Let’s play cards

      The stars shone brightly around Astrocdude as he diligently swung his pickaxe against the asteroid. It was something like an in-between assignment — a temporary task to keep him busy until the next mission came along and he’d have to take the controls and fly off somewhere again.       At the moment, you could say the man was in high spirits. And for good reason — no one had bothered him for quite a while, and he was, for the most part, left to himself. Well, except for a few open-ended assignments like asteroid scanning, with no fixed deadline for submitting whatever materials he found.       With titanic patience, Astrodude kept chipping away at the stubborn rock, humming quietly to himself, completely unaware of everything around him.       “Aastrodu-u-ude!” someone called playfully right above his ear. His whole body jerked in shock, and his pickaxe nearly flew out of his hands. “What are you doing?”       Turning toward the Moon, the man tried to catch his breath. How many more times would they have to scare him like that before he got used to their eerily silent sneaking up? Then again, space was quiet by nature. Oh well.       “Uh, h-hi, Moon,” the astronaut stammered with a nervous smile, waving in greeting. “Ye-eah… just working on this assignment, why? D-did you need something?” he asked, trying to sound as friendly as possible.       “I wanted to offer you something,” said the Moon conspiratorially, grinning as he floated closer — though wisely keeping a bit of distance.       Astrodude looked at him nervously, waiting. When it became clear that no further explanation was coming, the Moon huffed impatiently and blurted out: “Want to play cards with us?”       The man was, to put it mildly, stunned by such an unexpected suggestion. It wasn’t that he was against it — playing cards wasn’t the worst way to pass the time — but how on Earth (or rather, off Earth) was he supposed to do that?       “Uh… and how exactly am I going to play?” he asked uncertainly, trying to picture it.       “Well…” the Moon admitted, apparently realizing he hadn’t thought that part through. “We could play together — as a team!” he said suddenly, his face lighting up with pride at the idea.

***

      Since Astrodude stubbornly refused to let the Moon pull him toward the others with gravity, the satellite had to tow his spaceship instead — with the man safely inside. Astrodude didn’t even want to think about being dragged by gravitational force; he wasn’t ready to trust anyone here that much. Not even his home planet’s moon.       “He agreed!” Luna announced cheerfully, setting the rocket planets in front of him near the center of the little gathering — Earth, Venus, Mars, and Mercury.       “And how exactly is he supposed to play cards with us?” Venus asked skeptically as Astrodude, after a brief internal struggle, floated out of his ship.       “Well… Luna said we’d play as a team,” the man mumbled, drifting a little closer to his partner.       The cards were dealt. Astrodude stared at the Moon’s cards in confusion, trying to figure out how there were two queens of hearts. Had they mixed two decks together or something? Oh well, not his problem — let them play however they wanted.       “Maybe someone should explain the rules to Astrodude?” Venus suggested, making the man flinch slightly at the mention of his nickname.       They gave him a quick rundown of the rules, and he more or less understood. Watching the Moon play and sneaking the occasional glance at Earth’s cards, he decided to sit out the first round and just observe.       By the second round, he had started to get into it, feeling a faint but long-forgotten spark of excitement. It wasn’t much, but he actually enjoyed himself.       He didn’t even notice how several rounds flew by. He and Luna managed to win a couple of times — much to Venus’s annoyance — but moon always stepped in to defend the Earthling, so no hard feelings remained.       Eventually, Astrodude had to return to his ship, which — to his own surprise — made him a little sad. The feeling seemed mutual for at least three of the others too. But he promised to play again when the opportunity arose.       Either he had completely lost his mind, or he could genuinely call these enormous chunks of rock… pals. How did they even address each other, anyway?