I recognized a blue figure as one of the natives the pilot had told me about. He was tall, looking almost human except that everything about him was elongated. His features, his muscles, everything seemed to have been stretched like a rubber band. I kept expecting him to pop back to normal. Instead, he flashed a double row of brilliant teeth at me.
I wondered if he spoke English. "Hey, boy," I called.
He ambled over with long-legged strides that closed the distance between us in seconds.
"Call me Joe," he said.
I dropped my bags and stared at him. Maybe this was going to be a simple assignment after all. "I sure am glad to see you, Joe," I said.
"Same here, Toots," he answered.
"The guys back in Space II are searching high and low for you," I told him.
"You've got the wrong number," he said, and I was a little surprised at his use of Terran idiom.
"You are Joe, aren't you? Joe the trader?"
"I'm Joe, all right," he said. "Only thing I ever traded, though, was a pocketknife. Got a set of keys for it."