And sometime, Caffrey thought, alone and facing himself at last, a man has got to stop being tough. You can't live with yourself forever and be tough. Just once you've got to do something for your self-respect. He knew it, and all the cursing and shouting could not cover up the fact that he knew it.
There was a chance for them. But the chance might be deadly, more than deadly, to Sol's worlds. The androids didn't matter. They were pieces of metal and plastic and skin, constructed to get sick, but they didn't matter.
Caffrey laughed. They didn't matter. But they mattered when you thought of Doc being shaken to pieces in agony. Too perfectly made, they were. He laughed out loud at the tremendous mighty irony of the joke.
Dillman came in the door.
"What are we going to do, Captain?"
Caffrey stood up and sighed. He walked to the com system. He opened it. He spoke into it for a few moments. He shut it off. He turned to Dillman.
"That's what we're going to do," he said.
Dillman began to yell. He hit Caffrey, pummelled at him, screamed in fear. Caffrey had to knock him down on the floor and hit him with his cane. None of the other men gave him trouble.
Carefully, he moved to the course computer.
He made corrections in the directional tape. The ship began to groan. It swung into a new course. Caffrey took one final look at Mars, thinking of the quiet days shuttling people to the Temple Ruins west of Red Sands, of the liquor and the warm, laughing women. But no more.