"I am apparently a relatively high official in the government. It is called a Congressman. Although there are many others of equal and superior rank, I am well liked. I have a strong political following."
"Was there any suspicion?"
"None at all. I had the good fortune, almost immediately upon discovering my role in this civilization, to gain access to a number of speech recordings our host had made. His voice is very little different than mine, and of course within about thirty minutes I had mastered his tone, his inflection, and his manner of speech. We shall have little or no difficulty."
They were seated in the living-room of the house; in its den, two young boys were diligently working at the task their father had set them. The books were opened in an orderly array on the wide, polished floor. One read excerpts from the texts as the other quickly gained mastery of a portable typewriter, transcribed as his brother read aloud.
"Father was correct in his reasoning ... take this ... with the desertion by Germany of the League of Nations, the stage for World War II was set. Failure of the Weimar Republic ..."
Their sheaf of notes had grown measurably in thickness since the first fact had been written on the first page the night before. The boy had written it slowly as he had begun mastery of the awkward writing machine—1. Washington defeats Cornwallis at Yorktown, Oct. 19, 1781 ...
In the living-room, the woman was listening to her husband.
"By their standards, we would seem as improbable in our psychological reactions, our reasoning and our way of life as they seem under-developed and generally inferior in intelligence to our eyes. When you're among them, Lisa, you will have to guard against the self-assurance which to them could be easily interpreted as lack of emotion. Under any but the most intimate circumstances, we might appear to them as some sort of thinking machinery devoid of what they term 'character' and 'personality'. Other than that, you should have little trouble. If you should err through some lack of detailed knowledge, you will find it amazingly easy to cover up." He toyed with a cigarette in a momentary attempt to deduce its function. He broke it in two, examined the tobacco grains as she spoke. Her voice was quiet, almost as though consciously held in check by some secret restraint.
"From your description, these people can be dealt with more or less at the mental level of a child of eight, then...."
"A child of about 13, on their standards. Not in individual cases, however—you will have to judge quickly for yourself. There are many who approach us in mental agility. I believe, from what I've been able to discover during the last few hours, that our host was one of those. There are few others of his rank, however, who are his equal."