The Deltans looked like a kind of a bat/pig mashup—barrel bodies, spindly limbs, large mobile ears, and snouts not too different from a boar’s. Their fur was mainly gray, with tan patterns around the face and head unique to each individual. The Deltans were the first non-human intelligence I’d ever encountered, in only the second star system I had visited since leaving Earth more than thirty years ago. It made me wonder if intelligent life was perhaps as common as Star Trek would have us believe.