She gave a short laugh. They would never know whether she did it from sheer altruism or because she was scared to death at the idea of being exposed to andryorelitis.
She blinked. The sky flared briefly ahead of her in a brilliant and colorful display of some auroral discharge. It illuminated one full quarter of the celestial hemisphere in flowing color. Sandra thought and remembered a man saying: "The charge on Station One is so great that at twenty thousand feet it would arc a million miles or more." The words and the distances were forgotten, and probably wrong due to her faulty memory for those details, but she did remember something of that nature.
Obviously, one of the Stations had landed with a load of Silicon-acetyldiethyl-sulfanomid. The not-quite-perfectly neutralized electronic charge must have ionized the upper air in a sprinkling corona.
From another corner of the sky, a similar flare of color flashed, and it was followed by flashes from near and far, each one creating a streaking display of celestial fireworks.
At the sight of that auroral display, Sandra's head went up, her shoulders went back, and there returned to her step a bit of that lilting walk. She smiled crookedly and then broke into that saucy grin. She set her foot on the road to Dorana, from where she could get a ride back to Indilee.
There were Terrans here, all right. Her Terrans that nothing ever stopped. They came—and brought the goods with them.
But—who brought them?
Sandra Drake.
Throughout the night, the flashing of the celestial fireworks told the whole planet that Terrans were bringing the needed drug to Telfu. And with each flash, as with each mile, a bit of the old Sandra Drake returned.
There were a lot of miles back to the Haywire Queen.