"You like my place?" asked the old man.
"Very much," said Gary.
"Perhaps," said the old man, "you would like to take off your helmets. It's warm in here and I keep the atmosphere a little denser than it is outside.
Not necessary that I do so, of course, but it is more comfortable. The atmosphere is getting pretty thin and hard to breathe.”
They unfastened their helmets and lifted them off. The air was sharp and tangy, the room was warm.
"That's better," said Caroline.
"Chairs?" asked the old man, pointing out a couple.
They sat and he lowered his old body into another.
"Well, well," he said, and his thoughts had a grandfatherly touch about them, "humans of an earlier age. Splendid physical specimen, the two of you. And fairly barbaric still — but the stuff is in you. You use your mouths to talk with and man hasn't talked with other than his thoughts for thousands and thousands of years. That in itself would set you pretty far back.”
"Pretty far is right," said Gary. "We are the first humans who ever left the solar system.”