When Arthur revived, he was in a panic. He quickly dug himself out from under a pile of moon dirt with gloved hands. His heart pounded in his spacesuit. His breathing was ragged. The moonscape was empty except for two human forms in similar suits lying half-buried in the white dirt not far away. Arthur had no memory of how he got here, or of even training for a mission like this. He only remembered childhood scenes at a farmhouse with a long hay bale elevator rising up to a loft in the barn and the heady smell of cow manure. He remembered running barefoot in the mud, catching chickens. But he had no memory of any recent events. Like where did this oversized spacesuit come from? How did he get up here? Earth was a distant crescent just above the horizon.

When he got to his feet he bounced into the air and spun a little, causing instant nausea and vertigo. But after a few bounding steps he made it over to one of the other humans. He put his gloved hand on the shoulder and flipped the body over. A stunningly beautiful face slept behind the glass. He shook her by her shoulders and they both bounced in the zero gravity. Her eyes did not open. Releasing her he bounded over to the next body.

To his surprise, she had the same outlandishly beautiful face as the first, also apparently asleep. He carried her over and laid them side-by-side.

As he bounced around the moon he found more and more versions of the same beautiful woman, all of them unconscious. He brought them all to one general area and put them close together, all the faces identical.

After what seemed like hours of collecting he sat on the edge of a moon rock, resting his bulbous space head in his gloved hands. Behind him was a field of maybe fifty unconscious young women in space suits. As he sat gazing out at the sparkling diamond stars of the Milky Way and the blue-green slice of Earth, there was movement behind his back. Soon the crowd rose up and came closer. Then suddenly there were hands grabbing every square inch of his body. He tried to push his way out but some twenty gloved hands held him fast.

They carried him over several dunes and up a steep incline, finally reaching the edge of a live volcano that was puking molten lava into the sky. He was then tossed into the burning pit of liquid rock.

In an hour he was crawling back up out of the volcanic crater, his suit burnt black and his flesh inside charred and raw. The women’s footprints led to a spacecraft that was just now taking off in the distance. The vacuum of space deleted his frantic yelling. He waved his arms.

The moon rocket continued soundlessly upward, arcing out toward the Earth. He stood still and stared until it became a silver speck. Then he turned toward the cliff. He walked back uphill, losing a little oxygen with every breath.

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