"You cut down trees!"
He hadn't meant to make that slip. He knew her feeling for trees. Her look accused him.
"I don't understand your attitude," he said lamely.
"Nor do I understand yours." She brooded silently. "It is different, I suppose, on other worlds. The trees are different."
They sat in the lush grass, on the hillside below his tent. The toy village lay at their feet, a cardboard set in miniature.
"Your people puzzle us, Tsu. You are too different from us...."
"We have tried to make it easy for you," she murmured.
Easy? Too easy, he thought. It was all too plain, too easy to understand. That's why he couldn't understand a bit of it.
"We hope," he went on, "that by studying your world and others like it, we may some day better understand the whole universe...."
"Or reach a better understanding of your own thoughts?"