For one long minute she stood beside me, looking up at the Mars we
couldn't see. And then she turned to face me once again, and I could
see the tears.
"Oh, Lewis, I want to go home!"
Full circle. We had both come full circle these last few hectic weeks
on Earth.
"So do I, Martha."
"Do you, Lewis?" And then the tiredness came back to her eyes and she
looked away again. "But of course we can't."
Slowly I crossed over to the desk and opened the top drawer and took
out the folder that Duane had given me, that last day at the
spaceport, just before our ship to Earth had blasted off. Slowly I
unfolded the paper that Duane had told me to keep in case we ever
wanted it.
"Yes, we can, Martha. We can go back."
"What's that, Lewis?" And then she saw what it was. Her face came
alive again, and her eyes were shining. "We're going home?" she
whispered. "We're really going home?"
I looked down at the Earth-Mars half of the round trip ticket that
Duane had given me, and I knew that this time she was right.
This time we'd really be going home.