"That doesn't make sense," Harry said. "Why would it leave its . . . environment . . . without protection? Why not make ail the necessary precautions and plan the first excursion carefully?"

"We don't know," Colonel Hail said. "We have not interrogated the Guest or caused it any undue strain. We supply it with whatever it requests."

"It makes its requests in English?" Arthur asked.

"Yes, in quite passable English."

Arthur shook his head in disbelief. "Has anyone called Duncan Lunan?"

"We haven't 'called' anybody but people with an immediate need to know," Hall said. "Who is Duncan Lunan?"

"A Scottish astronomer," Arthur explained. "He made a fair mess of a controversy about twenty-three years ago when he claimed to have evidence of an alien space probe orbiting near the Earth. A probe he thought might be from Epsilon Bootis. His evidence consisted of patterns of anomalous returned radio signals that seemed to have been bounced from an object in space. Like a great many pioneers, he had to face disappointment and recant, after a fashion."

"No, sir," Hall said, again with his enigmatic smile. "We haven't spoken to Mr. Lunan."

"Pity. I can think of a hundred scientists who should be here," Arthur said.

"Eventually, perhaps," Hall allowed. "Not right now."

"No. Of course not. Well?" Arthur gestured at the dark window.

"Colonel Phan will give us a direct view in a few minutes."

"Who is Colonel Phan?" Harry asked.

"He's an expert in space medicine from Colorado Springs," Hail said. "We couldn't find anyone better qualified on such short notice, although I doubt we could find a better man for the job even if we searched all year."

"You didn't ask us," Harry said. Arthur nudged him gently in the arm.

The lights in the viewing room dimmed. "I hope someone's making videotapes of our Guest," Harry whispered pointedly to Arthur as they pulled their seats close to the window.

"We have a digital recorder and three high-resolution cameras working around the clock," Lieutenant Sanborn explained.

"All right," Harry said.

Harry was obviously nervous. For his own part, Arthur felt both alert and vaguely anesthetized. He could not quite accept that an age-old question had been answered affirmatively, and that they were about to see the answer.

The black curtain drew aside. Beyond another thick pane of glass framed in stainless steel, they saw a small, dimly lighted, almost empty square room, watery green in color. In the middle of the room was a low platform draped with what appeared to be blankets. A plastic beaker of clear water sat in one corner. In the right-hand corner nearest their window was a meter-tall transparent cylinder, open at the top. Arthur took all this in before focusing on what lay under the blankets on the low table.

The Guest moved, raised a forward limb—clearly a kind of arm, with a three-fingered hand, each finger divided in two above the middle joint—and then sat up slowly, the blanket falling free of its wedge-shaped head. The long "nose" of its head pointed at them and the golden brown eyes emerged from the blunt end, withdrew, emerged. Arthur, mouth dry, tried to see the being as a whole, but for the moment could only concentrate on whether the eyes were lidded, or actually withdrew within "pools" of pale gray-green flesh.