* * * * *
We'd saved our money for years, but it was a pitifully small savings.
We weren't rich people who could go down to the spaceport and buy
passage on the rocket ships, no questions asked, no bond required. We
were only farmers, eking our livelihood from the unproductive Martian
soil, only two of the countless little people of the solar system. In
all our lifetime we'd never been able to save enough to go home to
Earth.
"One more year," I said. "If the crop prices stay up...."
She smiled, a sad little smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Yes,
Lewis," she said. "One more year."
But I couldn't stop thinking of what she'd said earlier, nor stop
seeing her thin, tired body. Neither of us was strong any more, but of
the two I was far stronger than she.
When we'd left Earth she'd been as eager and graceful as a child. We
hadn't been much past childhood then, either of us....
"Sometimes I wonder why we ever came here," she said.
"It's been a good life."
She sighed. "I know. But now that it's nearly over, there's nothing to
hold us here."
"No," I said. "There's not."
If we had had children it might have been different. As it was, we
lived surrounded by the children and grandchildren of our friends. Our
friends themselves were dead. One by one they had died, all of those
who came with us on the first colonizing ship to Mars. All of those
who came later, on the second and third ships. Their children were our
neighbors now--and they were Martian born. It wasn't the same.
She leaned over and pressed my hand. "We'd better go in, Lewis," she
said. "We need our sleep."
Her eyes were raised again to the green star that was Earth. Watching
her, I knew that I loved her now as much as when we had been young
together. More, really, for we had added years of shared memories. I
wanted so much to give her what she longed for, what we both longed
for. But I couldn't think of any way to do it. Not this year.
Once, almost seventy years before, I had smiled at the girl who had
just promised to become my wife, and I'd said: "I'll give you the
world, darling. All tied up in pink ribbons."