"Fine," Greg grunted. In his mind he was frantically reciting a rhyme his grandmother had taught him ago, "One two, buckle my shoe; three four, open the door...." Reciting it with fervor, like a prayer for survival—which it was.
"After this, Captain, it might be better if you stayed in the colonies. Don't get me wrong. You're welcome on earth anytime you want to come home, but conditions are different here and...."
Suddenly the boy's tone changed. "But you aren't responsible, Captain!"
Greg's muscles tensed. So the boy had probed that deep!
"A new frontier always means change, Captain—but not tragedy; not defeat! We've never supposed any of you would believe that. You gave us a miracle, the greatest frontier men have ever crossed. When all the other pioneers are forgotten, Captain, your name...."
Pretty words, like the pretty speeches Greg had listened to twenty years ago. They wanted to confuse him, make him doubt the decision he had made. "One two, buckle my shoe! Three four, open the door!"
The boy caught Greg's sleeve. "You might as well blame Galileo or Copernicus because they studied the universe. Or go back to the beginning. Blame the unknown who did our first scientific pioneering."
Copernicus and Galileo? What was the kid trying to say? And why would a twelve year old speak so glibly—so knowingly—of the giants? That proved his alienness. When Greg was twelve, the only thing he had thought about seriously was football or baseball or summer vacation or how he was going to get out of the piano lessons his mother imposed on him.
The boy pulled him to a stop. "The first pioneer, Captain: do you blame him for it all? We don't know his name, but we do have his monument. Look, Captain Greg." In the drifting sand the boy sketched the outline of a wheel.
Greg panicked. He was too intent upon keeping his mind impregnable to make any other interpretation. The wheel symbolized the satellite riding above the earth; then the boy knew what Greg was going to do.