Here Kaarji faltered slightly in his story. He had not seen the vehicle plainly enough nor long enough to describe it as other than a car, seemingly unlike any he had ever seen before. It was simply round and grayish and metallic, and completely enclosed. It had a bluish beam of light in the front of it. Frank Landor had seemed to enter the car—and then it sped away with him.
"Kaarji, try to remember," Jim said to the Martian now. "Frank entered the car of his own volition? You saw no one else, no other person?"
"No one else." Kaarji seemed sure of it.
Jim shook his head in puzzlement. This was the same story Kaarji had told Conley, there were no discrepancies.
They walked on to the mine in silence. Jim examined several tunnels leading back into the hills and saw that Frank's claim had indeed petered out. In his iron-walled cabin, everything was left as though Frank had merely gone and intended to return in a few days.
"Let's go back," Jim said finally. "Nothing we can do here."
On the walk back to Riida, Jim thought that Kaarji looked at him several times as though he were going to speak. But when Jim questioned him, the Martian shook his head negatively. He offered Kaarji another cigarette but this time it was declined.
It was not until then that Jim realized he was still chewing on the Martian tsith stems, and that Kaarji was grinning at him.
It was not until he reached the edge of town that he became violently ill.