Orders were to make contact without discovery, if such a
thing were possible. The ideal would be a Plumie ship or the Plumie civilization itself, located and subject to complete
and overwhelming envelopment by human ships--before the Plumies knew they'd been discovered. And this would be the human ideal

because humans have always had to consider that a stranger might be hostile,
until he'd proven otherwise. Such a viewpoint would not be optimism, but caution. Yet caution was necessary. It was because the Survey brass felt the need to prepare for every unfavorable eventuality that Taine had been chosen as weapons officer of the
_Niccola_. His

choice had been deliberate, because he was a
xenophobe. He had been a problem pe rsonality all his life. He had a seemingly congenital fear
and hatred of strangers--which in mild cases is common enough, but Taine could not be cured without a complete breakdown of personality. He could not serve on a ship with a multiracial crew, because he was invincibly suspicious of and hostile to all but his own small breed. Yet he seemed idea