Limited. And if only one made the 273-day journey
from the orbit of Terra--that would be Plan III; Condition Untenable,
Return. The twenty-day interval idea had come from some Earth-bound
swivel-chair genius who had probably never even set foot in a Satellite
operations room. Somebody had impressed on him when he was young that
egg-carrying was a safer mission with a multiplicity of baskets; it was
common sense that if anything happened to Mars-I touching down, at least
it wouldn't happen to II and III at the same time.

Common sense, Johnny thought, and he laughed again. Space was not
common, and it was not sensible. And nobody had ever taught it the rules
men made.

He kept walking, seeing, thinking and breathing.

For a long time. He fell once or twice and picked himself up again to
walk some more, and then he fell a final time, and did not get up. Red
sand whispered over him, danced lightly, drifted....

* * * * *

The flat, wide-tracked vehicle swerved in a tight arc, throwing up low
ruby-colored clouds on either side. Its engines throbbed a new note of
power, and it scuttled in a straight line across the desert floor like a
fleck of shiny metal drawn by an unseen magnet. Behind it rose a
thinning monument of green-black smoke, and between its tracks was a
wavering line of indentations in the sand already half-obliterated by
the weight of their own shallow walls. But they became deeper as the
vehicle raced ahead; and then at length they ended, and the vehicle
halted.

There was a mound of sand that the winds, in their caprice, would not
have made alone, for they sculptured in a freer symmetry. And the
child-like figures seemed to realize that at once.

With quick precision they levelled the mound and found Johnny Love. They
took him into their vehicle, and deftly matched and replenished the
waning gas mixture in the cylindrical tanks on his back.

Then they drove away with him.

* * * * *

"Ferris?"

"Ferris was your astrogeologer-navigator. He died when you crashed."

"Harrison ... _Janes_?"

"Harrison and Janes are not due for nine more days. But you are in no
danger."

There was darkness and warmth; his throat was dry and it burned. It was
hard to talk, and Ferris was dead. Harrison and Janes were not due for
nine more days. Somebody said so. Nine more days and then everything
would be--

Panic shook him, sent blood throbbing to hi