The first time it had happened at work he had found one of his benchmates, Joe Tully, staring at him curiously. 'What's the trouble, Bill?' he had asked. 'Hangover?'
'Nothing,' he had managed to say. 'Just a chill.'
'You better take a pill. Come on - let's go to lunch.'
Tully led the way to the elevator; they crowded in. Most of the employees - even the women - preferred to go down via the drop chute, but Tully always used the elevator. 'Saunders', of course, never used the drop chute; this had eased them into the habit of lunching together. He knew that the chute was safe, that, even if the power should fail, safety nets would snap across at each floor level - but he could not force himself to step off the edge.
Tully said publicly that a drop-chute landing hurt his arches, but he confided privately to Saunders that he did not trust automatic machinery. Saunders nodded understandingly but said nothing. It warmed him toward Tully. He began feeling friendly and not on the defensive with another human being for the first time since the start of his new life. He began to want to tell Tully the truth about himself. If he could be sure that Joe would not insist on treating him as a hero - not that he really objected to the role of hero. As a kid, hanging around spaceports, trying to wangle chances to go inside the ships, cutting classes to watch take-offs, he had dreamed of being a 'hero' someday, a hero of the spaceways, returning in triumph from some incredible and dangerous piece of exploration. But he was troubled by the fact that he still had the same picture of what a hero should look like and how he should behave; it did not include shying away from open windows, being fearful of walking across an open square, and growing too upset to speak at the mere thought of boundless depths of space.
Tully invited him home for dinner. He wanted to go, but fended off the invitation while he inquired where Tully lived. The Shelton Homes, Tully told him, naming one of those great, boxlike warrens that used to disfigure the Jersey flats. 'It's a long way to come back,' Saunders said doubtfully, while turning over in his mind ways to get there without exposing himself to the things he feared.
'You won't have to come back,' Tully assured him. 'We've got a spare room. Come on. My old lady does her own cooking - that's why I keep her.'
'Well, all right,' he conceded. 'Thanks, Joe.' The La Guardia Tube would take him within a quarter of a mile; if he could not find a covered way he would take a ground cab and close the shades.
Tully met him in the hail and apologized in a whisper. 'Meant to have a young lady for you, Bill. Instead we've got my brother-in-law. He's a louse. Sorry.'
'Forget it, Joe. I'm glad to be here.' He was indeed. The discovery that Bill's flat was on the thirty-fifth floor had dismayed him at first, but he was delighted to find that he had no feeling of height. The lights were on, the windows occulted, the floor under him was rock solid; he felt warm and safe. Mrs. Tully turned out in fact to be a good cook, to his surprise - he had the bachelor's usual distrust of amateur cooking. He let himself go to the pleasure of feeling at home and safe and wanted; he managed not even to hear most of the aggressive and opinionated remarks of Joe's in-law.
After dinner he relaxed in an easy chair, glass of beer in hand, and watched the video screen. It was a musical comedy; he laughed more heartily than he had in months. Presently the comedy gave way to a religious program, the National Cathedral Choir; he let it be, listening with one ear and giving some attention to the conversation with the other.
The choir was more than half way through Prayer for Travelers before he became fully aware of what they were singing:
Hear us when we pray to Thee
For those in peril on the sea.
'Almighty Ruler of them all
Whose power extends to great and small,
Who guides the stars and steadfast law,
Whose least creation fills with awe;
Oh, grant Thy mercy and Thy grace
To those who venture into space.'
He wanted to switch it off, but he had to hear it out, he could not stop listening to it, though it hurt him in his heart with the unbearable homesickness of the hopelessly exiled. Even as a cadet this one hymn could fill his eyes with tears; now he kept his face turned away from the others to try to hide from them the drops wetting his cheeks.
When the choir's 'amen' let him do so he switched quickly to some other - any other - program and remained bent over the instrument, pretending to fiddle with it, while he composed his features. Then he turned back to the company, outwardly serene, though it seemed to him that anyone could see the hard, aching knot in his middle.
The brother-in-law was still sounding off.
'We ought to annex 'em,' he was saying. 'That's what we ought to do. Three-Planets Treaty - what a lot of ruddy rot! What right have they got to tell us what we can and can't do on Mars?'
'Well, Ed,' Tully said mildly, 'it's their planet, isn't it? They were there first.'
Ed brushed it aside. 'Did we ask the Indians whether or not they wanted us in North America? Nobody has any right to hang on to something he doesn't know how to use. With proper exploitation -'
'You been speculating, Ed?'
'Huh? It wouldn't be speculation if the government wasn't made up of a bunch of weak-spined old women. "Rights of Natives", indeed. What rights do a bunch of degenerates have?'
Saunders found himself contrasting Ed Schultz with Knath Sooth, the only Martian he himself had ever known well. Gentle Knath, who had been old before Ed was born, and yet was rated as young among his own kind. Knath... why, Knath could sit for hours with a friend or trusted acquaintance, saying nothing, needing to say nothing. 'Growing together' they called it - his entire race had so grown together that they had needed no government, until the Earthman came.
Saunders had once asked his friend why he exerted himself so little, was satisfied with so little. More than an hour passed and Saunders was beginning to regret his inquisitiveness when Knath replied, 'My fathers have labored and I am weary.'
Saunders sat up and faced the brother-in-law. 'They are not degenerate.'
'Huh? I suppose you are an expert!'
'The Martians aren't degenerate, they're just tired,' Saunders persisted.
Tully grinned. His brother-in-law saw it and became surly. 'What gives you the right to an opinion? Have you ever been to Mars?'
Saunders realized suddenly that he had let his censors down. 'Have you?' he answered cautiously.
'That's beside the point. The best minds all agree -' Bill let him go on and did not contradict him again. It was a relief when Tully suggested that, since they all had to be up early, maybe it was about time to think about beginning to get ready to go to bed.
He said goodnight to Mrs. Tully and thanked her for a wonderful dinner, then followed Tully into the guest room. 'Only way to get rid of that family curse we're saddled with, Bill,' he apologized. 'Stay up as long as you like.' Tully stepped to the window and opened it. 'You'll sleep well here. We're up high enough to get honest-to-goodness fresh air.' He stuck his head out and took a couple of big breaths. 'Nothing like the real article,' he continued as he withdrew from the window. 'I'm a country boy at heart. What's the matter, Bill?'
'Nothing. Nothing at all.'
'I thought you looked a little pale. Well, sleep tight. I've already set your bed for seven; that'll give us plenty of time.'
'Thanks, Joe. Goodnight.' As soon as Tully was out of the room he braced himself, then went over and closed the window. Sweating, he turned away and switched the ventilation back on. That done, he sank down on the edge of the bed.
He sat there for a long time, striking one cigarette after another. He knew too well that the peace of mind he thought he had regained was unreal. There was nothing left to him but shame and a long, long hurt. To have reached the point where he had to knuckle under to a tenth-rate knothead like Ed Schultz - it would have been better if he had never come out of the Valkyrie business.