"Well," with a visible effort, Jason snapped out of his reverie. Temple accepted a cigarette gratefully, his first in a long time. In fifty centuries, he thought bitterly, burrowing deeper into a funk.
"Well," said Jason, "I'm acting like a prize boob. How selfish can I get? There must be an awful lot you'd like to know, Kit."
"That's all right. I was told I'd be indoctrinated."
"Ordinarily, you would. But there's no shipment now, none for another three months. Say, how the devil did you get here?"
"That's a long story. Nowhere Journey, same as you, with a little assist to speed things up on Mars. Jase, tell me this: what are we doing here? What is everyone doing here? What's the Nowhere Journey all about? What kind of a glorified foot-race did I see a while ago, with a bunch of creatures out of the telio science-fiction shows?"
ason put his own cigarette out, changed his mind, lit another one. "Sort of like the old joke, where does an alien go to register?"
"Sort of."
"It's a big universe," said Jason, evidently starting at the beginning of something.