an team of them.

"Two, they brew a near-beer that's a lot nearer than the canned stuff we
had aboard the _Whale_.

"Three, they've a great sense of humor. Ran rather to silly practical
jokes, but still. Can't say I care for that hot-foot and belly-laugh
stuff myself, but tastes differ.

"Four, the ten-man language team also learned chess and table tennis.

"But why go on? People who talk English, drink beer, like jokes and beat
me at chess or table-tennis are people for my money, even if they look
like tigers in trousers.

"It was funny the way they won all the time at table tennis. They
certainly weren't so hot at it. Maybe that ten per cent extra gravity
put us off our strokes. As for chess, Svendlov was our champion. He won
sometimes. The rest of us seemed to lose whichever Chingsi we played.
There again it wasn't so much that they were good. How could they be, in
the time? It was more that we all seemed to make silly mistakes when we
played them and that's fatal in chess. Of course it's a screwy
situation, playing chess with something that grows its own fur coat, has
yellow eyes an inch and a half long and long white whiskers. Could _you_
have kept your mind on the game?

"And don't think I fell victim to their feline charm. The children were
pets, but you didn't feel like patting the adults on their big grinning
heads. Personally I didn't like the one I knew best. He was
called--well, we called him Charley, and he was the ethnologist,
ambassador, contact man, or whatever you like to call him, who came back
with us. Why I disliked him was because he was always trying to get the
edge on you. All the time he had to be top. Great sense of humor, of
course. I nearly broke my neck on that butter-slide he fixed up in the
metal alleyway to the _Whale's_ engine room. Charley laughed fit to
bust, everyone laughed, I even laughed myself though doing it hurt
me more than the tumble had. Yes, life and soul of the party, old
Charley ...

"My last sight of the _Minnow_ was a cabin full of dead and dying men,
the sweetish stink of burned flesh and the choking reek of scorching
insulation, the boat jolting and shuddering and beginning to break up,
and in the middle of the flames, still unhurt, was Charley. He was
laughing ...

"My God, it's dark out here. Wonder how high I am. Must be all of fifty
miles, and doing eight hundred miles an hour at least. I'll be doing
more than that when I land. What's final velocity for a