h one hand, put the other
arm around him. He kissed her--her neck, her cheek--and all the old
jokes came to mind, the jokes of travel-weary, battle-weary men, the
and-_then_-I'll-put-my-pack-aside jokes that spoke of terrible hunger.
She was trembling, and even as her lips came up to touch his he felt the
difference, and because of this difference he turned with urgency to
Ralphie and picked him up and hugged him and said, because he could
think of nothing else to say, "What a big fella, what a big fella."

Ralphie stood in his arms as if his feet were still planted on the
floor, and he didn't look at his father but somewhere beyond him. "I
didn't grow much while you were gone, Dad, Mom says I don't eat enough."

So he put him down and told himself that it would all change, that
everything would loosen up just as his commanding officer, General
Carlisle, had said it would early this morning before he left
Washington.

"Give it some time," Carlisle had said. "You need the time; they need
the time. And for the love of heaven, don't be sensitive."

* * * * *

Edith was leading him into the living room, her hand lying still in his,
a cool, dead bird lying still in his. He sat down on the couch, she sat
down beside him--but she had hesitated. He _wasn't_ being sensitive; she
had hesitated. His wife had hesitated before sitting down beside him.

Carlisle had said his position was analogous to Columbus', to Vasco De
Gama's, to Preshoff's when the Russian returned from the Moon--but more
so. Carlisle had said lots of things, but even Carlisle who had worked
with him all the way, who had engineered the entire fantastic
journey--even Carlisle the Nobel prize winner, the multi-degreed genius
in uniform, had not actually spoken to him as one man to another.

_The eyes. It always showed in their eyes._

He looked across the room at Ralphie, standing in the doorway, a boy
already tall, already widening in the shoulders, already large of
feature. It was like looking into the mirror and seeing himself
twenty-five years ago. But Ralphie's face was drawn, was worried in a
way that few ten-year-old faces are.

"How's it going in school?" he asked.

"Gee, Dad, it's the second month of summer vacation."

"Well, then, before summer vacation?"

"Pretty good."

Edith said, "He made top forum the six-month period before vacation, and
he made top forum the six-month period you went away, Hank."

He