The paralysis set in. He could not move. The tears froze on his cheeks,
and he lay inert, thinking of her almost mindlessly fighting for his
life in the alien outside.
Then she was back in the hut. So soon?
She looked at him, smiled through the transparent helmet at him. He
could hear the precious oxygen hiss in to compensate for the air that
had been lost when she entered.
He could see her eyes. They were proud. Relieved, too, as if she had
been afraid he would be gone when she returned. He felt she had hurried
back to be sure that he was still there.
She knelt by the flower bed and, without removing her suit, she held
up the plant proudly. He could see the hard-packed dirt in the roots.
Fascinated, he watched her scrape a planting hole. He watched her set
the plant delicately and pat the soil with care.
Then she stood up.
He tried to move, to cry out. He could not.
He watched her until she went out of the range of his fixed eyes. She
was going to the airlock again.
After a moment he heard the familiar hiss of oxygen.
She was going to get a great number of plants.
But one at a time.