Steve stood up. "What'll I do with myself while I'm waiting for that fuel order to go through?"
"Look around, take in the sights. You can sleep here, there's an extra room in this suite. I'm lonesome, you can talk to me when you have time."
Steve looked into the other rooms of the suite, came back to stand beside the old man's bed. The old fellow rang a bell, and one of the beautiful creatures came and looked in the door.
"Our Earth visitor wants to take in the sights," started the old man, in the "Vey fanis vu?" language, but Steve understood because the thought augmenter was still switched on. "You get this memorandum onto a requisition slip and see that they make some fuel for his ship, so he can go back to his natural world. He doesn't like your new order any better than I do."
The girl, who looked a brisk, efficient and ripe eighteen, beckoned to Steve. He followed her from the room. She closed the door softly, carefully, stood leaning against it, eyeing Steve. She murmured, "U seen yung to bay," but Steve shook his head, and she went ahead of him into another room. There was no one there, but one of the thought machines stood on a pedestal beside several other machines. She switched on the augmenter and Steve heard her thought, like slow, perfect music on a thrilling harp.... "You are here too short a time to judge what you like and dislike. Let me show you what the change has given us before you refuse a chance to be like us."
Steve shook his head, murmured, "Not interested. Peddle it somewhere else."
She appeared not to hear him. Her thought went on, inexorable, beautiful, without a ripple of irritation or haste: "The change was not brought about in a day, Earthman. Nor are we finished, ever, with attempts to make life more worth having. Our people hated the change, at first. Centuries passed before it was fully demonstrated to be a far more pleasant and satisfying way of life. You cannot judge this thing with ordinary standards. We accomplish just as much as before, without the frenetic hub-bub that we once thought necessary."
Steve smiled, as if he owned a secret she could never see. "I'd rather be dead, than turned into a damned robot."
The girl moved toward him, her face pale and perfect as a prize rose. "Look into my eyes, foolish one ..." she whispered, and her thought in his mind was a bold invitation. He looked into the deep green-blue depths and he saw there real emotion, waiting to be borne into a consuming fire of passion. Her arms went around him, and though they were strong and hard arms, he did not feel that, for her lips touched his, and a shock of ecstasy ran through him so that he shook like a leaf in a breeze.