"Sure, Frank—'cause maybe I'm selfish. Though it's just stuff the settlers left behind. Anyway, it wasn't so good at the start. I was careful, but I got the fever, too. Light. Then I fell—broke my leg—out there. I thought sure I was finished when they got hold of me. But I just lay there, playing on my mouth organ—an old hymn—inside my helmet. Maybe it was the music—they must have felt the radio impulses of my tooting before. Or else they knew, somehow, that I was on their side—that I figured they were too important just to disappear and that I meant to do anything I could, short of killing, to keep them all right... Nope, I wouldn't say that they were so friendly, but they might have thought I'd be useful—a guinea-pig to study and otherwise. For all I know, examining my body may have helped them improve their weapons... Anyhow—you won't believe this—'cause it's sort of fantastic—but you know they work best with living tissue. They fixed that leg, bound it tight with tendrils, went through the steel cloth of my Archer with hollow thorns. The bone knit almost completely in four days. And the fever broke. Then they let me go. Selma was already out looking for me. When I found her, she had the fever, too. But I guess we're immune now."
Storey's quiet voice died away.
"What are you going to do, Mitch? Just stay here for good?"
"What else—if I can? This is better than anything I remember. Peaceful, too. If they study me, I study them—not like a real scientist—but by just having them close around. I even got to know some of their buzzing talk. Maybe I'll have to be their ambassador to human folks, sometime. They are from the planets of the stars, Frank. Sirius, I think. Tough little spores can be ejected from one atmosphere, and drift in space for millions of years... They arrived after the first Martians were extinct. Now that you're here, Frank, I wish you'd stay. But that's no good. Somebody lost always makes people poke around."
Nelsen might have argued a few points. But for one thing, he felt too tired. "I'll buy it all, your way, Mitch," he said. "I hope Nance and I can get out of here in a couple more days. Maybe I shouldn't have run out on the Belt. Can't run—thoughts follow you. But now—dammit—I want to go home!"
"That's regular, Frank. 'Cause you've got Syrtis. Chronic, now—intermittent. But it'll fade. Same with your girl. Meanwhile, they won't let you go Earthside, but you'll be okay. I'll fly you out, close enough to the Station to get back, any morning before daylight, that you pick... Only, you won't tell, will you, Frank?"
"No—I promise—if you think secrecy makes any difference. [p. 133] Otherwise—thanks for everything... By the way—do you ever listen in on outside news?"
"Enough. Still quiet... And a fella named Miguel Ramos—with nerve-controlled clamps for hands—got a new, special bubb and took off for Pluto."
"No! Damn fool... Almost as loony as you are, Mitch."
"Less... Wake up, Nance. Dinner... Chicken—raised right here..."