«Do we walk or fly, Captain?»
Forester said nothing.
Driscoll said, «Captain, let's stay. Let's never go back to Earth. They'll never come and investigate to see what happened to us, they'll think we were destroyed here. What do you say?»
Forester's face was perspiring. His tongue moved again and again on his lips. His hands twitched over his knees. The crew sat waiting.
«It'd be nice,» said the captain.
«Sure.»
«But…» Forester sighed. «We've got our job to do. People invested in our ship. We owe it to them to go back.»
Forester got up. The men still sat on the ground, not listening to him.
«It's such a goddamn nice night,» said Koestler.
They stared at the soft hills and the trees and the river running off to other horizons.
«Let's get aboard ship,» said Forester, with difficulty.
«Captain…»
«Get aboard,» he said.
The rocket rose into the sky. Looking back, Forester saw every valley and every tiny lake.
«We should've stayed,» said Koestler. «Yes, I know.»
«It's not too late to turn back.» «I'm afraid it is.» Forester made an adjustment on the port telescope. «Look now.» Koestler looked.
The face of the world was changed. Tigers, dinosaurs, mammoths appeared. Volcanoes erupted, cyclones and hurricanes tore over the hills in a welter and fury of weather.
«Yes, she was a woman all right,» said Forester. «Waiting for visitors for millions of years, preparing herself, making herself beautiful. She put on her best face for us. When Chatterton treated her badly, she warned him a few times, and then, when he tried to ruin her beauty, she eliminated him. She wanted to be loved, like every woman, for herself, not for her wealth. So now, after she had offered us everything, we turn our backs. She's the woman scorned. She let us go, yes, but we can never come back. She'll be waiting for us with those…» He nodded to the tigers and the cyclones and the boiling seas. «Captain,» said Koestler. «Yes.»
«It's a little late to tell you this. But just before we took off, I was in charge of the air-lock. I let Driscoll slip away from the ship. He wanted to go. I couldn't refuse him. I'm responsible. He's back there now on that planet.»
They both turned to the viewing port.
After a long while, Forester said, «I'm glad. I'm glad one of us had enough sense to stay.»
«But he's dead by now!»
«No, that display down there is for us, perhaps a visual hallucination. Underneath all the tigers and lions and hurricanes, Driscoll is quite safe and alive, because he's her only audience now. Oh, she'll spoil him rotten. He'll lead a wonderful life, he will, while we're slugging it out up and down the system looking for but never finding a planet quite like this again. No, we won't try to go back and rescue Driscoll. I don't think „she“ would let us anyway. Full speed ahead, Koestler, make it full speed.»
The rocket leaped forward into greater acceleration.
And just before the planet dwindled away in brightness and mist, Forester imagined he could see Driscoll very clearly, walking away down from the green forest, whistling quietly, all of the fresh planet around him, a wine- creek flowing for him, baked fish lolling in the hot springs, fruit ripening in the midnight trees, and distant forests and lakes waiting for him to happen by. Driscoll walked away across the endless green lawns, near the six white stones, beyond the forest to the edge of the large bright river.
