I said, "Phil, I think you're taking your job too seriously. You just can't plan every detail of organizing our community down to the rationing of tooth-powder."

"Planning never hurt any project," Benson said.

"I disagree," I told him. "You've had too long to dwell on your plans. Now the first unpredictable incident throws you into an uproar. Relax, Phil. Take your problems one at a time. We don't even know that we'll ever see the little creatures again. Maybe they're shy."

He scarcely heard me. He was a large, well-muscled man of 46 years, an ex-college president and an able administrator. He and Jane, his wife, were the only two of our party older than the 35-year age limit. His background as a sociologist and anthropologist and his greater maturity were important factors in stabilizing a new colony, but his point of view had grown excessively conservative, it seemed to me.

A crew of craftsmen with their busy little power saws had constructed a sloping ship's ramp of rough planks sawed from the nearest trees. We stepped through and over the assembled people who were lying around in the grass at the base of the ramp, and Benson mounted twenty feet above us at the entrance to the ship.

Everyone was in high spirits, and a light cheer rippled through the assembly. Benson, however, ignored it and bent a thoroughly serious gaze out over his "flock".

"Please give me your closest attention," he began and waited until everyone was quiet. "Until further notice, we must proceed under a yellow alert during daylight hours and a red alert at night. All work parties leaving the ship will check with the scribe every hour on the hour. We will resume sleeping in the ship. Women are restricted to within 100 yards of the ship at all times. Men will go armed and will please inform themselves of their position on the security watch list which will be posted tonight." He squinted in the bright sunlight. "For the moment, you men with sidearms, post yourselves around the ship. Sound off loud if you sight anything larger than a rabbit."

The men named got slowly to their feet, fingering their light hunting pistols self-consciously. Benson continued, "You may appreciate these precautions when I tell you that Sam Rogers and I just encountered two remarkably humanoid animals on the beach less than half a mile from here."

Tension replaced levity, as Benson described our meeting with the natives. 

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