"Yes," Hinckley said in a disturbed tone. "Parker. We've got to find him before he does anything he shouldn't. He must be in one of the huts. C'mon. You take one side of the village, I'll take the other. When we find him, we'll blast off."
But they didn't find him. They searched through all the buildings, peered into all the faces.
"I don't like it," Compton said when they met. "The people may be helpless, but that doesn't mean everything on the planet is. We've got to get out of here while we've got the chance."
"Take it easy," Hinckley advised. "We can't leave without Parker. He's probably hiding someplace."
"Hiding?"
"Hoping we'll take off and leave him alone here. He'd be perfectly safe. He could take anything he wanted—food, drink, anything—and these people couldn't raise a finger to stop him; they wouldn't even know he was here, most likely. If I know Parker that's what he'd want. He wouldn't care about the people as long as he satisfied himself."
"We'll never find him," Compton said. "There's a forest beyond the village. If he got into that, we could search for months and not find him."
Hinckley shrugged. "We've got to try."
Night came before they returned to the rocket.
Hinckley shook his head in the gathering darkness. "He could be anyplace out there, damn him."