He stood on the icy mesa where they had parked it, and Carl looked out on the drear vastness of Worta with sick eyes. He refused to believe Rex had gone away and left him. He stayed there for hours, waiting, then reluctantly went back into the bowels of Worta.
Rex showed up for the evening meal, though, taking his place at the great long yee—the festival table—where the forty-odd Wortans who remained had their meals. After the meal, Carl cornered him.
Rex twisted away from Carl's detaining hand. "I've got a right to take a ride if I want to, haven't I?"
Carl felt guilty at having even asked, the way Rex put it. Rex did have that right. Carl let it slide. But the frequent disappearance of the ship troubled him increasingly. Every time he stood hip-deep in snow on the upper world and saw the ship was gone, a chill worked through his heart. He would find himself looking into the lowering dark sky at the impersonal stars. Fastening his gaze on the dying red star around which Worta revolved. It was not a large sun. In another million years it would burn out. Then Worta would truly be dead.
He was convinced there was more to Rex's use of the ship than the loneliness of a nineteen-year-old wanting to take a ride. Rex had a purpose. Yet he let it slide until the end of the fourth year. Then his interference was not his doing. He was wandering far underground when a runner came panting up.
"M'hort must see you in his meegan," the runner panted.
Carl went at once, heart constricted. Nothing ever happened in these underground caves. Whatever M'hort wanted to see him about was urgent.
M'hort met him at the entrance and gripped his arm. His eyes bored into Carl's. "I sense that something is wrong, friend Carl," he said. "It is a great terror in my breast. It is about Rex, of course. I see—I see a great flame. Now tell me what you know!"
Carl blurted out the story. "He's making plenty long trips someplace," he said huskily. "He's been caving in a big hillside of rock these past couple years. Making merbohydrate."