"How very sad! And you say there is little chance of the Earth people coming for you?"
"Very little. Worta and its sun aren't even entered in the Star Catalogue. It's an unlisted system, although the Stellar Survey Institution has been working like crazy the past hundred years to survey the whole works."
M'hort touched the boy's hand sympathetically. "Someday they will come for you! But, in the meantime, it would be wonderful if your friend saw the futility of his ways."
During the first year of their stay on Worta, Rex stayed close to Carl, confiding in him, making those trips to the surface of the snowed-under world. Then he took to wandering the great winding corridors and chambers and dead underground cities of Worta alone. Carl would have liked to explore with him, for there was an unending fascination in this dying civilization. Once upon a time the Wortans had been great. The quaint webbed architecture of the spired and domed buildings, the delicate traceries, on the walls and the sculptured figures standing in the squares—these were a timeless wonder. But Rex didn't want Carl along, for Rex had closed up clam-like, his broad, square face held a sullen fanaticism, and Carl knew he had his mind set on escape.
Carl went to Rex's meegan and sat on his spider-silk chair and whiled away the time by reading a scroll from the Wortan library until Rex should return. Both Carl and Rex had learned the complex language, the reading, the writing, the speaking of it, though Carl was much the more proficient.
Rex came in silently, a big man-size fellow with pale, beardless cheeks, dressed Indian-like in the thin, cured leather of the col. His moccasins padded and Carl looked up from the scroll with a start.
Rex said shortly, "Hello, Carl." He threw himself on the pile of sleeping-furs in the corner, locked his hands behind his head and stared straight up at the fluorescent ceiling with hard, unblinking eyes.
Carl uncomfortably put the scroll away. "Rex, I want to have a talk with you."
"Shoot," said Rex.