THE GIANTS RETURN
 

 By ROBERT ABERNATHY
 
 
 Earth set itself grimly to meet them with corrosive fire, determined to blast them back to the stars. But they erred in thinking the Old Ones were too big to be clever.
 
 [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
 
 
 
 In the last hours the star ahead had grown brighter by many magnitudes, and had changed its color from a dazzling blue through white to the normal yellow, of a GO sun. That was the Doppler effect as the star's radial velocity changed relative to the Quest III , as for forty hours the ship had decelerated.
 
 They had seen many such stars come near out of the galaxy's glittering backdrop, and had seen them dwindle, turn red and go out as the Quest III drove on its way once more, lashed by despair toward the speed of light, leaving behind the mockery of yet another solitary and lifeless luminary unaccompanied by worlds where men might dwell. They had grown sated with the sight of wonders—of multiple systems of giant stars, of nebulae that sprawled in empty flame across light years.
 
 But now unwonted excitement possessed the hundred-odd members of the Quest III's crew. It was a subdued excitement; men and women, they came and stood quietly gazing into the big vision screens that showed the oncoming star, and there were wide-eyed children who had been born in the ship and had never seen a planet. The grownups talked in low voices, in tones of mingled eagerness and apprehension, of what might lie at the long journey's end. For the Quest III was coming home; the sun ahead was the Sun, whose rays had warmed their lives' beginning.
 
 

 
 Knof Llud, the Quest III's captain, came slowly down the narrow stair from the observatory, into the big rotunda that was now the main recreation room, where most of the people gathered. The great chamber, a full cross-section of the vessel, had been at first a fuel hold. At the voyage's beginning eighty per cent of the fifteen-hundred-foot cylinder had been engines and fuel; but as the immense stores were spent and the holds became radioactively safe, the crew had spread out from its original cramped quarters. Now the interstellar ship was little more than a hollow shell.
 
 Eyes lifted from the vision screens to interrogate Knof Llud; he met them with an impassive countenance, and announced quietly, "We've sighted Earth."
 
 A feverish buzz arose; the captain gestured for silence and went on,
"It is still only a featureless disk to the telescope. Zost Relyul has identified it—no more."
 
 But this time the clamor was not to be settled. People pressed round the screens, peering into them as if with the naked eye they could pick out the atom of reflected light that was Earth, home. They wrung each other's hands, kissed, shouted, wept. For the present their fears were forgotten and exaltation prevailed.
 
 Knof Llud smiled wryly. The rest of the little speech he had been about to make didn't matter anyway, and it might have spoiled this moment.
 
 He turned to go, and was halted by the sight of his wife, standing at his elbow. His wry smile took on warmth; he asked, "How do you feel, Lesra?"
 
 She drew an uncertain breath and released it in a faint sigh. "I don't know. It's good that Earth's still there." She was thinking, he judged shrewdly, of Knof Jr. and Delza, who save from pictures could not remember sunlit skies or grassy fields or woods in summer....
 
 He said, with a touch of tolerant amusement, "What did you think might have happened to Earth? After all, it's only been nine hundred years."
 
 "That's just it," said Lesra shakily. "Nine hundred years have gone by— there —and nothing will be the same. It won't be the same world we left, the world we knew and fitted in...."
 
 The captain put an arm round her with comforting pressure. "Don't worry. Things may have changed—but we'll manage." But his face had hardened against registering the gnawing of that same doubtful fear within him. He let his arm fall. "I'd better get up to the bridge. There's a new course to be set now—for Earth."
 
 He left her and began to climb the stairway again. Someone switched off the lights, and a charmed whisper ran through the big room as the people saw each other's faces by the pale golden light of Earth's own Sun, mirrored and multiplied by the screens. In that light Lesra's eyes gleamed with unshed tears.
 
 Captain Llud found Navigator Gwar Den looking as smug as the cat that ate the canary. Gwar Den was finding that the actual observed positions of the planets thus far located agreed quite closely with his extrapolations from long unused charts of the Solar System. He had already set up on the calculator a course that would carry them to Earth.
 
 Llud nodded curt approval, remarking, "Probably we'll be intercepted before we get that far."
 
 Den was jolted out of his happy abstraction. "Uh, Captain," he said hesitantly. "What kind of a reception do you suppose we'll get?"
 
 Llud shook his head slowly. "Who knows? We don't know whether any of the other Quests returned successful, or if they returned at all. And we don't know what changes have taken place on Earth. It's possible—not likely, though—that something has happened to break civilization's continuity to the point where our expedition has been forgotten altogether."
 
 

 
 He turned away grim-lipped and left the bridge. From his private office-cabin, he sent a message to Chief Astronomer Zost Relyul to notify him as soon as Earth's surface features became clear; then he sat idle, alone with his thoughts.
 
 The ship's automatic mechanisms had scant need of tending; Knof Llud found himself wishing that he could find some back-breaking task for everyone on board, himself included, to fill up the hours that remained.
 
 There was an extensive and well-chosen film library in the cabin, but he couldn't persuade himself to kill time that way. He could go down and watch the screens, or to the family apartment where he might find Lesra and the children—but somehow he didn't want to do that either.
 
 He felt empty, drained—like his ship. As the Quest III's fuel stores and the hope of success in man's mightiest venture had dwindled, so the strength had gone out of him. Now the last fuel compartment was almost empty and Captain Knof Llud felt tired and old.
 
 Perhaps, he thought, he was feeling the weight of his nine hundred Earth years—though physically he was only forty now, ten years older than when the voyage had begun. That was the foreshortening along the time axis of a space ship approaching the speed of light. Weeks and months had passed for the Quest III in interstellar flight while years and decades had raced by on the home world.
 
 Bemusedly Llud got to his feet and stood surveying a cabinet with built-in voice recorder and pigeonholes for records. There were about three dozen film spools there—his personal memoirs of the great expedition, a segment of his life and of history. He might add that to the ship's official log and its collections of scientific data, as a report to whatever powers might be on Earth now—if such powers were still interested.
 
 Llud selected a spool from among the earliest. It was one he had made shortly after leaving Procyon, end of the first leg of the trip. He slid it onto the reproducer.
 
 His own voice came from the speaker, fresher, more vibrant and confident than he knew it was now.
 
 "One light-day out from Procyon, the thirty-third day by ship's time since leaving Earth.
 
 "Our visit to Procyon drew a blank. There is only one huge planet, twice the size of Jupiter, and like Jupiter utterly unfit to support a colony.
 
 "Our hopes were dashed—and I think all of us, even remembering the Centaurus Expedition's failure, hoped more than we cared to admit. If Procyon had possessed a habitable planet, we could have returned after an absence of not much over twenty years Earth time.
 
 "It is cheering to note that the crew seems only more resolute. We go on to Capella; its spectrum, so like our own Sun's, beckons. If success comes there, a century will have passed before we can return to Earth; friends, relatives, all the generation that launched the Quest ships will be long since dead. Nevertheless we go on. Our generation's dream, humanity's dream, lives in us and in the ship forever...."
 
 Presently Knof Llud switched off that younger voice of his and leaned back, an ironic smile touching his lips. That fervent idealism seemed remote and foreign to him now. The fanfares of departure must still have been ringing in his ears.
 
 He rose, slipped the record back in its niche and picked out another, later, one.
 
 "One week since we passed close enough to Aldebaran to ascertain that that system, too, is devoid of planets.
 
 "We face the unpleasant realization that what was feared is probably true—that worlds such as the Sun's are a rare accident, and that we may complete our search without finding even one new Earth.
 
 "It makes no difference, of course; we cannot betray the plan.... This may be man's last chance of escaping his pitiful limitation to one world in all the Universe. Certainly the building of this ship and its two sisters, the immense expenditure of time and labor and energy stores that went into them, left Earth's economy drained and exhausted. Only once in a long age does mankind rise to such a selfless and transcendent effort—the effort of Egypt that built the pyramids, or the war efforts of the nations in the last great conflicts of the twentieth century.
 
 "Looked at historically, such super-human outbursts of energy are the result of a population's outgrowing its room and resources, and therefore signalize the beginning of the end. Population can be limited, but the price is a deadly frustration, because growth alone is life.... In our day the end of man's room for growth on the Earth was in sight—so we launched the Quests . Perhaps our effort will prove as futile as pyramid-building, less practical than orgies of slaughter to reduce pressure.... In any case, it would be impossible to transport very many people to other stars; but Earth could at least go into its decline with the knowledge that its race went onward and upward, expanding limitlessly into the Universe....
 
 "Hopeless, unless we find planets!"
 
 

 
 Knof Llud shook his head sorrowfully and took off the spool. That was from the time when he had grown philosophical after the first disappointments.
 
 He frowned thoughtfully, choosing one more spool that was only four years old. The recorded voice sounded weary, yet alive with a strange longing....
 
 "We are in the heart of Pleiades; a hundred stars show brilliant on the screens, each star encircled by a misty halo like lights glowing through fog, for we are traversing a vast diffuse nebula.
 
 "According to plan, the Quest III has reached its furthest point from Earth. Now we turn back along a curve that will take us past many more stars and stellar systems—but hope is small that any of those will prove a home for man, as have none of the thousands of stars examined already.
 
 "But what are a few thousand stars in a galaxy of billions? We have only, as it were, visited a handful of the outlying villages of the Universe, while the lights of its great cities still blaze far ahead along the Milky Way.
 
 "On flimsy excuses I have had Zost Relyul make observations of the globular cluster Omega Centauri. There are a hundred thousand stars there in a volume of space where one finds a few dozen in the Sun's neighborhood; there if anywhere must circle the planets we seek! But Omega Centauri is twenty thousand light years away....
 
 "Even so—by expending its remaining fuel freely, the Quest III could achieve a velocity that would take us there without dying of senility of aging too greatly. It would be a one-way journey—even if enough fuel remained, there would be little point in returning to Earth after more than forty thousand years. By then our civilization certainly, and perhaps the human race itself, would have perished from memory.
 
 "That was why the planners limited our voyage, and those of the other Quests , to less than a thousand years Earth time. Even now, according to the sociodynamic predictions made then, our civilization—if the other expeditions failed also—will have reached a dangerously unstable phase, and before we can get back it may have collapsed completely from overpopulation.
 
 "Why go back, then with the news of our failure? Why not forget about Earth and go on to Omega Centauri? What use is quixotic loyalty to a decree five thousand years old, whose makers are dead and which may be forgotten back there?
 
 "Would the crew be willing? I don't know—some of them still show signs of homesickness, though they know with their minds that everything that was once 'home' has probably been swept away....
 
 "It doesn't matter. Today I gave orders to swing the ship."
 
 Savagely Knof Llud stabbed the button that shut off the speaker. Then he sat for a time with head resting in his hands, staring into nothing.
 
 The memory of that fierce impulse to go on still had power to shake him. A couple of lines of poetry came into his head, as he read them once in translation from the ancient English....
 
 
 ... for my purpose holds
 

 To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
 

 Of all the western stars, until I die.
 
 

 
 Llud sighed. He still couldn't say just why he had given the order to turn back. The stars had claimed his heart—but he was still a part of Earth, and not even nine hundred years of space and time had been able to alter that.
 
 He wondered if there would still be a quiet stream and a green shady place beside it where a death-weary man, relieved at last of responsibility, could rest and dream no more.... Those things went on, if men didn't change them. And a pine forest where he and young Knof could go camping, and lie on their backs at night and gaze at the glittering constellations, far away, out of reach.... He wasn't sure he would want to do that, though.
 
 Suddenly a faint cushioned jar went through the great ship; it seemed to falter one moment in flight.
 
 

 
 The captain was on his feet instantly, but then his movements became unhurried. Whatever it had been was past, and he had a good idea what it had been—a meteoroid, nothing unusual in the vicinity of the Sun, though in interstellar space and around planetless stars such collisions were rare to the vanishing point. No harm could have been done. The Quest III's collision armor was nonmaterial and for practical purposes invulnerable.
 
 Just as he took his finger off the button that opened the door, the intercommunication phone shrilled imperatively. Knof Llud wheeled, frowning—surely a meteoroid impact wasn't that serious. Coincidence, maybe—it might be Zost Relyul calling as instructed.
 
 He reached the phone at the moment when another, heavier jolt shook the vessel. Llud snatched up the receiver with the speed of a scalded cat.
 
 "Captain?" It was Gwar Den's voice, stammering a little. "Captain, we're being attacked!"
 
 "Sound the alarm. Emergency stations." He had said it automatically, then felt a curious detached relief at the knowledge that after all these years he could still respond quickly and smoothly to a crisis. There was a moment's silence, and he heard the alarm start—three short buzzes and repeat, ringing through all the great length of the interstellar ship. Knowing that Gwar Den was still there, he said,
"Now—attacked by what?"
 
 "Ships," said Gwar Den helplessly. "Five of them so far. No, there's a sixth now." Repeated blows quivered the Quest III's framework. The navigator said, obviously striving for calm, "They're light craft, not fifty feet long, but they move fast. The detectors hardly had time to show them before they opened up. Can't get a telescope beam on them long enough to tell much."
 
 "If they're that small," said Knof Llud deliberately, "they can't carry anything heavy enough to hurt us. Hold to course. I'll be right up."
 
 In the open doorway he almost fell over his son. Young Knof's eyes were big; he had heard his father's words.
 
 "Something's happened," he judged with deadly twelve-year-old seriousness and, without wasting time on questions, "Can I go with you, huh, Dad?"
 
 Llud hesitated, said, "All right. Come along and keep out of the way." He headed for the bridge with strides that the boy could not match.
 
 There were people running in the corridors, heading for their posts. Their faces were set, scared, uncomprehending. The Quest III shuddered, again and again, under blows that must have had millions of horsepower behind them; but it plunged on toward Earth, its mighty engines still steadily braking its interstellar velocity.
 
 To a man, the ship's responsible officers were already on the bridge, most of them breathless. To a man they looked appeal at Captain Knof Llud.
 
 "Well?" he snapped. "What are they doing?"
 
 Gwar Den spoke. "There are thirteen of them out there now, sir, and they're all banging away at us."
 
 The captain stared into the black star-strewn depths of a vision screen where occasional blue points of light winked ominously, never twice from the same position.
 
 Knof Jr. flattened himself against the metal wall and watched silently. His young face was less anxious than his elders'; he had confidence in his father.
 
 "If they had anything heavier," surmised the captain, "they'd have unlimbered it by now. They're out to get us. But at this rate, they can't touch us as long as our power lasts—or until they bring up some bigger stuff."
 
 

 
 The mild shocks went on—whether from projectiles or energy-charges, would be hard to find out and it didn't matter; whatever was hitting the Quest III's shell was doing it at velocities where the distinction between matter and radiation practically ceases to exist.
 
 But that shell was tough. It was an extension of the gravitic drive field which transmitted the engines' power equally to every atom of the ship; forces impinging on the outside of the field were similarly transmitted and rendered harmless. The effect was as if the vessel and all space inside its field were a single perfectly elastic body. A meteoroid, for example, on striking it rebounded—usually vaporized by the impact—and the ship, in obedience to the law of equal and opposite forces, rebounded too, but since its mass was so much greater, its deflection was negligible.
 
 The people in the Quest III would have felt nothing at all of the vicious onslaught being hurled against them, save that their inertialess drive, at its normal thrust of two hundred gravities, was intentionally operated at one half of one per cent efficiency to provide the illusion of Earthly gravitation.
 
 One of the officers said shakily, "It's as if they've been lying in wait for us. But why on Earth—"
 
 "That," said the captain grimly, "is what we have to find out. Why—on Earth. At least, I suspect the answer's there."
 
 The Quest III bored steadily on through space, decelerating. Even if one were no fatalist, there seemed no reason to stop decelerating or change course. There was nowhere else to go and too little fuel left if there had been; come what might, this was journey's end—perhaps in a more violent and final way than had been anticipated. All around wheeled the pigmy enemies, circling, maneuvering, and attacking, always attacking, with the senseless fury of maddened hornets. The interstellar ship bore no offensive weapons—but suddenly on one of the vision screens a speck of light flared into nova-brilliance, dazzling the watchers for the brief moment in which its very atoms were torn apart.
 
 Knof Jr. whooped ecstatically and then subsided warily, but no one was paying attention to him. The men on the Quest III's bridge looked questions at each other, as the thought of help from outside flashed into many minds at once. But Captain Llud said soberly, "It must have caught one of their own shots, reflected. Maybe its own, if it scored too direct a hit."
 
 He studied the data so far gathered. A few blurred pictures had been got, which showed cylindrical space ships much like the Quest III , except that they were rocket-propelled and of far lesser size. Their size was hard to ascertain, because you needed to know their distance and speed—but detector-beam echoes gave the distance, and likewise, by the Doppler method, the velocity of directly receding or approaching ships. It was apparent that the enemy vessels were even smaller than Gwar Den had at first supposed—not large enough to hold even one man. Tiny, deadly hornets with a colossal sting.
 
 "Robot craft, no doubt," said Knof Llud, but a chill ran down his spine as it occurred to him that perhaps the attackers weren't of human origin. They had seen no recognizable life in the part of the galaxy they had explored, but one of the other Quests might have encountered and been traced home by some unhuman race that was greedy and able to conquer.
 
 

 
 It became evident, too, that the bombardment was being kept up by a constant arrival of fresh attackers, while others raced away into space, presumably returning to base to replenish their ammunition. That argued a planned and prepared interception with virulent hatred behind it.
 
 Elsuz Llug, the gravitic engineer, calculated dismally, "At the rate we're having to shed energy, the fuel will be gone in six or eight hours."
 
 "We'll have reached Earth before then," Gwar Den said hopefully.
 
 "If they don't bring out the heavy artillery first."
 
 "We're under the psychological disadvantage," said the captain, "of not knowing why we're being attacked."
 
 Knof Jr. burst out, spluttering slightly with the violence of a thought too important to suppress, "But we're under a ps-psychological advantage, too!"
 
 His father raised an eyebrow. "What's that? I don't seem to have noticed it."
 
 "They're mad and we aren't, yet," said the boy. Then, seeing that he hadn't made himself clear, "In a fight, if a guy gets mad he starts swinging wild and then you nail him."
 
 Smiles splintered the ice of tension. Captain Llud said, "Maybe you've got something there. They seem to be mad, all right. But we're not in a position to throw any punches." He turned back to the others. "As I was going to say—I think we'd better try to parley with the enemy. At least we may find out who he is and why he's determined to smash us."
 
 And now instead of tight-beam detectors the ship was broadcasting on an audio carrier wave that shifted through a wide range of frequencies, repeating on each the same brief recorded message:
 
 "Who are you? What do you want? We are the interstellar expedition Quest III ...." And so on, identifying themselves and protesting that they were unarmed and peaceful, that there must be some mistake, and querying again, "Who are you ?"
 
 There was no answer. The ship drove on, its fuel trickling away under multiplied demands. Those outside were squandering vastly greater amounts of energy in the effort to batter down its defenses, but converting that energy into harmless gravitic impulses was costing the Quest III too. Once more Knof Llud had the insidious sense of his own nerves and muscles and will weakening along with the power-sinews of his ship.
 
 Zost Relyul approached him apologetically. "If you have time, Captain—I've got some data on Earth now."
 
 Eagerly Llud took the sheaf of photographs made with the telescope. But they told him nothing; only the continental outlines were clear, and those were as they had been nine hundred years ago.... He looked up inquiringly at Zost Relyul.
 
 "There are some strange features," said the astronomer carefully.
"First of all—there are no lights on the night side. And on the daylight face, our highest magnification should already reveal traces of cities, canals, and the like—but it does not.
 
 "The prevailing color of the land masses, you see, is the normal green vegetation. But the diffraction spectrum is queer. It indicates reflecting surfaces less than one-tenth millimeter wide—so the vegetation there can't be trees or grass, but must be more like a fine moss or even a coarse mold."
 
 "Is that all?" demanded Llud.
 
 "Isn't it enough?" said Zost Relyul blankly. "Well—we tried photography by invisible light, of course. The infra-red shows nothing and likewise the ultraviolet up to the point where the atmosphere is opaque to it."
 
 The captain sighed wearily. "Good work," he said. "Keep it up; perhaps you can answer some of these riddles before—"
 
 " We know who you are ," interrupted a harshly crackling voice with a strange accent, " and pleading will do you no good. "
 
 

 
 Knof Llud whirled to the radio apparatus, his weariness dropping from him once more. He snapped, "But who are you?" and the words blended absurdly with the same words in his own voice on the still repeating tape.
 
 He snapped off the record; as he did so the speaker, still crackling with space static, said, "It may interest you to know that you are the last. The two other interstellar expeditions that went out have already returned and been destroyed, as you will soon be—the sooner, if you continue toward Earth."
 
 Knof Llud's mind was clicking again. The voice—which must be coming from Earth, relayed by one of the midget ships—was not very smart; it had already involuntarily told him a couple of things—that it was not as sure of itself as it sounded he deduced from the fact it had deigned to speak at all, and from its last remark he gathered that the Quest III's ponderous and unswerving progress toward Earth had somehow frightened it. So it was trying to frighten them.
 
 He shoved those facts back for future use. Just now he had to know something, so vitally that he asked it as a bald question, " Are you human? "
 
 The voice chuckled sourly. "We are human," it answered, "but you are not."
 
 The captain was momentarily silent, groping for an adequate reply. Behind him somebody made a choked noise, the only sound in the stunned hush, and the ship jarred slightly as a thunderbolt slammed vengefully into its field.
 
 "Suppose we settle this argument about humanity," said Knof Llud woodenly. He named a vision frequency.
 
 "Very well." The tone was like a shrug. The voice went on in its language that was quite intelligible, but alien-sounding with the changes that nine hundred years had wrought. "Perhaps, if you realize your position, you will follow the intelligent example of the Quest I's commander."
 
 Knof Llud stiffened. The Quest I , launched toward Arcturus and the star cloud called Berenice's Hair, had been after the Quest III the most hopeful of the expeditions—and its captain had been a good friend of Llud's, nine hundred years ago.... He growled, "What happened to him?"
 
 "He fought off our interceptors, which are around you now, for some time," said the voice lightly. "When he saw that it was hopeless, he preferred suicide to defeat, and took his ship into the Sun." A short pause. "The vision connection is ready."
 
 Knof Llud switched on the screen at the named wavelength, and a picture formed there. The face and figure that appeared were ugly, but undeniably a man's. His features and his light-brown skin showed the same racial characteristics possessed by those aboard the Quest III , but he had an elusive look of deformity. Most obviously, his head seemed too big for his body, and his eyes in turn too big for his head.
 
 He grinned nastily at Knof Llud. "Have you any other last wishes?"
 
 "Yes," said Llud with icy control. "You haven't answered one question. Why do you want to kill us? You can see we're as human as you are."
 
 The big-headed man eyed him with a speculative look in his great eyes, behind which the captain glimpsed the flickering raw fire of a poisonous hatred.
 
 "It is enough for you to know that you must die."
What is the plot of the story?
105
072b266a911a4f7e8c3768c11a49f65d
A spaceship named Quest III is moving towards a color-changing star, but this time it is the Sun. The crew is excited, their journey is coming to its end and they are coming home. The captain says they have sighted Earth. Talking burst out happily, the captain's wife is anxious about nothing being the same after nine hundred years on Earth, while it was only ten for the crew in space. The course to Earth is set and the whole crew is filled with anticipation. The captain can't find how to kill time and delves into upsetting thoughts about the failure of the venture. The captain rewatches his record from the beginning of the voyage. It shows his hopes fading with every new planet proving unfit for settlement and the Earth years increasing rapidly and frighteningly. By then, the captain had an idea of going to Omega Centauri without returning to Earth, as this planet was more than forty thousand years away from Earth. The reasoning was that the captain didn't want to bring news of a failure to Earth, but eventually he decided to return no matter what. Back to reality, the captain starts thinking about his awaiting future on Earth, when a jar goes  through the ship. Very soon the captain calms down, considering a meteoroid to be the reason, but a call informs him the ship is attacked by other ships. The captain rushes up joined by his son, the whole crew is panicking. The ship is not harmed though and still landing, as there is no other place for it to go. The attack seems well-planned and the crew broadcasts an audio wave, asking the attackers who they are and introducing themselves. There is no answer and Zost, a crew member, traces no lights or urban features on Earth, even no trees or grass are detected. Suddenly, a strange voice acknowledges that the other two ships were destroyed, and Quest III will be as well if it continues towards Earth. The captain learns out soon that the voice simply tries to frighten them and is not that confident, and is told that Quest I preferred suicide to defeat and went into the Sun. The vision connection happens and the man on the other side avoids the question why, proclaiming that the Quest III's crew must die. 

101
9d862c432df04bae9ec3d9dea1a72ad0
The Quest III has spent ten years on a voyage into space in search of a habitable planet for humanity to live on following an overpopulation crisis on Earth. However, because of space travel and how it warps time, the ten years on Quest III have actually been 900 years on Earth, and now, after failing to find said planet, the ship is returning home. The captain of Quest III, Knof Llud, reports to the crew that they have identified Earth, and the crew is excited and emotional about the prospect of going home. Llud's wife, Lesra, expresses fear about what the ship would be returning to on Earth, but Llud reassures her. Llud finds Den, the Navigator, who asks him about the reception they would get when returning to Earth. Llud goes to his cabin, feeling drained from the voyage, and reflects on the past ten years, watching old tapes documenting the trip and its discoveries. He notes another discovery that the ship had made about Omega Centauri, a global cluster that could have been the home of a planet for humanity. However, Llud had to choose between returning to Earth and going to Omega Centauri because of limited fuel on the ship, and he had hesitantly decided to return home. As Quest III approaches Earth, they are attacked by unknown spacecrafts. Fearful, the crew analyzes the spacecrafts, which are surprisingly small. Quest III has a strong armor, but the crafts repeatedly attack the ship, with more and more approaching. The crew notes these as robot crafts, but it is soon discovered that they are tiny spaceships. Since the last 900 years on Earth, humans have gotten smaller, eventually evolving into minuscule beings. One of the small men reveals that Quest I had returned and also been attacked before surrendering and flying into the Sun, and advises that Quest III do the same. Llud asks them why they want to kill Quest III, to which they respond that they "must die"
103
eb6c2691f72b40c2b1698ef91da08ab5
It has been nine hundred years since Quest III left Earth. The space ship that is set to explore the space and find some planet that might be suitable for living, since Earth has reached a dangerously unstable phase. Due to the time axis of a space ship approaching light speed, it has been only ten years for thee passengers aboard on the ship. The story begins with Knof Llud, the captain of Quest III, announcing that they have sighted Earth. Though it just appears as a featureless disk on the telescope, people cheered and cried. Then the captain’s wife, Lesra, seems to be worried about what has happened to Earth during this nine hundred years that they were gone. She worries that they won’t fit in, and everything they once were familiar with are different now. During this few hours before they reach Earth, the captain goes to his private office-cabin and started to view records of their trip. He first views one among the earliest. In the record, he was energetic and, despite a blank visit to Procyon, there was idealism. Then the captain selected a later one where they still have not find any planets. They are starting to believe that the Sun’s world is a rare accident. Finally he takes a record that is only four years old, when they’ve reached the furthest point from Earth, according to the plan. While they could have gone to Omega Centauri, a cluster of stars twenty thousand light years away. They decided to turn back and return to Earth. 

Suddenly, as they get close to Earth, they are under attack by a few very small ships. The captain was relieved since those small ships does not carry large enough weapons to damage  Quest III, the crew on board almost do not feel the vicious onslaught being done to their ship. As more and more groups of attackers arrive, while some of the earlier ones go back for refill of ammunition, they start to get worried and believe that this is a planned attack. They start to broadcast questions asking the attacker to identify themselves. Finally, the images of Earth arrive, and to their surprise, it seems as if mold has covered all the cities. Then the attackers’ voice comes back, stating that they know who they are and tells them to stop coming toward Earth, or they will be destroyed like the other Quest ships. 
104
f47f264be6dd4c0eb4aeab610596aa2e
The story begins aboard a ship called Quest III. The ship has been traversing the galaxy for years and is now returning to Earth. The story begins with the captain of the ship, Knof Llud, descending into a recreation room where many of the crew members are gathered. He announces to the group that they have spotted Earth. The crowd reacts openly with feelings of excitement and joy. His wife, Lesra, expresses her own feelings of nervousness about the unknown that Earth brings. The captain too has his own doubts. 

The ship gets closer to Earth and they are able to experience the Sun. The Navigator, Gwar Den, asks the captain if he has any thoughts about the reception they might receive upon their return. The captain says no one can be sure. Knof goes to his private office cabin to wait until there is more news about their approach to Earth. As he is waiting, he thinks through the 900 Earth years that he has spent on the ship. He listens through recordings of himself when he was much younger and relives the feelings it felt at the time. He thinks about how he had the option to pursue an expedition of the globular cluster of Omega Centauri but instead chose to return to Earth. He cannot think of why he really chose to return to Earth besides the longing and familiarity it had. 

During the captain’s time of reflection, there is a sudden jolt on the ship. The captain because confused about the potential trouble. He is informed by Den that the ship is being attacked. He orders the alarms to be sound in response. Den details that there are multiple tiny crafts attacking their ship. The attacks were not damaging the ship, but they were dangerous because they were depleting the already very limited fuel supply. 

Eventually, the attackers make contact with the Quest III. The captain talks to the person and believes that they are trying to frighten them because they are frightened themselves. He is able to confirm that the person he is speaking to is human, but is unable to discern why he seems so strange. The voice continues to threaten to kill him and the rest of the crew on the ship. 


How does the captain feel about the voyage and return?
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The captain is very responsible concerning his position and keeps an impassive voice and appearance in relation to all events. To his wife though he shows warmth and care, and expresses confidence in Earth's stability, he calms down his wife. Nevertheless, he also feels uncertain about the reception on Earth. Space is the captain's passion, but Earth is still his home. He is nervous about returning and alone with himself doesn't know how to distract. He becomes nostalgic rewatching the records from the beginning of the voyage and feels empty and old. He used to be full of excitement and energy about the mission, but it failed, and at some point he didn't even want to return with the news of failure after centuries, when everything changed. Nevertheless, the decision was made and there is no other choice now. The trip has changed the captain and now he feels aged and tired. He wants to retire and live with his family on Earth, he becomes nostalgic of its forests and green places, but not sure he wants it either. 
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The captain, Knof Llud, has dedicated ten years to running Quest III and searching for a place for humanity to live. He is a reassuring and comforting presence for the crew, and he comforts his wife about how they will manage returning to Earth. However, Llud internally feels a sense of disappointment and hopelessness when it comes to the failure of his voyage. He is also uncertain about his decision to return to Earth instead of going on to Omega Centauri, and is unsure why he made the decision in the first place. 
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The captain first tells him wife that there is nothing to worry about once they return, they will be able to manage. From the records, we learn that the captain was first very excited and energetic to find a planet that is suitable for them. However, as the trip continues, the captain starts to believe that the Sun’s world is somewhat of a rare accident. Then later, when they reach the furthest point of their plan, the captain knows the hope is small. But instead of going to the Omega Centauri where a large cluster of stars exist, the captain decides to turn back. Even though they’ve failed their mission on finding a new planet to settle, the captain knows that he is still a part of Earth, he has to come back. 
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The captain, Knof Llud, has his doubts of returning to Earth. He is nervous about the unknown that might await them. They have been gone from Earth for hundreds of generations and it cannot be predicted what awaits them on their return. He is in general uneasy about what could be waiting for them. The Captain recollects how he was hopeful in the beginning that they would be able to return to Earth and still see those they knew. However, as the voyage continued and they did not find anything hospital, he became more philosophical. 
How does the crew feel about approaching Earth?
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All the people are extremely excited to return, they keep talking and buzzing about it. Many are nervous about the centuries that have passed and about what they will find upon return. Lesra, the captain's wife, feels anxious, for a while she was even afraid the Earth won't be there. She is scared of how the Earth will look like now and tears fill her eyes. The navigator is also nervous about the reception they will get. When the ship is attacked, everyone is confused and scared, the mass panic starts. The captain has to maintain coolness and calm everyone down, but he is also anxious about the return. Moreover, he hates returning with failure and only does it because the ship ran out of fuel. So, the whole ship anticipates the return and misses home, but due to the long time far away, everyone is afraid of what awaits them.  
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The crew is mainly excited about approaching Earth. When they first receive the news that Earth has been identified, they are emotional and amazed; it has been 10 years for them being away from Earth, but 900 years have passed on Earth, so there is a present uncertainty about what will be waiting for them when they arrive. However, the crew is mainly happy to return to Earth, being homesick, and some of their children having never been on Earth. The crew feels a bittersweet mix of hope, fear, and relief. 
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Once the crew heard that they have sighted Earth, they were excited. They cheered and cried. However, the captain’s wife is worried that Earth has changed during this nine hundred years that they were gone. She worries that they won’t fit in, and everything they once were familiar with are different now. The captain tells that she does not need to worry, they will manage. Later, during the attack, people are confused and scared. They don’t know who are attacking them or why they attack. But the captain’s boy is not, he has faith in his father. Moreover, the boy mentions that while the attackers are mad, they aren’t. 
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The crew on board the spaceship approaching Earth was a mixture of emotions, but a consensus surrounded excitement. Adults were discussing in hushed tones their opinions of eagerness and some of the apprehension for the unknown that they might encounter upon return. When they hear that Earth has been spotted, they begin their exciting chatter again. They embraced each other, shouted, kissed, and wept in ecstasy. Fears were not dwelled upon during the initial moments of the approach. 
What was the plan and purpose of the voyage?
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A few ships were sent to space as a part of the mission. Quest III was one of them, but there also were Quest I and II. The purpose was for the ships to find a sun similar to the Sun somewhere in space, and a planet to live on, in case Earth will become unfit. This mission was of extreme importance for the whole of humanity and the crew felt honored and ready to sacrifice all they were leaving on Earth. Nevertheless, they kept hoping to return as fast as possible, but every sun was unfit. The amount of fuel for no more than one thousand Earth years was loaded before departure and the fairest point to reach was chosen. All three ships went different ways, and were cut from any communication. Nevertheless, Quest III was unable to find any fitting planet and had to return or stay in a place located more than forty thousand Earth years away. The captain decided to return, though the failure upset him. 
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The plan and purpose of the voyage was to find a planet that would be habitable enough to be colonized by Earth before humanity is eradicated by overpopulation and lack of resources. Three ships were sent out into space, Quest I, II, and III, and the current ship is the last to make its trip. Quest III traveled into space, stopping at countless planets, and once it reached the furthest point, turned back on a curve to return to Earth. However, the voyage was not successful, and Quest III has been unable to find a habitable planet. 
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The purpose of the voyage is to expand mankind into the universe. Due to the fact that the population on Earth was outgrowing its room and resources, and because the man’s room for growth on Earth was in sight, they have to be moved elsewhere. Thus three space ships were built, which exhausts the economy. Each ship, Quest, will try to find a habitable planet by going into the space from star to star. They plan to go to as far as one thousand years Earth time. Once a habitable planet is found, they will return to Earth, however they never find one and have to return after reaching the furthest point of their plan. 
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The purpose of the voyage was to continue with humanity’s dream and find another suitable planet to live on. Earth had begun overpopulated and humans needed to expand out of their solar system. Ships, along with Quest III, were created to search for other planets in the universe. The ships that were built were extremely costly and laborious. They required a united effort from all on Earth. The effort was energized by the hope that the human race would be able to continue and expand elsewhere in the universe.  There was hope that they would be able to return before a century on Earth, but those dreams were not realized. 
What is the significance of the captain's decision to return to Earth instead of going to Omega Centauri?
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The whole crew was getting homesick and excited about returning, even the captain became nostalgic of the forests and green areas. On the other hand, all the people the crew knew had died a long time ago, and there was some frightening uncertainty about what awaited them upon return. Therefore, the decision was hard to make. Even more difficult it was for the captain as he didn't want to return with the news of failure. Soon, it turns out that the return was a dangerous choice and the crew is not welcome. The ship is attacked and the enemy threatens to destroy the ship, which can't turn away as it is out of fuel. Therefore, this decision put the whole crew in danger instead of fulfilling their hopes for warm welcome and excitement to come home. 
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The captain could have advised the ship to go to Omega Centauri, a cluster of globes further past the point of Quest III's voyage. Omega Centauri contains many planets close to its Sun, and for this reason would likely be a place where several habitable planets can be found. However, Omega Centauri is too far for Quest III to make the trip there and back to Earth, so if they went there, they would not be able to return. The captain notes this risk, and decides to return back to Earth. However, this ends up being a mistake, and as Quest III returns to Earth they are attacked and unwelcome. 
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The Omega Centauri is space clustered with stars in comparison to a few dozen in the Sun’s neighborhood, but it is twenty thousand light years away. While Quest III could get to Omega Centauri with its remaining fuel, it can only be a one-way journey. Moreover, even if it has enough fuel for the round trip, forty thousand years would have passed, there is no point in returning, when it is unclear if human race itself still remains. Most importantly, the crew has been showing signs of homesick, despite the fact that what was known as home is probably gone. From the joy an tears of the passengers once they acknowledge Earth has been sighted, we know – they are happy and want to return home. Just as Llud stated, he is still a part of Earth. 
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Omega Centauri was a globular cluster that had a hundred thousand stars in a comparatively small volume. There was hope that Omega Centauri of all places would possess the planet necessary for human survival. The issue was that it was twenty thousand light-years away. With the limited fuel reserves that the Quest III ship had left, going to Omega Centauri would be a one-way trip. If the globular cluster proved to be as useless as every other location, the ship and its crew members would have no fuel to go anywhere else. Earth was a safer option because its existence was reality, at least when the ships left 900 Earth years ago. Omega Centauri was very uncertain. 