"That's what stops me--" and noticing the angry color to Barnes' _uiye_--"and the glory of our mission. Hell, anyone can get homesick, can't they?" During the few moments of Randolph's arrest and departure the Martian had disappeared. Barnes grunted and shoved the _noedan_ back into his pouch and finished his drink. "You'll never get anywhere acting like that," said Burke after a short silence. "You can't shove our ways down their throats and get cooperation." Barnes got up a little angrily. "Who wants to get anywhere? What do we want out of these creatures? They smell! How are we _supposed_ to act? We own their smelly little world--" "Randolph might say we don't own it." "Shut up, Burke. I'm sick of that!" Barnes started for the door and Burke got up to follow. They stepped out onto the hot clay of the street, moving their top-skins against the tight-fitting impact of the sun's rays. "_I_ don't want anything from them, Burke. _I'm_ the one who should be sent home. _I_ want to go home. Why should we go around labeled with Martian names? Barnes, Randolph, Burke, Smith--good God! And talking this _jsu_-twisting _sutz_ of a language Martian of all the time speaking!" Burke chuckled, deep in his sac. "The Psychologists dreamed it up--to make us seem less alien. We speak their sounds. And we take their names. After all, no trouble at all is better than the little they might be able to give us if they got excited." They went down the street toward the teleport booth, two big octopoids, the sun warming their glistening brown backs. * * * * * The "Martian" was in the cool back room of the restaurant, seated before a group of his kind. This was afternoon rest period, and some freedom to congregate existed then. A man turned from the wall slit through which he had watched the exit of Burke and Barnes. "Those things make me sick, Burke," he said to the "Martian". "How can you get so close to them and keep your stomach? They smell." Burke shrugged. "You get used to it, Barnes." He bent down and lifted the lid of a box that was stamped: FIRST MARS EXPEDITION--2006. He took out a heavy proton-buster, broke the grip and examined its load of white pellets. "It's been two days now," he went on, "and I'm convinced at last that this one party is all. Scouts, perhaps, from a parent ship off in deep space. And I've listened to them talk. If they don't return, nobody's going to come looking for them. They come from that kind of society. The others will mark Sol off as a bad bet and move on." He clicked the gun together. "They still think we're the race pictured in the Martian crypts and temples--and in your translations, Randolph. Coincidence eh? that the old Martians were humanoid and their appearance not discrepant with ours." "We colonize Mars," mused Randolph, "and Beta Centauri colonizes us as Martians. Ring around the rosy."