Murdock remembered how proud his parents had been when he was finally accepted for Space Training--the only boy in Thayerville to be chosen. But then, it was only right that he should have been the one. The other boys, those who failed, had not _lived_ the dream as he had lived it. From the moment he'd watched the first moon rocket land he had known, beyond any possible doubt, that he would become a rocketman. He had stood there, in that cold December of 1980, a boy of 12, watching the great rocket fire down from space, watching it thaw and blacken the frozen earth. He had known that he would one day follow it back to the stars, to vast and alien horizons, to worlds past imagining. He remembered his last night on Earth, twenty long years ago, when he had felt the pressing immensity of the vast and terrible universe surrounding him as he lay in his bed. He remembered the sleepless hours before dawn, when he could feel the tension building within the single room, within himself lying there in the heated stillness of the small, white house. He remembered the rain, near morning, drumming the roof, and the thunder roaring powerfully across the Kansas sky. And then, somehow, the thunder's roar blended into the deep atomic roar of a rocket, carrying him away from Earth, away to the burning stars ... away ... _Away._ * * * * * The tall figure in the neat patrol uniform closed the outer airlock and watched the body drift into blackness. The ship and the android were one; two complex and perfect machines doing their job. For Robert Murdock, the journey was over, the long miles had come to an end. Now he would sleep forever in space. * * * * * When the rocket landed, the crowds were there, waving and shouting out Murdock's name as he appeared on the silver ramp. He smiled and raised his hand in salute, standing there tall in the sun, his splendid dress uniform reflecting the light in a thousand glittering patterns. At the far end of the ramp two figures waited. An old man, bowed and trembling over a cane, and a seamed and wrinkled woman, her hair blowing white, her eyes shining. When the tall spaceman reached them they embraced him feverishly, clinging tight to his arms. Their son had returned. Robert Murdock had come home from space. * * * * * "Well," said a man at the fringe of the crowd, "there they go." His companion sighed and shook his head. "I _still_ don't think it's right somehow. It just doesn't seem right to me." "It's what they wanted, isn't it?" asked the other. "It's what they wrote in their wills. They vowed their son would never come home to death. In another month he'll be gone anyway. Back for another twenty years. Why ruin it all for him?" The man paused, shading his eyes against the sun. "And they _are_ perfect, aren't they? He'll never know." "I suppose you're right," nodded the second man. "He'll never know."