Captain Iversen paled. First he had overlooked the spacecraft, and now, after thirty years of faithful service to the IEE(E) in the less desirable sectors of space, he had committed the ultimate error in his first contact with a new form of intelligent life! "Sorry, sir," he said, forgetting that the creature--whatever its mental prowess--could hardly be expected to understand Terran yet. "I am just a simple spaceman and my ways are crude, but I mean no harm." He whirled on Harkaway. "I thought you said the natives were humanoid." The young officer grinned. "They are. This is just a greech. Cuddly little fellow, isn't he?" The greech licked Harkaway's face with a tripartite blue tongue. "The Flimbotzik are mad about pets. Great animal-lovers. That's how I knew I could trust them right from the start. Show me a life-form that loves animals, I always say, and--" "I'm not interested in what you always say," Iversen interrupted, knowing Harkaway's premise was fundamentally unsound, because he himself was the kindliest of all men, and he hated animals. And, although he didn't hate Harkaway, who was not an animal, save in the strictly Darwinian sense, he could not repress unsportsmanlike feelings of bitterness. Why couldn't it have been one of the other officers who had discovered the Flimbotzik? Why must it be Harkaway--the most inept of his scouts, whose only talent seemed to be the egregious error, who always rushed into a thing half-cocked, who mistook superficialities for profundities, Harkaway, the blundering fool, the blithering idiot--who had stumbled into this greatest discovery of Iversen's career? And, of course, Harkaway's, too. Well, life was like that and always had been. "Have you tested those air and soil samples yet?" Iversen snarled into his communicator, for his spacesuit was beginning to itch again as the gentle warmth of Flimbot activated certain small and opportunistic life-forms which had emigrated from a previous system along with the Terrans. "We're running them through as fast as we can, sir," said a harried voice. "We can offer you no more than our poor best." "But why bother with all that?" Harkaway wanted to know. "This planet is absolutely safe for human life. I can guarantee it personally." "On what basis?" Iversen asked. "Well, I've been here two weeks and I've survived, haven't I?" "That," Iversen told him, "does not prove that the planet can sustain human life." Harkaway laughed richly. "Wonderful how you can still keep that marvelous sense of humor, Skipper, after all the things that have been going wrong on the voyage. Ah, here comes the _flim'tuu_--the welcoming committee," he said quickly. "They were a little shy before. Because of the rockets, you know." "Don't their ships have any?" "They don't seem to. They're really very primitive affairs, barely able to go from planet to planet." "If they _go_," Iversen said, "stands to reason _something_ must power them."