"Where shall any t'anger go?" he replied. The sting of the epithet, although innocently meant by the generous Martian, twisted Thorne's sodden mind until he pounded his temples with a groan of empty pain.
"Where, indeed, good Hanu?" Almost he laughed, throwing wide his tattered arms in the remnants of the brave red International jacket. "To the north Vulhan City and the gutter, to the south your people and a greater contempt than theirs, for I have tried to be their friend. Oh, I know, Hanu! It's in your eyes. It's in mine, too. There for good and all. So what's left but the sea again ... and no petty fool to drag me forth to shame me even before you, the last of all my friends."
"I am your friend always, friend Thorne." The Martian's voice was gentle. "But you have come to the end. You know that now. But not in the sea."
"Where else?" Thorne sat down abruptly, his legs giving way beneath him. A haze was descending over his foggy mind and he pressed his temples again, burying his face in his hands, Hanu nodded to the left.
"The desert."
Thorne looked up, amazed. "That horror!"
"The desert is slow ... but not unkind. There will be many things to think on as you walk." Hanu leaned on his spear, regarding the sunken wreck sitting before him. "Our old men go forth in the evening when they no longer care to live. Our wicked pass from us across the sand, for we do not kill. There is peace there ... and rest. What else, we do not know. They never return."
A shudder passed over the beachcomber. Slowly he rose to his feet. "No," he admitted, staring with a grudging, affectionate admiration at the grey one. "You do not kill." Abruptly he offered his hand. "Before I go?"
Hanu smiled, pulling his whisker. "You will go? The woman is already gone and we will forget her like yesterday's tide, but we shall not forget the man who was with us that far-off day. We shall not forget." The pink-palmed, five-fingered hand clasped Thorne's. "Forget us not, friend Thorne."
"I won't, Hanu. Goodby ... and thanks. It's all I can leave you, friend, but I know it counts, even from a space-rat like myself." Abruptly he wheeled and trudged away up the slope toward the higher trees back of the beach. He did not look back, even when Hanu's spear plunged into the sand twenty feet ahead and the grieving Martian wailed a piercing call of farewell.