"No need to introduce myself, is there?" the man said.
Carl shook his head. To Hamlin he said: "Paul Spero just got back from Venus too. We were discharged together--as if you didn't know."
"You should have stuck around Keating," Spero said. "Right after you left, I tied in with a three-day party. You missed out on a good time."
"I'll bet," Carl said. "I take it that you were the one who brought back the pictures?"
Spero forced a grin that didn't quite make the width of his mouth. "That's right. While you and the rest of the crew were entertaining yourselves collecting fossils I did some research on my own."
"Did it ever occur to you that the military might want these pictures?" Carl asked.
The other man made a noise with his nose. "Just what did the military ever do for me, Keating?" he asked "Fifteen years I spent as a crewman on every flame-buggy from here to Titan and back, and after all that, I get pensioned off a miserable second lieutenant."
"You'll have to admit," Carl said, "there were times when your conduct fell something short of exemplary."
Spero tossed him a sloppy salute. "Yes, Major," he said with mock formality. Abruptly he strode over to where Carl was standing. "I don't think you quite get it yet, Keating," he said thickly. "Try using your imagination. Forget about the griping we did when we were stationed there. It's different now. Edgerton, Mitchell and Rhind have found a way to breathe, and the secret of breathing is also the secret of immortality. Suppose I'd been sucker enough to turn this information over to the high brass? Inside of half-an-hour, those men would have been interrogated. Inside of a week, the information would have been radioed back to Terra. And by now, every one on this earth and his great maiden aunt would be selling their soul to get passage to Venus. And where do you think all this would leave us Keating? I'll tell you where ... we'd be right here sweating out a priority list long enough to stretch from here to Pluto and back!"
Carl studied the man's face. "I take it then you didn't talk to these men when you took the pictures?"
Spero shook his head. "No," he said carefully. "At first I had all I could do to keep from running up to them, but then I figured that if they saw me, they'd know there was a spaceship on the planet. All kinds of things went through my head; one of them was that maybe they were sick of Venus and would try to make contact with the ship and spill their story. In the end, I just hid behind a clump of saroo trees and took the pictures."