the fused darkness of the spaceport, except the machines unloading the other ship and a few Zolotoyans casually departing from it. And, yes, the craft which had borne down the Terrestrial boat were being trundled off, leaving the boat itself unattended.

"Have they not even put a guard on our vessel?" choked Ekaterina.

Grushenko shrugged. "Why should they? In a civilization this advanced there are no thieves, no vandals, no spies."

"But...." Holbrook weighed his words. "Look, though. If an alien ship landed on your front step, wouldn't you at least be curious about it?"

"They may have a commissar of curiosity," said Ekaterina slyly. Her humor shows up at the damnedest times! thought Holbrook.

Grushenko gave her a hard glance. "How can you be sure, comrades, they do not already know everything about us?" he answered.

Ekaterina shook her blonde head. "Be careful, comrade. I happen to know that speculations about telepathy are classified as bourgeois subjectivism."

Did she actually grin as she spoke? Holbrook, unable to share her gallows mirth, lost his question, for now he was flying among the towers, and so into the city beyond.

There was no Earth language for what he saw: soaring many-colored pride, hundreds of meters skyward, stretching farther than his eyes reached. Looped between the clean heights were elevated roadways; he saw pedestrian traffic on them, Zolotoyans in red and blue and green and white as well as black. There seemed to be association between the uniform and the physical appearance: the reds were shorter and more muscular, the greens had outsize heads—but he could not be sure, in his few bewildered glimpses. Down below were smaller buildings, domes or more esoteric curves, and a steady flow of noiseless traffic.

"How many of them are there?" he whispered.

"Billions, I should think." Ekaterina laid a chilled hand on his. Her hazel eyes were stretched open with a sort of terror. "But it is so still!"

Great blue-white flashes of energy went between kilometer-high spires. Now and then a musical symbol quivered over the metal reaches of the city. But no one spoke. There was no loitering, no hesitation, no disorder, such as even the most sovietized city of Earth would know.

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