was four years old, and had curled up for another long, quiet snooze. But now it was only twenty-four years later and Dale was in a bother.
The Bryd went deeper into Dale’s mind to see what was going on. Dale was worried about something. In fact, he had worried so much it had upset his normal mental balance. It seemed to have started back about twenty years ago, a few years after the Bryd had entered Dale’s mind.
It seemed that Dale’s parents had been killed in an atomic blowup, and Dale, eight years old, had been taken care of by his older sister.
“Don’t you worry, Dale,” she had told him stoutly. “I’ll take good care of you. And I’ll buy your clothes and your schoolbooks and everything. You won’t have to go to a home. I won’t let them take you.”
That’s what Dale had been scared of—going to a home. He was happy with Marillyn. She took good care of him, and somehow managed to keep the authorities from finding out that a thirteen-year-old girl was supporting a small boy.
Dale had understood all those things later, when he started to the university and they became curious about his background. He realized then what she had done.
“I’ll remember all those things,” he told her in the first fullness of young maturity and his sudden realization of her loyalty. “You’ve practically devoted your life to me. I appreciate it. You’ll see,” he said, embarrassed in this new knowledge, but humbly grateful.
He got a chance to show her; for six months after his graduation, while he was being trained at Station No. 18, he insisted that she should come to visit his new post. Marillyn never had ridden a rocket because she was afraid of them, but she recognized the honor he was conferring on her,