Pander was a back-number. He had nothing left for which to live but his songs and the affection of the others. In everything but his harp and his songs the Terrans were way ahead of him. He could do no more than give of his own affection in return for theirs and wait with the patience of one whose work is done.
At the end of that year they buried Graypate. He died in his sleep, passing with the undramatic casualness of one who ain’t much use at speechifying. They put him to rest on a knoll behind the community hall, and Pander played his mourning song, and Precious Jewel, who was Speedy’s wife, planted the grave with sweet herbs.
In the spring of the following year Pander summoned Speedy and Blacky and Redhead. He was coiled on a couch, blue and shivering. They held hands so that his touch would speak to them simultaneously.
“I am about to undergo my amafa.”
He had great difficulty in putting it over in understandable thought-forms, for this was something beyond their Earthly experience.
“It is an unavoidable change of age during which my kind must sleep undisturbed.” They reacted as if the casual reference to his kind was a strange and startling revelation, a new aspect previously unthought-of. He continued, “I must be left alone until this hibernation has run its natural course.”
“For how long, Devil?” asked Speedy, with anxiety.
“It may stretch from four of your months to a full year, or—”
“Or what?” Speedy did not wait for a reassuring reply. His agile mind was swift to sense the spice of danger lying far back in the Martian’s thoughts. “Or it may never end?”
“It may never,” admitted Pander, reluctantly. He shivered again, drew his tentacles around himself. The brilliance of his blueness was fading visibly. “The possibility is small, but it is there.”