I snorted. I wasn't any first-tripper who had to go sight-seeing. The bleak domes of T'lith were no different from those of M'nu or V'rad or any of the other cities. And the Marties themselves weren't my idea of jolly companions. So Bill packed the saddlebags of the little sandcycle and went sputtering off to question Marties about other Marties who might know of still other Marties who might know what _rhudite_ was and perhaps with enough patient prodding might divulge some method for making a trade and getting the stuff to our ship. And each question would take ten minutes, minimum, for an answer. The three hundred Cultural Emissaries had been admitted to Earth on the theory that they might pick up Earth ideas that would facilitate trading. At least that's the story the peculiarly nebulous Martian government had given the Earth authorities. After Bill left I checked Mike's pulse. It was weakening slighty from over-anaesthesia so, much as I dreaded having a lunatic awake in the ship with me, I had to let him recover consciousness. He glared at me and fought against the pneumatic cushions that held him gently but tightly. "You fool!" he raved. "You abysmal idiot! Don't you realize you're dooming Earth to an eternity of Martianization?" It gave me a squirmy feeling to hear him talk that way. "There is no war," I said soothingly, trying to reason with him. "It's all in your head. If the Martians were attacking Earth it's only logical they'd jump on us here and now. But you'll snap out of it when we get you back home." "It isn't that kind of a war," he insisted irritably. * * * * * Finally he calmed down. But his eyes, crazy and wild, kept following me around the room. That made me so nervous I went down and tinkered with the engines. "Hey, Swede!" Mike's voice reached me after a while. "I'm thirsty." So I brought him a drink and fed him a sandwich bite by bite. "I'm okay now," he said when he had finished. "I know I blew my top, but I'm all over that. How's about turning me loose?" I shook my head unhappily. He didn't even argue. "Then how's about reading to me?" "What would you like?" It was the least I could do for the poor fellow. So I read some of Donn Byrne's things, stuff that looks like prose but is really poetry. Then he wanted Shakespeare's sonnets, but when I started reading he recited them from memory, his voice half a word ahead of mine. He slept a while and later I fed him again. He seemed resigned now to staying in the cushions. "How's about letting me try the Hustic again?" he asked. "The Professor wanted a planet-to-planet test, and the helmet cable will reach over here." I hesitated and he glowered at me. "I know that Martian stuff was all a delusion," he insisted. "I'm sane now, but if you don't let me prove it to myself once and for all I might go off the deep end again." That got me. I wanted to be sure he had every chance. "Put back the parts you took out," he directed.