The Long Result

His area of work relies solely on relationship with the human colonies, but he is assigned one day to meet the first Tau Cetian delegation to set foot on Earth, a race recently contacted by Starhome.

Roald's work to accommodate the Tau Cetians and find out the truth behind the "Stars for Humans League" also affects his personal life, as his fiancée is furious about the time he spends with aliens.

He also contacts Anovel and tells him that he has figured out that Regulans are actually colonists of another species which has discovered space flight long before humans, but chose not to reveal themselves.

Anovel confirms everything he has said, and also mentioned that contact with the humans will be made in fifty years time if all goes well; he then erases that information from Roald's mind as he deems it too early for any non-Regulan to know.

A distressed employee of the Bureau reports that a Regulan ship has been spotted and is trying to make contact with Starhome, at which point Roald remembers the conversation with Anovel from fifty years back.

Writing for Vector, the critical magazine of the British Science Fiction Association, Robert Edgar observes, "Here the message of the rights of the individual, of whatever origin, are upheld.

"[1] Writing for the New England Science Fiction Association, Mark L. Olson said, "It's a quiet, uncomplicated story that proceeds in a straight-forward way, but does an extremely effective job of it.