The Law was no help. Contact with planet-bound races was forbidden under any circumstances. But could a bunch of robots be called a race? The Law said nothing about robots because Earthmen had none. The building of imaginative robots was expressly forbidden. But at any rate, Steffens thought, he had made contact already.
While Steffens stood by the screen, completely bewildered for the first time in his space career, Lieutenant Ball came up, hobbling slightly. From the bright new bruise on his cheek, Steffens guessed that the sudden climb had caught him unaware. The exec was pale with surprise.
"What were they?" he said blankly. "Lord, they looked like robots!"
"They were."
Ball stared confoundedly at the screen. The things were now a confusion of dots in the mist.
"Almost humanoid," Steffens said, "but not quite."
Ball was slowly absorbing the situation. He turned to gaze inquiringly at Steffens.
"Well, what do we do now?"
Steffens shrugged. "They saw us. We could leave now and let them quite possibly make a ... a legend out of our visit, or we could go down and see if they tie in with the buildings on Tyban IV."
"Can we go down?"