"I thought you would be," Emery said. Then, "I'm not very good at
speeches, but I just wanted you to know how much we've enjoyed being
your neighbors. Don't forget us when you get back to Earth."
* * * * *
It was a long, long trip from Mars to Earth. Three months on the ship,
thirty-five million miles. A trip we had dreamed about for so long,
without any real hope of ever making it. But now it was over. We were
back on Earth. Back where we had started from.
"It's good to be alone, isn't it, Lewis?" Martha leaned back in her
chair and smiled up at me.
I nodded. It did feel good to be here in the apartment, just the two
of us, away from the crowds and the speeches and the official welcomes
and the flashbulbs popping.
"I wish they wouldn't make such a fuss over us," she said. "I wish
they'd leave us alone."
"You can't blame them," I said, although I couldn't help wishing the
same thing. "We're celebrities. What was it that reporter said about
us? That we're part of history...."
She sighed. She turned away from me and looked out the window again,
past the buildings and the lighted traffic ramps and the throngs of
people bustling by outside, people who couldn't see in through the
one-way glass, people whom we couldn't hear because the room was
soundproofed.
"Mars should be up by now," she said.
"It probably is." I looked out again, although I knew that we would
see nothing. No stars. No planets. Not even the moon, except as a pale
half disc peering through the haze. The lights from the city were too
bright. The air held the light and reflected it down again, and the
sky was a deep, dark blue with the buildings about us towering into
it, outlined blackly against it. And we couldn't see the stars....
"Lewis," Martha said slowly. "I never thought it would have changed
this much, did you?"
"No." I couldn't tell from her voice whether she liked the changes or
not. Lately I couldn't tell much of anything from her voice. And
nothing was the same as we had remembered it.
Even the Earth farms were mechanized now. Factory production lines for
food, as well as for everything else. It was necessary, of course. We
had heard all the reasons, all the theories, all the latest
statistics.
"I guess I'll go to bed soon," Martha said. "I'm tired."
"It's the higher gravity." We'd both been tired since we got back to
Earth. We had forgotten, over the years, what Earth gravity was like.
She hesitated. She smiled at me, but her eyes were worried.
"Lewis--are you really glad we came back?"
It was the first time she had asked me that. And there was only one
answer I could give her. The one she expected.
"Of course, Martha...."
She sighed again. She got up out of the chair and turned toward the
bedroom door, and then she paused there by the window looking out at
the deep blue sky.
"Are you really glad, Lewis?"