"Funny."
Dan rounded a bend in the trail and came to a moderately wide road, paved with smooth blocks of stone. To his right was a wall about ten feet high, with an open gate and a city street visible behind it. From somewhere came the steady beat of a drum. Dan started toward the gate, but had to jump aside as a heavily armed column of troops marched out, their faces set and their feet striking the ground in an unvarying cadence.
As the last of the troops went by, a man standing nearby turned to Dan and said, "Well, there they go. We won't be seeing some of them again in this life."
Dan nodded noncommittally, and the man looked at him sharply, then grinned and said, "Good hunting."
"Thank you," said Dan. He could hear a faint muttering somewhere in the background, which he took to be Kielgaard and his experts, trying to understand this latest exchange.
Dan followed the man through the city gates, and walked past a variety of small shops selling baked goods, meats, groceries, hand tools, books, and appliances.
Dan noted the location of the bookstore, so that on the way back he could buy some books. He wanted to transmit the contents of the books; the staff of experts could learn a great deal from a cross-section of a planet's fiction and non-fiction.
As Dan walked toward the center of the city, he noted that the buildings grew larger, and the shops turned into big department stores. These all looked much the same as the ones on Earth, or on many other technologically advanced planets. The merchandise showed only minor differences in design. Looking in a hardware store, for instance, Dan discovered that ordinary screwdrivers had a short curved crosspiece on the handle—apparently a thumb rest to give greater leverage in turning. Aside from such minor differences, everything seemed the same.
Dan had just decided that the planet looked almost like home when he came to a low building with a paved yard. Into the yard trundled several small carts, similar to the kind used to transfer baggage in railroad and mataform depots back home. On these carts, however, were canvas covers, which were thrown back to reveal fully clothed human forms. On all but one cart, the human forms wore the same kind of white garment, trimmed in various colors. These forms—bodies, Dan supposed—were lifted from the carts by attendants who handled them with the greatest care and respect.