_There is a time for doing and a time for going home. But
where is home in an ever-changing universe?_
* * * * *
"Lewis," Martha said. "I want to go home."
She didn't look at me. I followed her gaze to Earth, rising in the
east.
It came up over the desert horizon, a clear, bright star at this
distance. Right now it was the Morning Star. It wasn't long before
dawn.
I looked back at Martha sitting quietly beside me with her shawl drawn
tightly about her knees. She had waited to see it also, of course. It
had become almost a ritual with us these last few years, staying up
night after night to watch the earthrise.
She didn't say anything more. Even the gentle squeak of her rocking
chair had fallen silent. Only her hands moved. I could see them
trembling where they lay folded in her lap, trembling with emotion and
tiredness and old age. I knew what she was thinking. After seventy
years there can be no secrets.
We sat on the glassed-in veranda of our Martian home looking up at the
Morning Star. To us it wasn't a point of light. It was the continents
and oceans of Earth, the mountains and meadows and laughing streams of
our childhood. We saw Earth still, though we had lived on Mars for
almost sixty-six years.
"Lewis," Martha whispered softly. "It's very bright tonight, isn't
it?"
"Yes," I said.
"It seems so near."
She sighed and drew the shawl higher about her waist.
"Only three months by rocket ship," she said. "We could be back home
in three months, Lewis, if we went out on this week's run."
I nodded. For years we'd watched the rocket ships streak upward
through the thin Martian atmosphere, and we'd envied the men who so
casually travelled from world to world. But it had been a useless
envy, something of which we rarely spoke.
Inside our veranda the air was cool and slightly moist. Earth air,
perfumed with the scent of Earth roses. Yet we knew it was only
illusion. Outside, just beyond the glass, the cold night air of Mars
lay thin and alien and smelling of alkali. It seemed to me tonight
that I could smell that ever-dry Martian dust, even here. I sighed,
fumbling for my pipe.
"Lewis," Martha said, very softly.
"What is it?" I cupped my hands over the match flame.
"Nothing. It's just that I wish--I wish we _could_ go home, right
away. Home to Earth. I want to see it again, before we die."
"We'll go back," I said. "Next year for sure. We'll have enough money
then."