e'd saved our money for years, but it was a pitifully small savings. We weren't rich people who could go down to the spaceport and buy passage on the rocket ships, no questions asked, no bond required. We were only farmers, eking our livelihood from the unproductive Martian soil, only two of the countless little people of the solar system. In all our lifetime we'd never been able to save enough to go home to Earth.
"One more year," I said. "If the crop prices stay up...."
She smiled, a sad little smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Yes, Lewis," she said. "One more year."
But I couldn't stop thinking of what she'd said earlier, nor stop seeing her thin, tired body. Neither of us was strong any more, but of the two I was far stronger than she.
When we'd left Earth she'd been as eager and graceful as a child. We hadn't been much past childhood then, either of us....
"Sometimes I wonder why we ever came here," she said.
"It's been a good life."
She sighed. "I know. But now that it's nearly over, there's nothing to hold us here."
"No," I said. "There's not."
If we had had children it might have been different. As it was, we lived surrounded by the children and grandchildren of our friends. Our friends themselves were dead. One by one they had died, all of those who came with us on the first colonizing ship to Mars. All of those who came later, on the second and third ships. Their children were our neighbors now—and they were Martian born. It wasn't the same.