"Ah ... to hell with it!" the pilot burst out, furious with himself. He started to kneel and apologize; saw the futility of it, and turned away abruptly, striding toward the long silver ship. "Get these screwballs out of the way!" he snapped, irritable in his shame. "We've got work to do! We'll have to refine this sola on a night-and-day shift! No rest for anybody ... and twenty shocks to any of you jet-monkeys I catch trying to go over the hill! You got that?"
"Yes sir!"
"Yes-sir, Cap'n!"
"Yousa! I hears you talkin'!" This from Harris, who had strolled after him, checking over his charts carefully for the return flight.
Cantrell glared at him. "And that goes for you, too—Romeo!" he growled. "No fraternizing with the natives!"
"Fraternize! With those women?" Harris shuddered, thumbs in the studded belt of his spacesuit. "Listen, I'd have to be drunker'n I've ever been on Mars or Venus!" He broke off, looking at his friend with faint reproach. "You shouldn't have kicked that poor slob, though. Section 382-XV: No overt act of violence unless to repell attack ... you read your Handbook lately, chum?"
Cantrell grunted, struck one fist into his other palm sheepishly. "I know it. I didn't mean to. But—licking my foot! But I'll make it up to him. Some way...."
"Sure!" Harris's eyes softened. Throwing an arm around Cantrell's shoulders, he locked step with him as they walked up the gangplank. "Easy enough. If it's a vitamin deficiency, like Jim says, why—it'll be a cinch for us to help these poor joes! We can ship chemicals from Terra, every return-trip. Teach 'em to grow food by hydro-vat methods. We could make a new world for them!"
The pilot nodded eagerly, his pleasant, alert face full of plans for those pitifully stunted creatures, now melting back into the pale jungle in obedience to the crewmen shooing them from the vicinity of dangerous—and valuable—machinery.
Cantrell grinned. "We can try vitamin therapy right away," he said happily. "Take, say, ten of the kids and feed them a test-diet for the forty days we're here, loading up sola. May take years of treatment to get them looking like people again, but—we can sure try!"