aw light jump into their screen and
his own face take shape there; saw their faces on his own screen, set
now, like the faces of stone idols.

He turned another dial. The picture swung around so that he was
looking into their eyes and they into his.

Halter said, "Captain McClelland?"

One of the old men nodded. "Yes."

McClelland was clean-shaven. His uniform, treated against
deterioration, was immaculate, but his body showed frail and bony
through it. His face was long and hollow-cheeked, the eyes deep-set
and bright. The head was like a skull, the nose an eagle's beak.

"I'm Colonel Halter. I'm a psychotherapist."

* * * * *

None of them answered. There was only the faint thrumming of the
rockets lowering the old ship to Earth.

"Let me be sure I have your identities right," went on Colonel Halter.

He then looked at the man on the captain's right. "You, I believe, are
Lieutenant James Brady."

Brady nodded, his pale, eroded face expressionless.

Colonel Halter saw the neat black uniform, identical with the
captain's; saw the cropped gray hair and meticulously trimmed goatee.

"And you," he said to the woman sitting beside the lieutenant, "are
Dr. Anna Mueller."

The same nod and thin, expressionless face. The same paleness. Faded
hazel eyes; hair white and trimmed close to her head; body emaciated.

"Daniel Carlyle, astrogator."

The nod.

Like the doctor's brother, thought Colonel Halter, and yet like the
lieutenant with his cropped hair and with an identical goatee.

"Caroline Gordon, dietician and televisor. John Crowley, rocketman."

Each nodded, expressionless, their faces like white, weathered statues
in a desert.

Colonel Halter turned to the captain. The rocket thrum of the tugs had
become a roar as the gravity pulled against the antique hull.

"We understand," said Colonel Halter, "that you demand repairs for
your ship and fuel enough to take you back into deep space."

"That is right." The voice was low, slightly harsh.

"You're all close to a hundred years old. You'd die out there. Here,
with medical aid, you'd easily live to a hundred and twenty-five."

Dr. Anna Mueller's head moved slightly. "We're aware of that,
Colonel."

"It'd be pointless," said the colonel, "and a shameful waste. You're
still the only crew that ever made it out beyond the Solar System.
You've kept records of your personal experience, how you survived.
They're valuable."