Norma leaped to her feet. "You good-for-nothing bum!" she screeched at Farradyne. "Why did you do it?"
"You wouldn't leave me alone, Norma," said Farradyne softly. "So I've brought you home where they'll take care of you and keep you out of my hair."
"I'll come after you!" she raved. "I'll get you for this!"
"Not if I see you first," he told her. "This is it."
"Why do you hurt everything you touch?" she cried.
"Now who?"
"Me." For the first time, Farradyne saw tears of genuine sorrow. There was anger at him, too, but remorse there was a-plenty. "Why hurt my people!" she asked. "Why can't they just call me dead and let it go at that? I'm worse than dead."
Then her face froze again and she looked at Kingman. "All right," she said in a hard voice. "Let's go and hurt my folks to death. Let's get it over with. You pair of money-grubbing ghouls."
She started toward the spacelock, waving her forefinger at Kingman, who followed. Her face wore a coldly distant expression as she left the Lancaster. Kingman's driver took them off. She did not turn back to look at Farradyne.
And that was that. Farradyne retracted the ramp, closed the spacelock and not long afterwards hiked the ship into the sky and headed for Mercury.