ut everything away in the drawers, and
then sat down with my book and my food, and had a wonderful time. I
was hungry, and everything tasted good, away from the dead meat
smells, and what with clothes in the drawers and everything, I was
beginning to feel like a real Earth-girl.

I even took a bath in the bathroom.

A good long one. Next to the library, that's the thing I miss most. It
would be even better, if they made the tubs bigger, so you could swim
around some. But just getting wet all over like that, and splashing in
the water, is fun. Of course, we could never spare enough water for
that on the ship.

Altogether, it was a good evening; everything was fine until I tried
to sleep in that bed. I felt as if I was being suffocated all over.
The floor was almost as bad, but in a different way. And once I got to
sleep, I guess I slept well enough, because I felt fine in the
morning. But then, I think I must have been on a mild oxygen jag all
the time I was down there; nothing seemed to bother me too much. That
morning, I felt so good I worked up my courage to go into a
restaurant again--a different one. The smell was beginning to be
familiar, and I could manage better. I experimented with a cereal
called oatmeal, which was delicious, then I went back to the motel,
packed up all my new belongings, left the key on the desk--as
instructed by the sign on the door--and started out for Denver.

* * * * *

Denver, according to the Encyclopedia Americana, is more of a true
metropolitan area than Colorado Springs; that means--on Earth--that it
is dirtier, more crowded, far less pleasant to look at or live in, and
a great deal more convenient and efficient to do business in. In
Denver, and with the aid of a Colorado driver's license for casual
identification, I was able to sell two of my larger diamonds fairly
quickly, at two different places, for something approximating half of
their full value. Then I parked the car they had given me on a side
street, took my suitcase, coat, and book with me, and walked to the
nearest car sales lot. I left the keys in the old car, for the
convenience of anyone who might want it.

Everything went extraordinarily smoothly, with just one exception. I
had found out everything I needed to know in that library, except that
when dealing with humans, one must always allow for waste time. If I
had realized that at the time I left Colorado Springs that morning,
eve