He's about to tell her he ain't sure there's any actual firewood to chop on the asteroid when the crowd goes crazy and damn, they missed whatever it was. The scoreboard's good, though, and it tells 'em that the Tarantulas just scored a 2-run homer. Well, ain't that just fine and dandy.

Suddenly, he's a lot less interested in the game than he was an inning or so ago. But he's a stubborn guy as well as a complex guy, and they're at a major-league baseball game on Mars, and he doesn't know anyone besides him and Freckles who can make that claim, so he's gonna savor it as long as he can or as long as he can stand it, whichever comes first.

This whole trip's been a slow burn and baby, the fire's about to catch. It was gonna get to that point sooner or later. Separate beds or not, he ain't gonna spend the whole night thinkin' about baseball.

But what happens later if he's lucky is what happens later, and now, as he rolls his sleeve back down, he flashes a coy little grin at Sassafras. "How 'bout that, Freckles. That's what we get for comparin' muscles instead of watching the game." Without a care in the world that he ain't in Sox territory, he lets out a whoop of come on, Blue Sox, to the consternation of the Tarantula fans sitting nearby.

It's something he'll never apologize for. Man's got to root for his team, even if they've only been his team for five innings.