Escape pod. Episode 895. Man on the Moon. By Elaine Midcoe.

Hello and welcome to Escape pod, your weekly science fiction podcast. I'm Valerie Valdes, your host for this episode.

Our story this week is Man on the Moon by Elaine Midcoe. A story was first published in June 2022 on Bain.com.

Elaine Midcoe is a short story writer and an award-winning author of science fiction. Her story Man on the Moon won the 2022 Jim Bain Memorial Short Story Award.

She's also a winner of the Writers of the Feature Contest. Her stories have appeared in the anthology's Writers of the Feature, Volume 37,

compelling science fiction short stories, and writers of the Feature, Volume 39. She's also been published in the magazine's slash literary journals, Galaxy's Edge, Daily Science Fiction, JewishFiction.net, Flash Fiction Magazine, and the Sunlight Press.

Before jumping into writing, she worked as an attorney and college professor, where she taught criminal justice and law courses, a background that inspired the story Man on the Moon. She lives in South Florida.

Our narrator, Merlapherty, is an author and pioneer podcaster. She is currently the co-host with Matt Lawis of Digitators, a Hugo Award winner for Best Fan Cast, and the author of the Hugo & Nebula nominated science fiction murder mystery six weeks out from orbit.

Her newest book, Station Eternity, came out in October 2022. This equal chaos terminal is coming in November 2023.

Now, get ready to solve the first burger on the moon, because it's story time.

Man on the Moon, by Elaine Midco. Sasha Venditti, hopskipped in her space suit, just like the guide taught the group that morning.

Two people on the tour, a teenage boy and an old woman, had already fallen at least once, but Sasha took the moon hopping like a newborn calf takes to its mother's teeth, all natural knowing what to do.

She had saved nine years for this vacation, deciding that owning a home by age 35 was less important than getting to the moon by age 35.

And this excursion, the Alan Shepherd's golf ball scavenger hunt, had cost her at least five-month salary, but God it was worth it.

Don't forget to look up. The guide's voice sounded in her ear, a full earth hung in the lunar sky.

If my smile gets bigger, I'll crack my helmet, she thought. At home right now, she'd probably be reviewing a business merger deal,

or advising some self-important client on a hostile takeover. But instead, I'm one of the 0.003%ers who've walked on the moon.

I'll find Shepherd's golf ball. It wasn't the glorious she wanted, but the prize.

Anyone who found one of the two golf balls that Alan Shepherd famously hit during his Apollo 14 moon mission was promised a free, all expenses paid return vacation,

and no staying in her little window was birth either. The finder would get a seven-day stay in one of Fra Marluna's resort's best rooms.

One that actually had a double bed and a window. The fact that no one had recovered either golf ball in the 12 years the resort had been opened did not deter her.

She had just hop-skipped to the near edge of a small crater, certain she had spotted a ball, only defined yet another round lunar rock.

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