Editing City Series:Volume1 Prologue (section)

===Part 2===

The first words over the communicator were inappropriately cheerful.

“Hey. How’re things over there?”

The voice came from Huber on the spaceship. Due to the radio link, his voice was a little scratchy.

His words reverberated from all of the speakers in the control room.

Hearing his friend’s voice so suddenly caused Paul to gasp for just an instant.

He replied with his gaze still lowered.

“How are things with you?”

The distance to space created a time lag in the communication. The response came after a two second delay.

“That you, Paul? It seems I’m wandering around outer space here. I’m doing fine, though.”

“I see. That’s good to hear.”

[[Image:City_v01_021.png|thumb]]

During that ridiculous exchange, Paul realized Huber knew everything. Normally, the man would never go out of his way to say he was fine.

…''I can’t believe this.

“Hey, Huber.”

“What is it?”

“Um…well…”

“Hey, Paul.”

“…What?”

“It wasn’t a mistake in your design, so don’t worry about it.”

He hit him right where it hurt.

And before he could say anything back, Huber spoke again.

“Don’t say you’re sorry.”

“But…”

“Shut up. During the launch, I heard one of the launch pad’s connection hooks scrape along the external plating. It looks like that crack split open due to the air pressure. It was the quality of your design that kept the entire ship from blowing apart.”

“…”

“But I can’t reenter the atmosphere with the plating like this. The heat of the atmospheric friction would get in the hole and fry me. I eat a whole roast turkey every year on ''Weihnachts'', so this is probably them getting back at me.”

“Hey, Huber.”

“Hm?”

“What are you going to do now?”

Silence fell after that question.

“That’s a good question.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’m really not sure what to say. …Oh! I can see the moon out the window. It’s so big.”

“The moon?”

“Yeah, the moon. I feel like I could reach out and touch it.”

His tone was a mixture of confusion and joy and Paul knew very well that was the tone his friend got when he was excited.

Paul smiled bitterly at the odd atmosphere that stuck with his friend even in this emergency.

He then placed a hand over the mic and spoke to a nearby technician.

“Huber has a wife and kid. Call them here and hurry.”