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                           Cultural Exchange

                             By J. F. BONE

                      _How could any race look so
                  ferocious and yet be peaceful--and
                      devise so nasty a weapon?_

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
              Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1960.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


                                   I

I couldn't help listening to the big spaceman sitting alone at the
corner table. He wasn't speaking to me--that was certain--nor was his
flat, curiously uninflected voice directed at anyone else. With some
surprise I realized that he was talking to himself. People don't do
that nowadays. They're adjusted.

He noted my raised eye-brows and grinned, his squ