King City."
"I won't cry. Not about that, not anymore. And not when it's over."
And she didn't.
Brenda had arranged for our moment of privacy by not telling me Cricket had been assigned to cover the festivities at Armstrong Park. After our little romantic interlude-quite pleasant, thanks for asking-she confessed her ruse, and also that he was going to play hooky after the first few hours and should be arriving any minute, so let's get dressed, okay?
I can't imagine why I worried about getting a head start on Liz. She got a head start on all of us, drinking on her way out to Armstrong and all the way back, as if Cricket needed any more causes for alarm.
She came barreling across the dunes in a four-wheel Aston Assbuster, model XJ, with a reaction engine and a bilious tangerine-flake paint job. This was the baby with four-point jets for boosting over those little potholes you sometimes find on Luna-say, something about the size of Copernicus. It couldn't actually reach orbit, but it was a near thing. She had decorated it with her usual understated British good taste: holographic flames belching from the wheel wells, a whip antenna with a raccoon tail on the tip, a chrome-plated oversize skull sitting out front whose red eyes blinked to indicate turns.
This apparition came skidding around the Heinlein and headed straight for us. Brenda stood and waved her arms frantically and I had time to ponder how thin a soap bubble a Girl Scout tent really was before Liz hit the brakes and threw a spray of powdered green cheese against the tent wall.
She was out before the fuzzy dice stopped swinging, and ran around to the left side to unbelt Cricket, who'd strapped himself tight enough to risk gangrene of the pelvis. She picked him up and stuffed him in the airlock, where he seemed to come to his senses. He crawled inside the tent, but instead of standing he just hunkered there and I began to be concerned. I helped him off with his helmet.
"Cricket's a little under the weather," Liz said, over Cricket's suit radio. "I thought I ought to get him inside quick."
I realized he was saying something so I put my ear close to his lips and he was muttering I think I'm gonna be okay, over and over, like a mantra. Brenda and I got him seated, where he soon regained some color and a passing interest in his surroundings.
We were getting a little water into him when Liz came through the lock, pushing a Press-U-Kennel in front of her. At last Cricket came alive, springing to his feet and letting fly with an almost incoherent string of curses. No need to quote; Cricket wouldn't be proud of it, he feels curses should be crafted rather than hurled, but he was too upset for that now.
"You maniac!" he shouted. "Why the hell wouldn't you slow down?"
"'Cause you told me you were getting sick. I figured I better get you here quick as I could."
"I was sick because you were going so fast!" But then the fight drained out of him and he sat down, shaking his head. "Fast? Did I say fast? We came all the way from Armstrong, and I think she touched ground four times." He explored his head with his fingers. "No, five times, I count five lumps. She'd just look for a steep crater wall and say 'Let's see can we jump over this sucker,' and the next thing I knew we'd be flying."
"We were moving along," Liz agreed. "I figure our shadow ought to be catching up with us about now."
"'Thank god for the gyros,' I said. You remember I said that? And you said 'What gyros? Gyros are for old ladies.'"
"I took 'em off," Liz told us. "That way you get more practice using the steering jets. Come on, Cricket, you-"
"I'm going back with you guys," Cricket said. "No way I'm ever riding with that crazy person again."
"We only have two seats," Brenda said.
"Strap me to the fender, I don't care. It couldn't be worse than what I just went through."
"I think that calls for a drink," Liz said.
"You think everything calls for a drink."
"Doesn't it?"
But before going out to bring in her portable bar she took the time to release her-what else?-English bulldog, Winston, from the kennel. He came lumbering out, revising all my previous notions of the definition of ugly, and promptly fell in love with me. More precisely, with my leg, which he started humping with canine abandon.
It could have spoiled the beginning of a wonderful relationship-I like a little more courtship, thank you-but luckily and against all odds he was well-trained, and a swift kick from Liz discouraged him short of consummation. After that he just followed me around, snuffling, mooning at me with his bloodshot, piggy eyes, going to sleep every time I sat down. I must admit, I took a shine to him. To prove it, I fed him all my leftover chicken bones.
Eighteen hours is a long time for a party, but there is a certain type of person with a perverse urge not to be the first to call it quits. All four of us were that type of person. We were going to stick it out, by god, right through to the playing of the Guatemalan National Anthem ("Guatemala, blest land, home of happy race,/ May thine altars profaned be never;/ No yoke of slavery weigh on thee ever/ Nor may tyrants e'er spit in thy face!").
(Yes, I looked at the globe, too, and if you think the whole planet was going to stay up six hours for the national hymn of Tonga, you're crazier than we were. Tonga got in her licks just after Western Samoa.)
No one was going to catch up with Liz, but we were soon matching her, and after a while Cricket even forgot he was mad at her. Things got a bit hazy as the celebration wore on. I can't actually remember much after the Union Jack blazed in all its Britannic majesty. I remember that one mainly because Liz had been nodding out, and Brenda got me and Cricket to stand when "God Save the Queen" began to play, and we sang the second verse, which goes something like this:
O Lord our God arise,
Scatter her enemies,
And make them falclass="underline"
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix:
God save us all!
"God save us all, indeed," Cricket said.
"That's the most beautiful thing I ever heard," Liz sobbed, with the easy tears of the veteran drunk. "And I think Winston needs to go wee-wee."
The mutt did seem in some distress. Liz had given him a bowl or two of Guinness and I, after the chicken bones had no visible effect, had plied him with everything from whole jalapeсos to the bottlecaps from Liz's home brew. I'd seen Cricket slip him a few of the sausages we'd been roasting over the holographic campfire. All in all, this was a dog in a hurry. He was running in tight circles scratching at the airlock zipper.
Turned out the monster was perhaps too well trained. He flatly refused to do his business indoors, according to Liz, so we all set about stuffing him into his pressure suit.