Part 2

"I've been thinking, too," the Captain continued, "that when I get to Earth, I can still see Mary Anne. If I know where to look, she'll be there, just the same as always....

"There was old Grandfather John Turner (you remember how he used to cuss the filters?) Remember how he talked of going Home. 'I won't live to see it,' he would say. 'I won't be here then,' he would say. But when he talked about it, it didn't seem to matter....

"It was the dream that mattered. A dream of everything that's wonderful. It meant peace and beauty and rest. It meant something too wonderful ever to happen.... For him, it was just a dream.

"Now that we can practically touch it, and see it, and feel it, I find it a rather frightening thing. It makes me feel cold inside; it makes my mouth get dry; it makes my hair prickle.

"Funny, how it gets me."

"I know what you mean," the Mate said.

"Maybe I've been afraid all along to admit that I wanted to go Home; afraid that somehow wanting something so much like a dream would keep me from ever getting it.

"But now that we're almost there, I've changed. Remember what Johnny said, 'How would you like to sit on a porch and tell the kids how you came back from the stars?'"

The Mate nodded and smiled. "It kinda got me too."

The Captain looked at the icy points of light again, set against the ebon of eternal night. "It does get you....

"On Earth, Mary Anne will sparkle. I guess everything sparkles there. Stars sparkle; water sparkles in the sunlight; the air sparkles; life sparkles."

He stood up and turned his back on the window.

"You know, once I get my feet down there, I'm going to see that they stay. I'm never going to take them off. Not even so much as a single mile. I'm going to get me a bushel basket, and I'm going to fill it with Earth, and when I go to bed, I'm going to have it right there beside me, so I can reach out with my hands, anytime in the night, and feel it."

"For a long time, Ed, I was scared, like you were, that something would happen. But now we're so near, I don't know.... I was afraid that maybe things had changed; that there wouldn't be any people. That maybe--I guess I always see the dark side, don't I?"

The Captain said, "Maybe there's some good in that. But this time I'm going to sound a little like Johnny. Things may have changed, Skippy. From what we've read about. We've got to expect that. But it can't be too different. We can adjust. Man can always adjust."

He turned again to the window.

"And there's always Earth herself. You can look through the 'scope and see her out there, just like she's been for a billion years. Home. That hasn't changed. The air of Home; the water of Home. That doesn't change."

"I guess you're right, Ed," the Mate agreed. "That can't change."

* * * * *

He found her down below the motors on the last level. Their light was burning dimly.

She had been crying.

Johnny Nine stood watching her for a long time. Finally he said, "I'm sorry, Marte."

She looked up. Her face was tear-cast, and her eyes were red. "It's.... It's...." Her voice caught in a sob. "Oh, Johnny, why? _Why_, Johnny?"

Johnny Nine had no answer to that question.

"Why did he have to do it--just when we were almost Home?" She began to cry again.

He sat down beside her, drew her head over on his shoulder.

"We've all got to die sometime. You, me ... Sam."

"But not now, Johnny. Not _now_!"

He let out his breath in a long sigh. "I know. I--I liked Sam. He was always good to me, always ready to stop work and explain things to me. But he was old, Marte, so awful old."

"But not to see Home, when you're almost there.... He looked through the 'scope, but his eyes were bad and he couldn't see it. And he thought we were all fooling him.... But Johnny, he'd _had_ to believe, once he got his feet down on Earth, once the wind was all around him. Even if he was old. He'd _had to_ believe, then."

"I know, Marte."

There was silence for a moment.

"You know what they say. 'When you die, you go to Earth'. Maybe Sam's already there. Ahead of us. Somehow."

"He used to tell me--me--me--" She choked up; she let out her breath unevenly. "When I was little and went down to look at the gardens, he used to tell me how he--"

"Don't, Marte. Try not to think of it."

"All right, Johnny. I won't. I'll try not to think of it. But Johnny--"

"Now, now, that's enough."

For fully five minutes neither of them spoke.

Then Marte asked, in a small voice, "Johnny?"

"Yes."

"I wonder how he got the bottle."

"Please, Marte...."

"I _know_, Johnny. But that way. It was so cruel. If he'd just waited." She looked at Johnny Nine.

"Johnny?"

He was staring at his sandals.

"Johnny?"

"Yes?"

"We aren't--aren't going to reconvert him, are we? Not now?"

"No, Marte." Johnny Nine took a deep breath. "Not now. We're going to take him with us, and bury him, really bury him. Put the Earth over him. He'd like that, Marte. Not in the reconverter, but in the cool Earth, the Earth of Home."

"Yes," she said very softly, "he'd like that."

* * * * *

Closer and closer. The Ship was well inside Jupiter, skyrocketing to her rendezvous with the pilot ship. The radio lapse was less than thirty minutes now.

The Captain turned from the speaker. "You heard it, Johnny. What can we tell them?"

Earth wanted press comments. _Tell us about the trip!_

The Mate stood up.

Johnny Nine shuffled his feet. There was an awkward silence.

The History of the Ship. Which of them would dare attempt that?

The life of twenty-one generations; the death of nineteen; the dream of Earth....

Their little, circumscribed hopes and fears. The little things out of the night drench of a thousand lives. How well they lived together, the mutual respect and the mutual affection....

The little things whose total is life.

Or the big things.

Like the Great Sickness, during the Second Generation. It had almost finished the Ship.

The little things and the big, all rolled into an emotion that meant the Ship. That _was_ the Ship....

The History of the Ship. Who could tell that? Who?

The Captain walked to the transmitter. He picked up the microphone and switched the "send" lever over.

"Hello, Earth.... Hello, Earth.... Interstellar Flight One.... Interstellar Flight One.... For your press.... Repeat.... For your press...."

There was only one thing to say: "We're coming Home!"

That single sentence crackled its way across the vastness of space.

* * * * *

The Ship sped on. Its forty-nine people worked and slept and played, as their fathers before them, and _their_ fathers before that. But their hearts were glad with a new gladness.

"We're inside Mars!"

Johnny Nine settled back in the pilot seat, aft in the Ship, above the tubes.

"We're inside Mars!"

No one heard him. He was alone in the cramped pilot quarters.

He threw in the forward jets, unused for almost two hundred years, cut in the forward jets to break their fall. Prayed.

The great Ship trembled.

Johnny Nine's hands skipped, in carefully trained movement, over a bewildering array of firing studs. His eyes seemed to dart everywhere, checking the banks of dials. The tempo increased. For ten years he had trained for this job; he knew it well.

Then the Ship began to turn. Slowly, lazily, its nose spewing fire.

It took two hours, and by then, Johnny Nine was exhausted. But it was done. His job was done. He had set the Ship safely in an orbit around the Sun, between Mars and Earth.

He left the tiny pilot cabin.

They would be waiting for him, forward. He wanted to run along the long companionway. He forced himself to walk. His heart was hammering with a mounting tempo.

* * * * *

They were all assembled in the play-area, the only large open space in the whole Ship. Johnny Nine came out onto the platform above it. His hands gripped the guard rail tightly.

He looked down at the passengers below him, saw their white upturned faces, strained, tense. Saw Marte, holding her breath.

"You felt the jets," he said, and his voice carried clear. "That means we're in an orbit around the Sun. Our own Sun. Just like a planet."

There were no cheers. His announcement was greeted only by the low hum of voices, breaking like wind in pines, a sigh of relief.

Then there was a stunned silence, when, for a moment, no one knew quite what to do with himself.

After that, they began to mill around, each going to his neighbor and repeating the news again.

"Well, we're Home."

"Yes, we're Home."

* * * * *

The Ship drifted in its orbit, now, like a planet, like a very small planet, the balanced terrarium.

"Listen," the Mate said. "I've got him!"

He took off the headset and switched open the speaker.

"Interstellar Flight One...."

The voice sounded strong and clear and near.

The Mate spoke into the microphone.

And then they waited, their eyes on the huge sweep hand of the clock.

One second, two, three--

Four--

Five....

"Flight One. Read you fine. Expect to make approach within an hour. Has yur Ship a carrier magnet plate for coupling?"

The Captain frowned. "Tell him no."

"Hello, pilot ship. No magnet plate, repeat, no magnet plate."

"... All right, Flight One. Has yur Ship serviceable suits?"

The Captain said, "Better check them, Johnny."

Johnny Nine left at a run to test the space suits.

It took him almost half an hour. When he came back, he was breathless.

"They tested, Captain!"

The Mate threw the sending switch.

"Pilot ship. Have suits. Repeat. Have suits."

"Look!" Johnny Nine cried. He was pointing to the Observation window. "See it, that little light. It's their ship!"

The three men looked.

They could see a moving finger of fire, like a tiny comet, except that its tail thrust sunward.

"Have located yur Ship, Flight One. We are making ready for the approach."

The radio was silent a moment. Then:

"We have a request."

"Yes?" the Mate said into the microphone.

"... We have full transmission equipment on our ship for a world program. Since you have no magnet plates to couple us, will you send one of yur passengers over for formal welcome?"

"Tell them yes."

"Yes," the Mate echoed.

The wait was infinitesimal now.

"Fine. Brief ceremony planned. To be broadcast to the three planets. At conclusion of it, we will send yur pilot to you. He will move yur Ship into an orbit around Earth, and you can be taken down within three days. That will be the fastest course, and we know all of you are anxious to land at the first possible moment."

Johnny Nine started for the door.

"Wait!" the Captain ordered. "I'll tell the passengers. You get ready to board their ship for the welcome."

Johnny Nine felt a lump in his throat. "Yes, sir!"

"Hello, Flight One. We can approach you to a thousand meters."

* * * * *

Marte helped him into his suit. Her fingers fluttered nervously.

"Three days, Johnny. Three days! It's not bad luck to say it anymore. Only three more days and we'll be Home!"

Johnny Nine worked the hermetically sealed helmet swivel. His movements were stiff.

"Three days."

"And then--"

"Marte, I love you."

"Of course you do, but say it again."

"I love you, Marte."

He kissed her lightly.

"I love you too," she told him.

The passengers all gathered around him at the air lock. He looked at them, saw each of their faces, knew them as friends.

Over to one side was a long, rude box. Newly made. Sam spoke to him from the muted memory of the dead; the memory not of Sam alone, but of nineteen generations.

Marte, standing at Johnny Nine's side, clinging to his arm, looked up at him, and smiled. She was beautiful with the innocence of youth, and her smile was that of a girl who has never seen her dreams crushed.

He tried to think of something to say.

Finally, in desperation, he said:

"I won't be gone long."

He reached up and flipped his helmet forward. He buckled it in place with stiff fingers and stepped into the airlock. The door clanged shut behind him.

The outer door opened into space and he popped away from the Ship, borne outward by the air pressure.

It was silent.

He could tell by the way the Ship appeared and disappeared that he was spinning end over end. There was no gravity, even this close to the Ship's artificial fields.

It was the first time any of his generation had been in free space.

It was awkward. He floundered.

He could see the pilot ship lying off there to his left. Above him.

Below him.

He tried to do something about that, fumbled for the blast studs, found them, pushed one.

It was like guiding a very small rocket that has very powerful trigger jets.

It seemed to take an eternity to bring himself under control.

But he drew nearer the pilot ship.

He pushed a stud.

The ship loomed large; it hit him. He tried to twist as he had read it should be done, to place his feet against the ship's plates.

Got them there ... and drifted away.

He realized that he had forgotten to switch on the magnetic shoe plates.

He magnetized his plates, gritted his teeth, pushed a stud.

He hit the ship. Hard. Rolled.

There. He was all right now.

He walked toward the open port. It was a peculiar process. First he cut off the left magnet, lifted his left foot, then....

* * * * *

He was inside. Inside the space port of the pilot ship. The outer door swung closed.

Darkness. Then they switched on a light.

After what seemed a long time, there was enough air around him that he could hear it hiss from the vent through his built in outer pick-up.

The inner door opened.

He stepped into the ship proper.

There was a group of friendly Earth-faces waiting for him. They were smiling.

His muscles were knotted with tension. He fumbled with his helmet. He couldn't hold his hands still. They slipped. He twisted at the helmet, futilely.

One of the Earthmen stepped forward to help.

Then. It was off.

And with that, he knew that he was Home. He felt the tension flow away to be replaced by a singing excitement, an excitement so intense as to be almost unbearable.

Something had to give.

... Suddenly he thought of how he must have looked, crossing to the pilot ship--how awkward he must have seemed to the trained spacemen around him.

He started to laugh, explosively. At himself. Twisting awkwardly in space. It was funny.

He laughed, and he didn't care what the Earthmen thought, seeing him laugh. Even if they thought he had gone crazy, he didn't care.

That was the first thing he did. Laugh.

After that....

At first he could not understand what was wrong. The laughter died; it sputtered and died in a strangled gasp.

Then he thought he had eaten fire, and his throat and lungs were raw.

Johnny Nine swayed on his feet. The magnetized soles kept him erect. The Earth-faces spun dizzily around him. He reached for his helmet, instinctively, reached and missed, reached again.

He clawed frantically at his helmet, and everything around him turned black.

The helmet fell in place with a loud clang of steel on steel.

* * * * *

He was unconscious only five minutes, but, as consciousness flowed back, he felt his head hammer with sharp pains, and lights danced before his eyes. He was afraid he was going to be sick inside the space suit.

It was fifteen minutes before he was recovered enough to listen to what they had to tell him.

An Earth doctor, the pilot ship's surgeon, made it very plain.

"... Twenty-one generations is a long time," the doctor had told him, "for an animal that can adapt itself as easily as man...."

Johnny Nine could complete the rest of it: Sometime, long ago, perhaps as early as the Second Generation, perhaps at the time of the Great Sickness, the terrarium had been thrown out of balance. And, as the balance continued to shift, man continued to adapt.

Until--

He could hear them, around him, talking quietly.

"We haven't told yur Ship, yet. We thought you'd better do that."

"Yes," Johnny Nine choked.

The Earthmen fell silent, ringing him in.

"Yes," he said, "I'll tell them. I'll tell them Earth's air is poison, and her water, and her land." His voice was hollow. "I'll tell them that."

He staggered toward the space port, blindly.

"We're sorry."

Johnny Nine looked at them, the ring of friendly, kindly, sad faces.

"So--are--we," he said very slowly.

He stepped into the lock, and, when the outer door opened, he popped away from the pilot ship.

He floated toward the Ship that was Home.

How am I going to tell them? he asked himself. How am I going to tell them?

And Marte? Tell her that she will never feel the free wind on her face?

Johnny Nine floated awkwardly away from the pilot ship.