<Okay, this part is a little tricky,> I told Loren and Chapman. We were moving from the central shaft out onto the dome floor. There’s a ninety-degree gravity change at that point. I mean, “down” in the main shaft is a different direction from “down” on the dome floor. It’s confusing at first.

We were safely aboard the StarSword and Arbron and I were giving the humans a brief tour. The debriefing officers were too busy to see us yet, I guess, and we couldn’t figure out what else to do with the humans.

<You just walk naturally along the curving floor,> I explained. <I know it looks like you’re walking off the edge of a cliff, but the artificial gravity will move with you.>

Arbron and I held our breath, watching the ungainly two-legged creatures trying to stay upright. Amazingly, they did it.

<They have very excellent balance,> Arbron whispered.

<They’d have to.>

We emerged from the shaft out onto the grass of the dome and Loren cried out.

“It’s huge! It’s like a whole park in here! Trees. Grass. Flowers. Wow.”

<You have these kinds of things on your planet?> I asked her.

“Well, similar. Our trees are almost always green. And the grass is all green, too. More green than this, I mean, not so much blue. And no red.”

<If you are hungry, please feel free to eat as much as you like,> I suggested.

“Eat what?” Chapman asked.

I waved my arm widely to indicate the entire dome. <We have seventeen species of grass in thirty different flavors.>

“Grass? You eat grass?” Loren asked.

Chapman nodded thoughtfully. “That’s why you have the dome, isn’t it? You graze. Like horses or cows. Only you don’t have mouths. So how do you eat?”

<Wait a minute, you eat with your mouths?> Arbron asked.

“How else are you going to eat?” Chapman said.

<With your hooves, like any sensible creature,> Arbron said. Then he laughed. <Do you mean that on Earth humans walk around pressing their mouths to the ground to eat?> He looked at me. <Okay, even you have to admit that would be funny to see.>

Chapman started to explain how humans ate but it was hard to picture, really. It involved spearing chunks of hot, dead animals and stuffing them in the mouth. But I refused to believe that was really how they ate. I assumed Chapman was making things up. Later I found out the truth.

In any case, I was relieved when Loren interrupted Chapman’s gruesome story to ask, “Do you mind if I take my shoes off? We’ve been cooped up in that Skritchy Nose flying saucer. It’d be nice to walk on the grass.”

Of course, I had no objection because I had no idea what a “shoe” was. And I could certainly identify with the idea of running on the grass. I was hungry, too.

But then Loren sat down on the grass and began ripping her hooves off! Ripping the very hooves from her legs!

<What are you doing!> I cried. <Stop that! Stop! Why are you hurting yourself?>

“What? What are you yelling about?”

<You’re going to hurt yourself, and I don’t think our doctors know how to help humans,> I said.

Loren stared at me. She was still holding her leg awkwardly in her two hands. Then she laughed out loud.

It was an alarming, yet strangely pleasing, sound.

“These aren’t hooves, Elfangor,” she said. “They’re shoes. See?” She united the tiny ropes and before I could stop her, she ripped the white hoof clear off!

<Noooo!> I moaned.

<Ahhhh!> Arbron yelled.

But Loren was not in pain. And there was no blood. Then she removed a layer of white skin from the exposed leg end. Suddenly, I was staring at five tiny pink fingers. They were growing from her leg.

“See? This is my foot. We don’t have hooves. And we wear shoes over our feet. See? They keep the rocks or whatever from hurting our feet.”

I felt a wave of intense pity. What had gone wrong in the evolution of this species? The entire species had to cover its “feet” to keep from being injured? An entire race crippled?

Suddenly the funny mental image of a planet of humans falling over all the time was replaced by the sad picture of a species of cripples, hobbling along on their weak, injured “feet” and covering them with artificial hooves.

Loren stood up on her delicate pink feet with their ridiculous, short pink fingers and started to run across the grass. She wasn’t very fast, but she obviously wasn’t crippled.

And then she did something amazing. She turned her head around. She turned the entire thing so it was pointing backward. “Come on!”

But I couldn’t move. I noticed Arbron was as amazed as I was.

<What the … what’s she doing?> he asked. Then it dawned on him. <It’s because they only have two eyes! They turn their heads around to see behind them!>

I stifled an urge to laugh. I broke into a gentle trot and quickly caught up to Loren.

“Feels … good … to stretch … my muscles,” she said, speaking in a halting way as she ran.

She stopped running and twirled around. Twirled right around, and her golden hair flew out behind her. That was something to see. A two-legged creature can twirl better than a normal person.

“I was sure I was going to die on that flying saucer,” she said. “But here I am! Amazing.”

<I guess this all seems very strange.>

“Oh, yeah. Strange isn’t half of it. This is a beautiful tree. Pink leaves. Incredible.”

<It’s called a therant tree. It’s in its creast phase. Do you see the way the grasses become more gelasic and less escalic as they grow near? That is because —>

I stopped talking then, because Loren casually reached up and touched a low branch. There was nothing wrong with that, of course. But then she wrapped both her hands around the branch and lifted herself clear up off the ground!

That alone was a miracle. But as she stretched, I saw the white, pastel-marked skin of her upper body come loose! It lifted away and revealed a layer of pinkish, tan underneath that matched her face and arm skin.

Arbron came running, with Chapman struggling to catch up.

Loren held herself suspended and laughed at us. I guess we’d been staring.

<Very strong arms!> Arbron remarked. <Can you imagine lifting your whole body up with your arms?>

<That skin is very strange,> I said. <It’s almost as if it’s not attached.>

Loren let herself drop back to the grass. And she didn’t even fall over.

“It’s not skin,” Chapman said. “It’s called clothing. Like the artificial hooves? This is artificial skin. It keeps us warm.”

<You’re cold?>

“No. But that’s why we have clothing. To keep us warm in cold places.”

<Why would you be in cold places?> I asked, curiosity overcoming my dislike for the human.

He shrugged his powerful human shoulders. Shoulders capable of lifting his entire body. “Parts of Earth are very cold. Parts of it are so cold you’d die without many layers of clothing.”

<But why do you live in those places?> I asked.

Chapman smiled. It was interesting, because already I was getting the feeling that not all human smiles were pleasant. “We’re not going to be kept out of a place just because the weather’s bad. We adapt. We grab whatever’s available and make the best of it. At least that’s my motto: Grab what you can.”

I would have asked him more, but just then the call came for Arbron to go to debriefing. And I was ordered to take the humans to a holding room.