He dropped his head, drawing in great tearing sobs, his broad shoulders quaking.
Carl said calmly, "Well, we're going back to Worta to get the Wortans."
Rex raised his head, his face violent with protest. "We haven't got time."
"In the meantime," Carl continued without change of tone, "sit there. Start thinking. Think about M'hort and the other Wortans. Think of how they saved our lives and accepted us as if we're part of them. Think of all the hospitality you accepted at their _yee_."
Carl's voice was rising. "Think of their dead cities. Think of all the dead men who built those cities and the artists who made those cities beautiful with their statues and paints. Then think how you will have destroyed all that."
Rex said nothing. Color was flooding from his face, his lips thinning until they formed one pale slash across his face. Carl looked at him with wordless contempt, then swung about to maneuver the ship for the final thousand miles to a landing.
A gong sounded from the instrument board.
It came so suddenly that Carl jumped halfway from the bucket-seat. He gripped the edge of the board, eyes forced open so wide they hurt. He waiting, knowing he had misheard. The gong came again.
Behind him, Rex made an insane gurgling noise. "They've come! They've come!"
Carl's hands were shaking violently as he adjusted the teleview, snapped in the audio. In the teleview gray clouds formed, took on shape, and that shape became the head and shoulders of a man in the trim, pale blue uniform of the Stellar Survey Institution.
Small muscles around the man's eyes and mouth contracted as he saw Carl. He frowned. He said, "You are Carl Wyant and Rex Oberling?"
"You will stay where you are. We will pick you up in seven hours. You may consider that a command."
"Yes, sir," replied Carl. "But we can't obey it. I'd advise you, sir, not to come within ten billion miles of the dwarf-red star. It's a potential super-nova. We will meet you at--"
The officer's glance sharpened. "You're talking nonsense. Why is Oberling bound in that chair?"
Carl said wearily, "It's a long story, sir. May I ask your present position?"
The Stellar Survey man's image grew a little in the plate as he leaned forward, as if to get a better look at Carl's face. He drew back. He said, "We are at present roughly twenty-two light-days distant, viewing you by instantaneous fifth-order reception."