 What drove Stinson to decide to stay in the end?
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. 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 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 decided it would not be just, to give up so easily. No definable form or sculptured line was visible, yet he felt, or saw—he did not know which senses told him—the immeasurable gulf of a million years of painful evolution. He left the chains by his own method of travel, and reappeared behind the two men. Still angered, Stinson grasped it firmly, with half a notion to break it over his head. They had exhibited human emotions of anger, fear and, that most human of all characteristics, curiosity. But up to now the tube and the chain was the only evidence of an advanced technology, unless the ancient inscriptions in the stone wall of the pool, and the statues lining the wall were evidences. Incongruously, he thought of Benjamin back on earth, and all the others with cylinders, who might be fighting for their lives at this moment.
 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