"Pretty good. Air is O.K., though slightly pungent in smell. The people are very much like humans, though they have their big differences which take them out of the human class." "For instance?" "Well, they are all covered with a funny kind of hair. It's a sort of half-hair, half-feathers kind of stuff. It's as soft as a baby's scalp and on a dog or something like that it would be beautiful. I'd like a coat made of it, frankly." "I'll bet they appreciate your offer to wear one of 'em for a winter coat," said Hammond dryly. "You haven't changed a bit, have you, Drake?" "Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Sandra. "After all, I was merely trying to explain the beauty of their skin." "You gave yourself away," said Steve Hammond. "Like as usual, Sandra Drake thinks of everything in accordance with how it will couple to her, or her name, or her reputation." "Now, you're being hard," complained Sandra. "Give me a break, Steve. You shouldn't take issue with me for a statement of that kind. After all, it was just a sort of slip of the tongue. I'm not really thinking of skinning one of them for my coat." "If I were you," put in McBride, "I'd think hard of one other thing that might be closer to home. D'jever think that you are in no position to do any skin collecting? The odds are agin' it. But, Sister Drake, those birds are! You might enhance the beauty of one of their females some day. How would the pelt of Sandra Drake look on the living room floor, nine light-years from Terra? Take it clean and easy, Drake, or you might not get back to Terra with that satiny, soft, practically flawless hide of yours intact." "What do you mean, 'practically flawless'?" snapped Sandra. "Well," drawled McBride, "I've never seen all of it." "Why don't you give me the benefit of the doubt?" "I wouldn't give you any benefit of any doubt," McBride told her. "You're probably concealing something." "Why--" the radio broke down into a series of liquid, spluttering sounds as Sandra strove to keep that throaty contralto from sounding like a fishmonger's. "Whistle," chuckled Timkins. "Then count ten. Then let's get back to the problem of the Sirians." "Take it, Sandra," laughed Hammond. "We were only kidding you. Or--can't you take it?" The spluttering died, and then that throaty laugh came back again. It was slightly forced and they knew it. The chances are that Sandra knew they knew it, but she didn't want to give them any more reason for laughter at her expense. Then she spoke, directly and honestly, both factors due to the fact that she was sure of herself and now could afford to laugh at them. "Well, stop worrying about Sandra's hide," she told them. "This gang down here are fine people except that they can't talk Terran. They'll do anything for me that I can make them understand. That's the trouble--getting them to understand. But that's coming. I'm teaching them to speak Terran. That should fix things up fine." "Why not learn to speak Sirian?" asked McBride.