He realized suddenly that it could never be a small, white cottage. There were no small white cottages on the Station, and never could be. But the Station would be all right for a married man with kids. The kids could come and visit him, and his wife could be with him about one-fourth of the time, both on the Station and on Earth.
What more could a happily married man ask, if the Station was so much a part of him that it was never wholly absent from his thoughts? He'd have to ask her, of course—at least a dozen times to make sure—that she really wanted that kind of man for a husband. But he knew what her answer would be even before the vision dissolved, and he was soon out in the central square between the five buildings, holding her tightly in his arms.
From the way she kissed him he knew that she must have endured an eternity of torment just from uncertainty, just from not knowing whether he was dead or alive. For an instant he could think of nothing else but the wonder of it, the absolute reassurance which she had brought to him with her closeness, her gratefulness, the intensity of her concern.
Across the square they could see the tractors, looking in the dazzling light like massive blocks of metal standing almost end to end. There was a great deal of movement and shouting between the buildings, and Corriston knew that in another half-minute they would no longer be alone together, that the closeness couldn't last.
A change was coming over her face, and he was suddenly afraid for her, afraid that when she was told the full truth about her father just the pain of knowing might make her withdraw from him, even though it could never really come between them or separate them for long.
So there it was. He could see it in her eyes, the fear, the shadow, and because he had no way of knowing just how much she already knew he decided that only complete honesty could keep the shadow from lengthening.
His hands moved slowly up over her face, and he drew her chin up and said, very gently: "There's something I'd like to say now, about your father. Without his help Henley would have finished what he started out to do. There are different ways of paying off a debt, and your father—"
She raised her hand as if to put a stop to his words. "Darling, I know he's in serious trouble. Don't try to spare me; there's no need to. There will be a trial and we both know what the outcome will be. He'll never walk out of the courtroom a free man. But he's not afraid ... and neither am I. These last few, terrible hours have changed him. He's not ashamed now to admit that he loves me. All the hardness, the coldness, is gone."
Something in her voice stilled the questions he wanted to ask. She seemed to sense what was in his mind, for she said quickly. "I don't think father has any enemies now on Mars. He's going to give the colonists back their land. Not because he has to, but because he wants to. They came to his assistance when they could have used the way he cheated and robbed them as an excuse for not helping him at all. There are few men who wouldn't feel grateful, who wouldn't be shaken by remorse. But I think it goes deeper than that. Even now I'm not completely sure, but I think he knows it's the only way he can free himself from the prison he's been building around himself since I was a little girl."
She was silent for an instant, while the pain in her eyes seemed to deepen. Then she said, "I can't leave him now, darling. Not right away. It would be too cruel a blow."