Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 226: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“You are very kind, Mr. Latham. Very kind.” And she turned her head away, her voice a tight, little thing, suddenly silent. “We can talk in the ship if you'd like,” | said. Everything | Said then was automatic, because | was suddenly mixed up, balled up, and wondering what kind of game Kruger and | had stumbled into, and just how far over our heads it was. “| owe you a tremendous debt of explanation, | know... she was saying with apologetic overtones. “Well, it’s pretty cold out here, even in a well-insulated suit. And | can get the UHF room warmed up in a jiffy. You certainly don’t have to stay, of course ...” | tried to smile, and it didn’t come too hard. She didn’t look at me, but turned and went back through the port, like a child caught with her hand stuck in the cookie jar. And suddenly, | was glad Kruger had been busy. | didn’t know how | was going to handle the situation, but | didn’t think I’d have been too happy about how Kruger might have handled it, however that might've been. Besides which— Besides which, | was suddenly getting new respect for the “detached, scientific” approach. Brother, | needed it... . “You are not of Mars,” she began softly, “and to you—to you there should be little reason to regard me as anything more than a strange being, in a strange place, a long way from your own kind. Dr. Kruger thinks of us all as just such, | Know, and it is hardly to be expected that he would regard us otherwise. But | want to tell you why | came here, why | came the way | did—if | can—if you want to hear... The words tumbled out, slurred a little with their rapidity, hushed almost to inaudibility with the acute sense of shame from which they welled, CORniclooo SS CO