crops were harvested.

What would happen, I wondered, if I went to the spaceport and asked
for tickets? If I explained that we couldn't buy insurance, that we
couldn't put up the bond guaranteeing we wouldn't become public
charges back on Earth.... But all the time I wondered I knew the
answer. Rules were rules. They wouldn't be broken especially not for
two old farmers who had long outlived their usefulness and their time.

Martha sighed in her sleep and turned over. It was light enough now
for me to see her face clearly. She was smiling. But a minute ago she
had been crying, for the tears were still wet on her cheeks.

Perhaps she was dreaming of Earth again.

Suddenly, watching her, I didn't care if they laughed at me or
lectured me on my responsibilities to the government as if I were a
senile fool. I was going to the spaceport. I was going to find out if,
somehow, we couldn't go back.

I got up and dressed and went out, walking softly so as not to awaken
her. But even so she heard me and called out to me.

"Lewis...."

I turned at the head of the stairs and looked back into the room.

"Don't get up, Martha," I said. "I'm going into town."

"All right, Lewis."

She relaxed, and a minute later she was asleep again. I tiptoed
downstairs and out the front door to where the trike car was parked,
and started for the village a mile to the west.

It was desert all the way. Dry, fine red sand that swirled upward in
choking clouds, if you stepped off the pavement into it. The narrow
road cut straight through it, linking the outlying district farms to
the town. The farms themselves were planted in the desert. Small,
glassed-in houses and barns, and large greenhouses roofed with even
more glass, that sheltered the Earth plants and gave them Earth air to
breathe.

* * * * *

When I came to the second farmhouse John Emery hurried out to meet me.

"Morning, Lewis," he said. "Going to town?"

I shut off the motor and nodded. "I want to catch the early shuttle
plane to the spaceport," I said. "I'm going to the city to buy some
things...."

I had to lie about it. I didn't want anyone to know we were even
thinking of leaving, at least not until we had our tickets in our
hands.

"Oh," Emery said. "That's right. I suppose you'll be buying Martha an
anniversary present."

I stared at him blankly. I couldn't think what anniversary he meant.

"You'll have been here thirty-five years