"I'm not so sure you'd like it, Ray. Not after a while. All your friends are back on Earth. Everybody you know is back there. It's just the novelty of something new and something different here. I've felt that way a lot of times in different cultures and different societies. You'd change your mind after a while." "Those aren't reasons, Ted. Why should I go back to a world where most of the people are unhappy at some time and a few people all the time? As far as I'm concerned, Tunpesh is my home now, and I don't intend to leave it." Eckert was fascinated. It was like a case history unfolding right before his eyes. "Are you sure you would enjoy it here for the rest of your life? Have you made any friends to take the place of those back home?" "It takes time to become acquainted, even more time to make friends," Templin said defensively. "You can't desert the Service," Eckert pointed out. "You still have your duty." Templin laughed in his pillow. "It won't work, Ted. Duty's just a catch word, a jingo phrase. They can get along without me and you know it." "What about Pendleton, Ray? He died here, you know, in mysterious circumstances." "Would going back help him any? He wasn't murdered; we know that. And why do people commit suicide? For what one of several thousand possible reasons did Pendleton? We don't know. We'll never know. And if we did know, what good would it do?" He had changed a lot in six months, Eckert saw. Too much. "What if I told you I knew why Pendleton killed himself?" Eckert asked. "And that you would do the same if you stayed here?" "Don't use it, Ted. It's poor psychology. It won't work." The pieces made a perfect picture. But Templin was going back whether he wanted to or not. The only difficulty was that, deep underneath, Eckert sympathized with him. Perhaps if he had been younger, less experienced.... "Then you won't go back with us?" Templin closed his eyes and rolled over on his back. "No." There was dead silence. Templin could smell the piny scent of the woods and feel the warmth of soft sunlight that lanced through the blinds. Some place far away, there was the faint chatter of kids at play, but outside of that it was quiet. Too quiet. Templin opened his eyes in sudden alarm. "Ted! Don't!" He caught the gas full in the face and tumbled back on the bed, unconscious. * * * * * Eckert opened the hatch to the observation cabin as quietly as he could. Templin was seated on one of the pneumatic couches, staring soberly at a small yellow star in the black sky. He didn't look up. "It's me, Ray," Eckert said. Templin didn't move. "I suppose I owe you an apology," Eckert began, "but I had to gas you to get you to leave. Otherwise you wouldn't have left. And the same thing would have happened to you that happened to Don Pendleton." "You're sure of that?" Templin asked bitterly.