"But why?"
"Mean to say you spent so much time on zoology and forgot about other things? Like, for instance, Ganymede-fear?"
"Huh? How's that?"
"Everyone is afraid, Steve. Everyone. Whenever a man gets near Ganymede, he suddenly becomes afraid. It's some sort of a psychological or maybe para-psychological phenomenon and none of the medicos could ever figure it out. It isn't the kind of fear that paralyzes, boy, but still, it holds on all the time a man's on Ganymede and it doesn't leave until he blasts off again. Didn't you ever hear about that?"
"No. That is, I knew it happened somewhere, but I forgot where."
"Well, that's all there is to it, boy."
"All! Don't you think it's enough? Something lurks out there, something makes people afraid, and we've never been able to find out why, but you say—"
Teejay came up and smiled at them, but there was something grim about her smile. "You can always tell when someone comes to Ganymede for the first time. He's jumpier. Just relax, Stedman. By the time they start beating the anthrovacs in toward the Gordak you'll be feeling better—and raring to go to work with that oxygen-jag stunt of yours, too." And she added, "Say, have you been watching your stone worm?"
"He sure has," Kevin told her. "He took me down there yesterday and that worm's been growing fat on all the sand he's fed it. Sand—for food, that's what the worm eats. Imagine how that would settle the over-population problems on Earth if people, too, could eat sand."
"Yes, and then—" Teejay was speaking again—but words, just words, and Steve stopped listening. It occurred to him all at once that they were engrossed in their meaningless conversation for one reason only—to keep the fear from their minds. If you thought about something else, the fear would retreat at least in part, and if you could hold a conversation about everything and nothing, that was even better.