He got out and locked the ship so that in case some one finally did show curiosity, no harm would come to it. Then he began to roll around the city. * * * * * Everywhere he met the same indifference as at first. Even the children stared at him without curiosity, and went on with their games. He stopped to watch--and to listen. They bounced balls, and as they bounced, they recited words. When something interrupted the even tenor of the game and they had to begin again, they went back to the start of the recitation. Surely, they were counting. Listening carefully, he learned the fundamentals of their system of numerals. At the same time, for the sake of permanence, he made pictorial and auditory records. Every now and then the game would be interrupted by a quarrel. And a childish quarrel, of course, was sure to be full of recriminations. You did this, I did that. He learned the names of the objects with which they played, he learned the words for first and second persons in their different forms. He learned the word for the maternal parent, who seemed to stand in the closest relation to the young ones. By evening he had acquired a fairly good child's grasp of the language. He rolled back in the direction of the ship. When he came to the place where it should be, he had a sudden feeling of panic. The ship was gone. They must have dragged it away. Their whole pretense of indifference must have been a trick, he thought excitedly. They had waited until they could tamper with it without his interference, in order to learn its secrets. What had they done with it? Perhaps they had harmed it, possibly they had ruined the drive. How could he ever get off this accursed planet, how would he ever get back to Gfun? He rolled hastily over to the nearest man and tried to put his newfound vocabulary to use. "Where--where--" He realized suddenly that he didn't know the word for ship. "Where galenfain?" The man looked at him as if he were crazy, and walked on. Xhanph did some swearing on his own account. He began to roll madly around the square, becoming more desperate from moment to moment. Finally, just when he thought he would explode from rage and frustration, he found the ship again. It had been dragged to a neighboring street and left on a vacant lot, surrounded by rusty cans, broken bottles, and various other forms of garbage and rubbish indigenous to this section of the planet. Relief mingled with a feeling of outrage. Xhanph swore again. The indignity of it was enough to start an interplanetary war. If they ever heard of it back on Gfun, they would want to blast this stupid and insulting planet out of existence. He hastened into the ship, and found to his joy that there had been no damage. There was nothing to prevent him from taking off again and getting back to Gfun. But the mystery of his reception still intrigued him. He could not leave without solving it.