"Oh, no," the hostess protested, without much conviction in her voice. Mrs. Grimm smiled and led the way back to the galley. In a moment she had the water for our coffee steaming on the chemical burner. The stewardess meanwhile was smearing the current butter-substitute on slivers of bread and arranging the buttered triangles into Maltese crosses on our plates. Thus Miss Barrie brought us tiffin.
The Martian took his coffee black. He sat looking into it as he sipped, as though apologizing for his alien presence. Mrs. Swaime, more practiced than the rest of us in this act of informal refection, took a slice of bread and a cup of sugar-thick coffee and talked. She steered clear of the grim topics around us, turning her attention instead to Mr. Rhinklav'n, who sparkled back at her like a grateful mirror. "Is this your first visit to Earth?" she asked him.
"No, indeed. I spent several years at your excellent University at Sao Paulo," the yellow man said. "That was some time ago, of course." He refrained from saying just how long ago. The Martian lifespan makes humanity's scant three-score and ten look feeble.
The Surgeon-General asked me quietly, "Why, exactly, are we held here?"
"As long as the body is back there the pumps can't run. Safety devices prevent the capsule from moving so long as there's a foreign body in the Tube." I stopped, suddenly aware of my clumsy, accidental pun.
"All right," Dr. Raimazan said. "We'll have to move the corpse into the capsule, and take it to Bahia with us."
"It will be the worst sort of job," I said.
"If the repair crew takes more than a day, we're in for trouble anyway." He was right. This was February, our hottest month. "You have a strong stomach?" he asked.
"No." I hurried forward to tell Miss Barrie of our decision. She gave us a lamp and a blanket, and phoned the surface to tell them what we were doing. The doctor and I locked the air-tight door of the galley behind us.