Imperial Earth

43. Homecoming

It was over. All the good-byes had been said to crew and passengers, all the formalities had been completed, everything he had brought from Earth was already moving along the conveyor belt. Everything, that is, except for the most important gift of all.

He could walk through that door marked TITAN CITIZENS, and he would be home. Already, he had forgotten the crippling gravity of Earth; that—and so much else—was fading into the past like a dissolving dream. This was where he belonged and where his life’s work would be done. He would never again go sunward, though he knew there would be times when some remembered beauty of the mother world would drive a dagger into his heart.

The family must be waiting, there in the reception lounge, and now, with only seconds before the moment of reunion, Duncan felt a reluctance to face the whole Makenzie clan. He let the other travelers go hurrying past him, while he stood irresolutely, trying to pluck up his courage and clutching his precious bundle awkwardly to his chest. Then he moved forward, under the archway, and out on to the ramp.

There were so many of them! Malcolm and Colin, of course, Marissa, more beautiful and desirable than even in his most recent dreams, now free of Calindy forever; Clyde and Carline—could she really have grown so much, in so short a time? And at least twenty nephews and nieces whose names he knew as well as his own, but just couldn’t recall at the moment.

No—it was impossible! But there she was, standing a little apart from the others, leaning heavily on her cane, yet otherwise completely unaltered since he had last seen her on the cliffs of Loch Hellbrew. Much else had changed indeed if Grandma Ellen had returned to Oasis for the first time in fifty years.

As she saw Duncan’s astonished gaze, she gave a barely perceptible smile. It was more than a greeting; it was a signal of reassurance. She already knows, thought Duncan. She knows and approves. When the full fury of the Makenzies breaks upon my head, I can rely on her...

There flashed into his mind an old Terran phrase, whose origin he had long ago forgotten; the Moment of Truth. Well, here it was—

They had all crowded eagerly around him as he drew back the shawl. For an instant only he felt regret; perhaps he should have given some warning. No, it was better this way. Now they would learn that he was his own man at last, no longer a pawn of others—however much he might owe to them, however much he might be part of them.

The child was still sleeping, but normally now, not in the electronic trance that he protected it in the long voyage from Earth. Suddenly it threw out a chubby arm, and tiny fingers gripped Duncan’s hand with surprising strength. They looked like the pale white tentacles of a sea anemone against the dark brown of Duncan’s skin.

The little head was still empty even of dreams, and the face was as void and formless as that of any month-old baby. But already the smooth, pink scalp bore an unmistakable trace of hair—the golden hair that would soon bring back to Titan the lost glories of the distant Sun.