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nudged his leg. From the seat alongside his human, the strapped-in canine nodded at his own heads-up.
    â€œKind of cuddly-looking, as aliens go,” the dog observed. “Except for the guns they’re carrying.”

U ssakk stared at the alien vessel. Its dimensions loomed all the more impressive when one realized that it was but a fraction of the size of the smallest of the three great starships that were in orbit high overhead. It did not help knowing that had his kind chosen to make the effort, their technological prowess was probably equal to the task of constructing similar vessels.
    Something that was unlikely ever to happen, he knew. The Hyfft were too homebound, too attached to their own comfortable, congenial, familiar world to want to cast themselves out into the vast, cold reaches between the stars. There was no need, the authorities declared whenever such proposals were tentatively put forth by the more audacious members of the scientific community. A waste of time and resources. Besides, even if such craft were designed and built, who would use them?
    What it all came down to, Ussakk knew, was that when the Hyfft emerged at night from their sophisticated, technologically advanced warrens and looked up at the curving bowl of the universe, they were both awed and afraid. Over the years, he had learned not to judge his kind too harshly. His profession placed him in that exceptional, small group of individuals who felt differently from the majority.
    Besides, he reminded himself, the Hyfft had reason to fear the great darkness. When the universe came calling, it was all too often in the form of the Iollth.
    A stirring in the crowd of officials and police caused him to tense. He did not have to look far for the source of the unease. A vertical gash had appeared in the side of the landing craft. Like a tongue from the mouth of hungry
dyaou,
a ramp was descending silently from its base.
    The figures that emerged were tall, exceedingly so. Well-formed and comfortingly bipedal, they hurried down the freshly extruded rampway in a manner suggestive of disciplined chaos. Those officials standing close around him chittered nervously and shrank back as the big-eyed aliens raised an assortment of unfamiliar tiny devices. The short, stubby fingers of the Hyfftian police tightened grimly on their weapons.
    But if the devices the swiftly descending aliens wielded were weapons, they were quickly trained not on the crowd of greeters but on the very same opening from which their manipulators had just emerged. What peculiar manner of Iollth protocol was this? Ussakk found himself wondering. Surely they were not preparing to shoot their own kind? Perhaps the instruments they were so energetically fingering were not weapons after all, but instead served some other as yet unknown purpose. Signs of further movement appeared in the dark recesses of the alien craft. He inhaled sharply. More figures were emerging from within. Shapes that were far more impressive, regimented, and threatening than the group that had preceded them outside.
    Unlike the group that had exited first, these newcomers exposed very little bare flesh. They were almost completely encased in formfitting, nonreflective material of gray and brown. It looked soft, but Ussakk suspected it was designed to repel all manner of hostile intent. While most of the marchers carried long metallic/plastic devices, two advanced slowly under the burden of large backpacks whose contents were a mystery. The astronomer decided he would be quite content if they were to remain so. He cast a glance in the direction of the police. His own escort was already clearly intimidated, and not a shot had been fired.
    Not that he blamed them. The shortest of the arrivals was more than twice the height of the average Hyfft. Though slim of build, they had long, no doubt powerful limbs. Surprisingly, each of these terminated in only two digits while the Hyfft could boast four on each hand and