looked up in annoyance, then returned its gaze to the ground again.

Aural conversation thus obviated, Jerry tried for physical attention-getting. He reached out a vermiform forelimb-tip and tugged urgently at the other insect's nearest hind leg. An angry movement gave out the unmistakable pantomimic message: "For pete's sake, get off my back! I'm busy!" The other insect spread its thin double wings and went buzzing off a few trees away, then settled on a limb there and took up its earthward vigil once more.

"Well, they're not gregarious, that's for sure," said Jerry to himself. "I wish I knew what the hell we were waiting for!"

He decided he was sick of ground-watching, and turned his attention to his immediate vicinity. His gaze wandered along all the twists, juts and thrusts of branch and vine beneath the sun-blocking leaves.

And all at once he realized he was staring at another of his kind. So still had its dull green-brown body been that he'd taken it for a ripple of bark along a branch.

Carefully, he looked further on. Beyond the small still figure he soon located another like it, and then another. Within a short space of time, he had found three dozen of the insects sitting silently around him in a spherical area barely ten feet in diameter.

Oddly disconcerted, he once more spread his stiff white wings and fluttered away through the treetops, careful to avoid coming out in direct sunlight this time.

He flew until a resurgence of giddiness told him he was over-straining the creature's stamina. He dropped onto a limb and looked about once more. Within a very short time, he had spotted dozens more of the grasshopper-things. All were the same, sitting in camouflaged silence, steadily eyeing the ground.

"Damn," thought Jerry. "They don't seem interested in eating, mating or fighting. All they want to do is sit—sit and wait. But what are they waiting for?"

There was, of course, the possibility that he'd caught them in an off-period. If the species were nocturnal, then he wouldn't get any action from them till after sunset. That, he realized gloomily, meant a re-Contact later on. One way or another, he would have to determine the functions, capabilities and menace—if any—of the species with regard to the influx of colonists, who would come to Viridian only if his report pronounced it safe.

Once 

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