[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction Fiction July 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
He was lost--anyone could see that--but she
had no idea how entirely lost he was nor why!
Half of Jupiter's great disk and most of the other moons were below the
horizon when the man stepped out of the plane and changed her life. As
far as Carol Marsh was concerned, he was ordinary enough in appearance.
And she wasn't ordinarily attracted to ordinary men.
He was slightly over medium height, his features were not quite
regular, and he had a deep tan over what had started out as a sunburn,
so that she decided he had misjudged the strength of the sun on some
planet with a thin atmosphere.
She frowned as she watched him look around. She was annoyed by the fact
that it took him almost a minute to get his bearings and realize that
she was first, a human being and second, a girl well worth a man's
attention.
Even the troubled expression in his eyes was something she held
against him. A man shouldn't look troubled. A man should be confident,
self-assured in a manner that also assured the girl he spoke to.
She remembered that back on Earth John Burr had been completely
self-assured.
It was startling to realize that it was with this newcomer, whose
appearance she had every reason to dislike, that she had fallen
suddenly and completely in love, as suddenly and completely as if she
had fallen off a cliff.
"I'm looking for some people," he said. "But I suppose--" His very
voice was ill at ease, and that was something else she should have held
against him. And against herself. She had always resented men whose
voices betrayed their lack of confidence. "I suppose it's no use," he
went on. "I'd recognize the house."
"Who are the people you're looking for?"
He took out a wallet, and from it drew a stereo picture. Two children,
a boy and a girl, were standing with a smiling young woman in front
of a sturdy, old-fashioned plastic house. Their clothes were out of
fashion by a year or so, but that depended on where you were. Mars, for
instance, was always three years behind Earth. Here on Ganymede, on the
other hand, you might even be ahead of Earth in some respects.
* * * * *
As Carol's eyes lifted to his, she saw him staring at the picture with
such longing that she at once knew herself for a fool. _They're his
wife and children_, she thought. _He's trying to find them. And I had
to fall in love with him at first sight._
His eyes were on her now, and she said, "I'm sorry, I've never seen
them."
"Have you lived around here long?"
"Five years."
"Then this can't be the place." He stood there irresolutely and started
to turn slowly away without even a word of thanks to her.
"My father may have heard about them," said Carol, knowing herself for
a fool again.
Past experience, she told herself ruefully, had taught her nothing. The
thing to do was to let him go and forget him as quickly as possible,
before she learned anything about him, before her feeling for him
could become anything more than an irrational, momentary impulse. The
stronger the bonds of knowledge and interest between them, the more
painful they would be to break. And the breaking was inevitable.
The house where she and her father lived was a simple dome-shaped
building, its walls and furniture both made of a silicon plastic whose
raw materials had come from the ground on which it stood. There were
rugs and draperies of a slightly different composition, woven on the
all-purpose Household Helper that her father had bought before leaving
Earth. They lived comfortably enough, she thought, as she led the man
in.
But he hardly noticed the house or anything in it. When they reached
the library and her father looked up from the book he was reading,
only then did the man display interest. The book was a favorite of her
father's and it made him unhappy to cut his reading short.
Nevertheless, he turned off the projector, stood up, and said, "Yes,
Carol?"
"This man is looking for some--some friends of his, Dad. I thought you
might be able to help him."
She held out the picture and, to her relief, her father stared at that
instead of at her. Sometimes he was a little too shrewd; if she was
making a fool of herself, there was no need for him to know it. He
could be a sardonic man and he did not suffer fools gladly, even in his
own family. He was of the opinion that she had used up her quota of
foolishness with John Burr.
He was shaking his head. "Sorry, I've never seen them. Are you sure
they live around here?"
"No," said the man. "I'm not sure. I'm not sure of anything, except
that they're my wife and kids. And I've got to find them."
"Have you checked at the District Office?"
"I did that first. They couldn't help me, but they said their records
weren't complete yet."
"They're complete enough, I should think. Maybe they don't list every
prospector who wanders around without settling down, but they wouldn't
be likely to miss a woman and two children. I'm afraid that you're
wasting your time looking on Ganymede."
The man's face clouded. "It isn't a waste of my time," he said. "I've
got nothing else to do with it. And I have to find them. They need me."
* * * * *
Mr. Marsh looked away from the man to his daughter, and Carol was a
little slow in avoiding his eyes. "I see," he said, and she had an idea
of what he meant by that. He saw too much.
If he knew, there was nothing she could do about it. She said, "Perhaps
Mr.--"