Symon ran across the boulder-strewn ground of the Descartes formation, trying to locate the signal from Phoebe’s suit. He could hear her breathing over the suit’s intercom, low and soft, as though she was falling asleep. He also heard archaic music playing in the background from her suit’s radio. Her suit’s emergency signal was bouncing off the rocks and craters that surrounded them, and Symon could not lock on to her signal.

He stopped and climbed up an eight-foot boulder left here over a hundred million years ago from the Tycho impact that hit the face of the moon some eight hundred miles to the south and east of where he stood. He scrambled to the top of the pitted chunk of ejecta. It was easy in the low lunar gravity.

“Phoebe, can you hear me?” he said, listening to his panicked breath rasping in and out, magnified by the helmet encasing his head.

He stood on top of the boulder and scanned the area. All around him were low hills, scattered rocks and boulders, and endless craters ranging from the size of his fist to the large valley-sized one just before him. The sun was still low in the eastern sky, casting crisp black shadows from his right. He looked around the barren landscape, searching for Phoebe’s red suit.

“Symon? Are you out here with me?” Phoebe replied, her voice soft and dreamy, as though she were waking from a deep sleep.

“Yes, Phoebe! Where are you? I can’t lock on to your suit’s signal.”

“I’m here. Me and my friends,” she said with a quiet laugh. “They all came to say good-bye.”

“I don’t see you! Tell me what you can see around you so I can find you!”

He slowly rotated, holding his scanner out in front of him. As he did, the radio signal indicator pulsed and faded. He stopped and swung the meter back to his left, and it pulsed again. He looked toward the horizon. Far away, across the wide valley, he spotted a tiny red suit sitting on the opposite side of the crater, the sun low and off to the right of it.

“Phoebe! I see you! I’m coming to get you!” Symon said, scrambling down off the boulder, nearly ripping his suit on the sharp, jagged edges of the stone.

Down among the rocky jumble, he quickly lost sight of Phoebe. I’ll follow the sun, he thought, and that will take me to her. He ran as fast as he could toward the east, crashing into rocks, sliding down into craters, and crawling up the sides of the lunar hills, until he crested the west side of the valley.

Phoebe was still there, sitting on the lip of the crater’s far wall, humming her strange tune, rocking gently back and forth with her arms wrapped around herself.

“It’s nice of you to come, Symon. I always knew you would be here for me.”

“I am, Phoebe! I’m here for you! I’m coming to get you!”

He pushed across the now open ground and leaned forward as he ran, trying to keep from bouncing too high and losing his momentum, like he had been taught during his lunar surface excursion training.

He had met Phoebe, a Paz girl his own age, in his first year at Young University. She was sweet and shy, and had called him “sir” when he had introduced himself. He remembered it so clearly. She had been sitting next to him in their first-semester astrophysics class. He had leaned over and said, “Hi, I’m Symon,” and stuck out his hand.

She had smiled, taken his hand, then leaned over and smelled it before saying, “Nice to meet you, sir.”

“Nice to meet you, too. What’s your name?”

“I am Phoebe.”

They had dated after that and he had slowly coaxed her out of her shell. Then there had been the breakdown, the first of many. He learned that some of the Paz had trouble adapting to human culture, even though they had been born and raised on the moon, exposed to humans from the time they were infants. The Paz doctors thought it might be a form of genetic xenophobia, an ancient survival trait that helped earlier branches of the Paz by instilling a deep-seated fear of others. He had helped her through that one and the many that followed, each time singing “Daisy Bell” to her, waiting for her to come back from whatever precipice of fear she was standing on.

He began to sing to her now. “Daisy, Daisy! Give me your answer do!” he rasped out between breaths. “I’m half crazy, all for the love of you!” He was closer now, close enough for his suit to ping hers. A readout flashed in red at the bottom of his visor. Her oxygen was nearly gone, but he’d be there in a few short moments. He would hook his suit to hers and call for help. They’d be fine. He’d get her back to the hospital and everything would be OK.
She heard his song and laughed in her soft, sad way. “Sing to me a little more, Symon.”
He took a deep, gasping breath and continued. “It won’t be a stylish marriage. I can’t afford a carriage. But you’ll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.”

“What’s a carriage, Symon?”

“It’s a type of old-fashioned car without a motor. It was pulled by horses. I’ll show you one when we visit Earth.” He was so close now. He could see the black seams of her exosuit, see the lunar dust that had landed on her lap when she sat down in the granular soil, see her turn her head to look at him.

He could see her profile now through the visor of her helmet. Her large eyes were half-closed, her head hanging forward with her full lips almost touching the seal ring.

“I’m glad I got to see you before I go,” she said.

“Don’t go, Phoebe! Just a few more seconds and I’ll be there! Please wait for me.”

“I can’t. I’m tired of all the people in my head that aren’t me,” she said, sitting up straight and reaching for her helmet seals with her gloved hands.

“Phoebe, wait! I love you!” Symon yelled, as he crossed the last few meters between them.
He thought he saw her smile as she closed her eyes and twisted her helmet to the left. “I love you, too, Symon, I always…” But her words were cut off when she lifted her helmet and the air from her suit escaped.

Symon screamed and leapt at her, grabbing for her helmet as it slowly fell, landing in the lap of her now dead body. He pulled her close to him and sat back against a large stone. Some hours later, the emergency retrieval crew found him still holding her. They collected her from him, helped him to his feet and into the lunar rover, and brought them both back home.