"This is Captain Greylorn, UNACV Galahad; kindly identify yourself." I repeated this slowly, half a dozen times. It occurred to me that this was the first known time in history a human being had addressed a non-human intelligence. The last was a guess, but I couldn't interpret our guest's purposeful maneuverings as other than intelligent. I checked with the bridge; no change. Suddenly the clatter stopped, leaving only the carrier hum. "Can't you tune that whine out, Joyce?" I asked. "No, sir," he replied. "That's a very noisy transmission. Sounds like maybe their equipment is on the blink." We listened to the hum, waiting. Then the clatter began again. "This is different," Mannion said. "It's longer." I went back to the bridge, and waited for the next move from the stranger, or for word from Mannion. Every half hour I transmitted a call identifying us, followed by a sample of our language. I gave them English, Russian, and Standard Interlingua. I didn't know why, but somehow I had a faint hope they might understand some of it. I stayed on the bridge when the watch changed. I had some food sent up, and slept a few hours on the OD's bunk. Fine replaced Kramer on his watch when it rolled around. Apparently Kramer was out of circulation. At this point I did not feel inclined to pursue the point. We had been at General Quarters for twenty-one hours when the wall annunciator hummed. "Captain, this is Mannion. I've busted it...." "I'll be right there," I said, and left at a run. Mannion was writing as I entered ComSection. He stopped his recorder and offered me a sheet. "This is what I've got so far, Captain," he said. I read: INVADER; THE MANCJI PRESENCE OPENS COMMUNICATIONS. "That's a highly inflected version of early Interlingua, Captain," Mannion said. "After I taped it, I compensated it to take out the rise-and-fall tone, and then filtered out the static. There were a few sound substitutions to figure out, but I finally caught on. It still doesn't make much sense, but that's what it says." "I wonder what we're invading," I said. "And what is the 'Mancji Presence'?" "They just repeat that over and over," Mannion said. "They don't answer our call." "Try translating into old Interlingua, adding their sound changes, and then feeding their own rise-and-fall routine to it," I said. "Maybe that will get a response." I waited while Mannion worked out the message, then taped it on top of their whining tone pattern. "Put plenty of horse-power behind it," I said. "If their receivers are as shaky as their transmitter, they might not be hearing us." We sent for five minutes, then tuned them back in and waited. There was a long silence from their side, then they came back with a long spluttering sing-song. Mannion worked over it for several minutes. "They must have understood us, here's what I get," he said: