"Once our return to the ship was blocked off, we had to hide. I had to discard our old clothes and steal clothes that would be less conspicuous. As it was, we ourselves were conspicuous enough. In the world of ordinary men, we would have been subject to immediate investigation. It was only among such outcasts as Angel and his friends that we could to some extent pass ourselves off as natives. When they met us, the others thought that Angel had at last found friends of his own kind. Angel, of course, thought he had found the Professor. He was overjoyed to see me, and his enthusiasm was our passport. Moreover, in their world, it was not customary to ask questions that a man was not inclined to answer. There were too many embarrassing secrets on all sides. "I was continually on tenter-hooks with regard to you. I was hoping that you would remember enough to help operate the ship and escape from the planet, but not enough to recall who I was. Meanwhile, I watched with interest how even in your amnesiac state you absorbed the English language. With our people, Tlaxon, language learning is much more of a reflex process than it is with these Earthlanders. You learned without knowing that you were doing so. All the same, your racial peculiarities prevented you from speaking exactly as the natives do." * * * * * "That's why I thought that _they_ were the ones who spoke strangely. All but Angel." "Yes, he has the same difficulties with dentate sounds like _t_'s and _d_'s that we do. Strange how much he resembles us physically too. It helped people to think of us as three freaks of a kind. Mentally, of course, there's all the difference in the world." "Is there? I wonder if he isn't basically sound. I wonder how well he'd do if he weren't made to feel like a freak, if he were given a chance in our own System." The smaller man's lips curled in a sneer. "Perhaps an inferior creature like him would fit in. I'm afraid I never will. I'll tell you what I'll do, Tlaxon. Once we take off from this planet I'll let you put me down in one of three places where I have friends. I'll give you your choice and promise you that no harm will come to you." "The rat," muttered Angel hoarsely. "Look, Crusoe, I don't understand everything you fellows said. But I remember the Professor, the real Professor. He had a big head, just like me. He used to say a wrestler could be a highbrow too." "A high forehead, such as our own. Yes," agreed the little man. "He had." "And he didn't make fun of me because my face was kinda blue. Other people used to look at me like I was a freak. They didn't realize that after I stopped wrestlin' I had to go to work in some factory where the silver chemicals turned my skin blue. They just thought I was born that way."