"Only, I can't see why they couldn't have let us know. It doesn't seem fair."
I had an answer for that. "It's hush-hush because they don't want people to know about the meteor danger. That's why."
Mrs. Millis got up and said she wasn't feeling so well, and would I excuse her and she'd see me in the morning. The rest of us didn't seem to have much to say to each other, and nobody objected when I went up to my bedroom a little later.
I was getting ready to turn in when there was a knock on the door. It was Breck's father, and he came in and looked at me steadily.
"It was just a story, wasn't it?" he said.
I said, "Yes. It was just a story."
His eyes bored into me and he said, "I guess you've got your reasons. Just tell me one thing. Whatever it was, did Breck behave right?"
"He behaved like a man, all the way," I said. "He was the best man of us, first to last."
He looked at me, anc~l guess something made him believe me. He shook hands and said, "All right, son. We'll let it go." I'd had enough. I wasn't going to face them again in the morning. I wrote a note, thanking them all and making ex- cuses, and then went down and slipped quietly out of the house.
It was late, but a truck coming along picked me up, and the driver said he was going near the airport. He asked me what it was like on Mars and I told him it was lonesome. I slept in a chair at the airport, and I felt better, for next day I'd be home, and it would be over.