"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 born. It's a good thought though.
"Don't know what put a sailing ship in Helen's head, but I guess folks who were born on Earth have a right to hark back a bit. It'll be different with Tom and Mary."
"Where's Tommy?" Ned asked.
"Out shucking corn!" Clifton's voice was vibrant with sudden pride. "He's still the same reckless young lad. He'd risk his neck to bring in a full harvest. I keep warning him, but he goes right on worrying his mother.
"Fact is, he hasn't changed at all. No more than we have."
So they knew! Cynthia looked at Ned, an unspoken question in her eyes. How could they accept the tremendousness of not changing without realizing that any arrest of the aging process must alter their daily lives in a thousand intangible ways?
How could they build for the future—when their children would never grow up?