there are a few
medical gimmicks I learned from the thickets--better than those at the
Station."

"You've done all right for yourself here, haven't you, Mitch?" Nelsen
remarked with a dash of mockery. "All the modern conveniences--in the
middle of the forbidden wilds of Syrtis Major."

"Sure, Frank--'cause maybe I'm selfish. Though it's just stuff the
settlers left behind. Anyway, it wasn't so good at the start. I was
careful, but I got the fever, too. Light. Then I fell--broke my leg--out
there. I thought sure I was finished when they got hold of me. But I
just lay there, playing on my mouth organ--an old hymn--inside my
helmet. Maybe it was the music--they must have felt the radio impulses
of my tooting before. Or else they knew, somehow, that I was on their
side--that I figured they were too important just to disappear and that
I meant to do anything I could, short of killing, to keep them all
right... Nope, I wouldn't say that they were so friendly, but they might
have thought I'd be useful--a guinea-pig to study and otherwise. For all
I know, examining my body may have helped them improve their weapons...
Anyhow--you won't believe this--'cause it's sort of fantastic--but you
know they work best with living tissue. They fixed that leg, bound it
tight with tendrils, went through the steel cloth of my Archer with
hollow thorns. The bone knit almost completely in four days. And the
fever broke. Then they let me go. Selma was already out looking for me.
When I found her, she had the fever, too. But I guess we're immune now."

Storey's quiet voice died away.

"What are you going to do, Mitch? Just stay here for good?"

"What else--if I can? This is better than anything I remember. Peaceful,
too. If they study me, I study them--not like a real scientist--but by
just having them close around. I even got to know some of their buzzing
talk. Maybe I'll have to be their ambassador to human folks, sometime.
They _are_ from the planets of the stars, Frank. Sirius, I think. Tough
little spores can be ejected from one atmosphere, and drift in space for
millions of years... They arrived after the first Martians were extinct.
Now that you're here, Frank, I wish you'd stay. But that's no good.
Somebody lost always makes people poke around."

Nelsen might have argued a few points. But for one thing, he felt too
tired. "I'll buy it all, your way, Mitch," he said. "I hope Nance and I
can get out of here in a couple more days. Mayb