my Lord,” answered Garth. “So perhaps you’ll answer my questions, too, even though they’re a little different from the kind

you’re accustomed to. I’m a newspaper reporter, and I want to verify some of our traditions about you.”

As The Visitor remained silent, Garth paused and looked around him at the small, bare, naked-walled room. “This is a spaceship, isn’t it?”

The huddled figure in the wheelchair cackled in a brief laugh. “I’ve been hoping that somebody would get up enough nerve someday to ask that kind of question,” it said. “Yep, this is a spaceship. And a darned big one.”

“How did you happen to land on this planet?”

“Had an accident. Didn’t want to land here, but there wasn’t any choice. Made a mighty good landing, considering everything. It was a little rough, though, in spots.”

“How many people were there in the ship, in addition to yourself?”

The Visitor’s voice turned suddenly soft. “There were three thousand, nine hundred and forty-eight passengers and twenty-seven in the crew when the accident happened.”

“My Lord,” asked Garth, “did any survive, aside from you?”

The Visitor was silent for many minutes, and his answer, when he spoke, was a faint whisper, filled with the anguish of seven thousand years. “Not one survived. Not one. They were all dead, most of them, long before the ship touched ground, in spite of everything I could do. I was as gentle as I could be, but we touched a hundred g a couple of times on on the way down. Flesh and blood just weren’t made to take shocks like that. I did all I could.”

“You were the pilot, then? You landed the ship?” asked Garth.

“I landed the ship,” said The Visitor.

“If I may ask, my Lord, how did you manage to survive when all the others died?”

“It’s a question I’ve asked myself many times, sitting here on this mountaintop these seven thousands of your years. I was just enough tougher, that’s all. Built to take it, you might say, and I had a job to do. But I was badly hurt in the landing. Mighty badly hurt.”

“You were always in a wheelchair, then? Even before—”

“Even before I got so old?” Thin parchment-white hands lifted slowly to rub a thin parchment-white face. “Things were always pretty much as you see them now. I looked about the same to your ancestors as I do to you. Your ancestors didn’t think anybody could be smart unless they were old. Of course, that’s all changed now.” He paused and nodded twice. “Oh, I’ve managed to fix myself up a good deal; I’m not in nearly as bad shape as I was at first, but that’s all inside. I’m in pretty good condition now, for having been stuck here seven thousand years.” The cackling laugh sounded briefly in the small room.

“Could you tell me how it all happened?” asked Garth curiously.

“Be glad to. It’s a pleasure to have a human to shoot the bull with. Sit down and make yourself comfortable and have a bite to eat.”

Looking behind him, Garth saw that a table and chair had appeared in the otherwise unfurnished room.

“The chair was made for people built just a little different than you,” said The Visitor. “You may have to turn it back-to-front and straddle it to keep your tail out of the way. The food on the table’s good, though, and so’s the drink. Have a snack while I talk.”