Pat held in her mind a picture of the Solar System and the Sun, embedded in the long spiral arm of the Galaxy. She made the image of the Earth expand and contract in emphasis. "Thank you. So you come from that little system, do you? How interesting. And yet you have never heard of housings." "We call them bodies." "Well, so they are. I recall a primitive energy transmission we had here long ago. We extended an invitation to the operators, but they have not so far arrived. They came from your system, or so they said." "They did. They contacted you by what we call radio. We were sent, frankly, to see what sort of envoy should be sent here to you." "Ah! There has been a natural confusion. We thought you were here from one of our outer systems where we are having some difficulty raising the right housing. In fact, we were just debating the correct form of grain to transmit to feed the housings on. They are in the awkward stage of having sufficient minds to exist, but insufficient nerve cortex to enable us to enter them. Our local representatives--whom we mistook you for--have been having a very difficult time for several hundred years, but we will soon find the answer. Now, we will be glad to receive an envoy from your system. We are always glad to receive representatives from our successful colonies. As to the type of envoy, anyone with a broad galactic viewpoint will do. We will, of course, be glad to offer housing and the usual facilities." "When you say housing, you mean bodies?" "Naturally. Bodies such as these Senators' or my own are the most adaptable for this climate. If you go in to our Ganymede or out to Jove you would have to use a local--er--body, because these human types would melt or suffocate respectively. But the local housings in silica and in ammonia crystal have proved quite adequate for normal locomotion and physical work there. The normal facilities of the sport planets would be available, to be sure. We are quite proud of our slither bodies, I suppose you would call them, in the snow worlds--quite a recent development. I fear we are not too luxurious here, but galactic opinion forces us to make our housings do almost everything they are capable of doing--walk, drive, cook and other such menial tasks. But then at least everyone knows we are not spending the revenue on our own housing--er--our own bodies. Only last century we barely averted a political threat to make all Senators' bodies sleep out in the open weather. But obviously it is much more expensive to keep breeding new bodies than build a shelter such as this one. Even taxpayers can see that." The Speaker's mind echoed general agreement from the Senators. "It will come as a surprise," Pat said clearly, "but our system believes _we_ colonized _yours_." This met polite and general laughter in which the Speaker joined.