"Tell him, Lewis," Martha whispered. "Tell him we can't go."
Then she was crying. Her smile was gone and her proud look was gone
and her hand crept into mine and trembled there. I put my arm around
her shoulders, but there was no way I could comfort her.
"Now we'll never go," she sobbed. "We'll never get home...."
I don't think I had ever realized, until that moment, just how much it
meant to her--getting home. Much more, perhaps, than it had ever meant
to me.
The statues were only statues. They were carved from the stone of
Mars. And Martha wanted Earth. We both wanted Earth. Home....
I looked away from her then, back to Duane. "No," I said. "We're still
going. Only--" I broke off, hearing the shouting and the cheers and
the children's laughter. "Only, how can we tell _them_?"
Duane smiled. "Don't try to, Mr. Farwell," he said softly. "Just wait
and see."
He turned, nodded to where John Emery still stood at the edge of the
platform. "All right, John."
Emery nodded too, and then he raised his hand. As he did so, the
shouting stopped and the people stood suddenly quiet, still looking up
at us.
"You all know that this is an anniversary," John Emery said. "And you
all know something else that Lewis and Martha thought they'd kept as a
surprise--that this is more than an anniversary. It's goodbye."
I stared at him. He knew. All of them knew. And then I looked at Duane
and saw that he was smiling more than ever.
"They've lived here on Mars for thirty-five years," John Emery said.
"And now they're going back to Earth."
Martha's hand tightened on mine. "Look, Lewis," she cried. "Look at
them. They're not angry. They're--they're happy for us!"
John Emery turned to face us. "Surprised?" he said.