"Rhinegallis," he said softly, "place yourself in my position. You are a prisoner of a culture that is inimical to your own. You are kept alive as a museum piece, a sample of life that refuses to be swayed by your mind-directing machinery. Of all the people of your race, you are the only one that knows and believes.

"Death—or worse—awaits you and yours at the end of some unknown time. You are in the position of being the only one that can do anything at all. Tell me, Rhinegallis, would you sit quietly and accept it?"

"Since I would be unable to do anything alone," replied Rhinegallis, "I would accept fate."

"Then die!" snapped Carroll. "Do nothing? Try nothing? That is stagnation—and stagnation is death!"

"I think Kingallis knows that," said the alien girl with a flash of recognition.

"Oh," said Carroll, crestfallen. "Then Kingallis gives me some old outdated volumes of books to play with, as a willful child is directed to cut old rags instead of the lace curtains. Since I must play games, by all means give me games that will harm no one!

"Mumbletypeg labeled 'dangerous' and celluloid toys made up to resemble fierce knives on the theory that children prefer such toys of the block and rattle nature. Bottles full of colored sand with skull-and-crossbones on them and directions against certain mixtures.

"The amusement-park roller coaster that seems dangerous—in fact someone knows someone who knows of a bad accident on it—but is, in fact, less dangerous than a ride in an automobile through traffic."

Rhinegallis was silent.

"Then what am I to do?" he stormed. "I have no one here of my own kind. Not a single understanding soul to lean upon in a moment of stress. A man alone in an inimical environment—and I am expected to play your tricks for you!"

"You—"

"Am I expected to aid you?"

"No," she said honestly. "Yet in deference to your—"

"Deference!" he laughed scornfully. "Deference? No, Rhinegallis, not deference nor even respect. I am the experimental dog that must be pampered because my life and my mind and my body must be studied. Not deference, Rhinegallis, but the deadly fear of a spreading poison. Isolation."

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