Read "Cultural Exchange" by Jesse F. Bone online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"How could any race look so ferocious and yet be peaceful -- and devise so nasty a weapon?"
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.