Cold. Freezing cold, and a wan sunshine from the shrunken little sun up there in the brassy sky, and a rolling plain of ocherous red sand stretching around us, sand that slid away under our feet as our squads followed Captain Wall toward the distant metal bulk that lay oddly canted and broken in a little shallow valley.
"Come on, menhurryl Hurryl"
Sure, all of it a dream, the dreamlike way we walked with our lead-soled shoes dragging our feet back after each step, and the voices coming through the mask resonators muffled and distant.
Only not a dream, but a nightmare, when we got up to the canted metal bulk and saw what had happened to Rocket Seventhe metal hull ripped like paper, and a few men crawling out of the wreck with blood on them, and a gurgling sound where shattered tanks were emptying, and voices whimpering, "First aid! First aidi"
Only it hadn't happened, it hadn't happened yet at all, for we were still back in Rocket Four coming in, we hadn't landed yet at all but we were going to any minute.
"We're coming down… " I couldn't go through it all again. I yelled and fought my hammock straps and woke up, and I was in my plane seat and a scared hostess was a foot away from me, saying,
"This is Omaha, Sergeant. We're coming down." They were all looking at me, all the other passengers, and I guessed I'd been talking in the dream1 still had the sweat down my back like all those nights in the hospital when I'd keep waking up.
I sat up, and they all looked away from me quick and pretended they hadn't been staring.
We came down to the airport. It was midday, and the hot Nebraska sun felt good on my back when I got out. I was lucky, for when I asked at the bus depot about going to Cuffington, there was a bus all ready to roll. A farmer sat down beside me, a big young fellow who offered me cigarettes and told me it was only a few hours' ride to Cuffington.
"Your home there?" he asked.