o-round, while these crowds glared with bright alien
eyes; but the important thing was that they had not once offered him any
violence. They had not even put him into the absurd revolving seat by
force; they had led him to it gently, with a great deal of gesturing and
twittered explanation. And if their faces were almost nauseatingly
unpleasant--with the constantly-moving complexity of parts that he had
seen in live lobsters--well, that proved nothing except that they were
not human. Later, perhaps, he could persuade them to wear masks....

* * * * *

It was a holiday; a great occasion--everything testified to that. The
colored streamers, the clouds of rosy dust like sky-rockets, the crowds
of people lined up to await him. And why not? Clearly, they had never
before seen a man. He was unique, a personage to be honored: a visitor
descended from the heavens, clothed in fire and glory. Like the
Spaniards among the Aztecs, he thought.

Weaver began to feel gratified, his ego expanding. Experimentally, he
waved to the massed ranks of bug things as he passed them. A new
explosion of twittering broke out, and a forest of twiglike arms waved
back at him. They seemed to regard him with happy awe.

"Thank you," said Weaver graciously. "Thank you...."

In the morning, there were crowds massed outside the building where he
had slept; but they did not put him into the aircar with the revolving
arm again. Instead, four new ones came into his room after he had eaten
the strange red and orange fruits that were all of the bug diet he could
stomach, and began to twitter very seriously at him, while pointing to
various objects, parts of their bodies, the walls around them, and
Weaver himself.

* * * * *

After awhile, Weaver grasped the idea that he was being instructed. He
was willing to co-operate, but he did not suppose for a moment that he
could master the bird-like sounds they made. Instead, he took an old
envelope and a stub of pencil from his pocket and wrote the English word
for each thing they pointed out. "ORANGE," he wrote--it was not an
orange, but the color was the same, at any rate--"THORAX. WALL. MAN.
MANDIBLES."

In the afternoon, they brought a machine with staring lenses and bright
lights. Weaver guessed that he was being televised; he put a hand on the
nearest bug thing's shoulder, and smiled for his audience.

Later, after he had eaten again, they