"Yes. A meteor in the tubes, they said. And the pilot couldn't land
anywhere but on Io--and not good even there. There weren't many left.
She's buried there, by a little green lake. I went there first this
spring. I--I wish I hadn't. And just now, when Mr. Atlee named you, I
thought of a space-pilot who wouldn't have left those stones on Io. The
best pilot International ever had."
His lean, dirty fingers wrung aimlessly together. His heel ploughed a
recurrent furrow in the shadows. "That pilot is as dead--as Nancy. Poor
little kid." He gnawed his lip. It would not do to go maudlin. Not now.
"You are Geoffrey Thorne, International?" she insisted, sitting on a
fallen trunk and dropping her hat at her side. Leaning forward, she
watched his pallor darken. "You are the pilot who pioneered the Jupiter
and Pluto runs, who rescued the Argonaut expedition, who broke up the
Wind River and Merton gangs?"
* * * * *
He looked at her and she shrank from the pain in his glare. "You heard
Atlee. I'm Thorne, if that's anything. You saw him, a green space-kid
fresh from the Lunar way-stations with two-year ratings on his pretty
red uniform ... saw him drag a sodden bum from what passes for a gutter
here. He was nice to me, Atlee. They're all nice to me. But I can't
even enter Vulhan City any more. One of the worst sink-holes in the
System and I can't get in ... I can't get in ..." his voice trailed
away aimlessly and he picked at a thread dangling from his burst tunic.
"But--is there anything for you?" she asked. "It _is_ a sink-hole. I
suppose that's why Mr. Atlee was detailed to take us out to these caves
on the stop-over. But there's no work there, no good chance for a pilot
such as you."
He laughed. It was a better effort than the one he had achieved on the
beach, but she preferred the former. "No chance, indeed! But there's
t'ang. There's always t'ang!" he laughed, then caught at his ribs as a
shuddering spasm tore at him.
"Please!" She touched him, ever so slightly, shaking his trembling
body. "You mustn't! Is there nothing you can do? Nothing? Can you not
go home?"
He faced her squarely and his eyes, she noted, were less bloodshot
and oddly steady as he looked into hers. "You don't know. It isn't
generally known, I suppose, anywhere in the System. We can't go back."
"You can't give it up?"
"That among other things. But no ship will take a t'anger, even as a
passenger. That's what they call us, when not worse. They say it's
incurable. Lord knows I couldn't disprove it. I can't give it up, and,
if they took it away from me ..." he shrugged and a chill rippled up
her spine. "You might say we're marooned here, on Mars, on Pluto, on
Venus ... all who take up with these weird native brews and weirder
natives. We don't go back. We can't. And we don't want to."
"I can't believe that," she protested. Then, at his tragic, sidelong
glance, she hastened on. "But this t'ang? What is it? How--how did
_you_ ever come to--to get mixed up with such...?" She floundered
helplessly, and some inborn instinct of gentility prompted him to rise
and scan the sea for a moment. Then he turned, watching her. Again
his eyes and fingers sought a ragged strip of scarlet tunic to twist
aimlessly.
"It wasn't much," he admitted. "There was a crash a couple of years
ago. Faulty tube drive. We lost some passengers and all our stores. It
was a two-hundred mile trek to Luxtol City, over the Phidian desert. I
suppose you saw it, flying up here. Nothing but t'ang bushes ... and
their berries to eat. I got the taste and it's...." His voice faded
away and, looking up, she saw a strange wryness pass over his face.
* * * * *
Then he shrugged, laughing. "What's the use? You're not for that old
line. Just a line. A sponger's plea." His voice stung. "It got money
once. Handouts. And now it's worn out and I can tell you the truth ...
a simpler truth than a simple lie. No, I didn't get the taste in any
such soul-satisfying way. T'ang berries are deadly poisonous.
"I was young and a fool for luck with gun or ship. I dragged in a
little fame, notoriety if you will, breaking up a gang or two preying
on the International. We pioneered, those days, and drank. Lots of
things, among them t'ang. Grandstanding to the old-timers. Nothing
could down the great Jeff Thorne. I took a drink--and another. You
see the result. Two years ago I was cock of the walk and king of the
space-ways; today a snotty drags me out of the muck to keep me from
stifling ... and no great favor, either."
She was silent for a long time. Then she took up her hat and slowly
rose to her feet. "It's too late, then?" There was sadness in her eyes
as she met his sullen glance. He shrugged and turned away, deliberately
rude. There was the rumble of the sea beneath it all.
"Too late."
"Is--is there anything...?"
"Thank you, no." He did not see her hesitate, then open her bag.
Several paper notes were thrust into his lax hand. He turned angrily,
but she looked so shame-faced and embarrassed he cut short his first
instinctive outburst. She put out her hand. "Please. It isn't much--for
either of us. Let it be a present from Nancy, too. To Jeff Thorne,
International."
He looked down at the money, System credits on Terran banks. "Twenty.
You know where it'll go, I suppose. For t'ang."
"That's no matter, Mr. Thorne. It's your life. I spend most of my time
telling others what and what not to do, as a teacher. Let me forget on
my vacation."
He smiled through the tangle of his unkempt beard, an almost savage
gleam of white teeth in the shadows. "I'll forget, won't I? I've
forgotten so much already, you see." He crushed the credits in grimy
fingers. "This, too. But ... I thank you ... and you'd better go.
Beachcombers, even on Mars, aren't any more savory than the old kind on
Earth, and I'd not have those others talking, Miss. I'll remember Nancy
and I'll remember her friend; you forget Jeff Thorne, unless to point a
moral to your students."
She smiled, holding out a hand, pink-palmed and clean. "Not that, Mr.
Thorne. Goodby."
Instinctively he met her grasp, using the hand which he clutched her
money. For a moment he paused, then slowly let his hand drop back to
his side.
"Not that way, either, Miss ... Miss Thurland. Just goodby."
He watched her walk swiftly up the beach, a slender, graceful figure
in the bright sunlight. Sleek and clean and decent, copper-tinted hair
glittering about her small head until she put on her hat. She did not
pause or look back. And then she was gone.
A fresh shadow fell across the sand. Thorne, breaking in upon his moody
abstraction, turned with a start to face a tall Martian native who
stood impassively watching him. A slim spear glittered and twinkled in
the moving foliage above the man's grey-polled head.
A smile spread vacuously across Thorne's countenance, loosening his
lean jaw and dulling his eyes. He held out the credits. "Look, Hanu!
Money! We can send one of your young men now to the City. I shall have
it again."
The Martian did not stir. From the thick grey mane of hair mantling
his lean and apish countenance two great unblinking eyes stared
disconcertingly at the bedraggled Earthman he had fed and sheltered
this past year. The bony figure on its thin legs did not seem to
breathe, so still he remained, and Thorne shambled forward in slow
alarm, mumbling a question. The Martian evaded him with silken ease,
but as he stepped aside his thin arm stretched out, prehensile fingers
extended like claws. They struck the notes from Thorne's lax hand.
"Here! What the devil, Hanu?" Indignation stirred the returning
lethargy gripping the derelict, and he came up with an angry jerk. The
long fish-spear dropped, the razored blade resting across the fallen
money as if to slice it in two. The Martian's voice was thin, but
gravely dignified.
"No, Thorne. No man goes to the City."
"What the devil do you mean?"
* * * * *
Hanu groped for words in the lingua franca which served the races for
communication on all the inner worlds. He stroked thoughtfully at his
thick Boer beard, pain in his great round eyes.
"You came here, friend Thorne, in great trouble. The devil-juice was in
your blood and your friends had driven you forth as all who drink the
t'ang must go. We are simple folk. My people were glad of you, for we
have been friendly to your Earthmen, and I have been glad, truly glad.
You have been good and our friend, in spite of the t'ang. We have asked
nothing of you."
"I know that," Thorne rapped impatiently. He edged nearer the fallen
money. "I've had food, clothing, and shelter from your people. Perhaps
I've even had friendship. I needed it. But why refuse me now?"
The Martian impaled a note on his spear and held it out to Thorne. His
long-nosed face grew stern and the lean body tightened. "We refuse
nothing, friend Thorne. You are no longer with us, or of us. Take up
your money if you will, but go."
"Why?"
The great eyes swung up the beach, then back to the sagging
beachcomber. The note fluttered from his blade. "A woman's money,
friend Thorne. Not even t'ang can excuse beggary."
Thorne staggered back. Shuddering, icy nausea ripped through his worn
frame. Clenching his fists, he turned his back on the tall Martian
that his blinding shame might not be seen. A rustle of paper told him
the native chieftain was gathering up the fallen currency. He did not
turn. But a gentle poke from the spear-butt awoke him from his daze and
he turned at last, to find his money presented at his breast upon the
chief's blade. Slowly he took it, slowly tore it across and across,
dropping it listlessly upon the sand.
"Where shall I go?" he asked, more of the empty air than of the grave
Martian watching him so sadly. The native shook his grey-maned head.
"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."