The Ship Who Won by Anne McCaffrey, Jody Lynn Nye

wretchedly
    they live. Think of the raydome, and the other stuff we've
    seen. They once had a high-tech civilization. Central
    Worlds can help them. It's our duty to give them a chance
    to improve their miserable lot, bring them back to this cen-tury. They were once our equals. They deserve a chance to
    be so again, Carialle."
    'Thou hast a heart as well as a brain, sir knight. Okay."
    Before they had settled how to make the approach,
    shouting broke out on the work site. Keff glanced up. Two
    big males were standing nose to nose exchanging insults.
    One male whipped a knife made of a shard of blued metal
    out of his tool bag; another relic that had been worn to a
    mere streak from sharpening. The male he was facing
    retreated and picked up a digging tool with a ground-down
    end. Yelling, the knife-wielder lunged in at him, knife over
    his head. The children scattered in every direction,
    screaming. Before the pikeman could bring up his
    weapon, the first male had drawn blood. Two crew leaders
    rushed up to try to pull them apart. The wounded male,
    red blood turning dark brown as it mixed with the dust in
    his body-fur, snarled over the peacemaker's head at his foe.
    With a roar, he shook himself loose.
    "I think you missed your chance for a peaceful
    approach, Keff."
    "Um," Keff said. "He who spies and runs away lives to
    chat another day."
    While the combatants circled each other, ringed by a
    watching crowd, Keff backed away on his hands and knees
    through the bush. Cursing the pins and needles in his legs,
    Keff managed to get to his feet and started downhill
    toward the gully where Carialle was concealed.
    Carialle launched gracefully out of the gully and turned
    into the face of planetary rotation toward another spot on
    the day-side which her monitors said showed signs of life.
    "May as well ring the front doorbell this time," Keff
    said. "No sense letting them get distracted over something
    else. If only I'd moved sooner!"
    "No sense having a post mortem over it," Carialle said
    firmly. "You can amaze these natives with how much you
    already know about them."
    Reversing to a tail-first position just at the top of atmosphere, Carialle lowered herself gently through the thin
    clouds and cleaved through a clear sly onto a rocky field in
    plain sight of the workers. Switching on all her exterior
    cameras, she laughed, and put the results on monitor for
    Keff.
    T could paint a gorgeous picture," she said. "Portrait of
    blinding astonishment."
    "Another regional mutation," Keff said, studying the
    screen. 'They're still beautiful, still the same root stock,
    but their faces look a little like sheep."
    "Perfectly suited for open-mouthed goggling," Carialle
    said promptly. T wonder what causes such diversity amidst
    the groups. Radiation? Evolution based on function and
    lifestyle?"
    "Why would they need to look like sheep?" Keff said,
    shrugging out of the crash straps.
    "Maybe they were behind the door when ape faces like
    yours were handed out," CariaUe said teasingly, then
    turned to business. "I'm reading signs of more
    underground heat sources. One habitation, three
    entrances. Ambient air temperature, fourteen degrees.
    This place is cold."
    "I'll wear a sweater, Mom. Here goes!"
    As Keff waited impatiently in the airlock, checking his
    equipment carriers and biting on the implanted mouth
    contact to make sure it was functioning properly, Carialle
    lowered the ramp. Slowly, she opened the airlock. A hundred yards beyond it, Keff saw a crowd of the sheep-faced
    Noble Primitives gathered at the edge of the crop field,
    still gaping at the tall silver cylinder.
    Taking a deep breath, Keff stepped out onto the ramp,
    hand raised, palm outward, weaponless. The IT was slung
    on a strap around his neck so he let his other hand hang
    loosely at his side.
    "Hail, friends!" he called to the aliens huddled on the
    edge of the dusty field. "I come in peace."
    He walked toward the crowd. The Primitives stared at
    him, the adults'