We wound up with posting a guard about the ship and riding into the city with Tarquin. A radio in the car reported our progress, the announcer manifestly excited. We found thousands on streets and sidewalks and crowding office windows. Above all, we had the feeling we were among Earthmen, and yet it wasn't our technocratic manner of life either. There was nothing orderly. And I felt that I liked this way of living. I was in the same state of mind a week later, when Jim and I had already learned enough about the language of Spor to talk, and we'd been cramming on their history from the time the Martians left off so many centuries before. At Shadrak's suggestion, we'd kept quiet on our real mission. We found ourselves popular in Osmand as the days grew on, and we were guests of Governor Tarquin, on a swell estate bordering a small river. And then, as thousands lined the river for a water carnival, Tarquin told us all was not well on Spor. We were on a terrace and it reminded me somehow of Shadrak's place, without the dome, or eternal robots. "Take this city," he exclaimed. "We are a democracy, at peace with the world. But across the sea, in Plevia, there is a colony gathering strength, headed by Garok, a troublemaker we exiled ten years ago from Osmand." "Why not take your planes, fly over and clean him out before he's strong enough to fight you?" I asked. Tarquin gazed at me, and he looked bewildered. "Osmand makes no war. We have our civil officers, but our army is small. We of Osmand, and of the other city states on this continent have lived in accord two thousand years without fighting. Garok will not invade us. But he does harbor criminals, and thereby makes trouble." * * * * * And that was that. War was simply out of mind. And why not. If ever there was a placid countryside, which we toured in the next two weeks, it was the continent upon which Osmand was built. There were farms, small factories, everywhere homes with large grounds, and men, women and children employed. Everybody greeted you with a smile, it seemed, and there was much singing. It got Jim like it did me, and I remember what a jerk Shadrak pulled us up with, when checking with him from the ship after a tour of the continent to the other cities--Nostran, Tula and Polis. Shadrak told us the invading horn of Noir had indeed accelerated its spread toward the system of Maj and would engulf it within no less than eight weeks. Tarquin accepted our report from Shadrak, for in the legend that Earthmen would come, was a prophecy of destruction to Spor. "Yes," he said slowly, pacing his terrace, his family engaged in sports below, "we have been watching the dark cloud you call Noir. Our astronomers are uncertain of the result."