"What?"
"The table, silly. It's 'Happy Homecoming' tonight!"
"Leavestaking, you mean."
"No, homecoming. It's not December. It's August. You've just opened
the front door and said, 'Mary, I'm home!' And all the time in between
hasn't been. It never will be."
He smiled for the first time.
"Now that's better."
The woman handed John Hastings a goblet, plump with yellow liquid. "To
August, dear," she said, and raised her glass. "To the moment your foot
touches Earth again. And to the wine ... warm and golden, like our life
together."
"Let's eat," he said. "Let's not ask questions." He faltered in a lack
of direction.
"Wait a minute."
"For what?"
"For the questions you can't ask." The gaiety was gone. It was real
now. "I think it's time we swept out the corners."
John nodded, his face slack.
"You've been strange lately."
"Oh that!" he shrugged. "Let's say it's the getting ready ... the heart
plunge just before you jump into space."
"No." It was definite. "It's more than that. You've been a rocket man
all your life. You don't get nervous any more."
His fingers twisted the glass. Something else twisted his voice. "There
are things in it that might make a man nervous, Mary. Black winds.
Burning worlds. Holes in space waiting for him. You think it might be
that, Mary?"
"No."
"But this is Alpha Centauri. This is faster-than-light." He bowed.
"This is when baby-God Hastings tests his brain child ... when the
electron lightscope goes to bat. You think it might be that, Mary?"
"Don't make nasty fun."
* * * * *
Her husband regarded her a long, serious moment. "No. You're right
again." Leaning in to her, he spoke softly. "Did you know, Mary, that
it isn't the big things that make a man nervous any more? Only the
little things--"
"Say it!" she insisted. "Get it out. You'll feel better."
He hadn't moved. "Just the very little things. A supper unradiated. An
empty wrap hanger. An unfilled chair. Emptiness where there should be
something."
"Where has there been emptiness?" Mary was surprised.
"Between us."
"Oh darling ... that just isn't so."
"Isn't it?" He took her hands. "Cards on the table, Mary. Right?"
"Right!"
"You've been going to meetings for the last month."
"It's my turn on the committee."
"You've been out late quite a bit."
"I can't leave till they check me out...."
"There have been other people there."
She pulled her hands away and escaped to the other side of the room.
"Lots of them."
"But there was _one_ face in particular."
"Oh." There was a finality in it. "Who told you?"
"Does that matter?" His hand waved it aside. "Why didn't you tell me
Charles Lathrop was on the committee with you?"
"Because I knew how you'd feel." Instantly, she was at his side. "Oh
darling, don't you suppose I know what you think? You've never accepted
the fact that when I married you, my feeling for him was over and done."
"Is that true?"
"Yes, yes, yes! Can't you understand? What I felt for him four or five
years ago was that young thing everyone goes through."
"Young things grow. Great oaks...."
"Not this one. When you came, it was over. Is over."
He shook his head, and passed his hand over his face. "God knows I want
to believe that. You're my wife, Mary. I love every bit of you. But
Lathrop keeps bobbing up."
The fire crackled like dry leaves, rouging the unhappy walls. "There
are more questions?" she wanted to know.
"Yes."
"Ask them."
"Did you know he was going to be on the committee?"
"Of course not."
"Forgive me, Mary, but--but have you spent any extra time with him?"
"Oh John! We _talk_ at the meetings--'Hello--it's a roaring day--have
you heard the latest about Ganymede?'"
"That's all?"
"I swear."
"You don't feel anything?"
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He's a friend, a brother, a comfortable
dog."
The stiffness went out of Hastings. He sank back breathing hard, as
if he had been running too fast. "Mary, you don't know how good that
hears. You just don't know!"
"Oh my darling!" She held his head in her arms, her mouth close to his
ear. "Has it been this, all these months?"
The man nodded, laughing a little. "I just couldn't take the thought
that maybe--"
"Hush, hush! Don't even say it any more. Drink the wine and remember
what I said ... 'To its warm glow, like our home together.'"
His hand reached out, and trembling slightly, the fingers grasped, and
fumbled, and clutched at air. The glass shattered prettily, spilling
its golden life on the unalterable stone throat of the hearth.
And they stood there, hands untouching. Watching the glistening
fragments trap the last warm glow of the fire.
* * * * *
"Enough, enough," a voice said. "You will rechannel your thoughts,
Captain Hastings. There is another day in time."
The screen misted, and the veils swirled.
"March eleventh ... on a ship ... a glazed splinter in blackness...."
The curtains quivered.
"Men gather tight against the void ... a clarinet wails ... there is
the smell of sweat...."
Kitson and Holmes were doing a dance. They had their breechskins rolled
over their knees, and four grapefruit tied to their fronts.
"Take it off ... take it off ... _take it off_!" The men rode a ground
swell of tinny music. Rhythm stamped out in the pattern of magnetic
boots fought with the sucking sound of beer cans. The air curled with
smoke.
Above their heads a hatch opened, and the Captain's legs appeared,
descending ladderwise. Abruptly, the melee subsided into leftover
clarinet tones.
"Mr. Kitson."