n there was a rushing, and scrambling figures appeared and were all
about. They were members of the _Niccola's_ crew, sent by the skipper.
They regarded the Plumie with detachment, but Taine with a wary
expectancy. Taine turned purple with fury. He shouted. He raged. He
called Baird and the others Plumie-lovers and vermin-worshipers. He
shouted foulnesses at them. But he did not attack.

When, still shouting, he went away, Baird said apologetically to the
Plumie:

"He's a xenophobe. He has a pathological hatred of strangers--even of
strangeness. We have him on board because--"

Then he stopped. The Plumie wouldn't understand, of course. But his eyes
took on a curious look. It was almost as if, looking at Baird, they
twinkled.

Baird took him back to the skipper.

"He's got the picture, sir," he reported.

The Plumie pulled out his sketch plate. He drew on it. He offered it. The
skipper said heavily:

"You guessed right, Mr. Baird. He suggests that someone from this ship go
on board the Plumie vessel. He's drawn two pressure-suited figures going
in their air lock. One's larger than the other. Will you go?"

"Naturally!" said Baird. Then he added thoughtfully: "But I'd better
carry a portable scanner, sir. It should work perfectly well through a
bronze hull, sir."

The skipper nodded and began to sketch a diagram which would amount to an
acceptance of the Plumie's invitation.

This was at 07 hours 40 minutes ship time. Outside the sedately rotating
metal hulls--the one a polished blue-silver and the other a glittering
golden bronze--the cosmos continued to be as always. The haze from
explosive fumes and rocket-fuel was, perhaps, a little thinner. The
brighter stars shone through it. The gas-giant planet outward from the
sun was a perceptible disk instead of a diffuse glow. The oxygen-planet
to sunward showed again as a lighted crescent.

Presently Baird, in a human spacesuit, accompanied the Plumie into the
_Niccola's_ air lock and out to emptiness. His magnetic-soled shoes clung
to the _Niccola's_ cobalt-steel skin. Fastened to his shoulder there was
a tiny scanner and microphone, which would relay everything he saw and
heard back to the radar room and to Diane.

She watched tensely as he went inside the Plumie ship. Other screens
relayed the image and his voice to other places on the _Niccola_.

He was gone a long time. From the beginning, of course, there were
surprises. When the Plumie escort removed h