Homesick Read online

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  _Homesick_

  By LYN VENABLE

  Illustrated by EMSH

  _What thrill is there in going out among the stars if coming back means bitter loneliness?_

  Frankston pushed listlessly at a red checker with his right forefinger.He knew the move would cost him a man, but he lacked enough interest inthe game to plot out a safe move. His opponent, James, jumped the reddisk with a black king and removed it from the board. Gregory, acrossthe room, flicked rapidly through the pages of a magazine, too rapidlyto be reading anything, or even looking at the pictures. Ross layquietly on his bunk, staring out of the viewport.

  The four were strangely alike in appearance, nearly the same age, theage where gray hairs finally outnumber black, or baldness takes over.The age when the expanding waistline has begun to sag tiredly, whenrobust middle age begins the slow accelerating decline toward senility.

  A strange group to find aboard a spaceship, but then _The Columbus_ wasa very strange ship. Bolted to its outer hull, just under the viewports,were wooden boxes full of red geraniums, and ivy wound tenuous greenfronds over the gleaming hull that had withstood the bombardment ofpinpoint meteors and turned away the deadly power of naked cosmic rays.

  Frankston glanced at his wristchrono. It was one minute to six.

  "In about a minute," he thought, "Ross will say something about goingout to water his geraniums." The wristchrono ticked fifty-nine times.

  "I think I'll go out and water my geraniums," said Ross.

  * * * * *

  No one glanced up. Then Gregory threw his magazine on the floor. Rossgot up and walked, limping slightly, to a wall locker. He pulled out theheavy, ungainly spacesuit and the big metal bulb of a headpiece. Hecarried them to his bunk and laid them carefully down.

  "Will somebody please help me on with my suit?" he asked.

  For one more long moment, no one moved. Then James got up and began tohelp Ross fit his legs into the suit. Ross had arthritis, not badly, butenough so that he needed a little help climbing into a spacesuit.

  James pulled the heavy folds of the suit up around Ross's body and heldit while Ross extended his arms into the sleeve sections. His hands, inthe heavy gauntlets, were too unwieldy to do the front fastenings, andhe stood silently while James did it for him.

  Ross lifted the helmet, staring at it as a cripple might regard awheelchair which he loathed but was wholly dependent upon. Then hefitted the helmet over his head and James fastened it down and liftedthe oxygen tank to his back.

  "Ready?" asked James.

  The bulbous headpiece inclined in a nod. James walked to a panel andthrew a switch marked INNER LOCK. A round aperture slid silently open.Ross stepped through it and the door shut behind him as James threw theswitch back to its original position. Opposite the switch marked OUTERLOCK a signal glowed redly and James threw another switch. A momentlater the signal flickered out.

  Frankston, with a violent gesture, swept the checker board clean. Redand black men clattered to the floor, rolling and spinning. Nobodypicked them up.

  "What does he do it for?" demanded Frankston in a tight voice. "Whatdoes he get out of those stinking geraniums he can't touch or smell?"

  "Shut up," said Gregory.

  James looked up sharply. Curtness was unusual for Gregory, a bad sign.Frankston was the one he'd been watching, the one who'd shown signs ofcracking, but after so long, even a psycho-expert's opinion might behaywire. Who was a yardstick? Who was normal?

  "Geraniums don't smell much anyway," added Gregory in a moreconciliatory tone.

  "Yeah," agreed Frankston, "I'd forgotten that. But why does he torturehimself like this, and us, too?"

  "Because that's what he wanted to do," answered James.

  "Sure," agreed Gregory, "the whole trip--the last twenty years of it,anyhow--all he could talk about was how, when he got back to Earth, hewas going to buy a little place in the country and raise flowers."

  "Well, we're back," muttered Frankston, with a terrible bitterness."He's raising flowers, but not in any little place in the country."

  * * * * *

  Gregory continued almost dreamily, "Remember the last night out? We wereall gathered around the viewscreen. And there was Earth, getting biggerand greener and closer all the time. Remember what it felt like to begoing back, after thirty years?"

  "Thirty years cooped up in this ship," grumbled Frankston. "All ourtwenties and thirties and forties ..."

  "But we were coming home." There was a rapt expression on Gregory'slined and weathered face. "We were looking forward to the twenty ormaybe thirty good years we had left, talking about what we'd do, wherewe'd live, wondering what had changed on Earth. At least we had thatlast night out. All the data was stashed away in the microfiles, all thedata about planets with air we couldn't breathe and food we couldn'teat. We were going home, home to big, friendly, green Earth."

  Frankston's face suddenly crumpled as though he were about to weep andhe cradled his head against his arms. "God, do we have to go over it allagain? Not again tonight!"

  "Leave him alone," ordered James with an inflection of command in hisvoice. "Go to the other section of the ship if you don't want to listen.He has to keep going over it, just like Ross has to keep watering hisgeraniums."

  Frankston remained motionless and Gregory looked gratefully at James.James was the steady one. It was easier for him because he understood.

  Gregory's face became more and more animated as he lost himself, livingagain his recollections: "The day we blasted in. The crowds. Thousandsof people, all there to see us come in. We were proud. Of course, wethought we were the first to land, just like we'd been the first to goout. Those cheers, coming from thousands of people at once. For us.Ross-- Lt. Ross--was the first one out of the lock. We'd decided onthat; he'd been in command for almost ten years, ever since CommanderStevens died. You remember Stevens, don't you? He took over when we lostCaptain Willers. Well, anyway, Ross out first, and then you, James, andyou, Frankston, and then Trippitt, and me last, because you were allspecialists and I was just a crewman. _The_ crewman, I should say, theonly one left.

  "Ross hesitated and almost stumbled when he stepped out, and tears beganpouring from his eyes, but I thought--well, you know, coming home afterthirty years and all that. But when I stepped out of the lock, my eyesstung like fire and a thousand needles seemed to jab at my skin.

  "And then the President himself stepped forward with the flowers. That'swhere the real trouble began, with the flowers. I remember Rossstretching out his arms to take the bouquet, like a mother reaching fora baby. Then suddenly he dropped them, sneezing and coughing and sobbingfor breath, and the President reached out to help him, asking him overand over what was wrong.

  "It was the same with all of us, and we turned and staggered back to theship, closing the lock behind us. It was bad then. God, I'll neverforget it! The five of us, moaning in agony, gasping for breath, oureyes all swollen shut, and the itching ... that itching." Gregoryshuddered.

  * * * * *

  Even the emotionally disciplined James set his teeth and felt his scalpcrawl at the memory of that horror. He glanced toward the viewport, asthough to cleanse his mind of the memory. He could see Ross out there,among the geraniums, moving slowly and painfully in his heavy spacesuit.Occupational therapy. Ross watered flowers and Gregory talked andFrankston was bitter and ... himself? Observation, maybe.

  Gregory's voice began again, "And then they were pounding on the lock,begging us to let the doctor in, but we were all rolling and thrashingwith the itching, burning, sneezing, and finally James got himself underc
ontrol enough to open the locks and let them in.

  "Then came the tests, allergy tests. Remember those? They'd cut a littlerow of scratches in your arm ..." Each man instinctively glanced at hisforearm, saw neat rows of tiny pink scars, row on row. "Then they'd puta little powder in each cut and each kind of powder was an extract ofsome common substance we might be allergic to. The charts they made werefull of 'P's, P for positive, long columns of big, red 'P's. All pollen,dust, wool, nylon, cotton, fish, meat, fruit, vegetables, grain, milk,whisky, cigarettes, dogs, cats--everything! And wasn't it funny about usbeing allergic to women's face powder? Ha! We were allergic to womenfrom their nylon hose to their face powder.

  "Thirty years of breathing purified,