 What drove Stinson to decide to stay in the end?
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Stinson lay still in the sand where he fell, gloating over the success of his arrival. He touched the pencil-line scar behind his ear where the cylinder was buried, marveling at the power stored there, power to fling him from earth to this fourth planet of the Centaurian system in an instant. It had happened so fast that he could almost feel the warm, humid Missouri air, though he was light years from Missouri. A gray, funnel-shaped cloud of dust stood off to his left. Weather control made cyclones and other climatic phenomena on earth practically non-existent. The cloud did not move, though, except to spin on its axis rapidly, emitting a high-pitched, scarcely audible whine, like a high speed motor. He stood on a wide valley floor between two mountain ranges. Dark clouds capped one peak of the mountains on his left. He was here and Earth was somewhere up there. The sun burned fiercely, although he would have said it was about four o'clock in the afternoon, if this had been Earth. Only one. The sun shone obliquely, throwing Stinson's shadow upon the sand. Again Stinson felt the urge to run, or to use the cylinder to project himself somewhere else, but he said, "No!" very firmly to himself. He was here to investigate, to determine if this planet was capable of supporting life. There was no core, no central place you could point to and say, here is the brain, or the nervous system. But then, how could a group of loosely spaced grains of sand possibly have a nervous system? When it changed to a cube he drew a square, a circle for a sphere, and so on. He became so absorbed in doing this that he failed to notice how the wind devil drew closer and closer, but when he inhaled the first grains of sand, the realization of what was happening dawned with a flash of fear.
 He sees that there is some hope for a successful though challenging life
 He sees that there is some hope for a successful though challenging life  His transportation device needs to be repaired before he can return to Earth  He is curious enough about the web-footed people's abilities that it is worth investigating  He has given up trying to find somewhere to move to