"No ... I wanted to wait. I hoped maybe I could look at it while you
were here. Just you and me."
He crossed to the Observation window. "It's just the little 'scope....
But here, I'll--"
He peered into the eyepiece and adjusted the knobs. "There.... Ah....
That does it. There, Marte."
He stood aside.
She bent over the telescope. The silence drew out and out, almost
breath-held.
"It's.... It's.... Johnny, I feel like it was ours. Just yours and
mine. Isn't it beautiful, all hazy blue?"
"Can you see the continents?"
"Yes.... Yes, I think I can. Not very well. Just dark patches."
She looked up. "It looks so little, Johnny, like a little ball. So
little that if I had a chain, I could put it on it and then wear the
chain around my neck."
Johnny Nine laughed gently. "But it's really big, Marte. Bigger than
the Ship. A hundred times that big, a thousand--"
"A million!"
"Yes, maybe even that. It doesn't seem possible, does it?"
"Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, I'm so happy!" She looked into the eyepiece
again. "I'll never forget this, not as long as I live. That little tiny
ball and the Sun. I think I feel something like God must have felt when
he _made_ it."
"If you were to look hard enough, Marte, you could almost see our
little farm down there--"
"Our farm.... Say it again, Johnny."
"Our farm," he said.
* * * * *
The Ship drew nearer and nearer. The balanced terrarium pointed Home,
rushing faster than the wind, faster than sound, faster--
The Captain sat at his desk. For the past hour he had been drawing
strange designs, contorted in helical animation, on a pad of yellow
paper. Occasionally, he paused to stare out of the Observation window,
lost in thought.
Absently, he let the pencil drop to the deck; the sound it made spun
away his reverie. He bent and retrieved the pencil.
"Skippy?"