From Bernie: “——fatheaded, goggly-eyed, no-browed, slobber-lipped, dim-witted——”
“Shut up,” Ross said softly. “Before I bang both your heads together.”
They stared.
“Thank you. We’ve got to think. What’s this spot we’re in? What can we do about it? I don’t have any F-T-L contact name for Earth and obviously this fellow picked us up by mistake. I saw two women and a man—remember what he said?—just now trying to catch up with us. He seems to be some kind of criminal. Otherwise why a disguised gun-carrier? Why floor coverings ‘but don’t try to buy any’? And Jones seems to be the name of the local political subdivision, the name of the local deity and the currency. That’s important. It points to a rigid one-man dictatorship—Jones, of course, or possibly his dynasty. What course of action should we take? Kick it around. Helena, what do you think?”
“He shouldn’t have said we were ugly,” she pouted. “Isn’t that important?”
“Women!” Ross said grimly. “If you’ll kindly forget the trivial affront to your vanity perhaps we can figure something out.”
Helena said stubbornly: “But he shouldn’t. We’re not. What if they just think we are because they all look alike and we don’t look like them?”
Ross collapsed. After a long pause during which he tried and almost failed to control his temper he said slowly: “Thank you, Helena. You’re wrong, of course, but it was a contribution. You see, you can’t build up such a wild, far-fetched theory from the few facts available.” His voice was beginning to choke with anger. “It isn’t reasonable and it isn’t really any help. In fact it’s the God-damndest stupidest imitation of reasoning I have ever——”
“City,” Bernard croaked, pointing. The jolting ride had become smoother, and gliding past the windows were green tiled buildings and street lights.
“Fine,” Ross said bitterly. “We had a few clear minutes to think and now we find they were wasted by the crackpot dissertation of a female and my reasonable attempt to show her the elements of logical thinking.” He put his head in his hands and tried to ignore them, tried to reason it out. But the truck made a couple of sharp turns and jolted to a stop.