It was odd. Didn't they ever die?

Some years later Mr. Zytztz came back on the Clarissa again as escort for Healey. One night he was standing at a porthole watching Vela when he said:

"Admiral, why don't they give me a berth?"

Healey thought it over. He decided it was time to tell him. "It isn't any compliment to what we facetiously call humanity, but it's time you should know, so you won't keep batting your brains out."

"Yes?" Mr. Zytztz said quietly.

"They won't give you a berth because you're a Martian," Healey said flatly.

"I don't understand," Mr. Zytztz said slowly.

And Healey knew he would never understand. It wasn't Mr. Zytztz's code. He didn't realize how small Earth-men could be.

"Well, it's like this. Any Earth-man is afraid of anything or anybody that he thinks might outdo him, physically, mentally, emotionally, artistically—or what have you. He resents it. And as long as he can hold the other person down, he's likely to. The Zytztzes are the best people in my book," Healey went on warmly, "but that just makes it tougher on you among those who don't know you. If you weren't so intelligent and unassuming and so temperamentally perfect, maybe Earth-men would like you. The way it is, you haven't got a chance."

Mr. Zytztz absorbed all that in silence. Finally Healey said as a clincher, "You may as well give it up. You'll never get a ship." He studied him then, and again he caught the strong feeling of that tremendous, illimitable patience that would conquer anything.

Healey did not retire in 2158. Atomic engines came out in a form adaptable to space ships. Space Travel, Inc., built a new ship called the Philipuster, and to Captain Browne's great disgust, the senator's niece splashed a third bottle of champagne on its magnificent burnished hull.

They talked Healey into staying on. It wasn't the money that influenced him, but the fact that there was nothing else for him to do. He had seen Admiral Pickens from time to time, and there was no denying that Pickens was lonely. He had plenty of friends, yes, but he couldn't go down to the Officers' Club and swap stories with the Air Marines. So Healey stayed on.

It was about this time that the Air Marines became the Space 

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