Thereafter, as they drove, the opposing lane was motionless, but not silent. The piercing blasts of strings and trumpets rose to the heavens from each vehicle, as did the brilliant pyrotechnic jets. A call for help, Ross theorized. The music was beginning to make his head ache. It had been going on for at least ten minutes. Suddenly, blessedly, it changed. There was a great fanfare of trombones in major thirds that seemed to go on forever, but didn't quite. At the end of forever, the same tenor chanted: "You got a Roadmeister?" and the chorus roared: "YES!"
Ross realized forlornly that the music must contain values and subtleties which his coarser senses and undeveloped esthetic background could not grasp. But he wished it would stop. It was making him miss all the scenery. After perhaps the fifteenth repetition of the Roadmeister motif, it ended; the driver, with a look of deep satisfaction, did something to the control board that turned off a subsequent voice before it could get out more than a syllable.
He turned to Ross and yelled above the suddenly-noticeable rush of air, "Talk-talk-talk," and gave a whimsical shrug.
During the moment his attention wandered from the road, his vehicle rammed the one ahead, decelerated sharply and was rammed by the one behind, accelerated and rammed the one ahead again and then fell back into place.
Ross suddenly realized that he knew what had caused those crumples and crinkles around the periphery of the car.
"Subtle," the driver yelled. "Indirection. Sneak it in."
"What?" Ross screamed.
"The commersh," the driver yelled.
It meant nothing to Ross, and he felt miserable because it meant nothing. He studied the roadside unhappily and almost beamed when he saw a sign coming up. Not advertising, of course, he thought.
Perhaps some austere reminder of a whole man's duty to the race and himself, some noble phrase that summed up the wisdom of a great thinker. ...
But the sign—and it had cooling fins—declared:
BE SMUG! SMOKE SMOGS!
And the next one urged:
BEAT YOUR SISTER CHEAT YOUR BROTHER BUT SEND SOME SMOGS TO DEAR OLD MOTHER.
It said it on four signs which, apparently alerted by radar, zinged in succession along a roadside track even with the vehicle.
There were more. And worse. They were coming to a city.
Turmoil and magnificence! White pylons, natty belts of green, lacy bridges, the roaring traffic, nimble-skipping pedestrians waving at the cars and calling—greetings? It sounded like "Suwabih!
Suwabih! Bassa-bassa!" The shops were packed and radiant, dazzling. Ross wondered fleetingly how one parked here, and then found out. A car pulled from the curb and a hundred cars converged on the spot, shrilling their sweet message and spouting their gay sparkles. Theirs too! There were a pair of jolting crashes as it shouldered two other vehicles aside and parked, two wheels over the curb and on the sidewalk.
"Suwabih-bassa!" shouted drivers, and the man beside Ross gaily repeated the cry. The vehicle's doors opened and they climbed out into the quick tempo of the street.
It was loud with a melodious babble from speaker horns visible everywhere. The driver yelled cheerfully at Ross: "C'mon. Party." He followed, dazed and baffled, assailed by sudden doubts and contradictions.
It was a party, all right—twenty floors up a shimmering building in a large, handsome room whose principal decorative motif seemed to be cooling fins.
Perhaps twenty couples were assembled; they turned and applauded as they made their appearance.
The vehicle driver, standing grandly at the head of a short flight of stairs leading to the room, proclaimed: "I got these rocket flyers like on the piece of paper you guys read me. Right off the field. Twenny points. How about that?"
A tall, graying man with a noble profile hurried up and beamed: "Good show, Joe. I knew we could count on you to try for the high-point combo. You was always a real sport. You got the fish?"
"Sure we got the fish." Joe turned and said to one of the lovely ladies, "Elna, show him the fish."
She unwrapped a ten-pound swordfish and proudly held it up while Ross, Bernie, and Helena stared wildly.
The profile took the fish and poked it. "Real enough, Joe. You done great. Now if the rocket flyers here are okay you're okay. Then you got twenny points and the prize.
"You're a rocket flyer, ain't you, Buster?"
Ross realized he was being addressed. He croaked: "Men of Earth, we come from a far-distant star in search of——"
The profile said, "Just a minute, Buster. Just a minute. You ain't from Earth?"
"We come from a far-distant star hi search of——"
"Stick to the point, Buster. You ain't a rocket flyer from Earth? None of you?"
"No," Ross said. He furtively pinched himself. It hurt. Therefore he must be awake. Or crazy.
The profile was sorrowfully addressing a downcast Joe. "You should of asked them, Joe. You really should of. Now you don't even get the three points for the swordfish, because you went an' tried for the combo. It reely is a pity. Din't you ask them at all?"
Joe blustered, "He did say sump'm, but I figured a rocket flyer was a rocket flyer, and they come out of a rocket." His lower lip was trembling. Both of the ladies of his party were crying openly.
"We tried," Joe said, and began to blubber. Ross moved away from him in horrified disgust.
The profile shook its head, turned and announced: "Owing to a unfortunate mistake, the search group of Dr. Joseph Mulcahy, Sc.D., Ph.D., got disqualified for the combination. They only got three points. So that's all the groups in an' who got the highest?"
"I got fifteen! I got fifteen!" screamed a gorgeous brunette in a transport of joy. "A manhole cover from the museum an' a las' month Lipreaders Digest an' a steering wheel from a police car! I got fifteen!"
The others clustered about her, chattering. Ross said to the profile mechanically: "Man of Earth, we come from a far-distant star in search of——"
"Sure, Buster," said the profile. "Sure. Too bad. But you should of told Joe. You don't have to go. You an' your friends have a drink. Mix. Have fun. I gotta go give the prize now." He hurried off.
A passing blonde, stacked, said to Ross: "Hel-looo, baldy. Wanna see my operation?" He began to shake his head and felt Helena's fingers close like steel on his arm. The blonde sniffed and passed on.
"I'll operate her," Helena said, and then: "Ross, what's wrong with everybody? They act so young, even the old people!"
"Follow me," he said, and began to circulate through the party, trailing Bernie and a frankly terrified Helena, buttonholing and confronting and demanding and cajoling. Nothing worked. He was greeted with amused tolerance and invited to have a drink and asked what he thought of the latest commersh with its tepid trumpets. Nobody gave a damn that he was from a far-distant star except Joe, who sullenly watched them wander and finally swaggered up to Ross.
"I figured something out," he said grimly. "You made me lose." He brought up a roundhouse right, and Ross saw the stars and heard the birdies.
Bernie and Helena brought him to on the street. He found he had been walking for some five minutes with a blanked-out mind. They told him he had been saying over and over again, "Men of Earth, I come from a far-distant star." It had got them ejected from the party.
Helena was crying with anger and frustration; she had also got a nasty scare when one of the vehicles had swerved up onto the sidewalk and almost crushed the three of them against the building wall.
"And," she wailed, "I'm hungry and we don't know where the ship is and I've got to sit down and—and go someplace."
"So do I," Bernie said weakly.