CHAPTER IVThe squadron was out of overdrive, cruising at normal approach velocity. There was a sun ahead in space. Compared to the blazing giants of deep space, it was not much, merely a small yellow star looking rather lonely in the midst of a great emptiness. Kirk studied it. The Sun. Not just any sun, the Sun. How should he feel about it? Like a child seeing its father for the first time, or like a man returning to an ancient hearth that has long ago lost any meaning for him? Kirk searched his heart, and nothing came. It was only another star.
Garstang touched his arm and pointed, to where far off a little green planet swung to meet them.
“Earth.”
The squadron rushed toward it, the cruisers and supply-ships and transports, the men and women and children, strangers from the far reache
