Mark, do you think it could be a cannon?"
So far, he didn't know enough to have an opinion, and said so,
adding:
"What I saw of the village in the screen from the car, it looked
pretty primitive. Of course, gunpowder's one of those things a
primitive people could discover by accident, if the ingredients
were available."
"We won't take any chances, then."
"You think they're hostile? I was hoping they were coming out to
parley with us."
That was Paul Meillard. He had a right to be anxious; his whole
future in the Colonial Office would be made or ruined by what was
going to happen here.
The joint Space Navy-Colonial Office expedition was looking for
new planets suitable for colonization; they had been out, now,
for four years, which was close to maximum for an exploring
expedition. They had entered eleven systems, and made landings
on eight planets. Three had been reasonably close to Terra-type.
There had been Fafnir; conditions there would correspond to Terra
during the Cretaceous Period, but any Cretaceous dinosaur would
have been cute and cuddly to the things on Fafnir.
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