"I'd call that a waste of effort," a well-fed voice coldly observed.
"Paul, please!" replied a woman's softer voice. Thorne shook his head viciously, raised himself on one arm, and sought to focus his blurred vision on the group facing him.
There were a dozen or so, well-dressed, well-fed, bright with color and metal in the sunshine. Tourists. He looked up at the young petty officer of International who had dragged him from the water. There was a pained look of weary resignation on the clean-cut young face as he turned to his temporary charges.
"I must apologize, ladies and gentlemen. This bit of local color was unscheduled. It happens occasionally on the inner planets. Conditions grow too rigorous and a man—uh—goes down."
Thorne laughed, a dreadful, choked hacking that set the fluttering tourists back a step or two in sheer fright.
"A man goes down, kid." He rubbed his eyes and leered at them. "Damned far down that you show him off like a Martian."
The officer of International Airways, Inc., winced and then added, to his group, "He's right, you know. Privacy's about all that's left up here on this station. Shall we go on? There are the caves I promised to show you, farther along."
He moved up the beach, the tourists straggling after him, still looking back at the dejected figure of Thorne half-lying, half-sitting in the hot sand. Their voices came drifting back upon his throbbing consciousness.
"But, Mr. Atlee," a woman's voice urged, "we can't just leave him there like that. Mightn't he drown?"
"The tide doesn't come much higher, Miss Thurland. He'll be all right. Once out of that coma, he won't drop into it again for a day or two, unless he gets more t'ang."