Gunther lived for moments like this.  Entering that clean, desolate emptiness, he experienced a vast expansion of being, as if everything he saw, stars, plain, craters and all, were encompassed within himself.  Bootstrap City was only a fading dream, a distant island on the gently rolling surface of a stone sea.  Nobody will ever be first here again, he thought.  Only me.

A memory floated up from his childhood.  It was Christmas eve and he was in his parents' car, on the way to midnight Mass.  Snow was falling, thickly and windlessly, rendering all the familiar roads of Dusseldorf clean and pure under sheets of white.  His father drove, and he himself leaned over the front seat to stare ahead in fascination into this peaceful, transformed world.  The silence was perfect.

He felt touched by solitude and made holy.

The truck plowed through a rainbow of soft greys, submerged hues more hints than colors, as if something bright and festive held itself hidden just beneath a coating of dust.  The sun was at his shoulder, and when he spun the front axle to avoid a boulder, the truck's shadow wheeled and reached for infinity.  He drove reflexively, mesmerized by the austere beauty of the passing land.

At a thought, his peecee put music on his chip. Stormy Weather filled the universe.

He was coming down a long, almost imperceptible slope when the controls went dead in his hands.  The truck powered down and coasted to a stop.  "Goddamn you, you asshole machine!" he snarled.  "What is it this time?"

"The land ahead is impassible."

Gunther slammed a fist on the dash, making the maps dance.  The land ahead was smooth and sloping, any unruly tendencies tamed eons ago by the Mare Imbrium explosion.  Sissy stuff.  He kicked the door open and clambered down.

The truck had been stopped by a baby rille:  a snakelike depression meandering across his intended route, looking for all the world like a dry streambed.  He bounded to its edge.  It was fifteen meters across, and three meters down at its deepest.  Just shallow enough that it wouldn't show up on the topos.  Gunther returned to the cab, slamming the door noiselessly behind him.