Jason Tarsh regarded him with approval. "That's much better. It's two o'clock."
Of the five of them, John Bridge and Jason Tarsh were the least changed. True, that 'lucky fool,' as Walter Pellinger called Bridge, had lost a good deal of weight and his face was not quite so full as it had been, but it was the same John Bridge who had climbed on board at Jupiter. The change in Jason Tarsh was even less marked. Time had ironed out a few creases here and there, and his back was straighter. But, apart from that, he looked the same at fifty as he had at a hundred—gaunt, resilient and merciless.
"It's due anytime now," said Walter Pellinger, his eyes still fixed on the empty segment of horizon above the near end of the runway.
The others remained silent. The lawyer imagined that they were all thinking of the incoming spaceboat. The landing today was something like a dress-rehearsal for their own departure in thirty days. It broke the tedium of their existence and with it would come a change of staff, the unloading of supplies and the news from home. But when the next landing took place, they themselves would be waiting, young and eager, to go back and start life afresh.
Gillian Murray was looking toward the door behind them, her lovely profile turned in his direction. He followed the line of her gaze. There, in the hallway, stood the two house servants, man and wife. They had both arrived on the relief spaceboat a month ago, a comfortable, middle-aged couple. Now they were almost like children, leaping up and down with impatience, counting every second which brought Captain Ross nearer—young, graceful creatures, hand in hand, reunited in their youth.
Delman found himself smiling in sympathy. "Yes," he said, "those are the vital years."
"I was just thinking the same thing." She turned to him. There were tears of happiness in her eyes. At that moment, he caught a glimpse of her real beauty, something deeper than the merely physical—a purity of expression mirrored from within, clear and composed, like a reflection of the soul.
"There it is!" Walter Pellinger announced excitedly. He pointed.
Out in the distance, a small speck hurtled toward them. Soon it would streak low overhead, until a final burst from the jets brought it to a halt at the far end of the runway.