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The colonel sat erect huffily. “I’ve never pretended to be a philologist. And, anyway, Damorlan isn’t like Earth. Here the heartbeat of the planet is in its villages.”

“Earth hasn’t any villages, so the comparison doesn’t apply.” Clarey cleared his throat. “Don’t you have anything to drink except coffee?”

“Tea?”

“That would be better. Do you know the Katundi have a special variety of tea, or something very like it, which is—”

“Tell me what they think of Earthmen,” the colonel interrupted desperately.

“Not much. What I mean is, nobody in Katund’s actually had any contact with them, though they’ve heard of them, of course. Every now and then there’s a little article in the Dordonec Bulletin from their Barshwat correspondent, and sometimes, if there isn’t any real news, he gives a couple of inches to the Earthmen.”

“Exactly how do they regard us?” the colonel asked as he spooned tea into the pot. “Demi-gods? Superior beings? Are they in great awe of us?”

“They regard us as visitors from another planet,” Clarey said. “They don’t realize from quite how far away we hail, think it’s only a matter of a solar system or two, but they’ve got the general idea. Don’t forget, they may not be a mechanical people, but they do have some idea of astronomy. They’re not illiterate clods.”