"Of course! It proves the Indigos _aren't_ an inferior race. They are the same as the Azures except that they are sick. Their being sick can't reflect unfavourably on any terrestrial colored race. There is no analogy. But I have to prove it to Chon. We're going to tape the whole process and feed it to him." "I think," I said, "that that might get to him." "Sure it will." Ellik's jaw muscles flexed. "I should ruin Lee with this thing, but I won't. I'm not a vindictive man. Lee and I will probably be working together for years. But whenever he gets out of line--has some stubborn idea about doing something his way--don't think I won't remind him of this!" Suddenly, he was smiling again. He turned to the gawking Indigo. He pointed two fingers at him. "_Mmr?_" Ellik asked. The alien tapped himself on his chest cavity twice. "_Mhaw_," he gave his name. "_Mhaw M'i uh M'i m M'm'-uh?_" Ellik asked him, without even using the translators. "_M-m-M-m-M_," the alien went, slapping himself on the chest with his opened palms. Ellik turned to me, grinning. "I asked him if he wanted to stop being an Indigo and become an Azure. He thinks I can do anything and he's all for it." * * * * * After we fed Mhaw a dose of null-shock from our packs, Doc Ellik started to slice him open with a ceramic knife he had borrowed from the Azures. But Ellik had forgotten that the alien might get frightened seeing himself cut open, even if he couldn't feel any pain. It had never happened to him before. The alien lumbered to his feet, his chest hanging open, showing his heart beating like some animal caught inside a blueberry pudding. I drove a right cross into his jaw, and felt the jar all the way up to my shoulder. He melted back down onto the pallet. "Good work, Johnny," Ellik said, stooping and starting his work. Right away, Mhaw started to lose that Indigo color and get real light--lighter than the Azures, in fact. None of the blue of the race was actually in the pigmentation, Mike found out. Even the Azures suffered some degree of improper aeration of the blood. "You going to call Lee Chon now?" I asked Mike. "You going to show him the tape we had running during the operation and all?" "Not quite yet, Johnny," he said. "First I want to educate Mhaw a bit, up to the Azure level or better. That should convince Lee." Mhaw learned fast, probably faster than the Azures, even. Almost the first thing he wanted was for us to stop calling him Mhaw and start using an Azure name, Aedo. Once a day, Ellik left our hut to take some exercise--a walk along the alien esplanade, he called it. I used to stay with the doctored alien, now Aedo, but we finally learned we could trust him to follow our orders--which were to stay inside, away from the others, since we didn't know how they would take him. So I got to walking along with Ellik. As dusk lengthened, we could see the spark that was our ship in its orbit along the retreating horizon.