There was no small talk between himself and the checker. Mr. Murtaugh had not elected to take the schooling necessary to qualify for other than a small desk job. He had no space experience. Unless and until he did, there would be an invisible, but nonetheless real barrier between himself and any spaceman. It was not that St. Simon looked down on the man, exactly; it was simply that Murtaugh had not proved himself, and, therefore, there was no way of knowing whether he could be trusted or not. And since trust is a positive quality, lack of it can only mean mistrust. Murtaugh handed Captain St. Simon an envelope. "That's it, captain. Thank you." St. Simon opened the envelope, took out his check--and a blue ticket. Kerry Brand broke into a guffaw. * * * * * When the phone on his desk rang, Georges Alhamid scooped it up and identified himself. "This is Larry, George," said the governor's voice. "How are things so far?" "So far, so good," Alhamid said. "For the past week, Mr. Peter Danley has been working his head off, under the tutelage of two of the toughest, smartest anchor men in the business. But you should have seen the looks on their faces when I told them they were going to have an Earthman for a pupil." The governor laughed. "I'll bet! How's he coming along?" "He's learning. How are you doing with your pet?" "I think I'm softening him, George. I found out what it was that got his goat three years ago." "Yeah?" "Sure. On Ceres, where he went three years ago, he was treated as if he weren't as good as a Belt man." Alhamid frowned. "Someone was disrespectful?" "No--that is, not exactly. But he was treated as if we didn't trust his judgment, as though we were a little bit afraid of him." "Oh-_ho_! I see what you mean." "Sure. We treated him just as we would anyone who hasn't proved himself. And that meant we were treating him the same way we treated our own 'lower classes', as he thought of them. I had Governor Holger get his Ceres detectives to trace down everything that happened. You can read the transcript if you want. There's nothing particularly exciting in it, but you can see the pattern if you know what to look for. "I'm not even certain it was fully conscious on his part; I'm not sure he knew why he disliked us. All he was convinced of was that we were arrogant and thought we were better than he is. It's kind of hard for us to see that a person would be that deeply hurt by seeing the plain truth that someone else is obviously better at something than he is, but you've got to remember that an Earthman is brought up to believe that every person is just exactly as good as every other--and no better. A man may have a skill that you don't have, but that doesn't make him superior--oh, my, no!