Ellik chinned off his translator switch and leaned down toward my ear. "They are two distinct races, Johnny. Notice that _all_ the Indigos are menials. There does not appear to be anything to correspond to a freedman or even a higher-ranked house servant. The Azures treat the Indigos only as animals." "Slobs," I said. "Poor dumb slobs." The nuclear flash washed over us, peppering us with a few excess roentgens. We couldn't look at the spaceship going up, but we knew it was going. It was making a dawn. The aliens were all frightened. They fell on the ground and started praying to the ship, all of them, the Azures and the Indigos. "What's wrong with that crazy Chinaman?" Ellik yelped. "Lee knows what he's doing," I said. Ellik unsnapped his communicator from his belt. "Johnny says you know what you're doing, Chon. _Do you?_" "I know." Chon's voice sounded right beside us, perfectly natural. Belt communicators work just as well as those consoles. People only buy consoles for prestige. "Well?" Ellik demanded. "What _are_ you doing, Lee?" I thought maybe something had gone wrong with the communicator. Chon's voice finally reached us. "I'm leaving you and Johnny on this planet, Mike," he said. * * * * * An Indigo brought us in our morning supply of fruit. Ellik kicked the Indigo. "It's overripe, blockhead. _Amum, amum._" The Indigo backed out, bowing, eyes very round. Ellik felt me looking at him. "Well, I don't _like_ kicking the oaf, but that's all he's been conditioned to understand as a sign of disapproval." "Sure," I said. Ellik passed through the scimitar of gray shadow into the sunlight that washed lines and years out of his face. He braced a hand against the doorframe and craned his head back. It stopped and steadied. "He's still there," Ellik said. "Sometimes I wish his orbit would decay enough to burn him up in this damned sour air." He coughed into his fist. "He could probably correct," I suggested. Ellik sneered. "He hasn't got the brains." "Pretty hard for one man to manage a takeoff. He was lucky to make it into orbit." "I just wish he would come down. Somehow, someway, I'd get to him, no matter where he went on this planet." "I suppose that's why he stays up." Ellik slammed his fist into his palm. "I'm going to call him again. He can't get away without us. If he fouled up a takeoff that badly, he's not going to try to solo into hyperspace." "I don't think anyone would solo into hyperspace. I don't think he would be able to come back." "Oh, what do you know about it?" Ellik said shortly. "He's just building up his courage to try the big jump. He's yellow, sure, but sooner or later he'll get desperate enough, or scared enough, to actually go. Then we'll be stranded for fair. This planet may not be colonized for centuries!" "Probably never," I said. "Not after Lee's reports." "You think he would falsify reports?" Ellik asked, blinking at me. "I suppose he'll have to."