Douglas started to speak: "Mr. Smith, we are honored and happy to have you here as our guest today.  We hope that you will consider the planet Earth your home quite as much as the planet of your birth, our neighbor - our good neighbor - Mars-" He went on at some length, in careful, rounded, pleasant periods, which did not quite say anything.  Mike was welcome - but whether he was welcome as a sovereign, as a tourist from abroad, or as a citizen returning home, was quite impossible to determine (Jubal decided) from Douglas' words.