“The general public,” the Secretary replied, “is not interested in scientific niceties. You look like something out of many of their worst nightmares.”

“And what about you, Mr. Secretary?” Ryo slid off his saddle and approached. “How do I look to you?” He reached up with both tru- and foothands and grasped the lower edge of the man’s shirt.

“Does my touch make your skin crawl? An intriguing phenomenon, by the way. Do I make you want to vomit? Does my smell make you ill?” He let loose of the material. The Secretary hadn’t moved.

“As a matter of fact,” he replied calmly, “your smell, of which I was apprised prior to my arrival, is quite as lovely as reported. However, our media systems are not sufficiently advanced to convey odiferous stimuli. Only sight and sound. I’m afraid that when it comes to the question of contact, sight will predominate in determining responses.”

Ryo had turned and retaken his saddle. “So you are not optimistic.”

“You have already had an unfortunate encounter with one fanatic, I understand?”

“Yes. It cost the life of a very dear human friend of mine. I believe the incident proves not the adverse reactions my people might provoke, but the opposite. A human has sacrificed his life for mine, grotesque quasi-insect though I am.”

“A singular, isolated example involving a man who was a trained explorer. The same reaction cannot be expected from the average human.”

“Or for that matter, the average Thranx,” Ryo admitted. “Somehow a solution must be found.”

“I can’t see one.” The Secretary was not encouraging. “We would have to demonstrate beyond a doubt that our two species could live side by side in harmony and understanding despite thousands of years of mutual conditioning to the contrary.

“The best I can realistically offer is a chance to open tentative communications via Deep Space transmissions. Even then I’ll have to combat the bigots and paranoids in my own department. But if we exercise caution, with luck and some social maturation we might during the next couple of hundred years—”

“Apologies for interruption, sir.” Ryo cut him off sharply. “The AAnn will not wait a couple of hundred years. They will extend their mischief-making to include your people. They know just how far they can push, how deeply they can wound. They will try to bleed you to death. When you are weak enough, they will attack. Each day they grow more powerful, more confident For the sake of both our species we must strike an alliance now, That cannot be done through cautious, long-range transmissions.”

A successful politician knows when to be tactful and when to be truthful. The Secretary was very successful.

“Unfortunately, the facts exist We cannot alter our shape any more than you can alter yours. I can see no quick way to prove species compatibility.”