t indiscriminate
masses of masonry and metal and plastic heaped up without regard to the
total effect. Rather, the city was a unit created with an eye to
esthetic perfection.

Silvers stood beside Hockley. "We've got a chance to make Earth look
that way," said the mathematician.

"There's only one thing missing," said Hockley. "The price tag. We still
need to know what it's going to cost."

Upon landing, the Earthmen were greeted by a covey of their bird-like
hosts who scurried about, introducing themselves in their high whistling
voices. In busses, they were moved half way across the city to a
building which stood beside an enormous park area.

It was obviously a building designed for the reception of just such
delegations as this one, giving Hockley evidence that perhaps his idea
was not so original after all. It was a relief to get inside after their
brief trip across the city. Gravity, temperature, and air pressure and
composition duplicated those of Earth inside, and conditions could be
varied to accommodate many different species. Hockley felt confident
they could become accustomed to outside conditions after a few days, but
it was exhausting now to be out for long.

They were shown to individual quarters and given leisure to unpack and
inspect their surroundings. Furniture had been adjusted to their size
and needs. The only oversight Hockley could find was a faint odor of
chlorine lingering in the closets. He wondered who the last occupant of
the room had been.

After a noon meal, served with foods of astonishingly close
approximation to their native fare, the group was offered a prelude to
the general instruction and indoctrination which would begin the
following day. This was in the form of a guided tour through the science
museum which, Hockley gathered, was a modernized Ryke parallel to the
venerable Smithsonian back home. The tour was entirely optional, as far
as the planned program of the Rykes was concerned, but none of the
Earthmen turned it down.

Hockley tried to concentrate heavily on the memory of Waldon Thar and
keep the image of his friend always before him as he moved through the
city and inspected the works of the Rykes. He found it helped suppress
the awe and adulation which he had an impulse to share with his
companions.

It was possible even, he found, to adopt a kind of truculent cynicism
toward the approach the Rykes were making. The visit to the science
museum _could_ be an attemp