ould not do any harm
to see. First he hurried back to the cork of chairs he had jammed into
the stairwell. The squawks were now coming only at intervals, and Ross
could hear nothing to suggest that his barrier was being forced.

He returned to the lever and moved it back two notches, standing
open-mouthed at the immediate result. The cream-and-brown streaks were
making a picture! Moving another notch down caused the picture to
skitter back and forth on the screen. With memories of TV tuning to
guide him, Ross brought the other lever down to a matching position, and
the dim and shadowy images leaped into clear and complete focus. But the
color was still brown, not the black and white he had expected.

Only, he was also looking into a face! Ross swallowed, his hand grasping
one of the strings of chair webbing for support. Perhaps because in some
ways it did resemble his own, that face was more preposterously
nonhuman. The visage on the screen was sharply triangular with a small,
sharply pointed chin and a jaw line running at an angle from a broad
upper face. The skin was dark, covered largely with a soft and silky
down, out of which hooked a curved and shining nose set between two
large round eyes. On top of that astonishing head the down rose to a
peak not unlike a cockatoo's crest. Yet there was no mistaking the
intelligence in those eyes, nor the other's amazement at sight of Ross.
They might have been staring at each other through a window.

Squawk ... squeek ... squawk.... The creature in the mirror--on the
vision plate--or outside the window--moved its absurdly small mouth in
time to those sounds. Ross swallowed again and automatically made
answer.

"Hello." His voice was a weak whistle, and perhaps it did not reach the
furry-faced one, for he continued his questions if questions they were.
Meanwhile Ross, over his first stupefaction, tried to see something of
the creature's background. Though the objects were slightly out of
focus, he was sure he recognized fittings similar to those about him. He
must be in communication with another ship of the same type and one
which was not deserted!

Furry-face had turned his head away to squawk rapidly over his shoulder,
a shoulder which was crossed by a belt or sash with an elaborate
pattern. Then he got up from his seat and stood aside to make room for
the one he had summoned.

If Furry-face had been a startling surprise, Ross was now to have
another. The man who now