Nelsen closed his eyes, and thought back. Now he remembered most of what he had been told. "Mitch!" he called quietly, so as not to awaken Nance. "Hey, Mitch...! Selma...!"
Mitch Storey was there in a moment—dressed in dungarees and work shirt like he used to be, but taller, even leaner, and unsmiling.
Nelsen got up. "Thanks, Mitch," he said.
Their voices stayed low and intense.
"For nothing, Frank. I'm damned glad to see you, but you still shouldn't have come nosing. 'Cause—I told you why. Looking for you, Huth burned out more than five square miles. And if folks get too smart and too curious, it won't be any good for what's here..."
Nelsen felt angry and exasperated. But he had a haunting thought about a lanky colored kid in Jarviston, Minnesota. A guy with a dream—or perhaps a prescient glimpse of his own future.
"What's a pal supposed to do?" he growled. "For a helluva long time you've answered nobody—though everyone in the Bunch must have tried beaming you."
"Sure, Frank... Blame, from me, would be way out of line. I heard you guys lots of times. But it was best to get lost—maybe help keep the thickets like they are for as long as possible... A while back, I began picking up your voice in my phones again. I figured you were heading for trouble when you kept coming with your girl to that same hill. So I was around, like I told you before... Sorry I had to hit you and give you the needle, but you were nuts—gone with Syrtis. Getting you back here, without Huth spotting the old heli I picked up once at a deserted settlers' camp was real tough going. I had to land, hide it and wait, four or five times. And you were both plenty sick. But there are a few medical gimmicks I learned from the thickets—better than those at the Station."
"You've done all right for yourself here, haven't you, Mitch?" Nelsen remarked with a dash of mockery. "All the modern conveniences—in the middle of the forbidden wilds of Syrtis Major."