By morning the city was blowing in great black soft flakes across the sea bottom. The fire was exhausted, but it had served its purpose; the red spot on the sky grew larger.
From the stone hut came the rich brown smell of baked gingerbread. His wife stood over the table, setting down the hot pans of new bread as Hathaway entered. The two daughters were gently sweeping the bare stone floor with stiff brooms, and the son was polishing the silverware.
“We’ll have a huge breakfast for them,” laughed Hathaway. “Put on your best clothes!”
He hurried across his land to the vast metal storage shed. Inside was the cold-storage unit and power plant he had repaired and restored with his efficient, small, nervous fingers over the years, just as he had repaired clocks, telephones, and spool recorders in his spare time. The shed was full of things he had built, some senseless mechanisms the functions of which were a mystery even to himself now as he looked upon them.
From the deep freeze he fetched rimed cartons of beans and strawberries, twenty years old. Lazarus come forth, he thought, and pulled out a cool chicken.
The air was full of cooking odors when the rocket landed.
Like a boy, Hathaway raced down the hill. He stopped once because of a sudden sick pain in his chest. He sat on a rock to regain his breath, then ran all the rest of the way.
He stood in the hot atmosphere generated by the fiery rocket. A port opened. A man looked down.
Hathaway shielded his eyes and at last said, “Captain Wilder!”
“Who is it?” asked Captain Wilder, and jumped down and stood there looking at the old man. He put his hand out. “Good lord, it’s Hathaway!”
“That’s right.” They looked into each other’s faces.
“Hathaway, from my old crew, from the Fourth Expedition.”
“It’s been a long time, Captain.”
“Too long. It’s good to see you.”
“I’m old,” said Hathaway simply.
“I’m not young myself any more. I’ve been out to Jupiter and Saturn and Neptune for twenty years.”
“I heard they had kicked you upstairs so you wouldn’t interfere with colonial policy here on Mars.” The old man looked around. “You’ve been gone so long you don’t know what’s happened — ”
Wilder said, “I can guess. We’ve circled Mars twice. Found only one other man, name of Walter Gripp, about ten thousand miles from here, We offered to take him with us, but he said no. The last we saw of him he was sitting in the middle of the highway in a rocking chair, smoking a pipe, waving to us. Mars is pretty well dead, not even a Martian alive. What about Earth?”
“You know as much as I do. Once in a while I get the Earth radio, very faintly. But it’s always in some other language. I’m sorry to say I only know Latin. A few words come through. I take it most of Earth’s a shambles, but the war goes on. Are you going back, sir?”
“Yes. We’re curious, of course. We had no radio contact so far out in space. We’ll want to see Earth, no matter what.”
“You’ll take us with you?”
The captain started. “Of course, your wife, I remember her. Twenty-five years ago, wasn’t it? When they opened First Town and you quit the service and brought her up here. And there were children — ”
“My son and two daughters.”
“Yes, I remember. They’re here?”
“Up at our hut. There’s a fine breakfast waiting all of you up the hill. Will you come?”
“We would be honored, Mr. Hathaway.” Captain Wilder called to the rocket, “Abandon ship!”
They walked up the hill, Hathaway and Captain Wilder, the twenty crew members following taking deep breaths of the thin, cool morning air. The sun rose and it was a good day.
“Do you remember Spender, Captain?”
“I’ve never forgotten him.”
“About once a year I walk up past his tomb. It looks like he got his way at last. He didn’t want us to come here, and I suppose he’s happy now that we’ve all gone away.”
“What about — what was his name? — Parkhill, Sam Parkhill?”
“He opened a hot-dog stand.”
“It sounds just
“And went back to Earth the next week for the war.” Hathaway put his hand to his chest and sat down abruptly upon a boulder, “I’m sorry. The excitement. Seeing you again after all these years. Have to rest.” He felt his heart pound. He counted the beats. It was very bad.
“We’ve a doctor,” said Wilder. “Excuse me, Hathaway, I know you are one, but we’d better check you with our own — ” The doctor was summoned.
“I’ll be all right,” insisted Hathaway. “The waiting, the excitement.” He could hardly breathe. His lips were blue. “You know,” he said as the doctor placed a stethoscope to him, “it’s as if I kept alive all these years just for this day, and now you’re here to take me back to Earth, I’m satisfied and I can just lie down and quit.”
“Here.” The doctor handed him a yellow pellet. “We’d better let you rest.”
“Nonsense. Just let me sit a moment. It’s good to see all of you. Good to hear new voices again.”
“Is the pellet working?”
“Fine. Here we go!”
They walked on up the hill.
“Alice, come see who’s here!”
Hathaway frowned and bent into the hut. “Alice, did you hear?”
His wife appeared. A moment later the two daughters, tall and gracious, came out, followed by an even taller son.
“Alice, you remember Captain Wilder?”
She hesitated and looked at Hathaway as if for instructions and then smiled. “Of course, Captain Wilder!”
“I remember, we had dinner together the night before I took off for Jupiter, Mrs. Hathaway.”
She shook his hand vigorously. “My daughters, Marguerite and Susan. My son, John. You remember the captain, surely?”
Hands were shaken amid laughter and much talk.
Captain Wilder sniffed the air. “Is that
“Will you have some?”
Everyone moved. Folding tables were hurried out while hot foods were rushed forth and plates and fine damask napkins and good silverware were laid. Captain Wilder stood looking first at Mrs. Hathaway and then at her son and her two tall, quiet-moving daughters. He looked into their faces as they darted past and he followed every move of their youthful hands and every expression of their wrinkleless faces. He sat upon a chair the son brought. “How old are you, John?”
The son replied, “Twenty-three.”
Wilder shifted his silverware clumsily. His face was suddenly pale. The man next to him whispered, “Captain Wilder, that can’t be right.”
The son moved away to bring more chairs.
“What’s that, Williamson?”
“I’m forty-three myself, Captain. I was in school the same time as young John Hathaway there, twenty years ago. He says he’s only twenty-three now; he only
“I don’t know.”
“You look kind of sick, sir.”
“I don’t feel well. The daughters, too, I saw them twenty years or so ago; they haven’t changed, not a wrinkle. Will you do me a favor? I want you to run an errand, Williamson. I’ll tell you where to go and what to check. Late in the breakfast, slip away. It should take you only ten minutes. The place isn’t far from here. I saw it from the rocket as we landed.”
“Here! What are you talking about so seriously?” Mrs. Hathaway ladled quick spoons of soup into their bowls. “Smile now; we’re all together, the trip’s over, and it’s like home!”
