It was drawing near time for his nap, but he felt completely wide awake even inside the safety of the force field. His throat hurt and the backs of his legs ached with the waiting, the waiting for the natives to come out and begin xenogutting.

He wiped his hands together and forced a smile. Why should he worry what the natives did? He was completely safe. He could live out his life in immutable security.

But this wasn't his world. No part of it was his ... or at least only the part he had brought with him. Sanity lay in holding to what was left of his own world. But sanity didn't always mean survival.

What if he could make the quronos' world his own?

Barnhart wiped at the tiny stings against his face and his fingertips came away moist with beads of perspiration.

The aliens began marching out of the houses, in twos from the ten-foot doors, singly from the foot-square openings of every other facing wall.

It wasn't his world of fire-works-streaked Ohio summers and bold green hills, this planet cowled with nun-like secrecy, looking acrid, tasting violet and transmitting a beauty and confusion only a trio of physical scientists could solve.

But there was only one thing to do.

Barnhart let down his force field and went out.

The human body wasn't well-adapted for it but Barnhart did his best to join the quronos in xenogutting.

Instantly the cry welled up.

"Master."

Barnhart stood up and faced the aliens, deeply disturbed.

He was even more disturbed when, later, he wrote again in his journal:

Ninth day

"Qurono," I have learned from the Leader, is a term referring to a particular type of sub-human android. The synthetic process used in manufacturing these men does not allow them to develop beyond a certain point—a built-in safety factor of their creators, I can only suppose. Thus they were given the concept of the axe and have retained it, but they were 

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