Pushing him toward the fire, Mary took his cloak. "Didn't you notice?"

"What?"

"The table, silly. It's 'Happy Homecoming' tonight!"

"Leavestaking, you mean."

"No, homecoming. It's not December. It's August. You've just opened the front door and said, 'Mary, I'm home!' And all the time in between hasn't been. It never will be."

He smiled for the first time.

"Now that's better."

The woman handed John Hastings a goblet, plump with yellow liquid. "To August, dear," she said, and raised her glass. "To the moment your foot touches Earth again. And to the wine ... warm and golden, like our life together."

"Let's eat," he said. "Let's not ask questions." He faltered in a lack of direction.

"Wait a minute."

"For what?"

"For the questions you can't ask." The gaiety was gone. It was real now. "I think it's time we swept out the corners."

John nodded, his face slack.

"You've been strange lately."

"Oh that!" he shrugged. "Let's say it's the getting ready ... the heart plunge just before you jump into space."

"No." It was definite. "It's more than that. You've been a rocket man all your life. You don't get nervous any more."

His fingers twisted the glass. Something else twisted his voice. "There are things in it that might make a man nervous, Mary. Black winds. Burning worlds. Holes in space waiting for him. You think it might be that, Mary?"

"No."

"But this is Alpha Centauri. This is faster-than-light." He bowed. "This is when baby-God Hastings tests his brain child ... when the electron lightscope goes to bat. You think it might be that, Mary?"

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