"I know what you mean," the Mate said.
"Maybe I've been afraid all along to admit that I wanted to go Home; afraid that somehow wanting something so much like a dream would keep me from ever getting it.
"But now that we're almost there, I've changed. Remember what Johnny said, 'How would you like to sit on a porch and tell the kids how you came back from the stars?'"
The Mate nodded and smiled. "It kinda got me too."
The Captain looked at the icy points of light again, set against the ebon of eternal night. "It does get you....
"On Earth, Mary Anne will sparkle. I guess everything sparkles there. Stars sparkle; water sparkles in the sunlight; the air sparkles; life sparkles."
He stood up and turned his back on the window.
"You know, once I get my feet down there, I'm going to see that they stay. I'm never going to take them off. Not even so much as a single mile. I'm going to get me a bushel basket, and I'm going to fill it with Earth, and when I go to bed, I'm going to have it right there beside me, so I can reach out with my hands, anytime in the night, and feel it."
"For a long time, Ed, I was scared, like you were, that something would happen. But now we're so near, I don't know.... I was afraid that maybe things had changed; that there wouldn't be any people. That maybe—I guess I always see the dark side, don't I?"
The Captain said, "Maybe there's some good in that. But this time I'm going to sound a little like Johnny. Things may have changed, Skippy. From what we've read about. We've got to expect that. But it can't be too different. We can adjust. Man can always adjust."