V'gu opened his mouth as if to answer. Then he closed it again. He looked over his shoulder into his spaceship's entrance.
A reporter asked, "What about the nova, Mr. V'gu?"
"I was—I was very well acquainted with the people who caused it," V'gu said slowly. "Very well acquainted. I—cannot imagine why it happened."
"It was a war, wasn't it, Mr. V'gu?"
"A war?" V'gu looked up again and hesitated. "Yes, I suppose it was."
A moment later he added, apparently without reason, "I've been away from home a long time."
"How long will it take you to get back home, Mr. V'gu?"
"Get back?" V'gu looked around vaguely, his shoulders slumped. He looked less alien, somehow, and more like the men around him, and more likeable. He looked back to his questioner. "Oh. Oh yes, I'm ... I've changed my mind. You may tell your papers that I've—ah—decided to extend my stay with you. For—for some time, I think."
The youngest reporter asked suddenly, "Did the nova have anything to do with you changing your mind? With this decision, I mean."
The tall greenish man in the odd clothes came down the gangplank and entered the crowd, peering about as if he had forgotten the microphones and the cameras he was supposed to be speaking to. Then he saw his object and went through the crowd to him. It was an airfield official.