He told her, and she wrote it down. He saw now that she held a kind of clipboard on her knee. Just beyond her was a cabin window. Streamers of torn cloud whirled by it so fast that he was startled. Then other things began to impinge on his senses, air-scream, a smooth rush of speed. He sat up.

The man beside the pilot turned abruptly, his hand reaching for a weapon at his belt. The woman spoke to him in her own tongue, and then said to Price, "We do not wish to stun you again. You will not make it necessary."

"No," said Price. He leaned forward, staring in fascination at the controls of the aerodyne, watching the pilot's movements. 

"You are interested? As a pilot?"

"Yes." The controls seemed surprisingly simple. These controlled the force of the air-flow, those the angle of the blast--"It's so much more maneuverable than a jet, and so much more powerful than any 'copter. I--"

He shut his mouth, abruptly conscious that he had made a bad slip. But the woman did not seem to have noticed it. He asked her hastily, changing the subject, "What's your name?"

"Linna," she said. "Of Vrain Four. That's the planet of a star you never heard of, in the Hercules Cluster. I have some other identifying words, a patronym much like yours and a set of code-numbers such as have been used on this world also."

"You seem to know a lot about us, for a girl from--uh--Vrain Four."

"That's my business. I'm a specialist in Earth cultures. Section 7-Y, Social Technics. Where is your home?"

She was friendly, almost too much so. Price was wary now, his mind shaking off the lethargy of the shock.

"Nevada."

She wrote on the clipboard, some kind of shorthand. "I have not been that far west. What is Nevada like?"

He told her, leaving out any mention of cities. The aerodyne raced forward, and he watched the controls avidly. So simple. So beautifully, functionally simple. His fingers twitched with eagerness.

"You have flown a great deal?"

"My father taught me." Careful, Price thought. These people are probably no brighter or shrewder than my own, but they're better able to investigate and check on things. "Tell me, what's it like on Vrain Four?"

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