sir” me. We started off, none of us talking. I wasn’t worried about Johnny getting us back; he’d been all right until we’d hit the tent; he’d been following our course with his wrist-compass.
After we got to where the end of the street had been, it got easy because we could see our own footprints in the clay, and just had to follow them. We passed the rise where there had been the purple bush with the propeller birds, but the birds weren’t there now, nor was the purple bush.
But the Chitterling was still there, thank Heavens. We saw it from the last rise and it looked just as we had left it. It looked like home, and we started to walk faster.
I opened the door and stood aside for Ma and Ellen to go in first. Ma had just started in when we heard the voice. It said, “We bid you farewell.”
I said, “We bid you farewell, too. And the hell with you.”
I motioned Ma to go on into the ship. The sooner I was out of this place, the better I’d like it.
But the voice said, “Wait,” and there was something about it that made us wait. “We wish to explain to you so that you will not return.”
Nothing had been further from my mind, but I said, “Why not?”
“Your civilization is not compatible with ours. We have studied your minds to make sure. We projected images from the images we found in your minds, to study your reactions to them. Our first images, our first thought-projections, were confused.
But we understood your minds by the time you reached the far-thest point of your walk. We were able to project beings similar to yourselves.”