"O.K., sister," grinned Hammond, winking at McBride. "But you'll find out that there is something to those old adages. I'm thinking of the one that begins: 'When in Rome, et cetera.' Those old boys used to dust off some old saws, but there is a lot of meat on them."
"And contradictions. No, fellows, Sandra doesn't like talking in something that sounds like a phonograph record played backwards. Besides, these fellows have a pretty sharp capacity for understanding. I've been here for a week or so, and already they can understand a lot of what I say. Frankly, better than I could."
"Play it your way, then," said McBride. "But look, you say they're nice guys?"
"Sure. When I landed, they gave me the old send-off. I was taken to the royal house and given the prize suite. I'm given everything, as I said before. They look upon me as the guy who'll give their world the benefit of the Terran and Solarian scientific achievements. That's not true, of course. It'll be fellows like yourselves who really understand it. But nevertheless, I'm the harbinger of spring. I'm the guy who pointed the way for the rest of Sol's children."
"The Moses in the bulrushes?"
"Sort of like. I'm just lucky, and I know it. If I'd come second, they wouldn't pay any attention to me at all. But since I came first and now that I'm talking to my friends, they will obviously think that I'm calling for them to come and help them ... their world's name is Telfu, by the way ... Telfans out of their scientific rut. They have the glimmerings of the gravitic spectra, but it's like the difference between the Leyden Jar and the electron microscope. It'd take a hundred years before they got off of Telfu if we hadn't got here first."
"If they're really O.K.," said McBride, "we'll help."
"Thanks," said Sandra simply. "That'll be for me, too, you know."
"Yes?"
"Sure. They'll thank me for coming first, even though they know I'm not the bright guy with the answers under my skull. I've got a good thing here, and I know all of you well enough to know that you won't spoil it."