On the nightmare trip back to the humidi-hut, Selo was sturdily self-reliant. In fact, on several occasions when the shifting dust made footing insecure, she came to Yancey's assistance. It was Selo who found the auxiliary water cache, one day's journey from the humidi-hut, and led Yancey to it when he had lost the trail. Nature seemed to have equipped Selo for the environmental hazards of the Desert Rouge.
In the early days of their life at the humidi-hut, Yancey worked constantly to convince himself that things were as he had imagined they would be. Certainly Selo was a tireless worker. Her only concern was his comfort. Nonetheless, she was, he decided after two months, a wonderful servant, but no companion.
Her attitude toward Yancey was depressingly similar to that she had toward her uncle, the restaurant owner. This was a strange mixture of respect and fear. And, at times, as he sat alone with her through an endless evening, it came to Yancey that there was also an element of hate.
He found two more small quolla stones, but Selo failed to share his enthusiasm for the gems. She regarded them with a stolid indifference. He remembered that the Venusians placed no value on the stones.
The accumulation of the fortune in quolla stones was not moving at quite the pace he had imagined. The jewels, it appeared, were not to be found in large quantities. They must be painfully searched out in the remotest, most wind-tortured sections of the Desert Rouge.
Succumbing to the usual fit of despondency, Yancey was toying with the notion of abandoning the whole project—returning Selo to Athens and taking a space tramp back to earth—when Brian Daniels stumbled into the humidi-hut.
There had been no visitors in more than three weeks. Daily, Selo's defiant passivity rankled more and more. Having abused her verbally and physically for an hour on that particular day, Yancey had stormed out into the murk and spent a frustrating afternoon in his futile search for quollas.
He staggered back through the veil of red dust, cursing his rotten luck, cursing Selo, cursing Venus and the twisted destiny that had brought him there. Since Venus and destiny were more or less impervious, he had determined to relieve his frustration by beating Selo.
A fine frenzy had been achieved when he stepped through the vac-lock and saw her. She was sitting on the floor with a stranger's head cradled in her lap. The stranger was making light moaning noises and Selo was soothing him with a little crooning sound as she forced water between his blistered lips.
Yancey's fine anger was lost. "Where did he come from?" he growled, towering over Selo and the stranger.