Nemesis by Isaac Asimov Page B

winced. “It’s none of my business. That’s what you’re going to tell me.”
    “That’s the feeling I just had, but I don’t have to be guided by my feelings. After all, you’re his daughter. Yes, I think about him now and then.” She shrugged her shoulders slightly.
    Insigna said, “Do
you
think about him, Marlene?”
    “I have nothing to think of. I don’t remember him. I’ve never seen any holograms, or anything.”
    “No, there was no point in—” Her voice trailed off.
    “But when I was littler, I used to wonder why some fathers stayed with their children when the Leaving happened, and some fathers didn’t. I thought that maybe the ones who left didn’t like their children, and that Father didn’t like me.”
    Insigna stared at her daughter. “You never told me that.”
    “It was a private thought when I was little. When I got older, I knew that it was more complicated than that.”
    “You should never have had to think so. It’s not true. I would have assured you of that, if I had had the slightest idea—”
    “You don’t like to talk about those times, Mother. I understand.”
    “I would have anyway, if I had known about that thought of yours; if I could read your face as you read mine. He
did
love you. He would have taken you with him if I had allowed it. It’s my fault, really, that you two are separated.”
    “His, too. He might have stayed with us.”
    “Well, he might have, but now that the years have passed, I can see and understand his problems a little better than I could then. After all, I wasn’t leaving home; my world was coming with me. I may be over two light-years from Earth, but I’m still at home on Rotor where I was born. Your father was different. He was born on Earth and not on Rotor, and I suppose he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Earth altogether, and forever. Ithink about that now and then, also. I hate the thought of Earth being deserted. There must be several billion people there whose hearts would break to leave it.”
    There was silence between them for a moment, then Marlene said, “I wonder what Father is doing back on Earth right now.”
    “How can we possibly tell, Marlene? Twenty trillion kilometers is a long, long way, and fourteen years is a long, long time.”
    “Do you suppose he’s still alive?”
    “We can’t even know that,” said Insigna. “Life can be very short on Earth.” Then, as though suddenly aware she wasn’t talking to herself, she said, “I’m sure he’s alive, Marlene. He was in excellent health when he left, and he’s only just approaching fifty now.” Then softly, “Do you miss him, Marlene?”
    Marlene shook her head. “You can’t miss what you’ve never had.”
    (But
you
had him, Mother, she thought. And
you
miss him.)

EIGHT
AGENT
15.
    Oddly enough, Crile Fisher found it necessary to become accustomed to Earth—or reaccustomed to it. He had not thought that Rotor had become so much a part of him in a matter of not quite four years. It had been the longest period during which he had been away from Earth, but surely it had not been long enough to make Earth seem strange to him.
    There was now the sheer size of Earth, the distant horizon ending sharp against the sky instead of turning up mistily. There were the crowds, the unchanging gravity, the sense of wild and willful atmosphere, of temperature soaring and diving, of nature out of all control.
    It was not that he had to experience any of this to feel it. Even when he was in his own quarters, he knew it was all out there and the ferality of it all pervaded his spirit, somehow invaded it. Or it might be that the room was too small, too full, that the drift of sound was too unmistakable, as though he were being pressed in on by a crowded and decaying world.
    Strange that he had missed Earth so intensely in those years on Rotor; and that, now that he was back on Earth, he missed Rotor so intensely. Was he to spend his life wanting to be where he was