Kirk stood, his dismay and anxiety increasing by the minute. What was he going to do?
He said, finally, "We'll have to wait. Ferdias' man is bound to be along soon."
"You mean—perhaps stay here all night?" said Lyllin. "But food, and beds—"
"We'd better look around," he said unhappily.
They found fairly new blankets on the beds. And in the old kitchen cupboards was food in the self-heating plastipacks.
"We can make out," he said. "But it's a hell of a thing."
While Lyllin prepared their supper, he went out and restlessly walked around the place. The weedy yard ran into brushy fields and nearby woods. The old barn was empty, and the outbuildings were shabby and forlorn.
He did not think much of Earth, if this was a sample. He went back inside, and helped Lyllin solve the puzzle of an ancient sink. Even the reddening sunset light pouring through the windows could not make the old wooden walls and worn cupboards look less dingy.
He said so, and Lyllin smiled. "It's not so bad. We'll eat out on that back porch—it's less musty there."
The porch was not screened, and friendly insects dropped in upon them as they ate. The whole western sky was a flare of red, great bastions of crimson cloud building ever higher. Under the sunset, beyond the fields, the ragged woods brooded darkly.