"What's that got to do with it?"
"You start worrying. The kid isn't even here yet, and already you're
worrying."
"Sure I am." McLaren put his head in his hands suddenly and swore.
Harker knew he did that to keep from crying. "I'm worried," McLaren
said, "that maybe the same thing'll happen to my wife and kid that
happened to yours. We got fever aboard."
Harker's eyes were like blown coals for an instant. Then he glanced up
at the sail and said, "They'd be better off if it didn't live."
"That's no kind of a thing to say."
"It's the truth. Like you asked me, when are we going to stop
somewhere? Maybe never. You bellyache about it ever since you were
born. Well, I've been at it longer than that. Before you were born I
saw our first settlement burned by the Cloud People, and my mother and
father crucified in their own vineyard. I was there when this trek to
the Promised Land began, back on Earth, and I'm still waiting for the
promise."
The sinews in Harker's face were drawn like knots of wire. His voice
had a terrible quietness.
"Your wife and kid would be better off to die now, while Viki's still
young and has hope, and before the child ever opens its eyes."
* * * * *
Sim, the big black man, relieved Harker before dawn. He started
singing, softly--something mournful and slow as the breeze, and
beautiful. Harker cursed him and went up into the bow to sleep, but the
song stayed with him. _Oh, I looked over Jordan, and what did I see,
comin' for to carry me home...._
Harker slept. Presently he began to moan and twitch, and then cry out.
People around him woke up. They watched with interest. Harker was a
lone wolf awake, ill-tempered and violent. When, at long intervals, he
would have one of his spells, no one was anxious to help him out of it.
They liked peeping inside of Harker when he wasn't looking.
Harker didn't care. He was playing in the snow again. He was seven
years old, and the drifts were high and white, and above them the sky
was so blue and clean that he wondered if God mopped it every few days
like Mom did the kitchen floor. The sun was shining. It was like a
great gold coin, and it made the snow burn like crushed diamonds. He
put his arms up to the sun, and the cold air slapped him with clean
hands, and he laughed. And then it was all gone....
"By gawd," somebody said. "Ain't them tears on his face?"
"Bawling. Bawling like a little kid. Listen at him."
"Hey," said the first one sheepishly. "Reckon we oughta wake him up?"
"Hell with him, the old sour-puss. Hey, listen to that...!"
"Dad," Harker whispered. "Dad, I want to go home."
* * * * *
The dawn came like a sifting of fire-opals through the layers of
pearl-grey cloud. Harker heard the yelling dimly in his sleep. He felt
dull and tired, and his eyelids stuck together. The yelling gradually
took shape and became the word "Land!" repeated over and over. Harker
kicked himself awake and got up.
The tideless sea glimmered with opaline colors under the mist. Flocks
of little jewel-scaled sea-dragons rose up from the ever-present
floating islands of weed, and the weed itself, part of it, writhed and
stretched with sentient life.
Ahead there was a long low hummock of muddy ground fading into tangled
swamp. Beyond it, rising sheer into the clouds, was a granite cliff, a
sweeping escarpment that stood like a wall against the hopeful gaze of
the exiles.
Harker found Rory McLaren standing beside him, his arm around Viki, his
wife. Viki was one of several Venusians who had married into the Earth
colony. Her skin was clear white, her hair a glowing silver, her lips
vividly red. Her eyes were like the sea, changeable, full of hidden
life. Just now they had that special look that the eyes of women get
when they're thinking about creation. Harker looked away.