We of Earth are traders still! We haven't forgotten how to rejoice when waterfalls crash on rocks white with foam, and the mists of morning rise clear and cold to the wheeling stars. I was prepared to tell her what that meant in terms of human dignity, human worth.
I was prepared to remind her that the real target of a trader is the unknown. Everything else he does, or fails to do, is a prelude to the kind of wayfaring that brought the restless human breed to Tragor.
Tragor! The scales started dipping her way, and I couldn't stop them. She was a woman of Tragor, with the star-bright insignia of her heritage gleaming on the folded-back flaps of her weather jacket.
I thought of how human civilization had shifted from Earth to the stars, and what it meant to stand at the hub of the Galaxy in Tragor City. I thought of Tragor City as a man will who is eager not to remain a child in the eyes of one who has never known the meaning of childhood.
I thought of the thousand square miles of research laboratories, the museums and the libraries, the sports arenas swimming in a golden radiance and the sky-mirroring splendors of the biogenetic fulfillment centers. I thought of the schools where teaching had become an exact science completely integrated with human needs.
I remembered that no woman of Tragor could ever become tender and yielding without first dissecting a man. I told myself she'd see through me the instant I spoke to her. With her understanding of the conflict between the sexes the primitiveness in me would stand out like a gall blister on a sturdy oak.
Right at that moment I didn't feel so sturdy. But I knew I'd have to speak first. I couldn't just stand there staring her out of countenance.
"I'm sorry if I startled you," I said. "I didn't mean to stare, but I couldn't very well help myself. I don't quite know how to say it. You're not just an attractive woman. I wouldn't have stared if you were just one woman in ten—or one woman in twenty. I stared because I think you're the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."
She flushed scarlet. "I thought you'd never stop staring," she said.
"You're angry," I said. "Don't be. Many men must have told you how beautiful you are. I just happen to mean it."