The tiny spaceship sat silently, while its occupants evidently studied the lay of the land. Small turrets halfway up its sides twitched this way and that, pointing popgun armament.
Pud inspected the weapons extra-sensorily, and thought an amused snort: the things tossed a simple hydrogen-helium pellet for a short distance.
Gop, nursing a walloping headache as a result of Pud's rough counterprobe, thought sourly to himself: "I try to save the yim ... that's wrong. He forgets to deactivate the thig ... that's all right. I esprobe ... that's wrong. He esprobes ... that's all right."
At last: "They're getting out," Gop observed.
A tiny airlock had opened in the side of the ship. A metal ladder poked out, swung down, settled against the ground.
The aliens—two of them—appeared; looked down, looked up, looked to the right and to the left. Then they came warily down the ladder.
For a few minutes the giant Vegans watched the creatures wander about. One of them approached one of Pud's tails. Irritatedly Pud lifted it out of the way. The little creature snooped on, unaware that twenty tons of invisible silicoid flesh hung over its head. Pud curled the tail close to him, and did likewise with all his other tails.
