He went in and out of private houses, what seemed to be hotels, stores, warehouses, schools, halls, factories, and one building apparently a center of worship. Not one solitary human being met him, nor any other living creature higher in the scale of evolution than the equivalent of a cow. The cow-like creatures were not abundant, but they looked well fed; apparently they browsed on the vegetation of the many parks and gardens. It was unthinkable that they could be the dominant race. This civilization had been built by animals with developed cortices and opposable thumbs.
The planet was as advanced artistically as it was scientifically. In the homes, under thick layers of dust, were delicate jewels and piles of beautiful thin coins engraved in strange designs. The walls of the larger buildings were all carved in bas-relief, in a manner nearer to ancient Mayan art than to any other Patrick knew. Demonology must have played a large part in the religion, for there were numerous carvings of small winged beings with long Grecoesque features and what looked like lightningbolts for arms and legs. In the temple, a grotesque and horrible statue, a hundred feet high, filled most of the great nave.
There were no libraries or museums, no books, no paintings, no musical instruments, no microfilm. Yet the inhabitants must have had some means of visual and auditory public communication, judging by the televiz masts at the Civic Center.
Patrick camped for his first two nights in the nearest house, spreading his blanket on a rug because the beds were too thick in dust. He had his own food supplies in a knapsack, but the stores were full of shelves of metal containers obviously (though he could not understand the drawings on the labels) with edible contents. He sampled one or two, after testing them for harmlessness, and found one to be a preserved fruit with a pleasant subacid flavor, another a sort of paste resembling pate de foie gras mixed with caviar. There was also a pale pink liquid in a plastic bottle which turned out to be a delicate wine somewhat like vin rose.
He felt like a cross between Goldilocks and Alice.
On the third day he passed over a bridge to the Civic Center. The buildings in their disheveled parks were grouped around a spreading stone edifice with a dome, which he took to be the City Hall. It was morning, a beautiful sunny summer day in the bluish whiteness of Altair. The ragged trees, something like oaks, were full of white and green birds, all singing their little hearts out. A metal fountain, carved in the likeness of a spreading tree, was spouting water from the tips of its branches into a little pond. The grass was covered with myriads of low-growing, velvety purple flowers run wild. Patrick took the broad road, whose ornamental green and brown tiles showed wide gaps through which grassy blades grew thickly, that led to the central building. A long flight of steps ended at a massive bronze-like door, heavily and intricately carved.
Before his eyes, the door opened. A man stood for a second in the doorway, then dashed down the steps toward him.
Patrick braced himself and reached for his raygun. But the man’s arms were opened wide, his mouth was stretched in an ecstatic smile, and tears were running down his cheeks.
He was a tall, burly man, seemingly in late middle age; his hair was white but his movements were lithe and supple. He was clean-shaven, and was dressed in a sort of overall made of a grey fabric which looked both soft and durable. He called out something in a harsh guttural tongue. The scout shook his head.
“Welcome, welcome to Xilmuch!” cried the man then in perfect Standard Galactic. “Who are you? How did you get here? Where are you from? I was never so glad to see anyone in all my life!”
He gave Patrick no time to answer. Seizing him by the arm, he hustled him inside.
It had been an official building all right, Patrick could see that. There was a great lobby rising unimpeded to the dome, with an enormous wasteful central staircase. There were banks of levescalators on either side, and wide hallways led to groundfloor offices with transparent plastic doors running from floor to ceiling.
But half the rooms to the right had been transformed into a dwelling place. Patrick was hurried into a living-room whose stone floors were covered with thick grey rugs into which his boots sank. There were couches and low chairs, heavy cream-colored curtains at all the tall windows, long tables of a dark gleaming wood, their legs carved in flowers and birds.
An inner door opened, revealing a corner of a white shining room that must be a kitchen. A woman burst through it and ran to them.
She was about as old as the man, sturdy also, but too plump, with grey hair elaborately curled. She too was dressed in an overall, but hers was bright purple and over it she wore a fancy apron of lace with pink bows at its corners. She had been pretty once, in a vapid way—probably a piquant blonde of the buttercup-and-daisy variety.
She burst into excited chatter in the unknown tongue, clutching at the man’s hand. Her voice was high and twittering, with a whine beneath it. The man answered her, and though Patrick could not understand the words, the contemptuous tone was clear enough. The scolding ran off her like water; she gazed at the man meltingly, then turned to stare angrily at the Terran.
The man disengaged himself from her. In Galactic he said to the scout:
“Oh, this is wonderful! A visitor—a visitor at last!
“We must celebrate. We will have a feast. The last case of
