"Nothing. It's just that I wish--I wish we _could_ go home, right away. Home to Earth. I want to see it again, before we die." "We'll go back," I said. "Next year for sure. We'll have enough money then." She sighed. "Next year may be too late." I looked over at her, startled. She'd never talked like that before. I started to protest, but the words died away before I could even speak them. She was right. Next year might indeed be too late. Her work-coarsened hands were thin, too thin, and they never stopped shaking any more. Her body was a frail shadow of what it had once been. Even her voice was frail now. She was old. We were both old. There wouldn't be many more Martian summers for us, nor many years of missing Earth. "Why can't we go back this year, Lewis?" She smiled at me almost apologetically. She knew the reason as well as I did. "We can't," I said. "There's not enough money." "There's enough for our tickets." I'd explained all that to her before, too. Perhaps she'd forgotten. Lately I often had to explain things more than once. "You can't buy passage unless you have enough extra for insurance, and travelers' checks, and passport tax. The company has to protect itself. Unless you're financially responsible, they won't take you on the ships." She shook her head. "Sometimes I wonder if we'll ever have enough." * * * * * We'd saved our money for years, but it was a pitifully small savings. We weren't rich people who could go down to the spaceport and buy passage on the rocket ships, no questions asked, no bond required. We were only farmers, eking our livelihood from the unproductive Martian soil, only two of the countless little people of the solar system. In all our lifetime we'd never been able to save enough to go home to Earth. "One more year," I said. "If the crop prices stay up...." She smiled, a sad little smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Yes, Lewis," she said. "One more year." But I couldn't stop thinking of what she'd said earlier, nor stop seeing her thin, tired body. Neither of us was strong any more, but of the two I was far stronger than she. When we'd left Earth she'd been as eager and graceful as a child. We hadn't been much past childhood then, either of us.... "Sometimes I wonder why we ever came here," she said. "It's been a good life." She sighed. "I know. But now that it's nearly over, there's nothing to hold us here." "No," I said. "There's not." If we had had children it might have been different. As it was, we lived surrounded by the children and grandchildren of our friends. Our friends themselves were dead. One by one they had died, all of those who came with us on the first colonizing ship to Mars. All of those who came later, on the second and third ships. Their children were our neighbors now--and they were Martian born. It wasn't the same. She leaned over and pressed my hand. "We'd better go in, Lewis," she said. "We need our sleep."