From end to end of the Galaxy, on large planets and small, progress had to be measured in terms of the greatest good for the greatest number. There could be no other yardstick, for when man ceased to be a social animal his star-conquering genius shriveled to the vanishing point.
“The friends we made here were very special, Ned,” Cynthia said. “I guess people who dare greatly have to be a bit keener than the stay-at-homes, a bit more eager and alive. But the Sweeneys had such a tremendous zest for living—”
“I know,” Ned said.
“They were wonderful—generous and kind. It will be good to see them again. Good to—” Cynthia laughed. “I don’t know why, but I was about to say: ‘Good to be home.’ ”
Ned thought he knew why.
They’d made their first flight for the Bureau exactly ten years before. It had been a combined “official business” and honeymoon flight, and almost the whole of it had been spent on the little green world.
Did not the queen bee and her consort, flying high above the hive on a night of perfumed darkness, remember best what was bliss to recall, the shifting lights and shadows and honey-scented murmurings of their nuptial trance?
Would not the brightest, furthest star be “home” to the star-beguiled?
The rocket-ship was out of subspace now and traveling on its murmuring overdrive. It was well within sight of green valleys and purple-rimmed hills.
The planet had grown from a tiny dot to a shining silver sphere swimming in misty radiance; for a moment it had wavered against the brightly burning stars, caught in a web of darkness—
Then, swiftly, had exploded into a close, familiar world, as beautiful as a flower opening snowy petals to the dawn.
It was a simple matter to bring the rocket down. The valley seemed to sweep up toward them, and gravity jets took over in automatic sequence. There was a gentle hiss of air as the Star Mist settled to rest on hard-packed soil, a scant fifty yards from a blue and vermillion flower garden.
Through a dancing blue haze a dwelling loomed, white and serene in the rosy flush of evening.
Cynthia looked at her husband, her eyes wide with surmise.
“Just shows how close you can come when you follow dial readings!” Ned said. “The first lean-to shack stood just about here. I remember the slope of the soil—”
Cynthia’s eyes grew warm and eager. “Ned, I’m glad—it’s no fun searching for old friends with your heart in your throat! We’ll step right up and surprise them!”
When they emerged from the ship the perfume of flowers mingled with the richer scent of freshly-turned earth, bringing back memories of their earlier visit.
There had been no flower garden then, but the soil had possessed the same April shower freshness.
“I must look like a fright!” Cynthia said. “You didn’t give me time to powder my nose!”
They were within five yards of the dwelling when a door opened and a child of ten or twelve emerged. She was blue-eyed, golden-haired, and she stood for a moment blinking in the evening light, her hair whipped by the wind.
“Mary Sweeney!” Cynthia exclaimed, catching hold of Ned’s arm. Then, in a stunned whisper: “Oh, but it can’t be! She’d be a grown woman!”
The child straightened at the sound of the voice, looking about. She saw Ned and Cynthia, and blank amazement came into her eyes. Then she gave a little glad cry, and ran toward them, her arms reaching out in welcome.
“You’ve come back!” she exclaimed. “Mom and dad thought it would be a long time. But I knew you’d come soon! I knew! I was sure!”
Nowhere any sign that this was not the child they had known ten years before! Her voice, the peaches-and-cream color that flooded her cheeks, the way her hair clung in little ringlets to her temples, all struck memory chords from long ago.
And now she was beckoning them into the dwelling, having moved a little away from them. She was balancing herself in elfin lightness on one toe, and smiling in warm gratefulness, the sun all blue and gold behind her.
She had always seemed an elfin and mischievous child.
“What can it mean, Ned?”
White-lipped, Ned shook his head. “I—I don’t know! We’d better go inside!”
Helen Sweeney, her white-streaked auburn hair damp with steam vapor, sent a frying pan crashing to the floor as she turned from the stove with a startled cry.
“Ned! Cynthia! Why, land sakes, it seems only yesterday—”
Ned had a good look at her face. The eyes were the same, good-humored and kindly and wise; and if she had been forty a decade before she seemed now to be forcing herself back into an earlier instant of time—the very evening of that last well-remembered birthday party, with the candles all bright and gleaming, and the children refusing to admit that she could ever be middle-aged.
Old Clifton came in from his workshop out in back. He’d been whittling away at a rocket-ship model, and he still held it firmly in the crook of his arm, his eyes puckered in dust bowl grief. Like most men of the soil, Clifton had difficulty with his whittling when he turned his skill to rocketships.
The grief vanished when he saw Ned and Cynthia. Pure delight took hold of him, bringing a quick smile of welcome to his lips.
“Back so soon? Seems only yesterday you folks went away!”
“It was ten years ago!” Ned said, his throat strangely dry.
Clifton looked at him and shook his head. “Ten years, Ned? Surely you’re joking!”
“It was a good many years, Clifton,” Helen Sweeney said quickly. “You must forgive us, Ned, Cynthia. Time just doesn’t seem to matter when you’re busy building for the future. Time goes fast, like a great ship at sea, its sails ballooning out with a wind that keeps carrying it faster and faster into the sunrise.”
“There are no ships here,” Clifton said, chuckling. “Helen’s fancy-wedded to Earth, but she’s forgetting the last sailing ship rotted away a hundred years before she was
