"What does he do it for?" demanded Frankston in a tight voice. "What does he get out of those stinking geraniums he can't touch or smell?"
"Shut up," said Gregory.
James looked up sharply. Curtness was unusual for Gregory, a bad sign. Frankston was the one he'd been watching, the one who'd shown signs of cracking, but after so long, even a psycho-expert's opinion might be haywire. Who was a yardstick? Who was normal?
"Geraniums don't smell much anyway," added Gregory in a more conciliatory tone.
"Yeah," agreed Frankston, "I'd forgotten that. But why does he torture himself like this, and us, too?"
"Because that's what he wanted to do," answered James.
"Sure," agreed Gregory, "the whole trip—the last twenty years of it, anyhow—all he could talk about was how, when he got back to Earth, he was going to buy a little place in the country and raise flowers."
"Well, we're back," muttered Frankston, with a terrible bitterness. "He's raising flowers, but not in any little place in the country."
Gregory continued almost dreamily, "Remember the last night out? We were all gathered around the viewscreen. And there was Earth, getting bigger and greener and closer all the time. Remember what it felt like to be going back, after thirty years?"