JUST A MOMENT PLEASE

The female reeg scuttled through the inner doorway to the business office, then disappeared entirely. He stood waiting, thinking to himself that if this was an hallucination it certainly was not a voluntary one.

A larger reeg, a male, appeared; its joints seemed stiff and Eric realized that it was old. They had a short life span, measured in terms of months, not years. This one had almost come to the end of his.

Utilizing the translating box, the elderly male reeg said:

WHAT IS YOUR INQUIRY ABOUT JJ-180? PLEASE BE BRIEF

Eric bent, picked up a magazine that lay on a table nearby. It was not in English; the cover bore a picture of two reegs and the writing consisted of the crabbed, pictorial reegian script. Startled, he stared at it. The magazine was Life. Somehow it shocked him more than the actual sight of the enemy itself.