"Oh how sad!" Morguma cried. "How unfortunate! We must revive these beautiful persons! I am sure they will see our point of view!"
II
O'Dea and Hawthorne watched their repaired vessel roll out of the Centaur repair shop. The smashed plates had been neatly straightened; the vessel gleamed from nose to tail.
An enthusiastic Centaur foreman accompanied the ship.
"Oh my intimate friends!" he sprayed in Hawthorne's face. "I too parlez-vous the English! For men I have the great love! It will give me tremendous enjoyment to help to populate this planet with human beings!"
"You go to Hell," Hawthorne growled. He shivered in Avignon's thin atmosphere and pulled the rough blanket Morguma had supplied tighter around him. He and O'Dea looked like a pair of Indian chiefs.
"Undertake to observe," said the foreman. "Seizure beams!"
He shouted something in his own language to his workers inside the ship. The pale green beams lanced out. The foreman's fangs protruded several inches.