"It's odd," agreed Docchi. "But it doesn't match what happens when we meet our first aliens. It's nothing like anyone imagined. Here we stand, face to face across the stars. There is no competition for inhabitable planets since our definitions are mutually exclusive. But we are afraid; neither side wants war. And so we go ahead cautiously, looking for signs in the other that will reassure us."
"I don't know," said Jeriann. "We're being tested. Will we measure up?"
"We won't fail. In spite of what we may seem to some of our own people, we're average men and women—and man hasn't stopped climbing upward since that day somebody built the first fire."
Jeriann squeezed him and they slowed. In their wandering they had come to gravity center. They looked at each other and decided to go in. Jeriann opened the door and there was a light down the hall. They went to it and looked in.
Jordan was in front of the scanner, scowling at it in fierce concentration. "I hope those idiots got it down straight," he muttered back at them.
"Don't be so concerned. You took it apart for them, didn't you?"
"Yeah, but it doesn't mean I made them understand." He wiped his forehead. "However, even if they don't know what it's all about, somebody ought to be able to build another. It'll work if they use a little sense."
Docchi smiled. "Don't discount what gravity experts know. After they get through thinking over the ideas in those circuits they'll doll up the scanner and before you know it they'll have a machine that can reach us from Earth."
"That'll be the day," said Jordan. "Let's hope they don't. It's bad enough they know we're here—but if they have to look at us too...." He shook his head.
"You're wrong," said Anti, coming in and sitting down. "Won't be that way at all." She bent and began rubbing her legs. "My poor feet. I've been walking around for the longest time—full weight too."