It did not occur to Thrykar that, even if the driver had noticed the weird form looming in his headlight beams, stopping to investigate might be the farthest thing in the universe from his resultant pattern of action. Thrykar himself, and every one of his acquaintances — which were by no means confined to members of his own race — would have looked into the matter without a second thought about the safety or general advisability of the procedure.

He was a little shaken by the narrow shave. He should have foreseen it, of course — it was little short of stupid to have climbed the wall so close to the road; but what would be self-evident to a professional soldier, detective, or housebreaker did not come within the sphere of everyday life to a research chemist on a honeymoon. If Thrykar had known anything about Earth before starting his journey, he wouldn’t have come near the planet. He had simply noted that there was a refresher station near the direct route to the world which he and Tes had planned to visit on a vacation; and not until he had cut his drive near the beacon on Mercury had he bothered to read up on its details. They had been somewhat dismayed at what they found, but the most practicable detour would have consumed almost the entire vacation period in flight; and, as Tes had said, what others had evidently done he could do. Thrykar suspected that his wife might possibly have an exaggerated idea of his abilities, but he had no objection to that. They had stayed.

The car did have one good effect on Thrykar; he became much more cautious. Having satisfied his curios-ity about the sounds, he began to retrace his way to the ship and Tes; but this time he stayed well off the road, traveling parallel to it, until the abandoned quarries prevented further progress on that line.