its own body. With plenty of carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen around, they would have to find some way of making building materials from organic compounds. Actually, they're probably not plastics as we know them; possibly they wouldn't even stand up at normal room temperature on Earth."

Parmay took up the story again. "There, you see, is the reason we never contacted them. We never went anywhere near such planets; we had no use for them. And they wouldn't try to colonize our planets any more than we'd try to colonize Mercury."

The Speaker had a question: "How did they detect your radar when it impinged on their ship?"

Alina answered him. "On their worlds, sound would be useless as a normal means of communication. There's too much noise. It would be like you or I trying to talk within fifty feet of an atomic bomb explosion. The shorter electromagnetic spectrum, bad as it is, would permit them to 'shout' at each other over a distance of a hundred yards, and they could probably carry on a normal conversation in a room this size.

"We believe that they are naturally equipped to speak to each other by radio—after all, an electric eel can generate currents within its own body of quite sizable voltages. A slight modification, plus a controlling intelligence, could make a transmitter of a living body.

"Therefore, when our radar hit them, it probably sounded like a siren. They knew our ship was somewhere near and got the devil away from there."

The room was silent as Parmay thanked Alina and concluded his speech.

"So, we have no quarrel with the aliens; they have none with us. We have entirely different spheres of operation. There is no need for conflict between us, now, or ever. Our job now is to contact them as best we can and trade knowledge for—"

The door opened suddenly, and Kerrman stepped in. He walked over to Parmay and whispered softly for a moment.

Parmay turned back to the Directors. "Gentlemen, Dr. Kerrman has had scout ships watching for several days in places where the aliens might be assumed to be. It's paid off. Our calculations are perfectly correct."

He grinned widely. "We don't have to worry about feeling inferior; we have a lot of things they don't, and vice versa.

"For instance, we have Earth. And I don't know how 

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