He reached the edge of the maintained area. Here the rubble was gone, the ancient walks swept, the statues kept upright on their pediments. But only broken walls suggested the fronts of the houses that had stood here. Knifing their sides up through the wind-rippled sand that only constant care kept off the street, the shadow-houses fenced his way and the sculptures were motionless as hope. Ahead of him, he saw the buildings of the engineers. There was no heap to climb and look to see if Ermine followed close behind. Sucking his respirator, he reached the building of the Martian engineers. A sounding strip ran down the doorjamb. He scratched his fingernails sharply along it, and the magnified vibration, ducted throughout the hollow walls, rattled his plea for entrance. V The door opened, and Martians stood looking. They were spindly-limbed and slight, their faces framed by folds of leathery tissue. Their mouths were lipped with horn as hard as dentures, and pursed, forever ready to masticate. They were pleasant neither to look at nor, Sollenar knew, to deal with. But Cortwright Burr had done it. And Sollenar needed to do it. "Does anyone here speak English?" he asked. "I," said the central Martian, his mouth opening to the sound, closing to end the reply. "I would like to deal with you." "Whenever," the Martian said, and the group at the doorway parted deliberately to let Sollenar in. Before the door closed behind him, Sollenar looked back. But the rubble of the abandoned sectors blocked his line of sight into the desert. "What can you offer? And what do you want?" the Martian asked. Sollenar stood half-ringed by them, in a room whose corners he could not see in the uncertain light. "I offer you Terrestrial currency." The English-speaking Martian--the Martian who had admitted to speaking English--turned his head slightly and spoke to his fellows. There were clacking sounds as his lips met. The others reacted variously, one of them suddenly gesturing with what seemed a disgusted flip of his arm before he turned without further word and stalked away, his shoulders looking like the shawled back of a very old and very hungry woman. "What did Burr give you?" Sollenar asked. "Burr." The Martian cocked his head. His eyes were not multi-faceted, but gave that impression. "He was here and he dealt with you. Not long ago. On what basis?" "Burr. Yes. Burr gave us currency. We will take currency from you. For the same thing we gave him?" "For immortality, yes." "Im--This is a new word." "Is it? For the secret of not dying?" "Not dying? You think we have not-dying for sale here?" The Martian spoke to the others again. Their lips clattered. Others left, like the first one had, moving with great precision and very slow step, and no remaining tolerance for Sollenar. Sollenar cried out: "What did you sell him, then?" The principal engineer said: "We made an entertainment device for him."