een Earthmen and Martians enough
so that they now had a chance to start looking for the countless
similarities between us.

A fraction of our food stores aboard the rocket had been taken,
probably for analysis. But there was plenty more. We closed the
airlock, repressurized the cabin from air-tanks, and cooked ourselves
a meal. Then we slept in shifts, one of us always awake as guard.

At dawn, Miller hammered at a window. He'd been brought out from the
city. We weren't too surprised by then.

* * * * *

Etl turned up at noon. He came in a kind of plane, which landed right
beside our rocket, making quite a noise. I recognized him easily
enough; I'd know those eye-stalks anywhere. Besides, as he came out of
the plane, he was carrying the speech-tube that Klein had made for
him.

We let him into the cabin. "Hello, gang," he said, manipulating the
tube with his tendrils. "I see you passed your tests almost as well as
I did on those weird things you were always making me take on Earth."

"So they were tests," I said.

"Sure. Otherwise, why do you think I didn't come to you before? They
said you had to solve your own problems."

"How did they treat you?" Miller wanted to know.

"Mostly my people were nice to me. They took me to a great desert
city, far away. Sort of the capital of Mars. It's in an 'oasis' where
a network of 'canals' join. The canals fit an old theory of your
astronomers. They're ribbons of irrigated vegetation. But the water is
piped underground. I spoke to my people in the way that you once
thought I would, trying to convince them that you were okay. But I
guess that you did most of the job yourselves."

"In spite of a lot of blunders, maybe we did, Etl," I replied dryly.
"What are your plans? Going to stay here now? Or will you come back
with us?"

I sensed that he would stay. It was natural. Maybe I even sensed a
remoteness in him, a kind of withdrawal. Not unfriendly, but ... we
both knew it was the parting of the ways.

"It's best for what we're trying to accomplish, Nolan," he said. "I
can tell my people about Earth; you can tell yours about Mars.
Besides, I like it here. But I'll be back on Earth some time. Just so
you'll come here again. Thanks to you guys for everything."

"I'd like to stay too, Nolan," Miller said, smiling. "If they'll have
me. Under Etl's instructions, they might improve my quarters."

* * * * *

So