The voice from Earth sighed out of the speaker; only the sputter of static remained. Earth was awaiting, now, the reply.
The Mate snapped off the speaker. The new silence was stark, as if something other than sound had been withdrawn.
The Captain rubbed the back of his left hand with the palm of his right.
None of them could quite find words for their thoughts.
"I guess--there isn't much to tell them, is there?"
The Captain turned his swivel chair until it faced the broad Observation window; through it he could see out into the inconceivable depths of star-clustered space.
"I've been thinking," he mused, half to himself. "Thinking a lot, lately." He rubbed his forehead. "About the Ship ... I've lived here a long time--my whole life. That's a long time. I was wondering how it would seem not to live here anymore."
He put his elbows on his knees and twined his hands before his face. "Not for you, Johnny. For you and Marte, and the rest of the Twenty-first Generation, that's different. I mean for us old timers. When you're twenty, there's a new world ahead; when you're fifty--it's not ahead any more. How will it seem to us?"
The Captain shook his head slowly. "It'll sure seem funny to give this up. This room here, where I've worked all these years. This view--"
He waved his hand toward the Observation window.
Johnny Nine crossed the room and stood before the window. He gazed into space. Without turning, he began to talk. There was no excitement in his voice, only calm certainty.
"Think, Captain: think of other things. Think of trees and running water and blue sky. Think of green grass, real green grass, acres and acres of it, swaying in the wind. Think of that."
The Captain smiled. "Ah, youth, Johnny.... If it had been forty years ago--or thirty--or even ten.... But now...." He shrugged. "We're old and set in our ways. We think of rest and of the familiar."
Johnny Nine still did not turn. "Imagine sitting on a chair, on a porch, facing out to the woods, across a field of corn. Imagine the neighborhood kids gathering about you, and you telling them how you were on the Interstellar Flight. How you came back from the stars."
"Perhaps, Johnny, perhaps.... Perhaps...."
The Mate jammed full power into the heavy transmitter. "I hope these tubes hold," he said matter-of-factly. "I couldn't find the replacements."