I said, "Well, you look like a new man!"—which he did, and, "You're looking fine!" I said—which he wasn't.
He turned his head slowly, studied me with grave, questioning eyes. His voice was faint, but low and pleasing.
"You are Mr. Brait, the Second Mate? I believe I have you to thank for having rescued me?"
"That's all right," I told him.
"Why," he interrupted gently, "did you do it?"
I said, "Oh, come now! You've got to perk up! You get a little flesh on your bones and you'll feel better."
But he went on, as though not hearing my words, "It was a chance. The best chance I've had for years—a thousand years—and you took it from me. Out there I might have found peace at last. The power cannot—it must not—extend into the depths of space."
His voice had risen; there was a light of madness, of strange, savage intensity in his eyes. I felt the little hairs on the back of my neck pringling. I knew, now, that the man had not come unscathed through his experience. He was space crazy. Wildly, desperately so. I said, in what I hoped was a soothing voice,
"Now, take it easy, Mr.—er—Moran, isn't it?"