On Thursday We Leave for Home

Plot

Thirty years before, in 1991, an expedition to the hellish desert planet V9-Gamma was stranded, and the 113 colonists had no choice but to begin their small settlement there, under the perpetual daylight of two suns. The group's current leader, Captain Benteen, was 15 when the expedition first landed. He maintains a totalitarian grip upon the group of (now) 187 men, women and children; he believes that his strict discipline prevents them from giving up hope in the harsh, unyielding environment. The children born on V9-Gamma hang on his every word when he tells them about the Earth, "a place of color ... with streams of water ... clouds, white billowy things ... night skies, like endless black velvet (that came out) when the Earth went to sleep ... darkness, that felt like a cool hand..."

When a rescue mission from Earth finally arrives, Benteen is at first as jubilant as the others, but then he quickly begins to raise objections to his loss of control over them. When Benteen tries to run a meeting about weight restrictions and documentation, the colonists are more interested in stories of modern Earth told by the rescue mission's Colonel Sloane. Sloane later tells one of his crew that Benteen is quite a guy, who kept his people alive, but that he "thinks he's a god, that we're bullying him out of his heaven." Benteen tells Sloane that "his" colonists are like children, who will want to stay in a group under his guidance on their return to Earth. He is shocked when they announce their own ideas for when they return, so he tries to persuade them to stay on V9-Gamma as Earth is a place of "violence... hatreds... jealousy... we will DIE". When they still choose to return home, Benteen announces that he will remain behind – alone if he must – despite Sloane's warning that no other ships will return.

On the day the colonists board the ship, Sloane and Benteen's second-in-command, Al Baines, search for Benteen to give him one last chance to change his mind, but he is nowhere to be found. After they give up and leave, he is seen to be hiding inside the cave that had sheltered his people. As the ship takes off, Benteen tells his stories of a garden like Earth to the children—as if they are still sitting with him. Then, remembering the beauty of Earth, he realizes that he wants to go home. He rushes out screaming for the ship to come back, but he is now stranded on V9-Gamma for the rest of his life, completely alone in the barren, lifeless deserts.