in a cottage window
could make even a wasteland seem small, could shrink and diminish it
until it became no more than a patch of darkness that anyone with
courage might cross.

The light was in Tommy's room and there was a whispering behind the
door. Sally could hear the whispering as she tiptoed upstairs, could see
the light streaming out into the hall.

She paused for an instant at the head of the stairs, listening. There
were two voices in the room, and they were talking back and forth.

Sally tiptoed down the hall, stood with wildly beating heart just
outside the door.

"She knows now, Tommy," the deepest of the two voices said. "We are very
close, your mother and I. She knows now that I sent her to the office to
find my 'stand in.' Oh, it's an amusing term, Tommy--an Earth term we'd
hardly use on Mars. But it's a term your mother would understand."

A pause, then the voice went on, "You see, my son, it has taken me eight
years to repair the ship. And in eight years a man can wither up and die
by inches if he does not have a growing son to go adventuring with him
in the end."

"Adventuring, father?"

"You have read a good many Earth books, my son, written especially for
boys. _Treasure Island_, _Robinson Crusoe_, _Twenty Thousand Leagues
Under The Sea_. What paltry books they are! But in them there is a
little of the fire, a little of the glow of _our_ world."

"No, father. I started them but I threw them away for I did not like
them."

"As you and I must throw away all Earth things, my son. I tried to be
kind to your mother, to be a good husband as husbands go on Earth. But
how could I feel proud and strong and reckless by her side? How could I
share her paltry joys and sorrows, chirp with delight as a sparrow might
chirp hopping about in the grass? Can an eagle pretend to be a sparrow?
Can the thunder muffle its voice when two white-crested clouds collide
in the shining depths of the night sky?"

"You tried, father. You did your best."

"Yes, my son, I did try. But if I had attempted to feign emotions I did
not feel your mother would have seen through the pretense. She would
then have turned from me completely. Without her I could not have had
you, my son."

"And now, father, what will we do?"

"Now the ship has been repaired and is waiting for us. Every day for
eight years I went to the hill and worked on the ship. It was badly
wrecked, my son, but now my patience has been rewarded, and every
da