So for every one of the fourteen minutes, Captain Nicholas Joel leaned back in the chair, shut his eyes tight, and filled in a little more of the world he wanted. * * * * * The roads were of hard-packed dirt, but level, and wide. Occasionally, as Sam Carruthers drove, they would pass through a hamlet, or go by small knots of men and women in carriages and wagons drawn by striped animals resembling Earth's African zebra. The farms were small but numerous, and none, Joel noted, had been entirely cleared; the trees had been thinned, and they were of a far more slender variety than grew elsewhere, but they had not been eliminated. It set well with him. Joel had always liked trees, and he had a feeling he was going to like other people who did to such an obvious extent. Buildings, he noted, were almost entirely of wood; structures very similar to those he remembered having seen in a history text dealing with the western United States in the nineteenth century. A few were of stone, some of small, brick cubes; all were pleasing enough to the eye. And the people themselves were-- The people looked up as the jeep roared past; looked up from their work in the fields, looked out from their wagons and carriages, looked from their saddled mounts at the roadside. But there was no fear in their glances, only the quick puzzlement of inquiring intelligence. They were straight, well-bodied people, clothed simply in colorful garments which Joel assumed were made of cloth; the men were tall and broad and he could mentally picture the powerful muscles that rippled beneath their shirts. And the women--The women were the most graceful creatures he had ever seen, even those who were obviously no longer young; they were less fully clad than their men, and Captain Nicholas Joel liked that. He liked it because it was honest. Where there was something beautiful, why in the name of anything holy or otherwise should it be covered up? That was the trouble with Earth and her people. There were too few things of real beauty, and when they did exist, humans seemed to have a psychotic compulsion for either ignoring them or hiding them completely. And those who did hesitate for a stolen moment's admiration were hurriedly hollered back to their jobs. "You're surprised that they're not cluttering up the roads, trying to get a closer look at us?" Sam was hollering over the howl of the warm, oxygen-rich atmosphere. "Good discipline," Joel grunted, still occupied with his own thoughts. "Well, you're partly right. But more than that, we haven't stopped to look at _them_! It's sort of a half-courtesy, half-pride they have. They won't slow a stranger down if he doesn't slow them down, figuring that if he wanted to, he would; the prerogative is his. And, if he's not that interested, then neither are they!" "You're sure some expedition didn't get here before we did?" Joel asked. "I mean--hell, they could be from Earth--"