Inside the Shapieron, Hunt and Danchekker were among the mixed group of Ganymeans and Earthmen gathered in the ship’s command center-the place to which Hunt had been conducted with Storrel and the others at the time of their momentous first visit from Jupiter Five. A number of eggs had been dispatched from the Shapieron to descend to lower altitudes and obtain, for the aliens’ benefit, a bird’s-eye preview of different parts of Earth. The Earthmen were explaining the significance of some of the pictures that the eggs were sending back. Already the Ganymeans had gazed incredulously at the teeming density of life in cities such as New York, Tokyo and London, gasped at the spectacles of the Arabian desert and the Amazon jungle-terrain unlike any that had existed on Minerva-and stared in mute, horrified fascination at a telescopic presentation of lions stalking zebra in the African grasslands.
To Hunt, the familiar sights of green continents, sun-drenched plains and blue oceans, after what felt like an eternity of nothing -but rock, ice and the blackness of space, were overpowering. As different parts of the mosaic of Earth came and went across the main screen, he detected a steady change in the moods of the Ganymeans too. The earlier misgivings and apprehensions that some of them had felt were being swept away by an almost intoxicating enthusiasm that became contagious as time went by. They were becoming restless and excited-keen to see more, firsthand, of the incredible world where chance had brought them.
One of the eggs was hovering three miles up over Lake Geneva and relaying up to the Shapieron its telescopic view of the throngs that were still building up on the hills overlooking Ganyville and all over the meadows surrounding it. The Ganymeans were pleasantly surprised, and at the same time astounded, that they should
be the objects of such widespread interest and such a display of mass emotion. Hunt had tried to explain that the arrival of alien spacecraft was not something that happened very often, let alone one from twenty-five million years in the past, but the Ganymeans appeared unable to comprehend how anything could give rise to a spontaneous demonstration of emotion on so vast a scale. Monchar had wondered if the Earthmen that they had so far met represented “the more stable and rational end to the human spectrum rather than a typical cross section.” Hunt had decided to say nothing and leave it at that. Monchar would no doubt be able to answer that for himself in good time.
A lull in the conversation had occurred and everybody was watching the screen as one of the Ganymeans muttered commands to ZORAC to take the egg a little lower and zoom in closer. The view expanded and closed in on the side of a small, grassy hill, by this time thick with people of all ages, sizes, manners and garbs. There were people cooking, people drinking, people playing and people just sitting; it could have been a day at the races, a pop festival, a flying display, or all of them rolled into one.
“Are they all safe out in the open there?” one of the Ganymeans asked dubiously after a while.
“Safe?” Hunt looked puzzled. “How do you mean?”
“I’m surprised that none of them seem to be carrying guns. I’d have thought they would have guns.”
“Guns? What for?” Hunt asked, somewhat bewildered.
“The carnivores,” the Ganymean replied, as if it was obvious. “What will they do if they are attacked by carnivores?”
Danchekker explained that few animals existed that were dangerous to Man, and that those that did lived only in a few restricted areas, all of them many thousands of miles from Swit.zerland.
“Oh, I assumed that was why they have built a defensive system around the place,” the Ganymean said.
Hunt laughed. “That’s not to keep carnivores out,” he said. “It’s to keep humans out.”
“You mean they might attack us?” There was a sudden note of alarm in the question.
“Not at all. It’s simply to insure your privacy and to make sure that nobody makes a nuisance of himself. The government as-
sinned that you wouldn’t want crowds of sightseers and tourists wandering around you all the time and getting in the way.”