They crowded about him. Their foul smelling bodies pressed close. They seemed not to have heard what he said. Their fingers touched his arms and seemed to fumble at his clothing. Worried by the alien behavior, he glanced around the group. Their dried-prune faces told him nothing.
Then, abruptly, Toomar spoke, "Of course. We would welcome you to our hospitality. But you must go to your ship. Go with our blessings. You have graced our burrow."
The crowding Martians melted away and allowed him access to the ladder leading to the surface. He scurried out of the stinking burrow, glad to breathe again the clear, light air of the desert. But a sudden sound as he emerged from the shaft made him whirl his head about.
A low flying patrol plane was vanishing rapidly northward.
Roal switched on the controls of the transmitter which he had cut off in the burrow. "SBI patrol. Hartford calling. Directly behind you."
"Look, Bud. What's the idea playing hide and seek in that hole?"
Roal grinned into the mike. "Hi, Shorty. Lucky you didn't have to come dig me out of it. Calvin might have been real mad."
"Maybe you think he isn't anyway. He was sore enough when you called, but right after that something else stirred his dander and he's really off on a tear. You'd better have a good story for him."
"Maybe you think I haven't," Roal murmured.
Shorty Mullins, the SBI patrol pilot, landed his ship a moment later, flinging a sand cloud into the sky with his customary dramatic handling of the ship.