The newcomer moved quietly among the throngs of humans. He surreptitiously observed the gestures, the conversations, and the facial expressions as one of them would discover some token or greet another in that unrestrained manner so unique to the residents of this backwater world.

    His own clothing, though not perfect to the cultural norms, passed without remark or untoward curiosity. Though the designer had been concerned, the minor inconsistencies were paled by the wide array of clever, if woefully inaccurate, portrayals of extraterrestrial garb among the conventioneers.

    In the months of study, the researchers had catalogued hundreds of different scenarios and the range of human response to each. This foray had seemed no different in the planning stage but, as the day progressed, had diverged rapidly from the abstract written by the sociologists aboard.

    There had been several mock battles, a performance of ballads, a competition to judge the costumes, and a dozen (the strange word flavored his counting) arrests of seemingly complacent participants who were restrained only by cardboard walls and a few fearsome looking guards. The warriors laughed and made jesting conversation with the prisoners before releasing them after extraordinarily short incarcerations.

    The vendors sold astonishing assortments of somewhat similar goods, a fact noted by previous interactive researchers. The selection couldn't be adequately explained by any of the theorists, since there appeared to be little survival advantage in having so many minutely different choices. The infiltrator's gaze fell upon a female, not costumed, who compared three pieces of jewelry. The items were identical except for the terminal beads, each a slightly modified shade of purple.

    Later, he closely examined the bangles not purchased. The clerk, without being asked, offered the insight that the one the woman chose matched the trim in a scarf bought at another table. He nodded in understanding, but didn't in the least.

    Mostly though, the crowd ebbed and flowed to some innate sense of timing, mob mentality - a well-documented phenomenon - of a peaceful and cooperative nature. Largely an adult occasion, but there were children and in-betweens (teen-agers, the one word descriptive term came to him) pursuing their own interests. Much of what the immature humans did was either ignored or went unnoticed by the caretakers, he couldn't tell which. Quick, subtle glances - seeking rapidly and finding unerringly - reinforced by a smile or a frown (sometimes accompanied by a pointed finger) when making eye contact with the appropriate offspring was the extent of parental management.

    Not what he'd expected - not that he was supposed to harbor expectations at all. Mass gatherings, invariably, brought out most of the worst traits of human behavior. One infiltrator had been injured in what the 'newspapers' called a soccer riot. She had been traumatized by the incredibly swift transition of the buoyant spectators to a horde of howling, snarling psychopaths bent on violence and destruction. So, though tempted to relax, he remained wary for fear of a similar transformation here.

    What unpredictable creatures. Fighting and killing indiscriminately one day and sending bales of food the next. Yelling, as they were wont, one moment and laughing in the next. What hope was there for such an imprudent species? How could they ever overcome the myriad problems of their belligerent individualism and short-lived political coalitions? The scientist shook his head and wished for the comfortable, predictable, environment of his homeworld.

    But he had a job to do, an important one, and do it he would to the best of his abilities and skill. The fate of a civilization rested on the summary position of the final report, which would be written by him and his co-researchers. Never before had he felt the burden so keenly.

    Night had fallen and still the tide of humanity flowed. The visitor, feeling tired beyond his years with the unending activities of the long day, found a quiet corner of the ballroom (though he could see no evidence of balls or spheroids of any kind) from which to watch the closing event. Some sort of social affair, he supposed, from the terse description on the pamphlet.

    Loud noises emanated from banks of amplifying equipment. A voice welcomed everyone; it took the researcher several minutes to find the figure nestled in the metal, mesh, and wired cranny perched above the heads of the participants. The squeal settled into the form of entertainment humans called rockenroll. Pairs and groups gyrated to the unmistakable tempo. Others watched, or continued conversations, or sought out companions or refreshments.

    Soon, dozens (that harmoniously pleasing word again) of people had migrated to the large low dais that defined the territory for the activity of rockenroll. A pair of females and a solitary male hovered nervously near the body shelves surrounding the eating platform he had chosen.

    "You mind?" one of the females said. A question, no doubt, but its significance was impossible to discern quickly. He employed the quick lifting of shoulders that often satisfied human interaction. The trio sat down but, after a short spatter of rapid syllables (why couldn't they speak in full sentences like most sapient species?) and head bobs, the male jumped up and traversed the room to join a refreshment queue.

    The females shared confidences and made that twittering noise inferring amusement until their companion returned. The male, dressed as some sort of pseudo-military character, set a plastic cup of an amber liquid in front of the visitor.

    "You look like you need a beer," he said before turning his attention to the rockenroll. Another strange idea - that a person's needs could be judged by a look. Very human. Perhaps they were incomplete empaths? Though the instruments showed only minor levels of psi energy, maybe humans employed another, as yet undiscovered, method of sublingual communication.

    The scientist sipped the beverage. Recognizing in the flavor the commonly occurring toxic compound of ethanol, he adjusted his decontamination device and continued to consume the offering as the females were doing - if not with the same gusto.

    The male and the smaller female, after subtly agitating on their body shelves, were compelled to rockenroll. The other woman smiled and pointed at him, at her chest, and then at the dais. He was puzzled, but she motioned for him to come along and he realized she had issued an invitation to rockenroll. Could he decline? Or would be better to take part rather than risk revealing his assignment?

    Fighting panic, he examined the participants. The males, for the most part, merely shuffled from foot to foot, moving their heads and elbows in some random fashion. The females had more of a variety of manipulations and patterns. He thought mimicking the male example would be simple enough. He stood and followed the female into the arena.

    The noise abruptly changed tempo and his partner placed her hands on his neck. Glancing around, he checked the male role and copied the hand placement.

    "Your first sci-fi convention?" the female asked. Not a whole statement but judging the nuances of human speech were becoming easier as the day wore on.

    He nodded. His first anything, in fact.

    "I'm Marsha," she said and waited expectantly. Was that an introduction or a title? Humans liked to label so it was probably her name.

    "My name is Tom," he said, carefully enunciating the memorized words.

    "You're not from around here, are you?" she said. He felt alarm rising again. How had she jumped to that correct conclusion so quickly? He sought the exit points, planning his escape.

    "Are you from Germany?"

    Relief filled him as he nodded. Humans from distant places did speak differently.

    "Welcome!" she said and then, to his horror, began introducing him to the other people (also doing the slower version of rockenroll) as her new friend 'Tom' from Germany, who had come to Baltimore to attend this con (again the human habit of chopping words and shortening sentences). She devised an entire history based on nothing but his accent, his name, and his claim of being from a place called Germany.

    Finally, she released him but remained at his elbow, chatting about the day's events and tomorrow's plans.

    "Be around tomorrow?" she asked. His mind supplied the truncated words.

    "No, I will be leaving tonight."

    Her lips curled, not a smile (the meaning of this expression may have been disappointment) and she uttered, "Oh, too bad."

    He raised and lowered his shoulders. He hoped to not do that too often. It would be habit-forming.

    They watched the rockenroll. In the lull of her one-sided conversation, he carefully structured a query.

    "Why do you do this?" he said, hoping that her answer would shed light on all of the questions the researchers had about human behavior.

    To her (and, by extension, her whole species) credit she paused - perhaps thinking of a definitive explanation for a mystified neophyte.

    Her gesture, encompassing the crowd, prefaced her answer. There was an element of telepathy, he thought, because he understood the movement of her hands, without words, meant, 'All this'.

    "Out there," she said, with another flick of her hand, meaning the rest of the world. "Out there, we are all individuals. We hurt each other and misunderstand and feel isolated." A very good summation of the volumes of data the ship had collected stated simply by one who would know. Was that because humans were adept at condensing large ideas into abridged phrases? "We magnify our differences and make judgments based on nothing but a first impression - or on incomplete or inaccurate information. We are not as gentle or forgiving as we should be."

    If humans knew this, why hadn't they evolved beyond it? Could it be that they had no idea that advancements were a side effect of the communal desire to move forward?

    "Maybe, someday, we'll figure out the trick of it."

    Had she picked that up from his thoughts? Frightening, if true.

    She smiled broadly, and laughed as she gestured to the assembled host. "Here, though, we can say, 'Cool, you're weird and so am I'. We celebrate our common interests and join in to share ideas and hopes. From this vantage point, it's the rest of humanity that looks weird and wrong."

    She looked up at him and her eyes sparkled in the odd lighting of rockenroll. "Maybe, this is the pattern of things to come."

    "Perhaps." Somewhere in her eyes, he saw a sudden change. There it was again, that empathic talent for intuitive leaps.

    "Wanna beer?" she said, picking up her empty container. He shook his head, knowing that the right moment to escape had arrived. She took a few steps before turning toward him. The part of him that had already leaned in the direction of the doors froze, not wanting her to see that he was leaving.

    "You really are a stranger here, aren't you?" Her mouth twitched, and she laughed for no apparent cause. Typical human behavior but he was disconcerted, nonetheless.

    "Have a safe trip home, Tom from Germany." Something about the way she said it, with a smile and a wink, worried him. Had she divined what he was? How could the more advanced, more cerebral societies ever hope to understand one that operated on a combination of learned and instinctual behaviors? One that knew where the road must lead, but refused to take the first step?

    He stopped at the doorway to take in the entire scene from a different angle. He tried to let the lower part of his cortex control the process and was bombarded with a single, but heavily textured by nuance and character, emotion. The exhilaration of that moment remained fresh (making him breathless) until his shipmates began firing questions at him, requiring higher thought functions.

    The final report would never completely explain humans or designate a place for them in the larger wheel of the galaxy. The Commission allowed the researchers to voice opinions since the facts were so sketchy.

    'Tom of Germany' testified last. He recounted his experiences in a dispassionate manner, but his calm dissolved as he tried to explain his final epiphany. He shrugged, appalled at his inability to vocalize and at his reversion to a totally human gesture.

    Finally, one of the councilors asked, "What did you feel, sir?"

    He smiled, the feeling washing through his senses from some inner well and he found the words.

    "The human race is impossibly flawed, and they haven't yet found a way to identify or cure the intrinsic sickness of their society. They know it. They discuss it. They bewail it."

    The panel, ever patient while deciding the fate of a planet, waited.

    "In other places, the inhabitants have destroyed their worlds in despair and hatred." He gestured, and knew that the intuitive meaning - loss - had touched everyone. "Not these people. Brushed with a barely contained violence, stained by every evil trait, and though as unruly and incautious as they undoubtedly are, they also brim with joy and a child-like capacity for happiness."

    He laughed - for no apparent reason.

    "They still have hope. And that is the wonder of it all."