lar.

[Illustration]

"Where is your uniform, sir!" Captain Iversen barked, aghast. If there
was one thing he was intolerant of in his command, it was sloppiness.

"This is the undress uniform of the Royal Flimbotzi Navy, sir. I was
given the privilege of wearing one as a great _msu'gri_--honor--to our
race. If I were to return to my own uniform, it might set back
diplomatic relations between Flimbot and Earth as much as--"

"All right!" the captain snapped. "All right, all right, all right!"

He didn't ask any questions about the Royal Flimbotzi Navy. He had
deduced its nature when, on nearing Flimbot, he had discovered that the
eleventh planet actually had only one moon. The other forty-five
celestial objects were spacecraft, quaint and primitive, it was true,
but spacecraft nonetheless. Probably it was their orbital formation that
had made him think they were moons. Oh, the crew must be in great
spirits; they did so enjoy having a good laugh at his expense!

He looked for something with which to reproach Harkaway, and his eye
lighted on the caterpillar. "What's that thing you're carrying there?"
he barked.

Raising itself on its tail, the caterpillar barked right back at him.

Captain Iversen paled. First he had overlooked the spacecraft, and now,
after thirty years of faithful service to the IEE(E) in the less
desirable sectors of space, he had committed the ultimate error in his
first contact with a new form of intelligent life!

"Sorry, sir," he said, forgetting that the creature--whatever its mental
prowess--could hardly be expected to understand Terran yet. "I am just a
simple spaceman and my ways are crude, but I mean no harm." He whirled
on Harkaway. "I thought you said the natives were humanoid."

The young officer grinned. "They are. This is just a greech. Cuddly
little fellow, isn't he?" The greech licked Harkaway's face with a
tripartite blue tongue. "The Flimbotzik are mad about pets. Great
animal-lovers. That's how I knew I could trust them right from the
start. Show me a life-form that loves animals, I always say, and--"

"I'm not interested in what you always say," Iversen interrupted,
knowing Harkaway's premise was fundamentally unsound, because he himself
was the kindliest of all men, and he hated animals. And, although he
didn't hate Harkaway, who was not an animal, save in the strictly
Darwinian sense, he could not repress unsportsmanlike feelings of
bitterness.

Why couldn't it have