Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing. -- Proverbs 18:22

It was a tender dawn in May, and Jonah found himself watching it unfold from the patio outside the auditorium. There, the noise of the middle-school graduation party inside seemed to condense, to settle tranquilly with the dew of the soft Utah air. In the west the stars were surrendering to the day.

"Hello, Jonah," came her voice from behind. Sarah's voice.

"I needed to get away from all that music," said Jonah. "You too?"

"Yes. Well, and I needed to think what all this means, now our education is finished."

"Mmm. Means they can fill our seats with the next 100 students. Two days of round-the-clock parties for eight separate graduating classes, and by now they got more than 2,000 kids waiting to get in just as freshmen! It means the town and the Mexican-American Federal Province of Utah'll be glad to see us out of the way!"

"Well, I meant us, Jonah. What's going to be our future now? Working in the mines?"

"Not me. Not these mines, anyway. My application is already on file with the Brokerage."

"The Moon! You're actually going to grubstake up there, that cold place?"

"It's the only way to make my fortune, Sarah. 'Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings' -- that's Proverbs 22:29."

" 'Labor not to be rich,' " she countered quietly, "that's Proverbs 23:4."

Believing that they both, the two of them amid the province's 45 million citizens, had real, God-given choices to ponder, they were quiet for a moment.

"You'll have no wife, Jonah. Unless . . . "

"'less what?"

"Unless you . . . pick somebody to go with you. " 'A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband,' the Good Book says," she finished, much more weakly than she'd wished.

"Well, I'll leave that for when I'm settled." He turned away from the party, from her, from Utah. "Goodbye Sarah."

Orion was rising, he could see as the mail train pulled out of the shallow basin before him and receded against the black horizon. For an instant he was dizzy and unable to disentangle himself from that brutal horizon -- big enough to sweep in from every direction at once and swallow a man up. Just like this stony, hard land. Even the diamonds in the sky above it all were just glittering rocks. Well, good. Jonah had come here for the rocks. They'd make him rich, once he found enough of them.

He turned to the piles and piles of gear the mail train had dumped at the basin's center. Turned his back on the single, sweet emanation of life softening that barren horizon, the Earth, and began to set up his prospecting camp on the dusty, rocky, treacherous, skeletal physiology of the Moon. No more mail train for two months. It was just him now, and all the chryolite he could cut. Now he was just like Orion -- alone, hunting in the night sky.

Jonah listened to the recorded instructions pouring into his helmet, and despite a growing sense of claustrophobia, he took stern command of himself and unpacked the bags and cases in strict order. First a shelter tent, then the hydrogen-processing unit for energy, then packed rations and water: he could survive.

Over the days ahead, the water- and oxygen-conversion machinery would be got up and running; then finally pieces for the modular residential unit, and all the organic supplies and provisions that were packaged to fit within so neatly.

The last assembly was his domestic service android, programmed to cook and wash and clean, to repair the modules, fabricate and stitch up both clothing and exposure suits, and to keep inventories and business logs of everything that went on in Jonah's new mining camp. It was built, this unit, to mimic the shape and physical motions of a human being, and so vaguely remind a lonely miner of home. But it was just another machine to Jonah, no matter how vital it was to his work efficiency and safety. Consequently, he paid no attention at all to anthropomorphizing it the way he'd heard some miners did, as if it were a "partner" or even a "wilderness wife."

To Jonah, all his machines were vital. You'd go crazy up here if you treated anything as more important than your own self-reliance.

In six days he had a home. On the seventh he had a job: to start prospecting for chryolite. Then to start mining it. And to start building his fortune.

Chryolite is an odd substance. Part heavy mineral and part crystal, it could be made to radiate transferred energy at a frequency that allowed -- through complex physics that Jonah with his ninth-grade education couldn't begin to understand -- an amplification effect that drove motors more efficiently than any other known material. As part of an automotive power core, it was the salvation of swarming Earth's transportation system.

As a raw material, it was scarce and hard to get: found only here, in the basins and craters, the fractured cliff faces of the ghostly realm of the Moon. Only the vacuum, and the low gravity, allowed the crystals to grow on the secret rocks and boulders of these phantom badlands. There were 30,000 miners like himself scattered across this eternal corpse of a world, but so little chryolite; it grew at such a slow replacement rate that their claims were measured in hundreds of square kilometers. Here, along the borders that measured and dissected their common homeland, they never expected to meet. Ever.

Orion came and went, came and went across Jonah's horizon a hundred times. And a hundred times a hundred. The crystals, like sacramental vessels secreted in those vast black chapels of stone, could be found only through bitter, exhausting work -- the type that strained rather than strengthened a body -- and through a blind, pure, driving hope betrayed times beyond count. Each made the man and the mind old before their time.

There was the day -- or was it the night? -- on the rim of a minor crater where he, blinded by his own sweat, stepped into a small hole and went over sideways downslope, even in the mild lunar gravity nearly twisting his ankle apart. It took two days to crawl, on hands and knees, over the rock -- all the while in mortal fear of tearing his exposure suit with every move. Eventually he'd reached the rim from where he could radio his Mule-Mac to come pick him up and take him in. The service android helped him straighten and cast the ankle.

In the five weeks it took to heal and get himself rehabilitated for work, he reread the letters from Sarah. From home. She'd found a kitchen job at a miners' dorm after graduation. Then, in a few years, a husband. Sometime after, a baby. Then her husband had died in an accident, and it was back to the dorm kitchens. She always asked Jonah, in each letter, how he was and what life was like there on the Moon -- and whether he was lonely there. It was always hard for him to find the time to answer those letters.

The mail train came; the mail train went. Each stop, it picked up a satchel with the meager treasures of Jonah's faith; each stop, it left an empty satchel to be filled again. Jonah grew no richer; fact is, no one working the crystalline mines of the Moon grew richer. The Brokerage for which they worked, all 30,000 of the moon rats, had a monopoly on the whole lunar operation. They handled everything themselves, and with the miners their management style was minimal. Pickup and resupply, pickup and resupply, was all Jonah ever knew about them. None of the newsletters he got from the Brokerage ever talked about the way chryolite prices or the market were going, or much of anything to do with the business, really. Jonah supposed it didn't matter much, as his contract was for life. And the Brokerage always kept up its end of the bargain.

But over time there were changes back on Earth. More efficient technologies had evolved in the quarter-century since Jonah staked his claim. Power units using chryolite were older ones, now; the market his labors served was for replacement parts, the so-called aftermarket. It was not clear whether chryolite would ever be part of new technologies, new sources of demand and profit, again. It was clear that Jonah would never earn his fortune climbing, scrabbling, reaching, straining, growing sore and brittle for the crystals. But what could a 51-year-old laborer with only one skill do?

He never felt the constraints of his contract with the Brokerage more than on the day he opened Sarah's letter to find that his mother had died. He read it three or four times through, not really lingering over Sarah's question, could he come home for the services, for a visit? There was no clause for home leave in his contract. And he didn't have enough money to pay for it.

After a while he suited up and went outside, just to be alone, which meant to be away from the machines, to remember his mother. "Through the tender mercy of our God," the words of Luke came trickling back, "whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death." He could not, of course, actually look into the sun. The work and the years went on.

It was merely the end of another day, if you want to call it that. Jonah entered his home, waited for the shivering door of the air lock to swallow him up, and dropped his pack on the entryway floor. As on every other day, the domestic service android wheeled toward him to retrieve the pack, and took the parts of his suit as he wearily disassembled it, the android checking as always for leaks, pinholes, dangerously weakened creases and dents that might give way treacherously out there amid the rocks.

Jonah had long since ceased to think about these preventatives. If he had watched, he might have noticed how the android had subtly slowed in its nightly service routines; how it had to hold tools, components, parts, packages, Jonah's clothes a little closer to its optical sensor to make its inspections and perform its work. But the chances are he never would have watched.

He asked the android to put some sports broadcast -- whatever was on -- up on the screen. As every night, all these nights, he washed himself thoroughly in the little basin, dabbing away the wet with the same threadbare towel. It's fairly certain Jonah really didn't notice the big holes worn through either end of the towel; he just reached automatically for the middle. He assuredly had long forgotten what a bath or shower was like.

The android said, as it said every night at this time, "Dinner's ready." Jonah sat at the miniature table and lifted a fork to begin work on the salad. The android, as always, stood at his side, waiting to serve. Dinner was, as it usually was these days, an economical stew. But you couldn't be sure whether Jonah even noticed what he ate. On the last bite, the android moved in to clear the table. But then something different happened. Carrying a package, the android returned from the kitchen panel and wheeled up to face Jonah across the table.

"Well?" he asked, frankly shocked at this disruption of routine and wondering if the android's logic circuits had malfunctioned.

"Tonight, sir, is your 60th birthday."

A silence fell, almost as profound as that of the Moon itself. Jonah stared at the machine. "My birthday?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, yes," he said with slowness. "I suppose it might be. I had forgotten. I suppose it must be, in fact, since you're essentially just a computer with tools. How could you be wrong?"

"Yes, sir. In the human tradition, I thought the occasion called for a gift."

"A gift," Jonah wondered aloud, rubbing his long and calloused hands on the fading, thinning weave of his canvas trousers. "What gift?"

"It's a bottle of good Bordeaux," said the android, bending slightly toward him and opening the package. "I brought it with my parts, from the day I was packed at the machine shop."

"But why?"

"Well . . . "

It was the first time Jonah had ever been aware of hesitancy in the android's responses.

"I had heard in our programming laboratories that humans often celebrate success with such a special beverage. I had no way of knowing which miner I would be sold to, of course, but I . . . well, I wanted to be able to congratulate whoever it was on his or her success. When the time came."

"Success," said Jonah softly. "I'm afraid there hasn't been much of that." Jonah had never named his android, and this faintly intimate conversation was making him feel embarrassed.

"I know. But your being 60 today, and still in good health, I thought that might appear to be enough like a success of the spirit that . . . " The little voice actually trailed off.

Jonah was not a drinker. But of course the android knew that. "Well," he said finally to the tabletop, "I suppose you're right. Sixty and still alive, still working. If I wait any longer for any more success than that -- bring me a glass."

The android produced a cracked cup, the best drinks receptacle left in the pantry, and simultaneously opened the bottle. It poured. Jonah lifted the cup.

"I don't know if . . . " he began. "I don't suppose you're able to drink?"

The android all at once let out a sound of sheer beauty; a sound that produced in Jonah a rapturous soaring sensation such as he hadn't felt once in 36 years; a sound whose sweetness stunned him and almost stopped him breathing. It was the sound of a woman's laughter.

"Yes, yes! Of course I don't digest, but I can simulate drinking! It's -- well, it's built in, because some owners like to treat us as comrades."

They drank. To Jonah, to each other. They laughed again; what laughter! To life and to health. To the crystalline garden of stars in blossom all around them, always. To success.

It wasn't but a year later, he was certain, that he came back from the caves to find the android missing. Not missing, of course, but out of place. In the tiny herbarium off the living quarters -- where it tended the few hydroponic plants that graced his food with the taste of something that had lived -- the door was open, and the only sound was a soft, whirring creak that almost sounded like someone wheezing, over and over, far away.

Inside, he saw the android bent over the hydroponics console. Jonah could see that it was using a hydraulic sleeve, part of its own body, as a tool to repair the broken machinery. The android was doubled over, pumping hard, again and again, creaking with each attempt. But the ratchet kept slipping, and the android either didn't notice -- or didn't care -- that it, too, kept slipping a little further off balance with each exertion.

The rusting console unit would not be persuaded. The pushes were growing weaker and weaker. As Jonah approached, his arm reaching out to intercede, the android gave a metallic groan, the tool broke, and the little body clattered over onto its side, stunned and suddenly still. Jonah had never seen it in that posture -- wheels askew, limbs helplessly immobilized, sensors dazed. Helpless.

For an instant he felt deep distress over the dignity that physical frailty had robbed from an android. His android. Then he realized how silly that was. He quickly turned it upright, looking away.

Jonah worked, like a machine himself, mindless of the passage of hours and dinnertime, until the console was functioning again. The android, passing him tools and machining parts all the while, said nothing.

"You know," said Jonah studying his work as his hands searched on their own for still-whole edges of the cleanup rag, "I've never asked you just how all these domicile units you work with are holding up. We've never talked about it, but now this cabinet is open I see a lot of rust in here. Perhaps you could do better with a newer model of something? They must have some really fine equipment available by now. I've got a little savings. Or I could buy something you need on credit, I suppose . . . "

The android possessed no distinct facial expression. But an angry stiffening of its labor-bent body gave Jonah a revelation: somehow it possessed some kind of robot's version of pride. And that pride was hurt; by what he could not guess.

"Of course not! I can keep everything running just as it is. If it breaks down, it's my job to fix it. There's no call to waste money on something just because it's new. Everything is doing fine. Now I'll get your dinner."

Fed or not, the evening was already over in Jonah's household.

There wasn't any crossing of a line of consciousness, such that he could even tell where inside his helmet it first began: in the head that filled it, or the emptiness that enveloped it? It was just there. A light, humming, almost below the threshold of consciousness. Thinking back, he never knew: It might well have been audible all the time and he had never known it. But this time, this morning, it crossed the line and he heard.

It was a muted buzzing, really. Just a gentle electronic hum. But it was getting slowly more insistent, and finally he had to stop the morning's work hanging on a rock face to listen, and to try and remember what it might be. The android. The android possessed a special transceiver so that he could contact it no matter where on the surface he was, for any purpose at all, from emergencies to reminders.

He had never exchanged a word from the field with his android in all these 42 years of hard-scrabble work on the claim -- not even when, long ago, he'd damaged his ankle way beyond where the android's wheels could ever have taken it. But now the android had switched on the transceiver, and though he heard no words, noises or signals, the growing hum meant the transmission power was increasing. "But why?" he thought to himself in annoyance.

It was not until he remembered that he had only to ask, to learn why the android was tuning in, that he became concerned. Because when he did ask, no answer came back.

"Dammit, what is this?" he demanded, using a curse word for the first time on the Moon. And hearing fear in his own voice. No words came back. He gathered his rig and tools and set out for the module.

Something must be wrong. Something. All the while, the hum grew gently louder. It was some two hours before he could reach the air lock, slip off his suit, enter the module. There he found the table knocked over, and next to it the android lying on its side. There was no movement. He did not understand. Obviously something was broken, disconnected or worn out in the machine, but it made no motion, gave no sound.

Jonah reached behind him to retrieve his helmet, to listen for the now-reassuring hum. But in the helmet, too, there was only silence. For hours, and hours more, he worked over the testing panels attached by cables to his automated domestic aid. There was something burned-out, something deeply debilitated -- he could not bring himself to say "failed" -- deep within it. It could not be repaired. The unit was a total loss.

In the course of all his diagnostic runs he did learn one thing. The android had always -- always, for 42 years -- kept the transceiver monitor open, at a transmission level just below the threshold of human audible sound. It had listened over him everywhere, across every meter of every section of his claim to this parcel of the Moon, always. Hearing every breath, every heartbeat. Every moment.

The simple, angled planes that made up the android's face, once a gleaming blue-steel mixed with tints of copper in an almost translucent way, glowing with an energy he once felt himself, now revealed in the clinical lights of the instruments a patina of brown and dull red he had not noticed before. Metal has a way of showing age, and even a kind of weariness. But the android's face was still now, resting. At rest.

He did not know how to weep.