There were ten of them, riding on two small platforms: the propulsive system was not clear, and Holbrook's engineer's mind speculated about magnetic-field drives. They stood up, so rigid that not until the flying things had grounded and the creatures disembarked could the humans be quite sure they were alive.
There was about them the same chill beauty as their city bore. Two and a half meters tall they stood, and half of it was lean narrow-footed legs. Their chests and shoulders tapered smoothly, the arms were almost cylindrical but ended in eerily manlike hands. Above slender necks poised smooth, mask-faced heads—a single slit nostril, delicately lipped mouths immobile above narrow chins, fluted ears, long amber eyes with horizontal pupils. Their skins were a dusky hairless purple. They were clad identically, in form-fitting black; they carried vaguely rifle-like tubes, the blast-guns Holbrook remembered.
He thought between thunders: Why? Why should they ignore us for months, and then attack us so savagely when we dared to look at them, and then fail to pursue us or even search for our camp?
What are they going to do now?
Grushenko stepped forward. "Comrades," he said, holding up his hands. His voice came as if from far away; the bare black spaces ate it down, and Holbrook saw how a harshly suppressed fear glistened on the Ukrainian's skin. But Grushenko pointed to himself. "Man," he said. He pointed to the sky. "From the stars."
One of the Zolotoyans trilled a few notes. But it was at the others he (?) looked. A gun prodded Holbrook's back.
Ekaterina said with a stiff smile: "They are not in a conversational mood, Ilya Feodorovitch. Or perhaps only the commissar of interstellar relations is allowed to speak with us."
Hands closed on Holbrook's shoulders. He was pushed along, not violently but with firmness. He mounted one of the platforms. The others followed him. They rose without sound into the air. Looking back, Holbrook saw no one, no thing, on all the fused darkness of the spaceport, except the machines unloading the other ship and a few Zolotoyans casually departing from it. And, yes, the craft which had borne down the Terrestrial boat were being trundled off, leaving the boat itself unattended.
"Have they not even put a guard on our vessel?" choked Ekaterina.
Grushenko shrugged. "Why should they? In a civilization this advanced there are no thieves, no vandals, no spies."