"Shut up! Precedent is merely the assumption that somebody else, in the past with less information, nevertheless knows better than die man on the spot. If you had gotten any use out of the time you spent as a cadet, you'd know that the Tradition is something very different. To follow a tradition means to do things in the same grand style as your predecessors; it does not mean to do the same things."
"Okay, okay-you can skip the lecture."
"I need some information from you. Had the Little People here ever seen a man before you came along?"
"Uh . . . why, they knew about men, a little anyhow. Of course there was Stevens."
"Who was Stevens?"
"Mineralogist, working for my old man. He did the quickie survey that caused us to bring the Gary in. Oh, there was his pilot, too."
"And those are the only men these natives have encountered, aside from the crew of the Gary?"
"So far as I know, yes."
"Have they ever heard of the Patrol?"
"I doubt it-yes, they have, too. At least the boss mother seemed to know the native word for it."