The Earth, floating above him, was huge, a ball, blue and complex; it was much more obviously a three-dimensional world than the Moon ever looked from home. He was aware of the sun, fat and low, its light slanting across that desolate place. Suddenly he got a sense of perspective of the distance he’d traveled, to go there: so far that the trinity of lights that had always dominated human awareness — Earth, Moon, and sun — had moved around him in a complex dance, to these new relative positions in his sensorium.

And yet his sense of detachment was all but gone. He was as locked to Earth as if the experience was all just another sim at JSC. I guess you don’t throw off four billion years of evolution in a week.

He found himself wondering about his own future.

All his life, someone — some outside agency — had directed him toward goals. It had started with his father, and later — what a place to remember such a thing! — summer camp, where winning teams got turkey, and losers got beans. Then there had been the academy, and the Air Force, and NASA…

He’d always been driven by a strong sense of purpose, a purpose that had brought him far — all the way to the Moon itself.

But his greatest goal was achieved.

He remembered how his mood had taken a dip, after returning from his Gemini flight. How tough was this new return going to be for him?

Kennedy had finished speaking. There was a silence that stretched awkwardly; Muldoon wondered if he should say something.

Armstrong said, “We’re honored to talk to you, sir.”

Thank you very much. I’m grateful to President Nixon for his hospitality toward me today, and I’ll ask him to pass on my very best regards when he sees you on the Hornet on Thursday.

Muldoon steeled himself to speak. “I look forward to that very much, sir.”

Then, following Armstrong’s lead, he raised his gloved hand in salute and turned away from the camera.

He felt perplexed, troubled. It was as if Earth, above, was working on him already, its huge gravity pushing down on him.

He would have to find a new goal, that was all.

What, he mused, if Kennedy’s fantastic Mars vision came to reality? Now, that would be one terrific project to work on.

Maybe he could join that new program. Maybe he could be the first man to walk on three worlds. That would be one hell of a goal to work toward: fifteen, twenty more years of direction, of shape to his life…

But to do that, he knew, he’d have to get out from under all the PR hoopla that was going to follow the splashdown.

For him, he suspected, returning to Earth was going to be harder than journeying to the Moon ever was.

He loped away from the TV camera, back toward the glittering, toylike LM.