At dinners, and in the evenings, they could talk of nothing else. The Colonel and Anson Torm watched them, feeling the excitement stir in their own minds, even as they listened. But then, finally, the work was done, and the ship was ready. Torm and the Colonel had agreed to wait until then before settling down to the plans that lay ahead for the colony; there was too much work to be done, too much excitement to talk and think of anything else. But finally the night before the leave-taking arrived, and Torm walked out of the cabin and found Tuck Benedict and David sitting quietly in front of the cabin, watching the yellow rings of Saturn as it rode high in the sky, talking a little, but mostly sitting in silence, watching.
The old man sat down beside them. They hardly noticed him, so he sat and watched, too. And then, finally, he said, “It’s a great adventure. Well never know if they get to their destination, or when, or how many. We’ll never live to know.” He raised a finger, pointed to a tiny spot of brightness in the cloud of stars. “Those are the Centauris there—where they’re heading. Even they will never know if those to come will get there, or whether they will find anything when they do.”
The boys sat mutely watching, and Anson Torm’s eyes were on his son’s face as he stared up. There were so many things he wanted to say to his son, so many, many things—and yet he knew that he and David were a million miles apart, that he could never understand the longing that had been in his son since he had first toddled out of the cabin and pointed toward the bright stars, and said, “I want that, Daddy—” He saw David’s broad shoulders, the unruly shock of blond hair, the brightness in his eyes. He sat looking at David for a long time. Then he said, “You can go with the ship if you want to, son. If that’s where you belong—if you really believe that—I’ll not try to stop you—” The old man’s voice trembled.
David turned wide, wondering eyes to his father. “It’s what I’ve always dreamed of—going there—”
“I know. That’s why I’d never stop you.”
Tuck watched the two, his heart suddenly beating wildly. He realized that David had taken the words from his mouth, stated in one short, simple sentence all the excitement and longing and adventure he felt in his own heart. David was silent for a long time. Then he said, “I should be the leader here, after you go—isn’t that right, Dad?”
Anson Torm’s eyes were grave. “Torms have been elected to lead the Titan colony for generations, son. Your father, your grandfather, his father before him they’ve been good leaders.”
“And there’s work to be done—here at home. You and the Colonel will be able to make a start—but what about twenty years from now? Who will do the work then?” He looked at the stars again, and then his eyes caught his father’s. “We’ve been talking, Tuck and I,” he said softly. “We been thinking about things a good bit lately—the whole history of the Titan colony, and what there is to look forward to here. And Tuck is going back to study, and help his father fight for the colony, back on Earth. Last night the Colonel told me that he had friends who would help me arrange to take admission exams for the Polytechnic Institute, if I wanted to—” He glanced at Tuck, then dropped his eyes. “I’m not going to do it. And I’m not going with the ship. I think I belong here—on Titan. With me here, and Tuck back on Earth—we’ll finish what you two have started.”
Anson Torm looked at the boys, first one, then the other, and his voice didn’t seem to work right when he tried to speak. “That’s your decision—the two of you?”
“The two of us. That’s our decision. Oh, Tuck will come out here when he has a chance. We’ve got great plans, Dad—we want to see some of Saturn’s moons that haven’t been mapped yet, maybe even go in to Saturn herself, someday. And Japetus—we’ll land there one of these days, Geigers or no Geigers. And I’ll go back to Earth to visit, too. But that’s just play, in the long run. The real work is here.”
For a long moment Torm sat, staring at the stars, his heart crying things he could never find words to say. And then, finally, he rose and walked back to the cabin. At the door he paused, his face happier than David had seen it in years. “We’ll be seeing the ship off in the morning,” he said. “Better get some sleep.”
It was early, with the light just rising above the horizon when the last man walked up the ramp, and turned to wave to the group gathered below, then closed the port behind him, slowly, until it locked with a final clang. The group moved away, walking back from the crevice where the ship stood. Far back there were sandbag barriers to protect the remaining colonists from the blast. The people found their places, and waited in the still Titan morning. There were many tears, and much sadness on many faces. They waited, and it seemed that the minutes that ticked by were an eternity long—and then they heard the rumble, a whining groan which rose to a roar, shaking the ground with its power.
A billow of powdery white rose around the silver nose of the star-ship, enveloping it in an iridescent cloud, and then slowly and majestically the nose of the ship began to rise through the cloud. The jets bellowed yellow flame, and the roar echoed and reechoed down the gorges and canyons of the planet. The ship rose, higher and higher, faster and faster, like a silver arrow in the sky, leaving its streamer of white behind it. Slowly it turned, slowly it dwindled, and the roar faded away in their ears, and with a last glint of silver the ship shrank to a tiny dot, blinked, and was lost from view.
The people were silent as they made their way back to the colony, silent with an emptiness that they could neither explain nor express. The boys walked side by side, saying nothing, and a few yards behind them, Colonel Benedict and Anson Torm walked, almost surprised that they needed no words to communicate their feelings. In a few moments they would be seated at a table, an Earthman and a colonist working in trust and confidence for the peace and prosperity, of both Earth and Titan, for the first time in generations. It would be a hard job—they both knew that. A court-martial might ruin the Colonel’s career. But if it would bring the truth to the attention of Earth lawmakers, if it would expose the cruelty and tyranny of the Security Commission’s policy toward Titan, it would be worth the fight. And both men knew in their hearts that it would succeed.
As they walked, Colonel Benedict smiled, and pointed ahead to David and Tuck. “Thick as thieves,” he said quietly. “I wonder why they could see so much more clearly than we could? Two boys from the ends of the Solar System!”
“Boys?” said Anson Torm. “I wonder. They were boys a week ago, that’s true. But they were talking like men last night.” He smiled, his eyes misty. “There was an old Earth ballad my grandfather used to recite to me when I was young.” His eyes rested on the boys as they walked along. “Kipling, I think: