The human race was expanding through the galaxy... and so, they knew, were the Aliens. When two expanding empires meet... war is inevitable. Or is it...?
Report back!"
Diane strained her ears for possible re-transmission of the Niccola's signals, which would indicate the Plumie's willingness to try conversation. But she suddenly raised her hand and pointed to the radar-graph instrument. It repeated the positioning of dots which were stray meteoric matter in the space between worlds in this system. What had been a spot--the Plumie ship--was now a line of dots. Baird pressed the button.
"Radar reporting!" he said curtly. "The Plumie ship is heading for us. I'll have relative velocity in ten seconds."
He heard the skipper swear. Ten seconds later the Doppler measurement became possible. It said the Plumie plunged toward the Niccola at miles per second. In half a minute it was tens of miles per second. There was no re-transmission of signals. The Plumie ship had found itself discovered. Apparently it considered itself attacked. It flung itself into a headlong dash for the Niccola.
* * * * *
Time pa
Although slightly dated, I found this to be an easy read about military thinking in a first-contact situation. The characters are quite good, with some humour, and though I miss the high-tech weaponry of other sci-fi books, this keeps if vague enough that your imagination allow you to get into the story.
Interesting study in first-contact scenarios, where things could and do go wrong. I bumped it down one star due to the awkward romance, which the story doesn't really need.
First rate story from one of the greats.
Well-written first-contact novella. Will the aliens be friendly, hostile, or just cautious? How will the humans respond?
