Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 215: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Smarter. Aside from that they might have been a welcoming committee from home. Except that there were no weapons at their sides, and as far as Kruger and | could see, none dangling from their vehicle. There were three of them, and all at once | could see one of them move his mouth, and quite fantastically heard his deep-throated voice in my ear-plugs. Fantastically, that ts, in German. “Wir—wir sind nicht Deutsch—” | heard Max stammer. He was turning a pale shade of mauve. “Francois, peut-etre?” “Non—” | managed. “‘Americaine—nous parlons anglais yy “Excellent! And we welcome you, men of Earth, United States of America, and trust you had a pleasant voyage! We must apologize for our inability to have distinguished your nationality at once. But our records have never been as complete as we might wish.” And then the three of them made gracious little bows, and Kruger and | just stood there like a couple of clowns. “Il am called Kell-lll, and to my right and left respectively are Ghoro Elder and Juhr-lV.” And then there was a little pause ... Kruger and | got the drift that it was our turn after a while. “Dr. Max Kruger, Washington, and my technician, Wesley Latham, gentlemen. We hope you _ forgive our—our awkwardness, but | think you will understand our amazement. To be frank, we had not expected to find life on the fourth planet And I’m afraid even less, had we expected such intimate knowledge of ourselves to exist beyond our own sphere. We are—we are greatly appreciative of your cordiality, gentlemen.” And that, for Kruger, was a speech. For me it would have been a major oration under the circumstances, but | felt a CORniclooo SS CO