“Drop it, Margo!” The smile left Paul’s face. “You’re talking strictly off the top of your imagination.”

“Imagination? Did you or did you not tell me about four star photos that showed—”

“I told you nothing — nothing that you didn’t completely misinterpret. No, Margo, I refuse to say another word about that. Or listen to you over-rev your mind. Let’s go inside.”

“Go inside? With Don up there? I’m going to watch this eclipse through — from the coast road, if it lasts that long.”

“In that case,” Paul said quietly, “you’d better get something more than that jacket. I know it seems warm now, but California nights are treacherous.”

“And nights on the moon aren’t? Here, hold Miaow.”

“Why? If you think I’m going to travel a loose cat—”

“Because this jacket is too hot! Here, take it and give me Miaow back. Why not travel a cat? They’re people, same as we are. Aren’t you, Miaow?”

“They are not. They’re simply beautiful animals.”

“They are so people. Even your great god Heinlein admits they’re second-class citizens, every bit as good as aborigines or fellahin.”

“I don’t care about the theory of it, Margo. I’m simply refusing to travel a nervous cat in my convertible with the top down.”

“Miaow’s not nervous. She’s a girl.”

“Females are calm? Look at yourself!”

“You won’t take her?”

“No!”

A paltry quarter million miles starward of Earth, the moon turned from ghostly gold to pale bronze as it slowly coasted into the fringe of the larger orb’s shadow. Sun, Earth, and Moon were lining up. It was the moon’s ten billionth eclipse, or thereabouts. Nothing extraordinary, really, yet from under the snug blanket of Earth’s atmosphere hundreds of thousands of people were already watching the sight from Earth’s night side, which now stretched across the Atlantic and the Americas from the North Sea to California and from Ghana to Pitcairn Island.