, but Kimball
slept insulated and complete.

And he dreamed.

He dreamed of that summer when the river lay still and deep under the
hanging willows. He dreamed of his sisters, thin and angular creatures
as he remembered them through the eyes of a nine-year-old----

And his mother, tall and shadowy, standing on the porch of the rented
cottage and saying exasperatedly: "_Why do you run off by yourself,
Kimmy? I worry about you so----_"

And his sisters: "_Playing with his wooden swords and his radium pistol
and never wanting to take his nose out of those awful books----_"

He dreamed of the low, beamed ceiling of the cottage, sweltering in the
heat of the summer nights and the thick longing in his throat for red
hills and a sky that burned deep blue through the long, long days and
canals, clear and still. A land that he knew somehow never was, but
which lived, for him, through some alchemy of the mind. He dreamed of
Mars.

And Steinhart: "_What is reality, Kimmy?_"

* * * * *

The hours stretched into days, the days into months. Time wasn't. Time
was a deep night and a starshot void. And dreams.

He awoke seldom. His tasks were simple. The plastic sac and the tender
care of the ship were more real than the routine jobs of telemetering
information back to the Base across the empty miles, across the rim of
the world.

He dreamed of his wife. "_You don't live here, Kim._"

She was right, of course. He wasn't of earth. Never had been. My love
is in the sky, he thought, filled with an immense satisfaction.

And time slipped by, the weeks into months; the sun dwindled and earth
was gone. All around him lay the stunning star-dusted night.

He lay curled in the plastic womb when the ship turned. He awoke
sluggishly and dragged himself into awareness.

"I've changed," he thought aloud. "My face is younger; I feel
different."

The keening sound of air over the wings brought a thrill. Below him, a
great curving disk of reds and browns and yellows. He could see dust
storms raging and the heavy, darkened lines of the canals.

There was skill in his hands. He righted the rocket, balanced it. Began
the tricky task of landing. It took all of his talent, all of his
training. Ponderously, the ship settled into the iron sand; slowly, the
internal fires died.

* * * * *

Kimball stood in the control room, his heart pounding. Slowly, the ports
opened. Throug