For Wainer went out into space at last, into the sweet dark home between the stars, moving toward the only great moment he would ever have.
The Rashes wanted to see how his lungs would react in alien atmospheres. Not in a laboratory—Wainer refused—but out in the open Sun, out in the strange alien air of the worlds themselves, Wainer was set down. On each of a dozen poisonous worlds he walked. He opened his helmet while we tiny men watched. He breathed.
And he lived.
He lived through methane, through carbon dioxide, through nitrogen and propane. He existed without air at all for an incredible time, living all the while as he never had before, with a wonderful, glowing excitement. And then at last there was that final world which was corrosive. It was too much, and Wainer smiled regretfully, holding himself upright with dignity by the base of an alien rock, and still smiling, never once moving to close his helmet, he died.
There was a long pause. The old man was done.
They looked at him with the deep compassion that his own race had denied to those who were different or lesser than themselves.