He didn't answer.
A moment of silence. At last Eileen said, "I—I think I'll go to bed. I'm still awfully tired. That fever...."
Her voice trailed away. Then, after another moment, her shoes whispered on the cradle-plates.
Still Boone stared bleakly out into the darkness.
The whispering footsteps faded, died. He stood alone, in utter silence. Even the murmur of the breeze in the trees about the ship was stilled.
That stillness—it made him frown a little. It wasn't natural, somehow.
As a matter of fact, was anything natural in this weird, ice-shelled wonderland? Even the flowers lacked kinship with those he'd known on Earth.
Or did they?
It came to him in a flash that what he needed now was action. The night, the silence, the bitter disillusion—they'd rasped his nerves in a raw tension. Unless he cut it loose, something would snap.
The flowers, then, could serve as an outlet.