He watched her get into the light surface suit, clamp down the helmet with trembling hands. He was shaking with nervousness as she hesitated at the lock. Then she pulled it open. It clicked behind her. He heard the brief hiss of the oxygen replacing the air that had whooshed out. And he felt sorry for her, alone, terrified, on the scaly, hard surface of the tiny satellite. He closed his eyes, pictured her walking past his strip mine, past the gleaming heap of minerals ready for the transport. He felt tears in his eyes and yet he could not entirely explain his feelings toward her--half fear, sometimes half affection. But more important than that: Why was she with him? What were her feelings? Had some sense of gratitude made her come? Affection? He could not understand her. At times she seemed beyond all understanding. Her responses were mindless, almost mechanical, and that frightened him. He remembered her dumb, apologetic caresses and her pathetically clumsy tenderness--or reflex; he could never be sure--and her eager yet reluctant hands and the always slightly hurt, slightly accusing look in her eyes, as if at every instant she was ready for a stinging blow, and her great sighs, muted as if fearing to be heard and.... He was drunk, screaming meaninglessly, and the bartender threw him out. The pavement cut his face. When he awoke, it was morning and he was in a strange room and she was in bed beside him. She said, "I am Hertha. I brought you home. I will go with you." The paralysis set in. He could not move. The tears froze on his cheeks, and he lay inert, thinking of her almost mindlessly fighting for his life in the alien outside. Then she was back in the hut. So soon? She looked at him, smiled through the transparent helmet at him. He could hear the precious oxygen hiss in to compensate for the air that had been lost when she entered. He could see her eyes. They were proud. Relieved, too, as if she had been afraid he would be gone when she returned. He felt she had hurried back to be sure that he was still there. She knelt by the flower bed and, without removing her suit, she held up the plant proudly. He could see the hard-packed dirt in the roots. Fascinated, he watched her scrape a planting hole. He watched her set the plant delicately and pat the soil with care. Then she stood up. He tried to move, to cry out. He could not. He watched her until she went out of the range of his fixed eyes. She was going to the airlock again. After a moment he heard the familiar hiss of oxygen. She was going to get a great number of plants. But one at a time. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fresh Air Fiend, by Kris Neville