Born in Detroit, Michigan, son of a Methodist minister; educated in Michigan and New York public schools; B.A., New York State University, 1959; M.A., N.Y.S.U. Extension, 1964. Unmarried. Surviving relatives--"

That was the trouble, it began to sound like an obituary. And then the great humming metal shell would begin to feel like a coffin....

[Illustration]

Presumption. Pure presumption. None of these creatures should have been allowed to get loose among the stars, Man least of all. It cluttered up the Universe. It undermined Faith. And it had got Algernon Weaver into the devil of a fix.

* * * * *

It was his sister's fault, actually. She would go, in spite of his advice, up to the Moon, to the UN sanatorium in Aristarchus. Weaver's sister, a big-framed, definite woman, had a weak heart and seventy-five superfluous pounds of fat. Doctors had told her that she would live twenty years longer on the Moon; therefore she went, and survived the trip, and thrived in the germ-free atmosphere, weighing just one-sixth of her former two hundred and ten pounds.

Once, she was there, Weaver could hardly escape visiting her. Harriet was a widow, with large resources, and Weaver was her only near relative. It was necessary, it was prudent, for him to keep on her good side. Moreover, he had his family feeling.

He did not like it, not a minute of it. Not the incredible trip, rising till the Earth lay below like a botched model of itself; not the silent mausoleum of the Moon. But he duly admired Harriet's spacious room in the sanatorium, the recreation rooms, the auditorium; space-suited, he walked with her in the cold Earthlight; he attended her on the excursion trip to Ley Field, the interstellar rocket base on the far side of the Moon.

The alien ship was there, all angles and planes--it came from Zeta Aurigae, they told him, and was the second foreign ship to visit Sol. Most of the crew had been ferried down to Earth, where they were inspecting the people (without approval, Weaver was sure). Meanwhile, the remaining crewman would be pleased to have the sanatorium party inspect _him_.

* * * * *

They went aboard, Harriet and two other women, and six men counting the guide and Weaver. The ship was a red-lit cavern. The "crewman" turned out to be a hairy horror, a three-foot headless lump shaped like an eggplant, supported by four splayed legs and with an indefinite number of tentacles wriggling below the stalked eyes.

"They're more like us than you'd think," said the guide. "They're mammals, they have a nervous organization very like ours, they're susceptible to some of our diseases--which is very rare--and they even share some of our minor vices." He opened his kit and offered the thing a plug of chewing tobacco, which was refused with much tentacle-waving, and a cigar, which was accepted. The creature stuck the cigar into the pointed tip of its body, just above the six beady black eyes, lit it with some sort of flameless lighter, and puffed clouds of smoke like a volcano.