His mind assured him that this was right and he felt a little better, but not much.
"So what's eating me? A hunch? Intuition? Or just alien-planet nerves?" he went on. "Why should I wake up in the middle of the night feeling scared? Aren't my men all present and accounted for? Aren't they sleeping quietly, just as they should be?"
Feeling annoyed with his own nebulous fears, Lloyd sat up again and looked over the groups, Ulkay's and his own. As he watched, Kroner grunted in his sleep and rolled over. Tandy's helmet emitted gentle snoring noises. Harrison and Craig lay more quietly, but their chests could be seen, even in that dim light, rising and falling normally. Lloyd excoriated his imagination for worrying him—it had fed him a quick suggestion that perhaps his companions' masks had been slit, suffocating them silently to death.
"I must trust Ulkay; it's necessary," said Lloyd to himself. "I can't let these groundless fears spoil future relations between Earth and Venus. The Venusians are friendly and intelligent, and not really odd-looking, once you discount the number of digits on their hands and a few unearthly color schemes on their torsos. So what am I scared of?"
Cold touched his spine, shocking him into alertness, as he isolated his fear. He rolled over and shook Kroner awake with barbaric callousness.
"Huh? Wha?" said Kroner, sitting up.
"Sergeant," said Lloyd, trying to confide his fear to the other man, "when we got here, we were nervous about making contact with aliens, right?"
"Yeah," Kroner said sleepily. "But it turned out okay, sir, didn't it?" He shook his groggy head. "I mean, Ulkay and his bunch are okay, aren't they?"
"Yeah," said Lloyd shakily. "They are fine—but, Kroner, they're not the right aliens!"
It took Kroner a moment to get it. When he did, he came awake with a jolt. "And we haven't even posted a guard!"