The greenies kept no guard of any kind on their headquarters town; nor, so far as Trace could see, did they set a sentinel over their saucers. They were horribly sure of themselves, sure of having crushed the highest race on this planet. The night was nearly black, thick jetty clouds obscuring the moon, and stabs and splashes of orange light showed where the aliens walked. The three earthmen made their way to the edge of town, took a road straight toward the center, and trotted down the sidewalk past silent houses. They were cautious, but even so they nearly ran into a greenie who came round a corner not twenty yards ahead. They went to earth under a hedge and watched him walk by. The orange illumination was explained: from the front of the helmet he wore, a beam of strong undiffused, red-yellow light shot out and down, showing him the path as he walked with bent head. Luckily he did not flick it from side to side, or he must have seen them crammed under the hedge. When his soft padding footsteps had died, the midget Slough said urgently, "Trace, do you intend capturing one?" "I might at that. Why?" "If you do, remove his helmet at once. Immediately!" His breath mingled frostily with Bill's and Trace's. "The triple prongs atop the helmet may be antennae, for radiating and receiving waves, either of thought or a form of radio. It may be thus that they communicate, so knock off the helmet at once if you attempt a capture, or if we're discovered." "You are a shrewd cookie," said Trace thoughtfully. "Okay, will do. Now let's get the lead out." The town had been a small place, with one drug store, one theater, half a dozen stores. The men prowled all round the heart of it, and Trace said, "Here's something funny. They haven't shown any curiosity--the theater's still locked up tight, like it must have been on Sunday when the attack was made on the cities. How come? Don't they want to check on what a building like this is used for? They don't seem to have pried into much of anything." "Maybe they're not interested in us," said Bill. "Maybe they don't give a whoop for what we've done and how we've progressed. What if they considered themselves so superior to us that they thought we had nothing to teach them? Then they wouldn't pry into our heritage and culture. They'd just obliterate us." "And why bother to obliterate us?" asked Slough. "Lot of answers to that," said Trace briefly. "Meanness, desire for sense of power, what have you. Let's nail one and drag tail." He led them past the movie house, and gestured at an orange light approaching. "That one." "Don't forget the helmet," urged Slough. "Take it easy, Mac," said Trace huskily. They went to ground behind evergreen shrubs on the lawn of a funeral parlor.