went, and survived the
trip, and thrived in the germ-free atmosphere, weighing just one-sixth
of her former two hundred and ten pounds.

Once, she was there, Weaver could hardly escape visiting her. Harriet
was a widow, with large resources, and Weaver was her only near
relative. It was necessary, it was prudent, for him to keep on her good
side. Moreover, he had his family feeling.

He did not like it, not a minute of it. Not the incredible trip, rising
till the Earth lay below like a botched model of itself; not the silent
mausoleum of the Moon. But he duly admired Harriet's spacious room in
the sanatorium, the recreation rooms, the auditorium; space-suited, he
walked with her in the cold Earthlight; he attended her on the excursion
trip to Ley Field, the interstellar rocket base on the far side of the
Moon.

The alien ship was there, all angles and planes--it came from Zeta
Aurigae, they told him, and was the second foreign ship to visit Sol.
Most of the crew had been ferried down to Earth, where they were
inspecting the people (without approval, Weaver was sure). Meanwhile,
the remaining crewman would be pleased to have the sanatorium party
inspect _him_.

* * * * *

They went aboard, Harriet and two other women, and six men counting the
guide and Weaver. The ship was a red-lit cavern. The "crewman" turned
out to be a hairy horror, a three-foot headless lump shaped like an
eggplant, supported by four splayed legs and with an indefinite number
of tentacles wriggling below the stalked eyes.

"They're more like us than you'd think," said the guide. "They're
mammals, they have a nervous organization very like ours, they're
susceptible to some of our diseases--which is very rare--and they even
share some of our minor vices." He opened his kit and offered the thing
a plug of chewing tobacco, which was refused with much tentacle-waving,
and a cigar, which was accepted. The creature stuck the cigar into the
pointed tip of its body, just above the six beady black eyes, lit it
with some sort of flameless lighter, and puffed clouds of smoke like a
volcano.

"--And of course, as you see, they're oxygen breathers," the guide
finished. "The atmosphere in the ship here is almost identical to our
own--we could breathe it without any discomfort whatever."

_Then why don't we?_ Weaver thought irritably. He had been forced to
wear either a breathing mask or a pressure suit all the time he had