For all practical purposes, that's what it was. Ross Metaxa led him over and they stared down into its glass-covered interior.
Ronny's eyes bugged. The box contained [pg 064] the partly charred body of an animal approximately the size of a rabbit. No, not an animal. It had obviously once been clothed, and its limbs were obviously those of a tool using life form.
Metaxa and Jakes were staring down at it solemnly, for once no inane grin on the supervisor's face. And that of Ross Metaxa was more weary than ever.
Ronny said finally, “What is it?” But he knew.
“You tell us,” Metaxa growled sourly.
“It's an intelligent life form,” Ronny blurted. “Why has it been kept secret?”
“Let's go on back upstairs,” Metaxa sighed.
Back in his office he said, “Now I go into my speech. Shut up for a while.” He poured himself a drink, not offering one to the other two. “Ronny,” he said, “man isn't alone in the galaxy. There's other intelligent life. Dangerously intelligent.”
In spite of himself Ronny reacted in amusement. “That little creature down there? The size of a small monkey?” As soon as he said it, he realized the ridiculousness of his statement.
Metaxa grunted. “Obviously, size means nothing. That little fellow down there was picked up by one of our Space Forces scouts over a century ago. How long he'd been drifting through space, we don't know. Possibly only months, but possibly hundreds of centuries. But however long he's proof that man is not alone in the galaxy. And we have no way of knowing when the expanding human race will come up against this other intelligence—and whoever it was fighting.”