"Nonsense! The natives are obviously harmless, and we can take the portable communications unit along with us, so the boys'll never know we left the cottage."
"I really don't kno-o-ow."
"Nothing ventured, nothing won," Judy declared. "I'm going, even if you aren't."
"Well, in that case, of course I can't let you go alone."
Donning their heat suits, the two girls sallied forth into the bracing air of Furbish, ready for adventure. Not that they hadn't been outside before, of course, but never with such definite intent to break regulations.
It was summer and almost warm. The grass was a little bluer, the sun a little redder, the sky a little greener. Had there been birds on Furbish, they would have been singing. "If the natives turn out to be intelligent enough," Judy murmured dreamily, "we could really be queens—and kings, of course—for five years. Or even longer. The ESS couldn't make us take another post once we'd brought the native populace under control."
"Judy Field!" Jane's blue eyes were wide with horror.
"Oh, well," Judy apologized, "one does get carried away.... Look, there's a native over there." She set the radio unit on the ground. "Let's accost him. In a nice way, I mean, of course."
"Good morning, sir," she began. "We have been looking forward to making your acquaintance.... I know he can't understand the words," she explained to Jane, "but it's the tone of voice that counts."