Not that he'd been looking for anything in particular.

It was Tuesday, and that meant the Fra Mauro Comets were due to play the Tranquility Shooting Stars in the Lunar Little League rotation schedule.

Not that Barney cared that much. He'd been with the Comets for two years now, ever since he was old enough to be trusted outside in his own EVA suit. That made him 13 years old, time enough to begin to grow bored with the slow-moving innings of Moonball.

But then, it'd been his father's idea that he join the league in the first place.

Mr. Samarin hadn't liked all the time his son spent in the ether playing mind games with his friends. "It just isn't natural," as he was fond of saying. Too fond for Barney, who found his father's complaints annoying. What was he expected to do on the Moon? Ride an air bike? Build a clubhouse? It bothered him when his parents talked about all the wonderful things they used to do when they were youngsters back on Earth. What did that mean to him, who'd never set foot on the planet?

Anyway, his father finally took steps (something else he always said) and signed Barney up to the Comets. He'd been on the team through most of the season, long enough for his fellow players to realize that he just didn't care. Which is why he now found himself way out in right field where nothing much ever happened.

Located about two miles from home plate, right field was out of sight of the infield, just below the curvature of the Moon, and as expected, there'd been very little action. In fact, Barney had seen none at all in the five innings so far.

As Moonball teams went, the Comets weren't bad, having won the league championship a few years before...but that was before Barney's time. Since then, the team had struggled to remain above .500.

At the moment, with no flies to right field yet, Barney had grown bored waiting for the Shooting Stars to finish their seven innings of ups so that the Comets could have theirs. Unlike Earthside baseball, the lower gravity of the Moon forced fielders to take positions far beyond sight of home plate, making it inconvenient to switch sides every inning. To move things along, one team had all their ups at once, followed by the other. When the seven innings were over, the team with the highest score won.

Unfortunately, the Moon's lighter gravity also made it difficult to judge just how far or in what direction a ball would fly. It took good teamwork between fielders to track the moving ball and make sure someone found their way beneath it. Communication over suit radios was key to winning Moonball games, and took practice to master.

In fact, playing Moonball involved a lot of listening. Frequently out of sight of their teammates, players had to follow what was going on by listening to their teammates as they tracked the trajectory of any ball hit by the batter. With practice and some luck, outfielders like Barney could make their solitary way to where the ball was headed and have time enough to reach it before it hit the ground.

If all went well, the ball would be caught while still on the fly. If not, well...trying to get ahold of it after it buried itself in moon dust or bounced away in the low gravity could be tricky if not impossible.

It was just such a scenario that Barney found himself in while stargazing in right field. He hadn't seen any action since the game started and it usually didn't take long for his brain to push the radio chatter to the back of his mind while his gaze drifted skyward.

From a family trip to the dark side the year before, Barney knew that a great many more stars should have been visible. But due to sunlight reflected from the Earth hanging overhead, the view wasn't as spectacular as it should have been, even through the polarizing lens of his helmet.

Barney was trying to pick out one of the planets when he became conscious that the chatter over his radio seemed to have increased. Concentrating on it, he realized that a fly ball was headed in his direction.

"Barney! It's headed to right field," squawked Danny Philbrook in center.

"Oh no! It's going to Barney?" wailed Junior Phillits, no doubt saying aloud what the rest of the team was thinking.

"It's gonna be a long one!" warned Coach Weedon way back at home plate. "Move, Barney!"

"Barney, where are you?" shrieked Jace Noblitz who'd been pitching a perfect game up to that point.

"Where's it going?" asked Barney forcing himself to care.

"It's high, you should be able to see it just over the horizon," said the coach.

Barney shifted his gaze to the horizon beyond a number of ridges characterizing the floor of Mare Imbrium, a 700 square mile area created by an asteroid strike tens of thousands of years before.

Picking out the oncoming ball from background stars, Barney gauged its course, bent his knees, and took his first bound to intercept it. Sailing up and then downward in the 1/6th Earth gravity, he prepared to adjust his direction slightly in order to land where he judged the ball would hit.

Although the ball moved slowly, it covered an enormous amount of ground in a relatively short time and it took some skill to accurately judge where it would eventually land. But Barney was a pretty good fielder when he wanted to be, with excellent depth perception. When he bothered to exert himself in practice, he could usually get the better of a well-hit ball. But Moonball just didn't bring out the competitive spirit in him. Not like playing mind games did. It all seemed so pointless.

"Go, Barney, go!" urged Jace as Barney likely came into his line of sight.

The voices of the rest of the Comets joined that of Jace, filling Barney's ears such that he finally had to turn off his radio. He needed to concentrate, something he had plenty of time to do as things seemed to move in slow motion the closer he approached the ball. Near the end, his heart was pounding in anticipation against the fact that he could do nothing more to speed up his responses. From now on, the outcome depended solely on what actions he had taken in the first few minutes of pursuit.

Slowly, the ball grew larger and larger as his final bound reached its apogee and he began to descend to what he liked to call ground zero. At that point, if he wasn't perfectly positioned to catch the ball he'd have no second chance to catch it.

Then, he felt his feet crunch into the loose lunar soil and reaching out...missed the ball by a good ten feet.

"Did you get it?" asked Jace after Barney had turned his radio back on.

"No, I missed it," he admitted, waiting for the collective groan from his teammates.

"Can you get hold of the ball and fire it back to home plate, Barney?" Coach Weedon wanted to know. Barney could tell he was trying to hold his temper.

"I still have it in sight," reported Barney as he plodded to where the ball had finally wedged itself in a rocky crevasse.

Reaching it, he unslung the air rifle from his shoulder harness, plucked the ball and dropped it into the forward end, and aimed back toward the infield. Slight pressure on the firing button sent the ball out of the barrel and sailing back over the horizon.

"Here it comes," reported Barney over his suit radio.

He watched the ball grow smaller and smaller as it rose, then fell out of sight below the horizon. Somewhere beyond, his teammates were scrambling to retrieve it in time to catch the Shooting Stars' runners between bases, which were a good distance apart due to the long bounds made possible in the Moon's lighter gravity.

But Barney's interest in the play had ended as soon as the ball sailed out of sight. Resigned to another two innings, he was turning to leap back to his original position when his attention was drawn to the object that lay whitely in the lunar dust.

At first, he thought it might be another moonball, but he immediately dismissed the possibility. The odds of such a thing were a million to one. Cautiously, he approached the object; why, he didn't know. Maybe it was the oddness of the situation--the unlikelihood of finding such a thing in the gray waste of the Moon's surface. If he'd found a plant sprouting from one of the rocks he couldn't have been more surprised.

Barney ignored the orders of Coach Weedon to return to his position in right field and moved slowly toward the white spot in the dust. Cocking his head from side to side, at least as much as he was able to inside his helmet, Barney finally decided that whatever it was, the object was harmless. Reaching out, he plucked it from the dust only to discover that it was a ball after all, though not a moonball.

It was small, hardly big enough to fill his palm; gleaming white with a pattern of small indentations covering its surface. On one face, Barney could read the word "Titleist" and the number "2."

What did the word and number mean? Having no clue, he shrugged and dropped the ball into a utility pouch on the leg of his EVA suit. Giving the object little more thought, he bounded off in the direction of right field to fill out the rest of the innings.

Later, the game finally ended, Barney managed to shed his suit and slip away from the rest of the Comets before they had a chance to complain about his poor performance. He'd almost forgotten about the object until it tumbled out of his leg pouch and rolled slowly across the metal floor. Surreptitiously retrieving it, Barney headed for the hatch leading out of the team's ready room.

Hardly noticing the slight pull of the magnetic soles beneath his shoes, he walked easily along the ubiquitous metal pathways that lined Mauro City's streets, most of which ran beneath the surface through caves and tunnels carved from the rock by past mining operations.

Although the original mine had been tapped out over 80 years before (Barney forgot what exactly had been mined there) engineers foresaw the need for permanent settlements and planned their operations so that the empty tunnels and shafts could eventually be converted into an airtight community.

With minimum alterations such as the above-ground residential units, the mine was sealed off from the outside, air locks installed, and pathways lined with metal plates allowing use of the tunnels for the bulk of the settlement's utilities and infrastructure. There, water recycling and purification, atmospherics, and power generation equipment was stored and operated as well as numerous ready rooms and air locks to the outside. Some added excavation was included in the retrofitting to create large garage units for the settlement's land roving vehicles. A road leading from the mine to the community's modest spaceport was improved so that residents had easy access to regular shuttle service from Earth.

Barney's path skirted most of the below-ground facilities and led to a series of escalators that took him up several levels to the residential area. Stepping off the moving stairway, he found himself awash in natural light that poured through large banks of thick iso-glass lining the common area. There, thousands of people in the colorful styles of the day moved about visiting shops, enjoying meals in "oeoutdoor" cafes, or meeting friends. As they did everywhere, children ran about while older youths hung around trying to catch the eye of the opposite sex.

Crossing the common area, Barney reached a bank of clear plex elevators and slowly ascended to the topmost floor. There, he stepped off into a plant-filled hub and, taking one of the wide corridors that radiated from the atrium, followed the metal pathway to his family's living unit.

Luckily none of the passersby said anything to him, so Barney wasn't obliged to delay the time when he could enter the ether for a mind game. Moonball was his father's way of getting him out of the living unit, but as soon as he could, Barney returned to the ether where his "real" friends were...other youths who could have lived in the next unit or on the far side of the Earth for all he knew. So long as they could provide the unpredictable element that made playing mind games such a consuming pastime, he didn't care.

As Barney entered the unit the lights came on, revealing a spacious, well equipped apartment with iso-glass windows overlooking the impressive desolation of the Mare Imbrium. But Barney's only interest lay in his room where the supply of ether pills sat on his dresser.

Changing quickly from his Comets uniform into his colorful day wear, Barney pressed the dispenser allowing for a single pill to pop out from the bottle. Arranging himself comfortably on his bed, he swallowed the harmless drug and as always, slipped into the ether without quite realizing it.

It took little concentration for him to call up the scenario that had dominated his imagination for the past several months: a battle themed playscape pitting heroic Terrans against mindlessly bloodthirsty alien insectoids. Immediately, Barney's battle-rigged avatar was joined by other squad mates whom he knew only by their ether handles and whose real selves could be any age, any gender, or any place other than Mauro City.

For the next several hours, Barney forgot the real world, forgot the Comets, forgot everything but the insubstantial yet nevertheless hyper-realistic environment of the playscape where all his concentration was needed to keep his avatar alive and fighting. He had taken only a single pill knowing that time spent with the Comets had eaten into his personal schedule and that his parents would expect him for the evening meal.

More often, Barney liked to take several pills at once and remain in the playscape all day, not even breaking for meals. But such long stretches inevitably ended in an argument with his parents. The resulting tension in the household only intensified his desire to return to the ether. Ultimately, his parents had become resigned to his addiction, seeing it as a physically harmless alternative to the admittedly limited options for distraction in Mauro City.

Finally, after several hours, Barney felt the familiar tugging in his mind that signaled the ether-pill's effects were lessening and reality began to impinge upon his consciousness. Bidding farewell to his squad mates, he emerged from the ether to find himself staring up at his father's familiar face.

"You timed it pretty well this time," said Frank Samarin.

"Am I in time for dinner?" asked Barney, rising from his bed. With ether-pills, there were no after-effects such as dizziness or lethargy. A player ended the experience as alert as when he first took the pills. For that reason, he immediately noticed the thing his father held in his hand."Where'd you get that?"

"This?" said Mr. Samarin, looking at the small white object. "It fell out of your pocket when I picked up your uniform. Where'd it come from?"

"Do you know what it is?"

"Of course. It's a golf ball." Seeing the blank look on Barney's face, he elaborated. "A game played on Earth. A person hits a ball like this with a club with the object of sinking it into a series of small holes arranged around a course. It's a game that's not conducive to the Moon though."

"Oh."

"So where'd you get this ball?"

"I found it in the dust while playing outfield this afternoon," replied Barney, rising from the bed. "Around the Fra Mauro hills."

"Funny place to find a ball like this," mused his father. "But I do seem to recall something about golf balls and the early days of Lunar exploration."

"What does 'Titleist' mean," asked Barney. "And that number?"

"Good questions. I don't know."

His father taught high school and college history and likely knew more than he was saying. That meant only one thing: if Barney had questions, he'd tell him to look up the answers himself.

"But this could make for a nice little project for you,"said his father, confirming Barney's fears. "Why don't you do a little research and find out for yourself? Let me know what you find."

He tossed the ball to Barney who had no choice but to catch it.

"Your mother says dinner will be ready in a few minutes,"said his father, not without some satisfaction in his voice.

It was a few days later when Barney next thought of the golf ball.

He'd spent a number of double-digit sessions in the ether that took up nearly all of his pills, forcing him to begin conserving them so that he didn't run out before he could cajole his mother into buying another supply. He was therefore compelled to seek alternate sources of distraction. But what to do? Doing his chores was out of the question and so was studying despite his low grades. Over the years, his parents had tried to overcome his disinterest in schoolwork by shifting him to different study groups or changing teachers.

But none of it succeeded in catching his attention. What was the point? All of it was boring compared to his time in the ether. Only there did Barney meet others who shared his interests and understood his frame of mind, however distant and detached it might seem to his parents and neighbors in the small community of Mauro City, where everyone knew everyone else.

Just then, Barney was in the common area window-shopping and trying to figure out what to do next. He'd toyed with the idea of trying to find a little job so he could earn some money of his own to buy more ether pills. But the idea of working struck him as unnecessary when all he had to do was wait until some begging and whining would get him what he wanted from his parents. He was passing one of the tele-screens that were located in strategic spots around the common when his attention was caught by a progress report on the latest manned expedition to Mars. It seemed to Barney that they were making more fuss than usual until he realized that for the first time, a ship was to land on the Martian surface. He hadn't realized how much the report had impressed him until he'd retraced his steps all the way back to his living unit. The feeling remained with him until, stepping into his room, his eyes fell for the umpteenth time on the golf ball that sat on his dresser.

Curiously, Barney ordered the computer to run the video and as the ancient film progressed, he found himself leaning closer to the screen. Meanwhile, through the speakers, voices could be heard:

"Houston, while you're looking that up, you might recognize what I have in my hand as the handle for the contingency sample return; it just so happens to have a genuine six iron on the bottom of it. In my left hand, I have a little white pellet that's familiar to millions of Americans. I'll drop it down. Unfortunately, the suit is so stiff, I can't do this with two hands, but I'm going to try a little sand-trap shot here."

"He topped and buried it on the first swing. I assume that the six-iron was snuck on board."

"In his suit pocket."

"You got more dirt than ball that time."

"Got more dirt than ball. Here we go again."

"That looked like a slice to me, Al."

"Here we go. Straight as a die; one more."

"Miles and miles and miles."

"Very good, Al."

Barney sat back in his chair. His father was right. There was a connection between the game of golf and Lunar history! Slowly, it dawned on him that he must have found the ball struck by astronaut Alan Shepard that had gone "miles and miles and miles." Lost for over 200 years, he finally found it just lying around in the Lunar dust! Taking the ball in his hand, Barney contemplated it with more reverence. Was that a mark he saw on it or was it his imagination? Did Shepard's club leave an indentation in the ball? Dimly, a sense of history began to creep into Barney's consciousness, the kind of subtle feeling he was not at all used to.

Unaware that the apparently dead embers of his imagination had begun to glow, Barney asked the computer to find information on the life of Alan Shepard. Once again, the screen filled with columns of data. Scrolling down, he decided to stop at an entry that included many illustrations that broke up the text into less threatening blocks.

Barney forced himself to begin reading, and discovered that Shepard had been born in the early part of the twentieth century, a time of great discoveries, world wars, and social upheaval. Somehow, Shepard managed to survive those turbulent times and as a young man entered the United States Navy serving aboard an ancient warship near the end of the century's second major war.

After the war, he took flight training and became a Navy aviator. Barney gasped when he read that following the war, Shepard took on the duties of being a test pilot, a dangerous career that he need not have followed.

With growing fascination, Barney read that Shepard was assigned to flights that included high-altitude testing to gather data on how light behaved at different altitudes and on different kinds of air masses over the North American continent. More dangerous assignments followed, like experimenting with in-flight refueling systems for naval aircraft. Eventually, he became proficient in the new F2H-3 Banshee and was given command of a squadron of the new jet fighters.

Studying pictures of the various aircraft Shepard flew, Barney developed a growing appreciation of the courage and daring of the old-time test pilots who had the nerve not only to fly such awkward-looking contraptions but to do it in models that no one was completely sure would stay aloft!

After serving overseas with the Banshee squadron, Shepard returned to the United States to pick up his test pilot career flying such advanced aircraft as the AF3H Demon, F8U Crusader, F4D Skyray, F11F Tiger, and the F5D Skylancer. By 1958, Shepard had logged over 8,000 hours flying time...something Barney gathered was well out of the ordinary.

Asking the computer to enlarge the illustrations accompanying the entry, Barney found that his appreciation for the ancient aircraft flown by Shepard grew the more he looked at them. The sleek, silvery bodies and swept-back wings; the bubble topped pilot's seat; and the grand backgrounds of patchwork farmland or snow topped mountains lent them an air of glamor and excitement and a sense of a world still vigorous and on the verge of bursting its earthly bonds.

Barney recalled something he'd heard in school about the early days of space exploration. At the time, he hadn't really been paying attention, but now, seeing the primitive early efforts at high-altitude flight and feeling a growing familiarity with Alan Shepard who placed them in a human context, something of the excitement of those days seemed to rub off on him. Barney couldn't help placing himself in the seat of those ancient flying machines as they groped ever higher, until at last they scraped the edge of space and stars began to glitter through the thinning atmosphere.

Barney finally dragged his attention from a photo of the F4D Skyray back to the text and continued reading which, for some reason, didn't seem as tedious as it had when he started.

By the late 1950s, Shepard had flown almost every kind of aircraft and risked his life any number of times. But apparently it hadn't been enough to slake his thirst for adventure. His thousands of hours at the throttle qualified him for a new program that would eventually take him beyond where any aircraft had taken him. Chosen by NASA (even Barney had heard of NASA...the precursor to the United States Space Exploration Unit that had founded the first lunar colony), Shepard was chosen as one of the country's first seven astronauts.

With mounting excitement, Barney read how Shepard became his country's first man in space. He did it on May 5, 1961 (so long ago!) while strapped into a tiny capsule atop a rocket that was as likely to blow up on the ground as launch him into space. Barney found himself relieved to read that the Freedom 7 didn't explode and that Shepard went into orbit around the Earth as planned. More frightening than the flight itself was the idea that on his return, Shepard was required to splash down in the middle of the ocean and wait until his capsule was picked up by ship! Barney thought of the regular shuttle flights from Earth to the Moon that came and went every day at Mauro City and how much he'd always taken them for granted.

Continuing to read, Barney was dismayed to discover that Shepard's career as an astronaut was cut short just as it was getting started. Because of a problem with his inner ear, he was grounded and served NASA in an administrative capacity for the next ten years. As a result, he had to stand by and watch fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong become the first man to set foot on the Moon. But by that point, Barney knew that Shepard was not the type of man to let an old ear problem slow him down. He had surgery done to correct the condition and was immediately assigned to Apollo 14, only the third mission to land on the Moon.

Shepard, who was 47 years old at the time, launched with his crew on January 31, 1971 and personally piloted the landing craft. Wow, thought Barney, by this time completely enthralled with Shepard's story.

It was then that the golf ball entered the picture.

It was near the end of his final Moon walk, with his assigned experiments completed, that Shepard took ground control by surprise. He pulled out something called a "Wilson six iron" head from one of his pockets, attached it to the end of a standard sample scooper handle, and dropped a little white ball into the lunar dust.

Barney watched, with far more interest and understanding than he had the first time, as a film showed Shepard take some one-handed swings at the ball. Missing the first few times, he finally connected and the ball took off somewhere that Barney's eye wasn't able to follow. But that was all right because he knew where the ball ended up!

However, there was an addendum to the golf episode. Some accounts stated that Shepard had struck two balls and others three. The consensus of opinion was that he had only hit two, an opinion that had stood ever since. But apparently the consensus was wrong! Though the other two balls had been found in later years and transferred to museums on Earth, a third ball did exist, as proven by the little white sphere that even now rested in Barney's hand.

Turning back to the record, Barney discovered that Shepard retired from the Navy in 1974 after being promoted to rear admiral. In subsequent years, he became a businessman and wrote a book about his flight to the Moon.

Reaching the end of the entry, Barney learned that Shepard died in 1998 of a disease called leukemia, something (a footnote indicated) for which a cure was found some 90 years later.

Finished, Barney noticed he had a little difficulty swallowing and realized suddenly that reading about Shepard's life had affected him somehow. He felt saddened and couldn't figure out how just reading some words on a data screen could affect him that way. As he continued to stare at the screen, he noticed that Shepard had had three daughters, or rather two, as one was actually a niece. There was Laura and Juliana and the niece, Alice.

Staring at the names, it gradually dawned on Barney that Shepard's spirit had lived on in his children. If so, maybe the story of their famous father had been passed on like a family heirloom from generation to generation. Could it be, he wondered, that their descendants were still around? The notion began to excite Barney as he wondered if he might be able to find them. Imagine their surprise and delight to be presented with Shepard's very own golf ball?

It was a thought that Barney took with him when he finally ordered the computer to return to standby mode

The next day, he took an ether pill as he usually did right after getting home from school and joined the rest of his squad in their ongoing battle with the insectoid invaders. But for the first time that he could remember, he found it hard to get into the rhythm of the playscape. His timing was off and more than once the squad leader had to repeat his orders to get Barney's attention.

"What's the matter with you, Killer?" demanded the squad leader. "Why are you so out of it? If you don't pay more attention, you'll endanger the whole squad."

As if to punctuate the reprimand, a bolt of ionic force just missed Barney's avatar, shattering a wall behind him. When the dust cleared, he had to shove aside a pile of debris that had fallen on top of him.

The squad leader was right, he was off his game. What was wrong with him? All day, even while at school, he'd felt out of sorts, unable to concentrate on anything. Thinking back, he realized that it was Alan Shepard's family, Laura, Juliana, and Alice. What happened to them? Where did their children end up? Where were their descendants? He needed to find out. Otherwise he'd never get them off his mind.

The question of what to do about it was settled for him when a second burst of ionic force caught his avatar dead center and his involvement with the playscape was suddenly ended.

In virtual limbo for an undetermined amount of time, Barney emerged from the ether gradually. Finally clear, he swung his legs from the bed and sat up. He was a little surprised at his lack of disappointment about being "killed" during a mind game. In fact, he was kind of happy that it happened because what he really wanted to do was start looking for Shepard's descendants. Where to begin?

"Dad?" he asked, a few minutes later.

His father was comfortably ensconced in the living room massager while going over some student assignments that were being projected from the compu-slate in his hands. On the family tele-screen there was an update on the Mars expedition and though his father had set the instrument on mute, Barney could tell the newscaster was talking about how the astronauts had kept busy on the long flight. A live digital feed showed the spacecraft in orbit around the Red Planet and a cut to the interior showed the astronauts busying themselves for the coming descent.

"What is it, Barney?" his father asked, putting his 'slate on hold.

His attention attracted to the news, Barney momentarily forgot the reason why he'd come to see his father.

"Are they going to land soon?" he asked, not taking his eyes from the tele-screen.

"Tonight. Going to be late though."

"Can I stay up to watch?"

His father hesitated a moment but the very idea that his son had expressed an interest in anything other than his mind games, let alone the latest space mission, was enough for him to forget any school-day rules.

"I think I can get your mother to go along with that. I was thinking of doing the same myself. Didn't think you'd be interested..."

Barney shrugged, uncomfortable letting his parents in on what he was thinking.

"Thanks. But what I really wanted to know was how would I go about looking up someone's ancestry. Where would I start?"

"That's a funny question," said his father. "Is this a project for school?"

"No."

"Something you're doing on your own?"

"Yeah. You remember what I found out about Alan Shepard?" His father nodded. "Well, I thought it would be neat to find his descendants and give them the golf ball I found."

"Say! That's a really good idea!" said his father, smiling. "Did you come up with that on your own?"

"Sure."

"Well, the first place to start is the global genealogical data base," said his father, turning back to his 'slate and telling it to switch functions.

He accessed the network and began narrowing down the data until it began locating information for Alan Shepard.

"Wow! There are a lot of them!" exclaimed Barney, looking on as the 'slate scrolled down the list of names.

"You can narrow it down as much as you want by including more information on the person you're looking for."

"Okay. I can take it from there, dad. Thanks."

"Oh, and Barney," said his father. "Don't forget you have a game with the Comets today."

That's right, thought Barney, annoyed by the interruption the game would cost him. Checking the chrono function on his compu-display, he discovered that he had only a few minutes before he had to leave. That left him just enough time to give the computer its commands.

"Access global genealogical data base," he ordered.

As the display flickered through its boot up program, Barney thought of all the keywords he could input to help the computer complete its search. When it was ready to input more information, he rattled off two dozen or so, everything from Apollo 14 to Alice Shepard.

With the estimated running time coming in at nearly two hours, Barney decided to have the answers streamed directly to his EVA suit computer. At least he'd have something to look forward to while he was out there pounding lunar dust.

Some time later, Barney was once again cooling his heels out in right field, daydreaming about old time jets and multi-stage rockets and first flights. In the pocket of his suit, he could feel the bulge of the golf ball as it pressed against his leg, reminding him of the courage and resourcefulness that had enabled Alan Shepard to reach the Moon...and the playfulness that he managed to retain even after all of the dead-serious assignments he'd accomplished. Only he would have thought about sneaking a golf ball and club on Apollo 14 and using them in the low gravity environment while the whole world watched via primitive television!

Suddenly it occurred to Barney that if somehow he and Alan Shepard could have known each other, they would have been good friends. He was certain of that. His chest swelled with pride at the thought and a completely illogical feeling of kinship overcame him, one that stretched across the centuries between himself and the long dead astronaut. His throat suddenly tightened and a vast regret seemed to come over him at the thought that he could never meet Alan Shepard.

Barney never considered himself susceptible to hero worship (he'd never even thought that way about his own father). But he had to admit that he did admire Alan Shepard in a way he would never have thought possible only a few days before. Suddenly, the two-dimensional qualities of the playscape characters were revealed as completely meaningless, utter frauds. Alan Shepard had been real. He actually did all the things that Barney had read about him. He'd risked his life for real, test flying primitive aircraft, even in stepping on the Moon to play golf. Alan Shepard was bones and blood and guts. Despite his mortality, he wasn't afraid to dare, to strive, to do.

So Barney's thoughts were trending when they were interrupted by shouts over his EVA suit's radio.

"Barney!" called Danny Philbrook. "It's a fly ball headed to center right field!"

"Barney, are you there?" cried a despairing Jace Noblitz.

"I'm here," said Barney getting set to begin his first leap.

Staring at the horizon, he caught sight of the tiny moving object, gauged its direction, and jumped off.

He'd bounded a mile or two and was at the apex of what he expected to be his last leap when his suit computer notified him of an incoming message. Trying not to take his eyes off the descending ball, he impatiently demanded to know what it was.

"Search for Alan Shepard last known descendent completed," said the computer in a cheerful tone.

"Now?" he asked, the humor of the situation not completely escaping him. "Well, what's the answer?"

Barney was on the descent and even then he could tell he wouldn't arrive in time to catch the ball. Then, several things happened seemingly within seconds of one another.

Just as the ground was rising quickly to meet his outstretched legs, the computer reported, "last known descendent of astronaut Alan Shepard: Barnard Samarin, currently a resident of Mauro City..."

"I know who Barnard Samarin is!" shouted Barney. His heart swelled with pride at the unexpected discovery. He himself was a direct descendent of Alan Shepard!

Suddenly, the thought came to him that perhaps the astronaut's questing spirit might also have come down to him; a spirit that would enable him to dare and do as well. It was unlikely that he could ever fly rockets or walk on Mars. But in a flash of insight, he realized that performing great deeds was not the aim of achievement, but rather the will to succeed; the trying and the doing was the goal. In Shepard's long life, only a small amount of time was taken up basking in the glow of achievement, the rest was spent working, striving, doing. And throughout, he never faltered, never doubted, always believed in himself.

The revelation acted as a key in Barney's mind, opening up possibilities and potentialities that he'd never realized before, or at least never believed possible whenever he listened, bored and distracted, as his parents talked about such things.

The next instant, his feet struck the lunar surface, raising a puff of dust. Directly in front of him, just out of reach, the gleaming whiteness of the ball was still falling with only seconds left before it hit the ground and became a home run for the Kepler Crater All Stars. On the instant, Barney did something he'd never done before: he exerted himself!

Just as his feet hit the ground, he bent his knees, leaned forward, and launched himself through the low gravity, stretching out his hand, reaching and straining through his fingertips.

The next moment, his gloved hand closed around the familiar spherical object, and he heard himself shouting into his mike, "I got it!"

*