Psychologist J. L. Broussard sat up puzzled. "What do you mean, don't put away my Lewinian vector charts too soon? I may have a chance to use them on whom?"
Captain Allen Hawkins simply stared straight ahead of him, his lips forming unanswerable questions. Broussard took his cue from the man's head and stared too. And then he understood.
The alien, for from its dress alone it obviously was an alien, was still quite a distance away from them. It came walking towards them with a kind of protective sparkle about it—and even from that distance they could sense a feeling of power about the man.
"Man?" Broussard caught himself thinking. Yes, it did seem very much like a man—not only like a human, but like a masculine human. But immediately Broussard told himself that this might not be the case. True, humanoid it was, but because it displayed a certain lack of the more obvious female sexual characteristics it did not follow that it was male. "Why, they could even have ten different sexes for all we know," Broussard thought to himself.
"I think it's coming towards us," Hawkins said quietly.
Broussard watched the alien move a few more yards and then agreed.
Hawkins activated a small radio that he carried in one of his shirt pockets. "Hello, Communications," he spoke rapidly into the microphone. "This is Hawkins. Put me through to the Bridge at once. And make sure you record every word that I say."
The words "Aye, aye, Captain," were forthcoming immediately from the tiny loudspeaker. The Captain rated a special communications channel that was guarded by the radio shack at all times, and it came as no surprise to Hawkins that the reply was prompt. He had expected it to be.
"Bridge here, go ahead."
"This is Captain Hawkins, Bridge. Who's the Duty Officer?" Hawkins knew who the man was, but asked to give the man a chance to realize fully that the Captain was aware with whom he was speaking.