That single sentence crackled its way across the vastness of space.
* * * * *
The Ship sped on. Its forty-nine people worked and slept and played, as
their fathers before them, and _their_ fathers before that. But their
hearts were glad with a new gladness.
"We're inside Mars!"
Johnny Nine settled back in the pilot seat, aft in the Ship, above the
tubes.
"We're inside Mars!"
No one heard him. He was alone in the cramped pilot quarters.
He threw in the forward jets, unused for almost two hundred years, cut
in the forward jets to break their fall. Prayed.
The great Ship trembled.
Johnny Nine's hands skipped, in carefully trained movement, over a
bewildering array of firing studs. His eyes seemed to dart everywhere,
checking the banks of dials. The tempo increased. For ten years he had
trained for this job; he knew it well.
Then the Ship began to turn. Slowly, lazily, its nose spewing fire.
It took two hours, and by then, Johnny Nine was exhausted. But it was
done. His job was done. He had set the Ship safely in an orbit around
the Sun, between Mars and Earth.
He left the tiny pilot cabin.
They would be waiting for him, forward. He wanted to run along the long
companionway. He forced himself to walk. His heart was hammering with
a mounting tempo.
* * * * *
They were all assembled in the play-area, the only large open space in
the whole Ship. Johnny Nine came out onto the platform above it. His
hands gripped the guard rail tightly.
He looked down at the passengers below him, saw their white upturned
faces, strained, tense. Saw Marte, holding her breath.
"You felt the jets," he said, and his voice carried clear. "That means
we're in an orbit around the Sun. Our own Sun. Just like a planet."
There were no cheers. His announcement was greeted only by the low hum
of voices, breaking like wind in pines, a sigh of relief.
Then there was a stunned silence, when, for a moment, no one knew quite
what to do with himself.
After that, they began to mill around, each going to his neighbor and
repeating the news again.
"Well, we're Home."
"Yes, we're Home."
* * * * *
The Ship drifted in its orbit, now, like a planet, like a very small
planet, the balanced terrarium.
"Listen," the Mate said. "I've got him!"
He took off the headset and switched open the speaker.
"Interstellar Flight One...."
The voice sounded strong and clear and near.
The Mate spoke into the microphone.
And then they waited, their eyes on the huge sweep hand of the clock.