I stopped at the foot of the stairway that rose out of the hall and for a moment we simply stood there, looking at one another, neither of us finding anything to say.

"I came to use the phone," I said.

She nodded.

"I suppose," I said, "I should say I'm sorry for the fight with Hiram."

"I'm sorry, too," she said, misunderstanding me, or pretending that she misunderstood. "But I suppose there was no way you could help it."

"He threw the phone," I told her.

But of course it had not been the phone, not the phone alone. It had been all the times before the phone was thrown.

"You said the other night," I reminded her, "that we could go out for drinks and dinner. I guess that will have to wait. Now there's no place we can go."

"Yes," she said, "so we could start over." I nodded, feeling miserable.

"I was to dress up my prettiest," she said, "and we would have been so gay."

"Like high school days," I said.

"Brad."

"Yes," I said, and took a step toward her.

Suddenly she was in my arms.

"We don't need drinks and dinner," she said. "Not the two of us." No, I thought, not the two of us.

I bent and kissed her and held her close and there was only us. There was no closed-off village and no alien terror. There was nothing that mattered now except this girl who long ago had walked the street, hand in hand with me, and had not been ashamed.

21

The steward came that afternoon, a little, wizened humanoid who looked like a bright-eyed monkey. With him was another — also humanoid — but great, lumbering and awkward, gaunt and austere, with a horse-like face. He looked, at first sight, the perfect caricature of a career diplomat. The scrawny humanoid wore a dirty and shapeless piece of cloth draped about him like a robe, and the other wore a breech-clout and a sort of vest, equipped with massive pockets that bulged with small possessions.

The entire village was lined up on the slope behind my house and the betting had been heavy that nothing would show up. I heard whispers, suddenly cutoff, everywhere I went.

Then they came, the two of them, popping out of nowhere and standing in the garden.

I walked down the slope and across the garden to meet them. They stood waiting for me and behind me, on that slope covered by a crowd of people, there was utter silence.

As I came near, the big one stepped forward, the little wizened character trailing close behind.

"I speak your language newly," said the big one. "If you don't know, ask me once again."

"You're doing well," I told him.

"You be Mr Carter?"

"That is right. And you?"

"My designation," he told me, solemnly, "is to you great gibberish. I have decided you can call me only Mr Smith."

"Mr Smith," I said, "we are glad to have you here. You are the steward I was told about?"

"No. This other personage is he. But he has no designation I can speak to you. He makes no noise at all. He hears and answers only in his brain. He is a queerish thing."

"A telepath," I said.

"Oh, yes, but do not mistake me. Of much intelligence. Also very smart. We are of different worlds, you know. There be many different worlds, many different peoples. We welcome you to us."

"They sent you along as an interpreter?"

"Interpreter? I do not share your meaning. I learn your words very fast from a mechanism. I do not have much time. I fail to catch them all."

"Interpreter means you speak for him. He tells you and you tell us."

"Yes, indeed. Also you tell me and I tell him. But interpreter is not all I am. Also diplomat, very highly trained."

"Huh?"

"Help with negotiations with your race. Be helpful as I can. Explain very much, perhaps. Aid you as you need."

"You said there are many different worlds and many different people. You mean a long, long chain of worlds and of people, too?"

"Not all worlds have people," he told me. "Some have nothing. No life of any sort. Some hold life, but no intelligence. Some once had intelligence, but intelligence is gone." He made a strange gesture with his hand. "It is pity what can happen to intelligence. It is frail; it does not stay forever."

"And the intelligences? All humanoid?" He hesitated. "Humanoid?"

"Like us. Two arms, two legs, one head…"

"Most humanoid," he said."Most like you and me." The scrawny little being tugged excitedly at his vest. The being I had been talking with turned around to face him, gave him close attention.

Then he turned back to me. "Him much upset," he told me. "Says all people here are sick. Him prostrated with great pity. Never saw such terrible thing."

"But that is wrong," I cried. "The sick ones are at home. This bunch here is healthy."

"Can't be so," said Mr Smith. "Him aghast at situation. Can look inside of people, see everything that's wrong. Says them that isn't sick will be sick in little time, says many have inactive sickness in them, others still have garbage of ancient sicknesses still inside of them."

"He can fix us up?"

"No fix. Repair complete, Make body good as new." Higgy had been edging closer and behind him several others. The rest of the crowd still stayed up on the bank, out of all harm's way. And now they were beginning to buzz a little. At first they had been stricken silent, but now the talk began.

"Higgy," I said, "I'd like you to meet Mr Smith."

"Well, I'll be darned," said Higgy. "They got names just the same as ours." He stuck out his hand and after a moment of puzzlement, Mr Smith put out his hand and the two men shook.

"The other one," I said, "can't talk. He's a telepath."

"That's too bad," said Higgy, full of sympathy. "Which one of them's the doctor?"

"The little one," I told him, "and I don't know if you can say he's a doctor. Seems that he repairs people, fixes them like new."

"Well," said Higgy, "that's what a doctor's supposed to do, but never quite makes out."

"He says we're all sick. He wants to fix us up."

"Well, that's all right," said Higgy. "That's what I call service. We can set up a clinic down at the village hall."

"But there's Doc and Floyd and all the others who are really sick. That's what he's here for."

"Well, I tell you, Brad, we can take him to them first and he can get them cured, then we'll set up the clinic. The rest of us might just as well get in on it as long as he is here."

"If," said Mr Smith, "you but merge with the rest of us, you can command the services of such as he whenever you have need."

"What's this merger?" Higgy asked of me.

"He means if we let the aliens in and join the other worlds that the Flowers have linked."

"Well, now," said Higgy, "that makes a lot of sense. I don't suppose there'll be any charges for his services."

"Charges?" asked Mr Smith.

"Yeah," said Higgy. "Pay. Fees. Money."

"Those be terms," said Mr Smith, "that ring no bell for me. But we must proceed with swiftness, since my fellow creature has other rounds to make. He and his colleagues have many worlds to cover."

"You mean that they are doctors to the other worlds?" I asked.

"You grasp my meaning clear."

"Since there isn't any time to waste," said Higgy, "leave us be about our business. Will you two come with me?"

"With alacrity," cried Mr Smith, and the two of them followed Higgy as he went up the slope and out toward the street. I followed slowly after them and as I climbed the bank, Joe Evans came charging out of the back door of my house.

"Brad," he shouted, "there's a call for you from the State Department." It was Newcombe on the phone.

"I'm over here at Elmore," he told me in his cold, clipped voice, "and we've given the Press a rundown on what you told us. But now they're clamouring to see you; they want to talk with you."