section constructs a visual code for limited
purposes in dealing with the natives. Staff officers are hereby
authorized to impose any penalty ranging to death upon offenders, and to
try any such cases by summary courts martial. Junior officers authorized
to summarily arrest offenders. Effective immediately. Ven Klaeden,
Comm."

It would keep any interchange to an absolute minimum, he thought. And
Semantics had been ordered to attempt construction of a visual language
in which only the most vital and simple things could be said. Meanwhile,
the staff could attempt to utilize the ancient Anglo-Germanic tongue in
which the messages had been exchanged.

The baron had started to turn back into the lock when his eye caught a
flash of motion near the edge of the forest. Reflexively, he whirled and
crouched, gun flickering into his hand. His eyes probed the shrubs. Then
he saw her, half hidden behind a tree trunk--a young girl, obviously
frightened, yet curious to watch the ships. While he stared at her, she
darted from one trunk to the next closer one. She was already
approaching the edge of the blackened area. The baron shot a quick
glance at the radiation indicators on the inner wall of the airlock. The
instantaneous meter registered in the red. The induced radioactivity in
the ground about the base of the ship's jets was still too high. The
rate-of-decrease meter registered a decrement of point ten units per
unit. That meant it wouldn't be safe for the crew to leave ship for
twenty-three minutes, and that the girl had better stay back.

"_Keep clear!_" he bellowed from the airlock, hoping to frighten her.

She saw him for the first time, then. Instead of being frightened, she
seemed suddenly relieved. She came out into the open and began walking
toward the ship, wearing a smile and gazing up at the lock.

"_Go back, you little idiot!_"

Her answer was a brief sing-song chant and another smile. She kept
coming--into the charred area.

The gun exploded in his fist, and the bullet ricocheted from the ground
near her feet. She stopped, startled, but not sensing hostility. The gun
barked again. The bullet shattered a pebble, and it peppered her legs.
She yelped and fled back into the green garden.

He stood there staring after her for a moment, his face working slowly.
She had been unable to understand his anger. She saw the ships, and was
frightened but curious. She saw a human, and was reassured. Any human.
But was wha