Morrissey was at last forced to take his thermiteen away from him. He sobbed and pleaded for water. He swore that his tongue was swollen with thirst, that his body was dehydrated. He cursed Morrissey ... the desert ... the service ... his own ill fortune. He made his will, he resigned from the service, he called upon God to avenge his death at the sands of the heartless Morrissey. And finally, after two days on the pitiless griddle of the Desert Rouge, he was half-carried through the vac-lock at the humidi-hut.
Only his hatred for Morrissey made him stay. Every instinct told him to return to Athens with the patrol. Let the commandant hire some other fool to stay there in the midst of the desert, supplying succor for those who were stupid enough to face the rigors of the hell outside. Instinct warned him to leave but hatred forced him to stay. The contempt in Morrissey's eyes permitted him no alternative. The patrol left and Yancey stayed in the humidi-hut.
The first few days were a nightmare. He seemed in a waking dream. Hour upon hour he simply sat and stared at the precious machinery that kept temperature and humidity at ideal levels. Every few minutes he would half-run to check the water supply, touch the water to his lips, anxiously work the controls to be certain that nothing had jammed.
Every second was filled with but one preoccupation: What would happen if the machinery failed?
But the machinery performed in its precise and unhurried way, and from its dependability, he began to draw a degree of confidence. He had let the orange hell outside unnerve him. One could almost think that particles of the wind-driven dust had penetrated his mind and prevented its proper functioning.
Why should he be apprehensive? Hadn't everything worked out exactly as he had planned? The job was his. He had the security of three hundred credits a month and a perfect opportunity to search for quolla stones. The superior attitude of that captain—what was his name—Morrissey—had momentarily shaken his resolve. Now, Morrissey was gone. The time for huddling inside was over. The sooner the quolla stones were his, the sooner he could leave the humidi-hut, make the sort of life he had always wanted for himself in Athens.
Yancey didn't take risks. The first few excursions, he made from the humidi-hut were within a radius of fifty yards of his headquarters. Gradually, as he became more accustomed to his plasti-shield, to the murk of the world outside, he grew bolder and bolder. He made several trips to replenish the cache of water half-way between the humidi-hut and Athens. He became very clever in establishing land-marks for himself and he found that with practice, his endurance lengthened. He could go much longer without a drink from his thermiteen and the wind no longer drained him of all vitality.
A little more than a month after Morrissey left him at the humidi-hut, Yancey found his first quolla stone. It wasn't a large one, and it was far from perfect, but for Yancey it seemed the good omen he needed. The quolla stones were there to be found. With a little perseverance he could make the rest of his dream come true.
The one inescapable hazard of Yancey's life was the loneliness. Visitors to the station were few, an occasional patrol of space militia, a prospector, or a party of geologists. The days and nights between were long and empty. Yancey would sit polishing the lone quolla stone he had found, wondering if he could stick it out until he had accumulated enough to carry out his long range scheme.
Often, as he groped through the constant veil of orange dust in his search for the gems, he would imagine that there was someone waiting for him at the station, someone to whom he could talk of the difficulties he had faced, someone who could share, perhaps, the dream he held. But, when he passed through the vac-lock, there would be no one—only the monotonous purr of the machinery.