I was almost alone in the parks where I used to walk, because people liked to commune with one another those days rather than with nature. Even gardening had very little popularity. But I found myself most at home in those woodland--or, rather, pseudo-woodland--surroundings, able to identify more readily with the trees and flowers than I could with my own kind. A fallen tree or a broken blossom would excite more sympathy from me than the minor catastrophes that will beset any household, no matter how gifted, and I would shy away from bloody noses or cut fingers, thus giving myself a reputation for callousness as well as extrasensory imbecility. However, I was no more callous in steering clear of human breakdowns than I was in not shedding tears over the household machines when they broke down, for I felt no more closely akin to my parents and siblings than I did to the mechanisms that served and, sometimes, failed us. * * * * * On that day, I walked farther than I had intended and, by the time I got back home, I found the rest of my family had returned before me. They seemed to be excited about something and were surprised to see me so calm. "Aren't you even interested in anything outside your own immediate concerns, Kev?" Sylvia demanded, despite Father's efforts to shush her. "Can't you remember that Kev isn't able to receive the tellies?" Tim shot back at her. "He probably doesn't even know what's happened." "Well, what did happen?" I asked, trying not to snap. "One starship got back from Alpha Centauri," Danny said excitedly. "There are two inhabited Earth-type planets there!" This was for me; this was it at last! I tried not to show my enthusiasm, though I knew that was futile. My relatives could keep their thoughts and emotions from me; I couldn't keep mine from them. "What kind of life inhabits them? Humanoid?" "Uh-uh." Danny shook his head. "And hostile. The crew of the starship says they were attacked immediately on landing. When they turned and left, they were followed here by one of the alien ships. Must be a pretty advanced race to have spaceships. Anyhow, the extraterrestrial ship headed back as soon as it got a fix on where ours was going." "But if they're hostile," I said thoughtfully, "it might mean war." "Of course. That's why everybody's so wrought up. We hope it's peace, but we'll have to prepare for war just in case." There hadn't been a war on Earth for well over a hundred years, but we hadn't been so foolish as to obliterate all knowledge of military techniques and weapons. The alien ship wouldn't be able to come back with reinforcements--if such were its intention--in less than six months. This meant time to get together a stockpile of weapons, though we had no idea of how effective our defenses would be against the aliens' armament.