2

“What’s the matter?” Joe Sorby asked in a tone of mild concern.

Max stared down at his dinner, knowing that his father would never understand.

“Well, what is it?” Joe asked again.

“Nothing,” Max replied, looking up.

His father smiled at him as if they were about to share a secret, then shifted his stocky body in the chair.

“You’ve seemed sad for some time,” his mother said gently. Max looked into her large brown eyes, so much like his own that he often felt he could read her thoughts.

Joe scowled. “Oh, come on, talking won’t hurt.”

How could his parents understand? They had grown up with millions of people around them. They were going back to places they knew. Even Rosalie, who had been born on Bernal One, the large habitat in the orbit of Earth’s Moon, was used to many thousands of people, and she had visited Earth and the Moon.

Max had no idea if any of the other kids felt as he did behind their show of looking forward to coming home, of visiting all the places and things they had read about, seen in films, videos, and holos, or been told about by their parents. Some of them had to be faking, but he wasn’t close enough to any of them to know how they felt about most things. Even Muhammad Bekhter, still often mistaken for his best friend, was only someone he had studied and cycled with a few times. Max had never tried to be a real friend, and Muhammad had naturally started spending more time with others. Max couldn’t believe that some of them weren’t upset by the fact that their home would soon be taken away from them.

Not that there was really any way for him to find out. If he admitted his own fears to someone else, he might only end up with the others mocking him, and with even more assurances from his parents and other adults that everything would be just fine.

“Max,” his mother said in a firm but still kindly voice, “tell us what’s wrong. We’ll try to understand.”

They meant well, but they wouldn’t understand. The ship-habitat had been built for a purpose that was now almost achieved, and soon it would be time to do something else. They would say he was being backward and selfish, unreasonably attached to something no one should have this much feeling about.

“I know it shouldn’t bother me,” he said finally. “We’ve all been looking forward to the return.” He paused suddenly, his throat dry, and said bitterly, “But not me. You all came from there. . . .”

Joe was looking at him intently. “I had no idea you felt this way.”

“It’s not fair!” Max blurted out. “I never had any say in it.” He took a long sip of water, unable to go on.

“I understand,” Rosalie said. “You grew up here, and now it’s going to be taken away.”

Max nodded, feeling ashamed.

Joe sighed. “I see you’ve thought about this, but it’s really nothing to get upset about. Back on Earth, kids who grew up in small towns were often afraid of moving to big cities.”

Max took a deep breath. “Then why’d they have to?”

“Lots of reasons. Their parents had to relocate for work, or the kids had to go to school in a big city. Sometimes they ran away to the big city because they hated their small towns.”

“I’m sure you’ll like a bigger world,” Rosalie added, “when you see what it’s like.”

Max swallowed and was silent. Great. They had it all backwards.

“We’re just a small town, really,” his mother said. “Don’t you see that it would be wrong for you not to ever know anything else?”

“I suppose so,” Max replied.

His parents were silent.

“We’ll never come back here again,” he added in a breaking voice.

“Who knows?” Joe said, leaning forward and patting him on the shoulder. “Maybe they’ll use this place to go somewhere else. We’ve shown that it’s pretty safe to live in. They’ll refit it with better collision shielding, so it can get closer to light speed, and new people will move in and take it out again.”

“You don’t really think so,” Max said, imagining strangers sitting at this table.

Joe shrugged. “It’s possible.”

“We’ll never see this house again,” Max added.

His mother smiled. “You know we can’t decide any of these things. Did you think we’d live here forever?”

“Look, son,” Joe said firmly, “we have no say in what will happen to this habitat after we return it, and there’s no reason we should. The plan was to take it out and come back. We’ll make new lives. One thing will end and another begin. I think you understand that. It will happen to you several times in the long life you’ll live.”

Max was silent, knowing they were right, but his feelings rebelled.

“Hey,” Joe said suddenly, “we should be at the community center. The Sun’s close enough now to show up bright, and the broadcasts will probably start getting through our interference tonight.”

“I don’t feel like it tonight,” Max answered.

“Come on,” his father said. “Everyone else is probably over there by now.”

“There’s so much that’s happened since we’ve been gone,” Rosalie said excitedly. “We’ll have to work hard to take it all in. I mean, we know generally what’s been going on, but it’s like learning history—we’ll know what happened, but never as if we’d lived it. We can’t get back the time we lost. I feel apprehensive about coming back, but for different reasons than yours, Max.”

“Just think, son,” Joe said. “You’ll be going from this small world to a much larger one. A whole Sunspace of worlds.”

“But it’s not right that we should lose our home, Dad.”

“You’re looking at it all wrong,” Joe said impatiently, and Max knew his parents were thinking that he’d forget how he felt as soon as new things came along to distract him. “You can’t hang onto your first home forever.”

“We’re late,” Rosalie said, getting up from the table.

He would never forget, Max promised himself.