"Stop following me, of course, sir."
"Very well," I said. "I won't follow you any more. Will that be
satisfactory?"
"Quite, sir."
Without another word, he picked up his butterfly net and disappeared
along a path that led through a rock crevice. Only then did I allow
myself to grin. It was a sad and pitying and affectionate kind of grin.
I sat down and did with my shoes as he had done. There wasn't any
hurry; I knew where he was going. There could only be one place, of
course--the city of Deimos and Phobos. Other than that he had no
choice. And I thought I knew the reason for his going.
Several times in the past, there have been men who, bitten with the
fever of an idea that somewhere on this red planet there must be gold,
have done prospecting among the ruins of the old temples. He had
probably heard that there were men there now, and he was carrying out
with the thoroughness of his precise little mind the job he had set
himself of finding the killer of his daddy.
I took a short-cut over the rag-cliffs and went down a winding,
sand-worn path. The temple stones stood out barren and dry-looking,
like breast bones from the desiccated carcass of an animal. For a
moment I stopped and stared down at the ruins. I didn't see the boy. He
was somewhere down there, though, still swinging his butterfly net and,
probably, still whistling.