Ann set her camera to automatic and hooked it to her belt as Lanzerotti led the way along the dock. Three of the men detached themselves from the group and waited. As the ambassadors approached, one of them clasped his hands together, said, "Behrmann, Andrei Pavlich" and took a step back. "Vikhranov, Nicolai Leonovich," said the second, and the third, "Kazetzky, Pyotr Ilyich." He was a tall man, with a long, hooked nose and an expression of deep melancholy. Lanzerotti stepped forward. "We are the representatives of the Interplanetary Council," he said. "My name is Vincent Lanzerotti with the rank of ambassador. This is Mrs. Lanzerotti, and Miss Starnes, our photographer and Mr. Heidekopfer, the official observer. We have a good deal of baggage." The three looked at each other. Behrmann was a short man with a broad Slavic face. He said, "Bring it forward. Transportation has been provided to the seat of the patriarch." Heidekopfer remembered that somewhere in Tolstoi there was something about not waiting on other people; also, that he was not going to have as much difficulty with the language as he had feared. Behrmann's accent was a little funny, but he put his sentences together in the classical manner and with the right words. The sailors were loading their baggage onto power-dollies. Vikhranov said, "The ambassador will take the first droshky, with myself and Pyotr Ilyich. Andrei Pavlich will accompany you in the second." He waved a hand toward Ann and Heidekopfer. As their guides led the way toward the vehicles, Heidekopfer said, "One thing surprises me, if you don't mind a snap judgment. I would have expected to find more of a city around your port." Behrmann turned his head with a smile. "We have no cities," he said. "They are destroyers of nature, and without communion with nature there is no happiness." That was good Tolstoi, all right, thought Heidekopfer, and said to Ann, "They don't take very good care of their roads here, do they?" "I should say not--and my mud-shedders are all nicely packed in the baggage, too." She lifted a neatly clad foot that was already plentifully marked with black Venusian mire. "Their trees are nice, though, and look how even the rows in that field are." She aimed the camera at it for a moment, and spoke to Behrmann in Russian; "Where are the fishermen for the boats?" "Oh, this is Thursday," he said, standing aside so she could get in the droshky. "On this day they work in the fields. It is good to work in the fields, and we have a law that all who follow other forms of work shall do so for one day a week." "That's not a bad law for an agricultural community," observed Heidekopfer. "I suppose you are practically all agriculture? But what do you do for manufactured articles--like shoes and glass and newspapers?"