At the centre of the caverns was a huge black monolith, erected in 2001 as a tribute, and maybe a bit of a joke too. It didn't throw any shadows, due to clever arrangement of incoming sunlight, and it made an excellent meeting point for tourists.  You couldn't very well miss it.  Alex and David would be down near it somewhere.  He was supposed to meet them for lunch.

An oriental-looking man of about 60 waved up at him from a contour-lounge and Ham waved back.  He'd met Dudley Kwan on his first day on the moon and they'd struck up an instant friendship, something rare for Tyler. Dudley was working on Phase 4 of the Mars Terraforming project, was a Buddhist and owned three cats that performed like ballerinas in the one-eighth gravity.  Dudley and Alex got on like old friends.

He looked around for Alex.  There she was, next to David, who was taking some time away from his intern studies to be with them on their vacation.  Ham smiled.  Alex sure looked good in that little sunning outfit -- a couple of strategically placed strips of paper. At 56 she had a lot of sex appeal, especially after her... accident of nearly ten years back.  She'd always been... younger, since then.  Not so many worry lines, an eagerness to experience new things; perhaps to make up for the years she had lost to the amnesia.  Whatever -- it made her very much alive.  Ham filed away some delicious plans for the evening.

He hard her shout of surprise followed by bubbling laughter as David hefted her out of the lounge and they wrested each other to reclaim it.  Ham smiled again.  Their son -- his son -- seemed very happy here.  He enjoyed his work as a Lunar doctor (well, intern, but he'd be a doctor soon enough).  He'd even grown a few centimetres, or rather, stretched.  Another effect of the low gravity, David had said.  The upshot of it was that he now towered over his father, whereas on Earth he'd merely topped him.

Ham's attention drifted from his family to a group of young Humans and Saurians shimmying up and down some elaborate monkey-bars in a game of tag.  Here it was more than just a child's game.  It established the hierarchy amongst them, in terms of 'survival of the fittest'.  CT'd have them all eating out of her palm, he thought with unabashed pride.  She'd been with Tyler-Faber Enterprises for three years now, and was well on her way up.  She was still a rookie, despite her background, but she was good.  In a few years she'd be the best.  When she turns 30, he thought, I'll hand my part of the Directorship over to her and she can run it, they way I used it.  He'd not had much involvement since Alex had recovered from her amnesia, preferring to spend more time with his family, and he didn't regret it one bit.  It'd be nice, though, to have a Tyler back in control.  Pity there'd be no more Fabers to carry on that half of the originating line, but Tash had never been one for kids.  She and Chris were still together, a fact as surprising and gratifying to himself as to them.  Chris had been more or less retired since his heart attack in '04, working -- like himself -- in an advisory capacity for the most part.  They'd gone to live right on Puget Sound now, with Chris' younger brother Pat.  According to Tash they went fishing a lot, so it was just as well she had taken a liking to the past-time.  It was soothing, she said, and therapeutic for the times she got twitchy -- a residue from her bad experiences in a Visitor -- sorry, Saurian, cryo-capsule.

His thoughts were brought back Luna-side by David's repeated shouts of: "Dad!  Hey, Dad!"

"What?" he yelled back.  A few dozen Humans and Saurians craned their necks to see who was making such a fuss.

"Come on down the pole -- I've got lunch waiting!"

"Be right there."  Ham walked along to one of the fire-house type poles, set at intervals along the numerous catwalks in the solarium.  These were meant for the fitter Lunarians really -- there were plenty of lifts for creaky old Earthers like himself.  He'd seen the poles used, but not ventured on them himself.  David climbed up and down them like a monkey.  Ah, what the hell.  He was feeling the best he had in years.  Chalk another one up for low gravity, which gave him his first non-chemical relief from arthritis and sundry pains he'd been experiencing for at least a decade.  Ham was seriously considering coming to live on Luna when he retired properly. Alex had expressed an interest in it, especially when Dudley had informed her that there were no vets on the moon to look after the cats, which were popular pets.

"Come on, Dad, it's getting cold!"

"Yeah, just a second."

He reached out and grabbed the pole with one hand, then swung out and wrapped hands and legs around the slender column.  He barely restrained himself from shouting 'Geronimo!' as he slid down it to the cavern floor.

Oh, stuff it.  No-one on Luna cared a damn for his Image anyway.

"Wa...hooooo!"
 

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