shoulders with the heavy stick.

Quest made no effort to retaliate. He cowered under the attack, holding his hands in front of him as if to ward it off. In a moment, Jakdane and the other crewman had reached Asrange and pulled him off.

When they had Asrange in irons, Jakdane turned to Quest, who was now sitting unhappily at the table.

“Take it easy,” he advised. “I'll wake the psychosurgeon and have him look you over. Just stay there.”

Quest shook his head.

“Don't bother him,” he said. “It's nothing but a few bruises.”

“Bruises? Man, that club could have broken your skull! Or a couple of ribs, at the very least.”

“I'm all right,” insisted Quest; and when the skeptical Jakdane insisted on examining him carefully, he had to admit it. There was hardly a mark on him from the blows.

“If it didn't hurt you any more than that, why didn't you take that stick away from him?” demanded Jakdane. “You could have, easily.”

“I couldn't,” said Quest miserably, and turned his face away.

Later, alone with Trella on the control deck, Jakdane gave her some sober advice.

“If you think you're in love with Quest, forget it,” he said.

“Why? Because he's a coward? I know that ought to make me despise him, but it doesn't any more.”

“Not because he's a coward. Because he's an android!”

“What? Jakdane, you can't be serious!”

“I am. I say he's an android, an artificial imitation of a man. It all figures.

“Look, Trella, he said he was born on Jupiter. A human could stand the gravity of Jupiter, inside a dome or a ship, but what human could stand the rocket acceleration necessary to break free of Jupiter? Here's a man strong enough to break a spaceship safety belt just by getting up out of his chair against it, tough enough to take a beating with a heavy stick without being injured. How can you believe he's really human?”

Trella 

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