"Yes. Bipeds, though not mammalian, you will find. In fact, quite low in the scale of evolution. They are nearsighted and harmless by day, but you will be wise to keep to your hut after dark."
"I can take care of myself."
"I'll show you the place," Joseph offered. "I can carry your space kit, too."
"Over there is my ship," Joseph said, pointing. "We are making ready to put out for Arcturus."
There was a bright constancy about Joseph that clutched at the heart. Not Lieutenant Wellesley's heart, of course, he reminded himself. The "ship" was indeed the rusty, peaked foretank from some ancient freighter, complete with hatch. It was set on end at the edge of the swamp. To any boy it would have been a starship.
It was already dusk. The Ophirian daub-hut was not so bad as he expected. It was massive. The orifice had been enlarged into a door. Windows had been added. The only furnishing was the rude couch. It was a measure of Sealilly's hostility.
Joseph spied the ferrax-thing scuttling across the lawn and dived at it. The two of them rolled over and over, Joseph laughing, the animal growling and spitting.
Wellesley went in, closed the door and removed his official log from its case. The next two hours were spent in a carefully worded account—for space logs are part of the permanent records of the Galactic Court, among others—of the events of the day, including a bleak and perhaps prejudiced account of the character of Aidennsport and of Amos Sealilly.
Afterwards he lay back on the couch and smoked several cigarettes in lieu of the food capsules that he did not crave. He was far from imaginative; nevertheless, the character of the place crept at last into his consciousness. He was used to cramped, machinery-filled spaces and the sterile smells of hot metal and ozone; here was an aura of decaying organic matter—and of something else. A faint, but unmistakable reptilian odor, attesting to the nature of past inhabitants.