"I sure wish he hadn't been captured," Edwardson said.
"It could have been worse," Morse put in, his face sadder than ever. "What if they'd captured both of them?"
"I wish they'd come," Edwardson said.
Richard Everset and C. R. Jones had gone on the first interstellar flight. They had found an inhabited planet in the region of Vega. The rest was standard procedure.
A flip of the coin had decided it. Everset went down in the scouter, maintaining radio contact with Jones, in the ship.
The recording of that contact was preserved for all Earth to hear.
"Just met the natives," Everset said. "Funny-looking bunch. Give you the physical description later."
"Are they trying to talk to you?" Jones asked, guiding the ship in a slow spiral over the planet.
"No. Hold it. Well I'm damned! They're telepathic! How do you like that?"