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cooking or heating.
They were startled out of their argument by the sudden, sharp rasp of alien voices. These issued from the
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mysterious box. At the first sound Stands had jerked aside, but resumed fiddling with the front-mounted
dials positioned beneath a now glowing transparent rectangle as soon as it became clear that the device
was harmless. The rectangle was covered with alien squiggles. Some form of primitive writing, perhaps.
Turning one dial caused a solid marker to move back and forth between the squiggles.
Looks-at-Charts eyed the box warily. A communications device of some kind?
I don t think so. Stands-while-Sitting continued to adjust the dials, vary-ing voices and volume. I have
addressed it in several ways and there is no response whatsoever. I think it is simply a machine to listen
to.
They left it on as they continued their inspection. Several times the air in
the room was filled with the realistic thunder of explosions, and sounds that were suspiciously like the
screams of the injured or dying.
Viewplays with sound only? hypothesized Burden, pausing in his work to listen to one particularly
tormented sequence.
Possibly, murmured Stands. But remember the orbital observations and resultant analysis. These
primitives are warring with one another. She gestured at the box with an ear. It may not be a simple
simulation.
They lived with that sobering thought as they continued their work, in-specting, recording, and trying to
commit everything in the structure to memory, until Stands-while-Sitting happened to glance out a
window. She checked her chronometer.
The day is ending, a shorter one than we are used to. We must leave. The scouts were reluctant to
abandon the dwelling. Perhaps the length of hair is related to social status as opposed to gender, said
Looks.
No, I think it s the other way around, Burden-carries-Far argued as he turned toward the entrance. It
was dim inside the building now.
We will try to return tomorrow. Stands-while-Sitting s voice was thick with reluctance. There is so
much to try and absorb. This was not planned. She eyed Looks suspiciously as she spoke. But having
found the right tree we would be remiss in not girdling it completely. Her gaze turned to the talking box.
It squawked noisily, imparting vital information they could not comprehend. She wished they could take it
with them, but it would be missed, and it was really too heavy and bulky to haul all the way back to the
survey ship. She moved to turn it off.
I agree wholesoully. Burden started toward the front door.
He was halfway there when it was opened from the other side. Final sunlight poured in and made him
shield his eyes.
I thought I heard" . . . , roared an intense, painfully loud voice before breaking off in mid-sentence.
The vision in the doorway imprinted itself permanently on Looks-at-Charts s mind in the seconds of
silence that followed. It was not horrible or frightening, just ugly. Like the two-dimensional images hung
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on the wall, it had fur growing atop its otherwise bald skull, and very little of it at that. Unlike the pictures
they d examined, it also had a massive mat of tangled hair exploding from its face. It was taller and more
massively built than any of them. Looks realized with a start that the images they d studied had given no
ready clue as to the actual size of the natives. If anything, the design of the furniture seemed to indicate
they were shorter, so the actual appearance of the native was quite a shock. They had no feet, as
suspected, but their legs were longer than he d imagined, and their torsos unconventionally large.
He and Stands instinctively held their ground while Burden reacted. Not knowing what else to do, he
assumed a formal greeting posture, ears down
and hands at his side. When the native did not respond, the scout attempted to make him feel welcome.
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