"Rub you out? I will not. Even if he does catch us, and takes us back to Nevia, I won't. There's lots more time coming onto the clock. Nerado won't hurt either of us badly enough to leave scars, either physical, mental, or moral. I'd kill you in a second if it were Roger; he's dirty and he's thoroughly bad. But Nerado's a good enough old scout, in his way. He's big and he's clean. You know, I could really like that fish, if I could meet him on terms of equality sometime?" "_I_ couldn't!" she declared, vigorously. "He's crawly and scaly and snaky; and he smells so ... so...." "So rank and fishy?" Costigan laughed deeply. "Details, girl; mere details. I've seen people who looked like money in the bank and who smelled like a bouquet of violets that you couldn't trust half the length of Nerado's neck." "But look what he did to us!" she protested. "And they weren't trying to recapture us back there; they were trying to kill us." "That was perfectly all right, what he did and what they did--what else could they have done?" he wanted to know. "And while you're looking, look at what we did to them--plenty, I'd say. But we all had it to do, and neither side will blame the other for doing it. He's a square shooter, I tell you." "Well, maybe, but I don't like him a bit, and let's not talk about him any more. Let's talk about us. Remember what you said once, when you advised me to 'let you lay,' or whatever it was?" Woman-like, she wished to dip again lightly into the waters of pure emotion, even though she had such a short time before led the man out of their profoundest depths. But Costigan, into whose hard life love of woman had never before entered, had not yet recovered sufficiently from his soul-shaking plunge to follow her lead. Inarticulate, distrusting his newly found supreme happiness, he must needs stay out of those enchanted waters or plunge again. And he was afraid to plunge--diffident, still deeming himself unworthy of the miracle of this wonder-girl's love--even though every fiber of his being shrieked its demand to feel again that slender body in his clasping arms. He did not consciously think those thoughts. He acted them without thinking; they were inherent in his personality. "I do remember, and I still think it's a sound idea, even though I am too far gone now to let you put it into effect," he assured her, half seriously. He kissed her, tenderly and reverently, then studied her carefully. "But you look as though you'd been on a Martian picnic. When did you eat last?" "I don't remember, exactly. This morning, I think." "Or maybe last night, or yesterday morning? I thought so! Bradley and I can eat anything that's chewable, and drink anything that will pour, but you can't. I'll scout around and see if I can't fix up something that you'll be able to eat." He rummaged through the store-rooms, emerging with sundry viands from which he prepared a highly satisfactory meal.