“No—only three times, on hurried business. It’s a prosperous system. Solar help put them on their feet again.”

“Prosperous…yes, yes, they are.” For a moment a smile tugged at the corners of Skorrogan’s mouth, but it was a sad little smile, it was as if he were trying to cry but couldn’t quite manage it. “A bustling, successful little system, with all of three colonies among the stars.”

With a sudden angry gesture he slapped the short-range controls and the ship warped down to the surface. It landed in a corner of the great spaceport at Cundaloa City, and the robots about the cradle went to work, checking it in and throwing a protective forcedome about it.

“What—now?” whispered Thordin. He felt, suddenly, dimly afraid; he knew vaguely that he wouldn’t like what he was going to see.

“Just a little stroll through the capital,” said Skorrogan. “With perhaps a few side trips around the planet. I wanted us to come here unofficially, incognito, because that’s the only way we’ll ever see the real world, the day-to-day life of living beings which is so much more important and fundamental than any number of statistics and economic charts. I want to show you what I saved Skontar from.” He smiled again, wryly. “I gave my life for my planet, Thordin. Fifty years of it, anyway—fifty years of loneliness and disgrace.”

They emerged into the clamor of the great steel and concrete plain and crossed over the gates. There was a steady flow of beings in and out, a never-ending flux, the huge restless energy of Solarian civilization. A large proportion of the crowd was human, come to Avaiki on business or pleasure, and there were some representatives of other races. But the bulk of the throng was, naturally, native Cundaloans. Sometimes one had a little trouble telling them from the humans. After all, the two species looked much alike, and with the Cundaloans all wearing Solarian dress—

Thordin shook his head in some bewilderment at the roar of voices. “I can’t understand,” he shouted to Skorrogan. “I know Cundaloan, both Laui and Muara tongues, but—”

“Of course not,” answered Skorrogan. “Most of them here are speaking Solarian. The native languages are dying out fast.”

A plump Solarian in shrieking sports clothes was yelling at an impassive native storekeeper who stood outside his shop. “Hey, you boy, gimme him fella souvenir chop-chop—”

“Pidgin Solarian,” grimaced Skorrogan. “It’s on its way out, too, what with all young Cundaloans being taught the proper speech from the ground up. But tourists never learn.” He scowled, and for a moment his hand shifted to his blaster.

But no—times changed. You did not wipe out someone who simply happened to be personally objectionable, not even on Skontar. Not any more.

The tourist turned and bumped him. “Oh, so sorry,” he exclaimed, urbanely enough. “I should have looked where I was going.”

“Is no matter,” shrugged Skorrogan.

The Solarian dropped into a struggling and heavily accented High Naarhaym: “I really must apologize, though. May I buy you a drink?”