That was not the case with the second alien. Bipedal and massively built, it strode along behind the quasi-cephalopod with an easy, fluid gait. Over its leathery skin it wore a suit of black and dark green material. Concave and shaped something like a communications disc, the large, wide head showed ripples and folds in the skin. The two eyes were large, round, and yellow, with tiny black dots for pupils. Ears were large, leathery, and thin. A transparent dome of a helmet covered the head, but both three-fingered hands were exposed to the air. The presence of unprotected hands and other flesh suggested that the creature was not allergic to Earth’s oxygen atmosphere but that it needed something more to breathe. Or maybe, Dev surmised, the helmet provided some kind of filtration. Perhaps the creature needed less oxygen and not more. Or possibly it needed to breathe some kind of supplementary gas. The pack on its back could have served that function and more.

Below the pack, a pair of prehensile tails flicked back and forth just above the ground. At the moment they were gripping a long, tapering length of some shiny material that was dotted with lights. The narrow end of this mechanism was pointed in the direction of the contact group. In his direction, Dev realized. Additionally, each alien hand held a smaller device, the ends of which were similarly aimed at the humans. They might be sensing instruments, he told himself. Taking bio-readings, sampling the atmosphere, collecting minute airborne particulate matter. But the feeling he got from the alien’s posture and from the look of the three implements, however unsupported by actual evidence, did not incline him to think they were scientific apparatus. His considered opinion was that any one of the three was much more likely to be capable of decapitating, disintegrating, or dissolving the members of the contact team where they stood.

Katou-Zimmer was speculating aloud as she studied the aliens. “Not sexual or species dimorphism. They are far too different in structure.”

“Completely distinct.” Pavesi, the team’s other biologist, was in immediate agreement. “No structural similarity whatsoever.”

“As opposed to you,” the alien commented, “who exhibit all the characteristics of a uniform species.”

It was possible that this wholly comprehensible response, delivered in perfect American English, shocked the members of the contact team and their escorts at least as much as the initial appearance of the alien mothership had stunned the entire human population. It was left to the alien to break the ensuing stunned silence.

“I am called Vantolos. I have communicated. Have I not made myself understood?”

His mastery of complex linguistics rendered utterly superfluous, Jakob Zimmer still felt it incumbent on him to offer the first reply. That had been the intent from the time the team had been put together. It was not expected that it would proceed with quite such a degree of ease.