The Martian took his coffee black. He sat looking into it as he sipped, as though apologizing for his alien presence. Mrs. Swaime, more practiced than the rest of us in this act of informal refection, took a slice of bread and a cup of sugar-thick coffee and talked. She steered clear of the grim topics around us, turning her attention instead to Mr. Rhinklav'n, who sparkled back at her like a grateful mirror. "Is this your first visit to Earth?" she asked him. "No, indeed. I spent several years at your excellent University at Sao Paulo," the yellow man said. "That was some time ago, of course." He refrained from saying just how long ago. The Martian lifespan makes humanity's scant three-score and ten look feeble. The Surgeon-General asked me quietly, "Why, exactly, are we held here?" "As long as the body is back there the pumps can't run. Safety devices prevent the capsule from moving so long as there's a foreign body in the Tube." I stopped, suddenly aware of my clumsy, accidental pun. "All right," Dr. Raimazan said. "We'll have to move the corpse into the capsule, and take it to Bahia with us." "It will be the worst sort of job," I said. "If the repair crew takes more than a day, we're in for trouble anyway." He was right. This was February, our hottest month. "You have a strong stomach?" he asked. "No." I hurried forward to tell Miss Barrie of our decision. She gave us a lamp and a blanket, and phoned the surface to tell them what we were doing. The doctor and I locked the air-tight door of the galley behind us. * * * * * At this end of the capsule there was a second air-tight hatch, exactly like that in front, the one the body had hurtled through. At its middle, like a glass navel, was a dial showing the pressure outside. It read 975 millibars. I spun the wheel to unlock the door from its frame, stubbornly resisting the temptation to anticipate through the window, to see what waited us out there. The hatch swung out. I turned the lamplight on the walls outside. It was bad. The tube was bulged at the top a little way back, like a vein about to rupture. Its surface was smeared with red. It smelled like a place where they slaughter chickens. The body lay about twenty meters back. I took the blanket from Dr. Raimazan and walked back along the slippery shaft, trying to dull my eyes and nose to what I was about to do. The doctor, one arm trussed to his chest by my crude sling, could lend me only moral support. I looked down at the corpse. One arm had been torn off at the shoulder, and was held to the body by the handcuffs between the wrists. The man had been cut and burned and broken before he'd thrown himself out of the capsule.