"Then this can't be the place." He stood there irresolutely and started to turn slowly away without even a word of thanks to her. "My father may have heard about them," said Carol, knowing herself for a fool again. Past experience, she told herself ruefully, had taught her nothing. The thing to do was to let him go and forget him as quickly as possible, before she learned anything about him, before her feeling for him could become anything more than an irrational, momentary impulse. The stronger the bonds of knowledge and interest between them, the more painful they would be to break. And the breaking was inevitable. The house where she and her father lived was a simple dome-shaped building, its walls and furniture both made of a silicon plastic whose raw materials had come from the ground on which it stood. There were rugs and draperies of a slightly different composition, woven on the all-purpose Household Helper that her father had bought before leaving Earth. They lived comfortably enough, she thought, as she led the man in. But he hardly noticed the house or anything in it. When they reached the library and her father looked up from the book he was reading, only then did the man display interest. The book was a favorite of her father's and it made him unhappy to cut his reading short. Nevertheless, he turned off the projector, stood up, and said, "Yes, Carol?" "This man is looking for some--some friends of his, Dad. I thought you might be able to help him." She held out the picture and, to her relief, her father stared at that instead of at her. Sometimes he was a little too shrewd; if she was making a fool of herself, there was no need for him to know it. He could be a sardonic man and he did not suffer fools gladly, even in his own family. He was of the opinion that she had used up her quota of foolishness with John Burr. He was shaking his head. "Sorry, I've never seen them. Are you sure they live around here?" "No," said the man. "I'm not sure. I'm not sure of anything, except that they're my wife and kids. And I've got to find them." "Have you checked at the District Office?" "I did that first. They couldn't help me, but they said their records weren't complete yet." "They're complete enough, I should think. Maybe they don't list every prospector who wanders around without settling down, but they wouldn't be likely to miss a woman and two children. I'm afraid that you're wasting your time looking on Ganymede." The man's face clouded. "It isn't a waste of my time," he said. "I've got nothing else to do with it. And I have to find them. They need me." * * * * * Mr. Marsh looked away from the man to his daughter, and Carol was a little slow in avoiding his eyes. "I see," he said, and she had an idea of what he meant by that. He saw too much. If he knew, there was nothing she could do about it. She said, "Perhaps Mr.--" She paused, and the man said dully, "Callendar."