Edwards to work on it when we go back upstairs."

We spotted an airport on the outskirts of a large city. The runways were laid out with the precision of Earth's finest. I put our ship's nose eastward on a runway and took it down fast through a lull in the atmosphere ship traffic.

As we went down I saw tiny buildings spotted on the field which surely housed electronic equipment, but our receivers remained silent.

I taxied the shuttle up to an unloading ramp before the airport's terminal building and I killed the drive.

"Harry," I said, "if it weren't that their ships are so outlandishly stubby and their buildings so outflung, we might well be on Earth!"

"I agree, Captain. Strange, though, that they're not mobbing us. They couldn't take this delta-winged job for one of their ships!"

It was strange.

I looked up at the observation ramp's occupants—people who except for their bizarre dress might well be of Earth—and saw no curiosity in the eyes that sometimes swept across our position.

"Be that as it may, Harry, we certainly should cause a stir in these pressure suits. Let's go!"

We walked up to a dour-looking individual at a counter at the ramp's end. Clearing my throat, I said rather inanely, "Hello!"—but what does one say to an extrasolarian?

I realized then that my voice seemed thunderous, that the only other sounds came from a distance: the city's noise, the atmosphere ships' engines on the horizon—

The Centaurian ignored us.

I looked at the atmosphere ships in the clear blue sky, at the Centaurians on the ramp who appeared to be conversing—and there was no sound from those planes, no sound from the people!

"It's impossible," Harry said. "The atmosphere's nearly Earth-normal. It should be—well, damn it, it is as sound-conductive; we're talking, aren't we?"

I looked up at the Centaurians again. They were looking excitedly westward. Some turned to companions. Mouths opened and closed to form words we could not hear. Wide eyes lowered, following something I could not see. Sick inside, I turned to Albrecht and read confirmation in his drawn, blanched face.

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