It was a good thing he had the forbearance to keep from drawing the gun. The aliens might not have reacted immediately to its emergence, but his fellow humans surely would have. It was not that his naturally suspicious nature was in any way mollified by the aliens' utterly unexpected and novel appearance, only that he was for once no less shocked than his companions.

Chapter 2

I he reaction on Earth to the announcement that yet another intelligent space-faring species had been discovered no longer dominated the news portion of the general media People were more interested in the progress of the new settlements being opened in the Centaurus group, the results of the lottery to determine who would be granted emigration visa: for New Riviera, the latest DNA-HGH gene splicing scandal involving the parents of would-be sports superstars, whether a new wholly artificial fat-free chocolate was safe for human consumption, and possible ballot fixing involving the two run off candidates for world council representative from Oceania As far as relations with nonhuman species were concerned the vote on the possible expansion of the thranx colony in the Reserva Amazonia and a series of trade overtures from the AAnn Empire drew far more attention than anything that might have happened on far-distant Argus V

Therefore officials were mildly surprised but hardly shocked when the Chagos materialized from the arcane torquing old space-plus into Mars orbit and commenced the far more gradual and easily monitored arc sunward toward Earth. On board was a contingent of officers from the survey and exploration party that had been exploring the Argus system. A sufficiently large self-sustaining team had been left on the fifth planet of that benign, inviting sun, now named Treetrunk by its investigators, to continue the work of preparing it for an expanded series of studies and the possibility of eventual colonization.

The principal concern of Earth-based authority had been allayed when it was learned that the representatives of the

Pitar, as their name for themselves was transcribed, were not native to Argus V but came from another nearby system entirely. Nor did they, according to admittedly preliminary discussions, have any claim on that particular world, nor any other in the Argus system. Out exploring on their own, they had picked up quantified radiation from the vicinity of Argus V only to discover that it emanated from another ship. Contact had been made, initiated by the Pitar themselves. In this instance of interspecies coming together it was humankind that had been discovered, and not humans who had done the discovering.