"You do?"
The pilot flicked his tail rashly—a gesture usually associated with independent thought. "If he pushes on into the alien sector, it will be genocide. Those creatures are helpless. It isn't the sort of operation I'd care to be in on. Anyway, there's no reason why Tzareans and the aliens can't live side by side, even in one small pocket of the galaxy. We have different requirements. I don't think they would even be interested in the type of world we need."
Mittich eyed the pilot gravely. "We could assume command from the Chancellor."
"You do that. I'll watch. There are just enough glory hunters in the Assembly to have my head if I tried and failed."
And Mittich was intensely dissatisfied with himself over the fact that he, too, valued his head dearly.
Aldebaran Four, rising in all its primrose splendor, cast eerie splotches of light among the tumbled rock formations outside and thrust a brilliant planetbeam boldly into the small cave.
McAllister and Mortimer were huddled against the wall, still assuring each other it must have been some mistake, that there just couldn't be an alien race anywhere around.
Randall sat glumly on the emergency transceiver set, salvaged from the Photon in order that they might contact a rescue ship—should they be able to hold out long enough for one to be sent.
Still in his suit of armor but minus the helmet, Stewart sat trancelike near the cave entrance. He hadn't said a word in hours. Nor had he uttered half a dozen words since the attack.