Courage. It would take brave men to face the hazards of space.
Curiosity. Without this quality, they would never have thought to explore far-distant planets.
There were other qualities that seemed almost equally certain. These spacemen apparently lacked belligerence; there had been no sign of hostility through all the years. They were seemingly painstaking and extremely methodical.
It was still not much of a picture. But somehow, it was encouraging. Glancing down from the plane’s window, I thought: How does this look to them? Our farms, our cities, the railroads there below; the highways, with the speeding cars and trucks; the winding river, and far off to the right, the broad stretch of the Atlantic. What would they think of America?
Manhattan came into sight, as the pilot let down for the landing. An odd thought popped into my mind. How would a spaceman react if he saw a Broadway show?
Not long before, I had seen South Pacific. I could still hear Ezio Pinza’s magnificent voice as he sang “Some Enchanted Evening.”
Was music a part of spacemen’s lives, or would it be something new and strange, perhaps completely distasteful?
They might live and think on a coldly intelligent level, without a touch of what we know as emotion. To them, our lives might seem meaningless and dull. We ourselves might appear grotesque in form.
But in their progress, there must have been struggle, trial and error, some feeling of triumph at success. Surely these would be emotional forces, bound to reflect in the planet races. Perhaps, in spite of some differences, we would find a common bond—the bond of thinking, intelligent creatures trying to better themselves.
The airliner landed and taxied in to unload.