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distressed planet. It had also asked if some beings of physiological
classification DBDG
could be sent along to act as information gatherers as the natives were of
that classification and were violently hostile to all off-planet life, a fact
which seriously hampered Lonvellin's activities.
The fact of Lonvellin asking for help of any sort was surprising in itself in
view of the enormous intelligence and experience of his species in solving
vast sociological problems. But on this occasion things had gone disastrously
wrong, and Lonvellin had been kept too busy using its defensive science to do
anything else.
According to Lonvellin's report it had begun by observing the planet from
space during many rotations, monitoring the radio transmissions through its
Translator, and taking particular note of the low level of industrialization
which contrasted so oddly with the single, still functioning space port. When
all the information which it had thought necessary had been collected and
evaluated it chose what it considered to be the best place to land.
From the evidence at hand Lonvellin judged the world-the native's name for it
was Etla-to have been a once-prosperous colony which had regressed for
economic reasons until now it had very little contact with outside. But it did
have some, which meant that Lonvellin's first and usually most difficult job,
that of making the natives trust an alien and perhaps visually horrifying
being who had dropped out of the sky, was greatly simplified. These people
would know about e-ts. So it took the role of a poor, frightened, slightly
stupid extra-
terrestrial who had been forced to land to make repairs to its ship. For this
it would require various odd and completely worthless chunks of metal or rock,
and it would pretend great difficulty in making the Etlans understand exactly
what it needed. But for these valueless pieces of rubbish it could exchange
items of great value, and soon the more enterprising natives would get to know
about it.
At this stage Lonvellin expected to be exploited shamelessly, but it didn't
mind. Gradually things would change. Rather than give items of value it would
offer to perform even more valuable services. It would let it be known that it
now considered its ship to be irreparable, and gradually it would become
accepted as a permanent resident. After that it would be just a matter of
time, and time was something with which Lonvellin was particularly well
supplied.
It landed close to a road which ran between two small towns, and soon had the
chance to reveal itself to a native. The native, despite Lonvellin's careful
contact and many reassurances via the Translator, fled. A few hours later
small, crude projectiles with chemical warheads began falling on his ship and
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the whole area, which was densely wooded, had been saturated with volatile
chemicals and deliberately set alight.
Lonvellin had been unable to proceed without knowing why this race with
experience of space-travel should be so blindly hostile to e-ts, and not being
in a position to ask questions himself it had called for Earth human
assistance.
Shortly afterward Alien Contact specialists of the Monitor Corps had arrived,
sized up the situation for themselves and gone in.
Quite openly, as it happened.
They discovered that the natives were terrified of e-ts because they believed
them to be disease carriers. What was even more peculiar was the fact that
they were not worried by off-planet visitors of their own species or a closely
similar race, members of which would have been more likely to be carriers of
disease: because it was a well-known medical fact that diseases which affected
extra-terrestrials were not communicable to members of other planetary
species. Any race with a knowledge of space travel should know that, Conway
thought. It was the first thing a star traveling culture learned.
He was trying to make some sense out of this strange contradiction, using a
tired brain and some hefty reference works on the Federation's colonization
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