He could have all the council members jailed, he thought. Only there weren't any jails on Nemar. Resentment burned in him. They'd let him work and struggle and slave day and night--for this. He swung his fist into the wall suddenly, with all his might. The pain stung, but he felt a little better. He looked at the bruised hand, wondering what to do. He was too restless to go home and stay by himself, burning up with unspent rage; and he certainly couldn't go and sit among the natives, listening to them chatter and laugh. He decided to take a walk. He heard a rustle of leaves after he had gone a little way and saw a pair of feminine legs through the underbrush. He tried to turn aside. He didn't feel like talking to Jeannette now. But she had already seen him. "Hello, there," she said, pushing aside a branch from where she was sitting. "Are you taking a walk, too? Thought you were always sticking to the old grindstone this time of day." "Hello, Jeannette." "Sit down and rest for a minute. I need some company." He hesitated, then sat down reluctantly. "You don't look too cheerful," she said, looking at him. "Something eating you?" "Just this place," he said wearily. "And the people." "Yes, it gets you after a while, doesn't it? It's pretty hard to take." He leaned against a tree and tried to relax. "It's hard to live with," she went on, "the constant sense of inferiority...." He wondered if he had heard her correctly. "What did you say?" "I said, it's hard to live with." "No, no. I meant the last part." "The constant sense of inferiority. Is something the ma--" "What are you talking about?" "I'm talking about the Nemarians, naturally." "You surely don't consider them superior to us!" he said incredulously. "Let's not fool ourselves," she said. "There isn't one of them that isn't superior to every Terran here." He stared at her. "Of course, we do fool ourselves. I've been doing it a long time. Or trying to, anyway. But I've been sitting here thinking. Among other things, about why I didn't leave on that ship you came on, as I'd planned." "Why didn't you?" he asked. "The same reason nobody else did, but Jerwyn; and he had to." "Plenty of them don't like it here," he said. "There's plenty of griping." "Not really," she said. "It's not really griping. It's just a way of making yourself feel better. Only the ones who haven't been here too long do it, and one or two others who are real old-line die-hards, like your Mr. Cortland. "Why didn't you leave?" "Because this is a good deal, of course. The climate's lovely; the scenery's beautiful; life is sort of a perpetual pleasure outing. The only trouble is, you're always on the fringes. You're the kid from across the tracks." "I don't understand." "That wasn't the right phrase, because that implies snobbishness, and they're not snobbish. But they don't quite accept you. They let you hang around; they let you play with them. But you're not really one of them."