"Your race must be insane," protested Xhanph. "For all you know I may come with great gifts which I wish to confer upon you."
"We have been fooled before. And in view of the fact, as I have reminded you, that time is money, we do not wish to bankrupt ourselves by investigating."
"But suppose I'm here to harm you!"
"If your race is capable of it, we can hardly stop you, so it is no use trying. If incapable, you are wasting your efforts."
"This is insanity, genuine racial insanity!"
"You repeat yourself. The fact is, we have become blasé," said the old man. "Thanks to the efforts of our science fiction writers, we have experienced in imagination all there is to experience in interplanetary contact, and the genuine article can be only a disappointment. I am reminded of an incident that occurred when Gerald Crombie, who was City Councilman at the time, ordered a twenty-five inch stereo set...."
Xhanph rolled away. He had his answer now, and he couldn't stand listening any longer to the old man's babbling. He rolled aimlessly, up one street and down another. And he thought of how they would receive his answer when he went back to Gfun.
Was it him or the planet that they would consider mad? Almost certainly, they wouldn't believe him. He could imagine the exchange of wondering glances, the first delicate hints that the long trip had deranged him, the not so delicate hints later on when he persisted in sticking to his story. He remembered the high hopes with which he had departed, the messages with which he had been entrusted by the Chief of Planetary Affairs, the Head of the Scientific Bureau, the Director of Economic Affairs, and countless others. And he could imagine the reception he would find when he reported that he had been unable to deliver a single message.
How long he rolled in this aimless fashion he did not know. After a time he seemed to come to his senses. It was no use trying to run away from reality, as he was doing. He had to go back to the ship and return to Gfun. Let them believe him or not, his report would tell the truth. And the pictorial and auditory records would confirm his story.