"Who are you? Whence come you?"
"I'll answer the last part first," said Redgrave. "We come from the
earth, the planet which you see after sunset and before sunrise."
"Yes, the Silver Star," said the Martian without any note of wonder or
surprise in his voice. "Are all the dwellers there like the gods and
angels our children read about in the old legends?"
"Gods and angels!" laughed Zaidie. "There, Lenox, there's a compliment
for you. I really think we ought to be as civil to his Royal Highness
after that as possible." Then she went on, addressing the Martian, "No,
we are not all gods and angels on earth. There are no gods and very few
angels. In fact there are none except those which exist in the fancy of
certain prejudiced persons. But that doesn't matter, at least not just
now," she continued with American directness. "What we want to know just
now is, why you speak English, and what sort of a world this Mars is?"
The Martian evidently only understood the most direct essentials of her
speech. He saw that she asked two questions, and he answered them.
"Speak English?" he replied, with a little shake of his huge head. "We
know not English, but there is no other speech. There is only ours.
Cycles ago there were other speeches here, but those who spoke them were
killed. It was inconvenient. One speech for a world is best.
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