uane got up and crossed the room to the window and looked out over the rocket field.
"But what good would it do to go back, Mr. Farwell?" he asked. "Earth has changed very much in the last sixty-five years."
He was trying to soften the disappointment. But nothing could. If only I could make him realize that.
"I know it's changed," I said. "But it's home. Don't you see? We're Earthmen still. I guess that never changes. And now that we're old, we're aliens here."
"We're all aliens here, Mr. Farwell."
"No," I said desperately. "Maybe you are. Maybe a lot of the city people are. But our neighbors were born on Mars. To them Earth is a legend. A place where their ancestors once lived. It's not real to them...."
He turned and crossed the room and came back to me. His smile was pitying. "If you went back," he said, "you'd find you were a Martian, too."
I couldn't reach him. He was friendly and pleasant and he was trying to make things easier, and it wasn't any use talking. I bent my head and choked back the sobs I could feel rising in my throat.
"You've lived a full life," Duane said. "You were one of the pioneers. I remember reading about your ship when I was a boy, and wishing I'd been born sooner so that I could have been on it."