"He should only know what gchik means," Ppon sniggered mentally.
"Little Gchik is barren, dying, its past glories all but forgotten," Sam almost sobbed, "but still its simple, warm-hearted inhabitants carry on bravely...."
"Couldn't we do something for them?" suggested the stout female.
Everybody murmured assent. This contingency arose all too often—a result of our being just too lovable.
"No one can help us," I said in a deep voice, pulling the cloak over my face. The idzik feathers trimming it tickled like crazy. "We must dree our own weird alone. Besides, the air of Gchik has a deleterious effect upon human beings if they're exposed to it for longer than four hours."
There was a mad scramble to reach the ship.
"Stand by the atmosphere machine, Hsoj," I instructed, "to poison a little air in case anybody wants to take a sample."
The scientist actually did, in a little bottle he seemed to have brought along for the purpose; but he got off the "asteroid" as rapidly as the rest of them, after that.
We watched the spaceship dwindle to a silver mote in the distance.
"Whew," Ppon thought, sinking to the surface. "That war dance sure takes a lot out of a fellow."