As they neared the base of the ramp, Hunt looked up and saw Ciaruth, Shilohin, Monchar, Jassilane and a few others moving down toward them. To the left and right, other Ganymeans who had already reached the ground via the other ramps began converging on the spot where Wilby’s group was waiting.
Garuth stepped off the ramp, his companions following close behind, and halted to look down at the Secretary General. Slowly and solemnly they shook hands.
Hunt acted as an interpreter via ZORAC and concluded introductions between the two groups.
“This is one of the guys who runs the whole of the UNSA show,” he said to Garuth when they came to Irwin Frenshaw. “Without it we’d never have been there for you to find.”
And then the two groups turned and, now mingled together, began walking away from the ramp. From above and behind them, scores of eight-foot-tall figures flowed downward along the ramps to join the lead group from behind. They came out into the sunlight and halted for a moment to survey the delegations from the nations of Earth arrayed before them. A sudden hush descended upon the hills behind.
And then Garuth slowly raised his right arm in a gesture of salutation. One by one the rest of the Ganymeans copied him. They stood there silent and unmoving, a hundred arms extended and
raised to convey a common message of greeting and friendship to all of the peoples of Earth.
At once the roar swept down from the hillsides again. If what had come before had been a flood, then this was a tidal wave. It seemed to echo back and forth across the valleys as if the mountains of Switzerland themselves were reverberating and joining in their welcome.
Wilby turned toward Hunt and leaned forward to speak close to his ear.
“I think your friends have made something of a hit,” he said. “I expected some fuss,” Hunt told him, “but never this in a million years. Shall we carry on?”
“Let’s go.”
Hunt turned toward Garuth and tuned in.
“Come on, Garuth,” he said. “It’s time to pay our respects. Some of these people out there have come a long way to meet you.”
Slowly, with the small mixed party of Earthmen and Ganymean leaders in front, the Giants began moving forward en masse toward the waiting heads of the governments of Earth’s nations.
chapter nineteen
For the next hour or so, the Ganymean leaders went from one group of national representatives to the next, exchanging brief formal speeches of goodwill. As the Ganymeans moved on, the groups broke up and dispersed to join the growing mass of Earthmen and aliens mingling on the concrete apron below the Shapieron. It was a very different reception from the one that had greeted the first hesitant emergence of the Ganymeans out onto the ice at Ganymede Main Base.
“I still don’t quite understand it,” Jassilane said to Hunt as the party moved toward the delegation from Malaysia. “So far you’ve told us that everyone we’ve met was from a government. But what I want to know is who is the government?”
“The government?” Hunt asked, not quite following. “Which one?” The Giant made motions of exasperation in the air.
“The one that runs the planet. Which one is it?”
“None of them,” Hunt told him.
“That’s what I thought. So where are they?”
“There isn’t one,” Hunt said. “It’s run by all of them and none of them.”
“I should have guessed,” Jassilane replied. In translating, ZORAC managed to inject a good simulation of a weary sigh.
For the rest of the day the formalities continued amid an almost carnival atmosphere. Garuth and the Ganymean leaders spent some time with each group of government representatives, establishing relationships and arranging a timetable of projected official visits to the various nations represented. It was a busy day for Hunt and the other Earthmen from Ganymede, whose familiarity with the aliens put them in great demand for performing introductions and made them the obvious choice for acting as general mediators in the dialogues. By invitation of the European Government, a liaison bureau-a representative international body operating under UN sponsorship-had been established as a permanent institution within the Earthman sector of Ganyville. By