Carlin hesitated, then turned and walked on. Luna was lifting its shining shield in the east, and the silver summer silence lay over everything, hardly broken by the stir of branches and the low buzz of insects. The night was warm and still.

He had a lump in his throat and he tried to laugh at himself because he had it. A man couldn't let illogical emotions overrule his reason. This crazy, heroic old planet Earth and its people—he would never forget them, but he had to return to his own life and work, he had to go home.

Laird Carlin suddenly stopped. He knew, abruptly, why dull oppression had gnawed his mind all day. It wasn't because he was going home. It was because he was leaving home. He was leaving the only place where his spirit had ever found something it had always lacked, a peace, an ancient certitude, a kinship that had grown and grown.

Carlin turned and strode rapidly back up the road. Not until he was almost upon her did he perceive that Marn Land was still standing in the silvered road where he had left her.

"I was waiting for you," she said simply. "I knew you wouldn't go."

His hands grasped her shoulders as he spoke in a rush.

"Marn, I couldn't! I thought of Canopus, I thought of friends there and a girl who likes me and the garden cities I used to love, and it was all unreal, I'm tied somehow to this queer old planet, to Jonny and Harb and all of the others, and to you!"

She came into his arms quietly. "I know. There's been more than one like you, more than one who came to Earth and found he somehow couldn't leave. This old world is in the blood of our race, Laird." She looked up. "A year's not long. We'll need you here to replace Jonny, to supervise the Sun-mining. And I need you. I always will."

Carlin held her closely, all tiredness and doubts gone now, strangely content. He looked up at the summer stars and thought of worlds out there, but it was all far away, far away.

And Earth was close, its ancient quiet night enfolding him. Soft wind stirred leafing branches in the moonlight, and the road wound up white and sure toward the old house, and out of the vastness of time and space, an Earthman had come home.

 Prev. P 54/54