“Good Lord!” said the young man. “I’m Lieutenant Archer. Of course I’ll take you back, man, as soon as my jets cool enough for a takeoff. I’ll take you as far as Carthage, on Aldebaran II, anyway; you can get a ship out of there for anywhere. Need anything right away? Food? Water?”
McGarry shook his head dumbly. Food, water—What did such things matter now?
The green hills of Earth! He was going back to them. That was what mattered, and all that mattered. So long a wait, then so sudden an ending. He saw the violet sky swimming and then it suddenly went black as his knees buckled under him.
He was lying flat and the young man was holding a flask to his lips and he took a long draught of the fiery stuff it held. He sat up and felt better. He looked to make sure the spacer was still there; it was, and he felt wonderful.
The young man said, “Buck up, old-timer; we’ll be off in half an hour. You’ll be in Carthage in six hours. Want to talk, till you get your bearings again? Want to tell me all about it, everything that’s happened?”
They sat in the shadow of a brown bush, and McGarry told him about it, everything about it. The five-year search for the other ship he’d read had crashed on the planet and which might have intact the parts he needed to repair his own ship. The long search. About Dorothy, perched on his shoulder, and how she’d been something to talk to.
But somehow, the face of Lieutenant Archer was changing as McGarry talked. It grew even more solemn, even more compassionate.
“Old-timer,” Archer asked gently, “what year was it when you came here?” McGarry saw it coming. How can you keep track of time on a planet whose sun and seasons are unchanging? A planet of eternal day, eternal summer—He said flatly, “I came here in twenty-two forty-two. How much have I misjudged, Lieutenant? How old am I—instead of thirty, as I’ve thought?”
“It’s twenty-two seventy-two, McGarry. You came here thirty years ago. You’re fifty-five. But don’t let that worry you too much. Medical science has advanced. You still have a long time to live.”
McGarry said it softly. “Fifty-five. Thirty years.”
The lieutenant looked at him pityingly. He said, “Old-timer, do you want it all in a lump, all the rest of the bad news? There are several items of it. I’m no psychologist but I think maybe it’s best for you to take it now, all at once, while you can still throw into the scale against it the fact that you’re going back. Can you take it, McGarry?”
There couldn’t be anything worse than he’d learned already. The fact that thirty years of his life had already been wasted here. Sure, he could take the rest of whatever it was, as long as he was getting back to Earth, green Earth.
He stared at the violet sky, the red sun, the brown plain. He said, very quietly, “I can take it. Dish it out.”
“You’ve done wonderfully for thirty years, McGarry. You can thank God for the fact that you believed Marley’s spacer crashed on Kruger III; it was Kruger IV. You’d have never found it here, but the search, as you say, kept you—reasonably sane.” He paused a moment. His voice was gentle when he spoke again. “There isn’t anything on your shoulder, McGarry. This Dorothy is a figment of your imagination. But don’t worry about it; that particular delusion has probably kept you from cracking up completely.”
McGarry put up his hand. It touched his shoulder. Nothing else. Archer said, “My God, man, it’s marvelous that you’re otherwise okay. Thirty years alone; it’s almost a miracle. And if your one delusion persists, now that I’ve told you it is a delusion, a psychiatrist back at Carthage or on Mars can fix you up in a jiffy.”
McGarry said dully, “It doesn’t persist. It isn’t there now. I—I’m not even sure, Lieutenant, that I ever did really believe in Dorothy. I think I made her up on purpose, to talk to, so I’d remain sane except for that. She was—she was like a woman’s hand, Lieutenant. Or did I tell you that?”
“You told me. Want the rest of it now, McGarry?”
McGarry stared at him. “The rest of it? What rest can there be? I’m fifty-five instead of thirty. I’ve spent thirty years, since I was twenty-five, hunting for a spacer I’d never have found, since it’s on another planet. I’ve been crazy—in one way, but only one—most of that time. But none of that matters now that I can go back to Earth.”
Lieutenant Archer was shaking his head slowly. “Not back to Earth, old-timer. To Mars if you wish, the beautiful brown and yellow hills of Mars. Or, if you don’t mind heat, to purple Venus. But not to Earth, McGarry. Nobody lives there any more.”
“Earth is—gone? I don’t—”
“Not gone, McGarry. It’s there. But it’s black and barren, a charred ball. The war with the Arcturians, twenty years ago. They struck first, and got Earth. We got them, we won, we exterminated them, but Earth was gone before we started. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to settle for somewhere else.”
McGarry said, “No Earth.” There was no expression in his voice. No expression at all.
Archer said, “That’s the works, old-timer. But Mars isn’t so bad. You’ll get used to it. It’s the center of the solar system now, and there are three billion Earthmen on it. You’ll miss the green of Earth, sure, but it’s not so bad.” McGarry said, “No Earth.” There was no expression in his voice. No expression at all.
Archer nodded. “Glad you can take it that way, old-timer. It must be rather a jolt. Well, I guess we can get going. The tubes ought to have cooled enough by now. I’ll check and make sure.”
He stood up and started toward the little spacer.
McGarry’s sol-gun came out of its holster. McGarry shot him, and Lieutenant Archer wasn’t there any more. McGarry stood up and walked to the little spacer. He aimed the sol-gun at it and pulled the trigger. Part of the spacer was gone. Half a dozen shots and it was completely gone. Little atoms that had been the spacer and little atoms that had been Lieutenant Archer of the Space Patrol may have danced in the air, but they were invisible.
McGarry put the gun back into its holster and started walking toward the red splotch of jungle near the horizon.
He put his hand up to his shoulder and touched Dorothy and she was there, as she’d been there now for four of the five years he’d been on Kruger III. She felt, to his fingers and to his bare shoulder, like a woman’s hand.
He said, “Don’t worry, Dorothy. We’ll find it. Maybe this next jungle is the right one. And when we find it—”
He was near the edge of the jungle now, the red jungle, and a tiger came running out to meet him and eat him. A mauve tiger with six legs and a head like a barrel. McGarry aimed his sol-gun and pulled the trigger, and there was a bright green flash, brief but beautiful—oh, so beautiful—and the tiger wasn’t there any more.
McGarry chuckled softly. “Did you see that, Dorothy? That was green, the color there isn’t much of on any planet but the one we’re going to. The only green planet in the system, and it’s the one I came from. You’ll love it.”
She said, “I know I will, Mac.” Her low throaty voice was completely familiar to him, as familiar as his own; she’d always answered him. He reached up his hand and touched her as she rested on his naked shoulder. She felt like a woman’s hand.
He turned and looked back over the brown plain studded with brown bushes, the violet sky above, the crimson sun. He laughed at it. Not a mad laugh, a gentle one. It didn’t matter because soon now he’d find the spacer so he could go back to Earth.
To the green hills, the green fields, the green valleys. Once more he patted the hand upon his shoulder and spoke to it, listened to its answer.