"What?" Sanderson gasped.

Miss Tweedham faced him without flinching. "You haven't asked me what I really was back on Earth."

"Eh? A school teacher—"

"You still haven't asked me."

"Eh? What were you?"

"A call girl," Miss Tweedham answered, without flinching.

"Uh—ah—"

"I'm not going back to that," Miss Tweedham said.

Sanderson sought for words. He stuttered them out. "Do—do you—do you think you will ever be a call girl again?"

"Only when you call," Miss Tweedham answered.

In the light of the coming dawn, John Sanderson's face showed beet red. Then, slowly, he began to grin. His eyes lifted from her, his gaze went to the fields where now the water was flowing in the irrigation ditches. "That's wonderful," he said.

Miss Tweedham did not know whether he was talking about what she had said, or the water bringing life to the parched fields. She decided that whatever he was talking about, the meaning was the same in the end.

"I'm going to see about the water," he said, rising.

She smiled. Deep in her heart she knew he was going there to feel the new growth beginning. When he was too far away to see what she was doing, she opened her purse. From it, she took a piece of stiff folded paper.

Lifetime Teaching Certificate, the paper said.

Slowly, Miss Tweedham tore the paper into tiny bits. She watched the dry, restless wind of Mars blow them away. Then she rose and followed John Sanderson toward the growing fields.

 Prev. P 16/16