It was shaped like a blunt arrowhead and must have landed vertically, for there were no marks on the surrounding grass. The light came from a single source in a streamlined dorsal housing, and a small red beacon was flashing on and off just above that. Altogether, it was a reassuringly — indeed, disappointingly — ordinary machine. One that could not conceivably have travelled the dozen light-years to the nearest known colony.

Suddenly, the main light went out, leaving the little group of observers momentarily blind. When he recovered his night vision, Brant could see that there were windows in the forepart of the machine, glowing faintly with internal illumination. Why — it looked almost like a manned vehicle, not the robot craft they had taken for granted!

Mayor Waldron had come to exactly the same astonishing conclusion.

“It’s not a robot — there are people in it! Let’s not waste any more time. Shine your flashlight on me, Brant, so they can see us.”

“Helga!” Councillor Simmons protested.

“Don’t be an ass, Charlie. Let’s go, Brant.”

What was it that the first man on the Moon had said, almost two millennia ago? ‘One small step…’ They had taken about twenty when a door opened in the side of the vehicle, a double-jointed ramp flipped rapidly downward, and two humanoids walked out to meet them.

That was Brant’s first reaction. Then he realized that he had been misled by the colour of their skin — or what he could see of it, through the flexible, transparent film that covered them from head to foot.

They were not humanoids — they were human. If he never went out into the sun again, he might become almost as bleached as they were.

The Mayor was holding out her hands in the traditional “See — no weapons!” gesture as old as history.