“Let’s go,” Francis said, and led the way up the steps.
* * *
—
The interior of the planetarium was round, with the pale dome arcing high overhead, and all the seats circled the giant mechanical projector in the center of the room. Supported on two massive tripods, it looked like a cross between a robot and a huge, legless insect—or perhaps a robotic insect. There were dozens of lenses on it that resembled eyes facing every direction. Each lens would project a certain star or cluster of stars onto the dome.
Francis was enthusiastically explaining the whole setup to Lily as they made their way to their seats on the far side of the planetarium. “It was all made here at the Academy by American scientists,” Francis said, “so they didn’t have to source anything from German manufacturers behind the Iron Curtain. They learned about optics during the war when they ran an optical repair shop right here in the museum.”
Judy checked to make sure that Lily wasn’t simply feigning interest, but her niece seemed quite engaged.
“What did they repair?” Lily asked.
They arrived at their seats, and Judy entered the row first, checking the numbers against their tickets. They had good seats—far enough away from the center to be able to see almost all of the dome without craning their necks too much.
“I heard they repaired thousands of binoculars,” Francis said. “For the navy.”
“Did you ever use binoculars?” Lily asked.
Francis was in China during the war too, and sometimes Judy wondered if they had ever been in the same place at the same time. She and Francis had discussed it, of course, but it was hard to determine for sure. She asked him, on one of their early dates, if he would have even given her a second look had he seen her in China. Here in America, there weren’t so many Chinese women her age, but in China, the ratio of men to women was normal. He had given her a rather tender look and said, “Of course. I would have noticed you anywhere.” She blushed at his words, and shortly afterward, he kissed her for the first time.
Francis was explaining to Lily that he did remember binoculars in his unit—he had been an engineer in the army—but he didn’t know if any of them were repaired here in San Francisco. “Wouldn’t that be something if they were?” he mused, as if taken by the idea.
* * *
—
The beginning of the show was signaled by the gentle crescendo of violins as recorded music began to play. The lights shifted, and now black cutouts of San Francisco’s skyline became clear all around the periphery of the dome. Everyone leaned back to gaze at the pale glow above, and the projector became a fantastically alien creature silhouetted against a darkening sky.
Stars began to emerge, one by one. Judy shivered as the dome deepened to black, and the stars became so numerous they created a sparkling, depthless universe above. She felt as if she were sinking back into her seat, falling into the gravity well of the earth. And then, as the stars above her moved, depicting their nightly journey across the cosmos, she felt as if she were moving with them. Her stomach lurched and she had to close her eyes for a moment against the motion, but the allure of the vision was too strong, and she opened them again and marveled at the sensation that gripped her. There was no up; there was no down. She was floating, suspended between earth and sky.
A small white disc appeared. It was only the size of a pencil eraser, and then the size of a quarter, and slowly, bit by bit, its true face emerged.
“Welcome to the moon,” the lecturer said as the audience gasped. “We are using state-of-the-art imagery here. This photograph, which we will be exploring in detail, comes directly from the Lick Observatory. You’ll be seeing parts of the moon that very few men have seen before.”
The moon grew in size; it hung above them in a giant black-and-white orb. Huge circular craters dotted the landscape. There were blinding white patches and deep, dark shadows.
“The moon is a world of extremes,” the lecturer continued in his hushed, deep voice. “In the harsh light of the sun, the temperature can easily rise to two hundred degrees Fahrenheit, but simultaneously, in those darkest areas, it can be as cold as two hundred degrees below zero.”
Judy glanced at Lily while the lecturer spoke. Her niece’s face was illuminated by the bright moon above, which was reflected as a tiny black-and-white sphere in her eyes. Her mouth was open slightly. She looked like someone seeing a new world for the first time.
“The surface of the moon might be covered in dust. But we can’t be certain about it until we send someone there to check. Someday, man will be able to travel to the moon in a rocket ship. Once he has reached the surface of the moon, he’ll be able to drive a golf ball a hundred miles with one stroke because the gravity is so light. He’ll be able to jump a dozen feet into the air if he wants. He will feel light as air.”