He was being facetious and I did not answer him. He knew why I was here.
Overhead a faint click came from the light globe, a sound that probably only I noticed, and I knew that my alarm had gone off. I judged it would take the police only a few minutes to reach here.
"Or are you going to pretend that the medics have found a way to boil the bugs out of us?" Zealley asked. Did I detect a concealed pleading for just that assurance?
I shook my head. "No, they haven't found any way, Howard," I obliterated the hope.
"Good old Max." Bitterness crept into his voice. "Faithful, selfless old Max. Going to save the world. Going to save the whole of humanity," he amended expansively.
He hadn't changed too much. Sarcasm had always come natural with him, which made it no more likable.
He might have said dull, stupid, cloddish old Max. The words would have better matched the tone of his voice. At that, he might be right. The authorities back on our home world of New Nebraska had said pretty much the same thing, only more diplomatically.
"You and Zealley are different," I'd been told. "That was one of the reasons we made you a team, originally. Zealley is clever and imaginative, but basically an egotist. A to-hell-with-the-other-fellow character. Fortunately, you're not like him. You're a man who accepts his responsibilities, a man with a strong sense of duty. We know we can trust you." Whether it was actually trust or only that they had little choice, I had not let myself decide.
"We had such high hopes." Zealley was reminiscing, speaking more to himself than to me.