"Imagine, Johnny. We can have babies that will have a real childhood. Not like ours, in the Ship, but one on Earth. They can play in the wind and in the sunshine. "And learn things. All kinds of things. They won't be born into one particular job. They can do anything they want to--anything in the whole wide world. And they can live in the air." She blinked her eyes. "It makes me so glad I want to cry." * * * * * The Big Ship, the balanced terrarium of fifty lives, swung downward in her path, rushing toward her parent sun, the first interstellar voyager coming home. Home. After twenty-one generations had peopled her vast bulk, after four hundred long years in space. The radio in Control crackled and sputtered; the nearly seven hour wait was over. The Captain, the Mate, and Johnny Nine, the pilot, listened intently. The language had changed, and the voice that came out of the speaker was reedy, and thin with vast distances. "Halloo.... Hallooo...." Like a cosmic sigh. Weird. "Yur message...." They could make out the words; the vowels were shorter, the consonants more sibilant, but they could make out the words. "... Repeat ... pilot...." The voice rose and fell, rose and fell. Static hacked away inside the speaker, split sentences, scattered words. "... World waiting eagerly for...." Hiss and sputter. "In answer.... Repeat.... pilot inside Mar's orbit.... Repeat ... pilot...." Johnny Nine bent forward. "I guess he means we'll get a pilot ship inside the orbit of Mars. They'll probably set us around Earth. We've got too much bulk to land." "They'll probably ferry us down in one of their best ships," the Mate said; there was a weariness and an undefined, non-directional bitterness in his voice. A germ of thought lay buried beneath the words, a half-formed memory concept: Ferry us down like they ferried our ancestors up--four hundred years ago--to the Leviathan--built in space--too big ever to land. The voice from Earth sighed out of the speaker; only the sputter of static remained. Earth was awaiting, now, the reply. The Mate snapped off the speaker. The new silence was stark, as if something other than sound had been withdrawn. The Captain rubbed the back of his left hand with the palm of his right. None of them could quite find words for their thoughts. It was the Captain, finally, who spoke. "I guess--there isn't much to tell them, is there?" The Captain turned his swivel chair until it faced the broad Observation window; through it he could see out into the inconceivable depths of star-clustered space. "I've been thinking," he mused, half to himself. "Thinking a lot, lately." He rubbed his forehead. "About the Ship ... I've lived here a long time--my whole life. That's a long time. I was wondering how it would seem not to live here anymore."