Homesick

After thirty years traveling the stars, the crew of the exploration ship Columbus finally returned to the planet they had dreamed about through every lonely watch of the night. Earth was supposed to be the reward waiting at the end of the journey. Instead, the moment they stepped outside their ship, the air burned their lungs, their skin erupted in agony, and the simplest things on Earth—flowers, food, clothing, even human contact—became dangerous. Decades of sterile life in space had quietly changed them. The world they had spent thirty years trying to reach had become a place where they could not live. Now the aging astronauts remain inside their obsolete ship, anchored on Earth but sealed away from it. Outside the viewport, the world moves on with faster ships and younger crews who cross the stars in weeks instead of decades. Inside the ship, four men fill the endless hours with small rituals, quiet arguments, and memories of the moment they realized home was no longer theirs. In “Homesick,” Lynn Venable delivers a quietly devastating science fiction tale about explorers who achieved their goal only to discover that the destination has slipped beyond their reach. Lynn Venable (1927–2007) wrote a small but memorable body of science fiction during the 1950s. Her stories appeared in magazines such as Galaxy Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Fantastic Universe. She is best remembered for the classic story “Time Enough at Last,” famously adapted for The Twilight Zone, as well as notable works like “The Gentle Vultures” and “Djinn, No Chaser.” “Homesick” reflects the same sharp emotional insight that made Venable’s short fiction stand out during the magazine era of science fiction.