Our people opened ranks and let the little creatures infiltrate. Sue squeezed my arm. "Why, they're beautiful little things! They make me feel self-conscious with my bleached-out skin. They certainly look intelligent, those eyes--no fear in them at all--look, they're even smiling!" Indeed, several of the creatures were grinning broadly at the male members of our party. They found our clothing amusing. Now we could hear their soft voices conversing in a language that was liquid with a great many compound vowel sounds, not unlike Earth's Finnish tongue. Their quick, dark eyes seemed to take in everything. They seemed torn between a consuming curiosity and a strong aversion to our scent. One by one they satisfied the former and yielded to the latter, dropping back and racing for the forest in great, joyous bounds punctuated with happy little whoops of undefinable emotion. At last only one, chesty little male was left. Benson exhaled heavily beside me. "It's the little fellow we saw on the beach, Sam. Look, he's coming through." A tawny stripe of brown, furry hair ran from his high forehead, over the crown of his proud skull and down his neck to fade into the typical, deep, golden fuzz of his body. As he approached the ramp I saw that his face was smooth, entirely free of hair as though clean-shaven. By now Benson was as fascinated as the rest of us. I stepped down in front of him to confront our visitor. I placed a hand on my chest and said, "Sam Rogers!" The dark eyes swept from my feet to my head and fastened upon my face. He pointed four long fingers at me and repeated distinctly, "Samrogers." My name is easy to pronounce, but it was a shock to hear it from the lips of an extra-terrestrial being. Then he placed the same hand on his own chest and said, "Joe!" Actually, it came out with a rapid widening and narrowing of his lips that sounded like a quick version of, "Jo-ah-o-ah-oh," but the vowel echoes were so rapid that for practical purposes it read, "Joe," to me. I pointed my hand at him and repeated, "Joe!" He looked vaguely disappointed at my crude aspiratory control, but then a bright smile creased his cocky little face. His hand flicked out and back. "Samrogers--Joe." Involuntarily I nodded my head. He nodded back and smiled again. Before I could think of what comes after, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume," he wrinkled his nose, squinted his eyes, whirled and darted off for the timber. We stood rooted for a minute, then Bailey said, "We must really stink. Plucky little fellow took it as long as he could." Benson looked back at Bailey and me. "Well, what do you think?" I looked at Bailey, and he looked at Dr. Sorenson. "Lord, I don't know. Except for the possibility of microbe infection, they appear perfectly harmless to me," Sorenson said.