Herl went around the copter to get in.
Crawford edged in behind the controls. "Bill probably wanted you to keep out of trouble. He knows that we are apt to look with considerable suspicion on people who have to be saved from their own foolish mistakes by superhuman agencies. That doesn't apply to you, of course, unless you're planning to settle and raise kids here." The 'perish-the-thought' tone was obvious.
"Frankly, as an outsider," Herl said, "it seems to me that these gods and goddesses could be a very useful mechanism. I didn't mind missing a bad fall at all."
"And frankly, as a local citizen and an ordinary one at that, I think you were very lucky. You might even say that down underneath I'm just a bit jealous." The copter slid through the upper air. "I sometimes dream of having a chance to rescue some female not a tenth as luscious as a goddess."
Herl was surprised to hear the Commissioner snigger at his own remark. Surprised but not disgusted. Females less perfect than goddesses seemed to call for sniggers.
"Goddesses are only goddesses, but women are women," Herl commented dryly.
"Oh! You found that out already, did you?" Crawford looked admiringly at his companion. "You're a quick worker."
Hard bitterness surged through Herl. "I found out a lot of things. They're nothing, absolutely nothing but mechanism. I wonder you people haven't learned to use them in place of copters and television. They're probably even capable of sorting your population in infancy so you wouldn't have to go to the trouble of inventing a dozen new kinds of red tape a day which must annoy your normal citizens even while it screens the adults."
"No ... no ... no...." Crawford's descending cadence was oddly reminiscent of some other falling cadence of no's. "You've got both the gods and us all wrong, Captain Hofner. I don't know what you think you found out from this Abigail, but you must have misinterpreted it somewhere."