A smile of friendship is a baring of the teeth. So is a snarl of menace. It can be fatal to mistake the latter for the former.
Harm an alien being only under circumstances of self-defense.
TRUST NO ALIEN BEING UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
--From Exploration Ship's Handbook
The problem of separating the friends from the enemies was a major one in the conquest of space as many a dead spacer could have testified. A tough job when you could see an alien and judge appearances; far tougher when they were only whispers on the wind.
Author Biography
Tom Godwin (1915-1980) was an American science fiction author. Godwin published three novels and twenty seven short stories. His hard science fiction short story "The Cold Equations" is a notable example of the mid-1950s science fiction genre.
