"You had a right to laugh," said Sutton, and closed the door behind him.
He stood for a moment, fighting down a sudden tenseness that seized him like a mighty fist.
Careful, he told himself. Take it easy, boy. You are home at last. This is the place you dreamed of. Just a few doors down and you are finally home. You will reach out and turn the knob and push in the door and it will all be there…just as you remembered it. The favorite chair, the life-paintings on the wall, the little fountain with the mermaids from Venus…and the windows where you can sit and fill your eyes with Earth.
But you can't get emotional. You can't go soft and sissy.
For that chap back at the spaceport had lied. And hotels don't keep rooms waiting for all of twenty years.
There is something wrong. I don't know what, but something. Something terribly wrong.
He took a slow step…and then another, fighting down the tension, swallowing the dryness of excitement welling in his throat.
One of the paintings, he remembered, was a forest brook, with birds flitting in the trees. And at the most unexpected times one of the birds would sing, usually with the dawn or the going of the sun. And the water babbled with a happy song that held one listening in his chair for hours.
He knew that he was running and he didn't try to stop.
His fingers curled around the doorknob and turned it. The room was there…the favorite chair, the babble of the brook, the splashing of the mermaids…