** Murray Leinster's "First Contact" (novelette, science fiction, free)

How do you establish trust when there is no common ground between the transacting parties, & the stakes are very high? I might have really liked this story if its solution involved exchanging some clever messages; this one involves exchanging the hardware. Very logical, under the circumstances, but programmer inside me was unhappy with the outcome.

Collected in.

1. Robert Silverberg (Ed)'s "The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One, 1929-1964".
2. "The Best of Murray Leinster".
3. John W Campbell, Jr (ed)'s "The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology".

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, May 1945.
Rating: A.
Download MP3 version. Note: This post is based on a reading of text version; I haven't heard this MP3.
Related: All stories of Murray Leinster.

Note: Why is this post so short?