by Mari Wolf
by outside, people who couldn't see in through theone-way glass, people whom we couldn't hear because the room wassoundproofed.
"Mars should be up by now," she said.
"It probably is." I looked out again, although I knew that we wouldsee nothing. No stars. No planets. Not even the moon, except as a palehalf disc peering through the haze. The lights from the city were toobright. The air held the light and reflected it down again, and thesky was a deep, dark blue with the buildings about us towering intoit, outlined blackly against it. And we couldn't see the stars....
"Lewis," Martha said slowly. "I never thought it would have changedthis much, did you?"
"No." I couldn't tell from her voice whether she liked the changes ornot. Lately I couldn't tell much of anything from her voice. Andnothing was the same as we had remembered it.
Even the Earth farms were mechanized now. Factory production lines forfood, as well as for everything else. It was necessary, of course. Wehad heard all the reasons, all the theories, all the lateststatistics.
"I guess I'll go to bed soon," Martha said. "I'm tired."
"It's the higher gravity." We'd both been tired since we got back toEarth. We had forgotten, over the years, what Earth gravity was like.
She hesitated. She smiled at me, but her eyes were worried."Lewis--are you really glad we came back?"
It was the first time she had asked me that. And there was only oneanswer I could give her. The one she expected.
"Of course, Martha...."
She sighed again. She got up out of the chair and turned toward thebedroom door, and then she paused there by the window looking out atthe deep blue sky.
"Are you really glad, Lewis?"
Then I knew. Or, at least, I hoped. "Why, Martha? Aren't you?"
For one long minute she stood beside me, looking up at the Mars wecouldn't see. And then she turned to face me once again, and I couldsee the tears.
"Oh, Lewis, I want to go home!"
Full circle. We had both come full circle these last few hectic weekson Earth.
"So do I, Martha."
"Do you, Lewis?" And then the tiredness came back to her eyes and shelooked away again. "But of course we can't."
Slowly I crossed over to the desk and opened the top drawer and tookout the folder that Duane had given me, that last day at thespaceport, just before our ship to Earth had blasted off. Slowly Iunfolded the paper that Duane had told me to keep in case we everwanted it.
"Yes, we can, Martha. We can go back."
"What's that, Lewis?" And then she saw what it was. Her face camealive again, and her eyes were shining. "We're going home?" shewhispered. "We're really going home?"
I looked down at the Earth-Mars half of the round trip ticket thatDuane had given me, and I knew that this time she was right.
This time we'd really be going home.
THE END
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