Robert Murdock put the letter aside and clenched his fists. Only brief hours remained to him, and the small Kansas town of Thayerville was an impossible distance across space. He knew he would never reach it alive.
The lines of an ancient poem by Robert Frost whispered through his mind:
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep
He had promised his parents that he would come home—and he meant to keep that promise.
The doctors had shown him that it was impossible. They had charted his death; they had told him when his heart would stop beating, when his breathing would cease. Death, for Robert Murdock, was a certainty. His alien disease was incurable.
But they had listened to his plan. They had listened, and agreed.
Now, with less than a half-hour of life remaining, Murdock was walking down one of the ship's long corridors, his boot-heels ringing on the narrow metal walkway.
He was ready, at last, to keep his promise.
Murdock paused before a wall storage locker, twisted a small dial. A door slid smoothly back. He looked up at the tall man standing motionless in the darkness. Reaching forward, Murdock made a quick adjustment.