"You happen to be right," Doc answered. "I knew those hieroglyphics by heart. I drew them once for Kobolah. He translated. Four micro-Xians were traveling the short distance from one of their inhabited asteroids to another."
Later, the three of us fell into a kind of sleep. Or was it creeping death? It scared me. Our metabolism slowed. Consciousness left us. And so, time went very quickly. Maybe our tissues actually froze. I know now that this hibernation is a natural android function, conserving physical forces during long periods of inactivity. And it could not stop for good our rugged vitality. We revived when the sun was nearer, and warmed us more. Stiff with dryness, we drank water, and loosened up our muscles.
We cleared the exit of our burrow, and crept out on the surface of the meteor. Rushing on in its elongated eclipse around the sun, it had come close enough to Earth to make the latter a disc of about one-quarter the apparent diameter of the Moon, as seen from Chicago on a clear night.
"Our meteor probably won't get much closer," I mouthed. "So we might as well jump soon. No use wasting the energy of our rods, decelerating a meteor mass, too."
Doc nodded.
"Where will we be most likely to find our old selves?" we read from Jan's lips.
"At the Space Medicine Research Hospital, near Chicago, I'd guess," Doc answered. "They send them nearest our homes. Or—peek over a shoulder at a newspaper, or into somebody's television. I think we are news. Are you both sure you know just what to do if that old protoplasm of ours hasn't got tired of waiting for us?"
"Yes," Jan replied.
"Fine," Doc commented. "So we'll drink some water, eat a little, limber up, and then start for home without the meteor."