Phillips, the Posenian, was as tall as Kinnison, and heavier. His figure was somewhat human in shape, but not in detail. He had four arms instead of two, each arm had two opposed hands, and each hand had two thumbs, one situated about where a little finger would be expected. He had no eyes, not even vestigial ones. He had two broad, flat noses and two toothful mouths; one of each in what would ordinarily be called the front of his round, shining, hairless head; the other in the back. Upon the sides of his head were large, volute, highly dirigible ears. And, like most races having the faculty of perception instead of that of sight, his head was relatively immobile, his neck being short, massive, and tremendously strong. "You look well, very well," Lacy reported, after feeling and prodding vigorously the members which had been in splints and casts so long. "Have to take a picture, of course, before saying anything definite. No, we won't, either, now. Phillips, look at his"--an interlude of technical jargon--"and see what kind of a recovery he has made." Then, while the Posenian was examining Kinnison's interior mechanisms, the Chief Surgeon went on: "Wonderful diagnosticians and surgeons, these Posenians--can see into the patient without taking him apart. In another few centuries every doctor will have to have the sense of perception. Phillips is doing a research in neurology--more particularly a study of the neural synapse and the proliferation of neural dendrites--" "La--cy-y-y!" Haynes drawled the word in reproof. "I've told you a thousand times to talk English when you're talking to me. How about it, Kinnison?" "It might be more comprehensible, although we must admit that any scientist likes to speak with precision, which he cannot do in the ordinary language of the layman." "Right, boy--surprisingly and pleasingly right!" Lacy exclaimed. "Why can't you adopt that attitude, Haynes, and learn enough words so that you can understand what a man is talking about? But to reduce it to monosyllabic simplicity, Phillips is studying a thing that has baffled us for centuries--yes, for millennia. The lower forms of cells are able to regenerate themselves; wounds heal, bones knit. Higher types, such as nerve cells, regenerate imperfectly, if at all; and the highest type, the brain cells, do not do so under any conditions." He turned a reproachful gaze upon Haynes. "This is terrible. Those statements are pitiful--inadequate--false. Worse than that--practically meaningless. What I wanted to say, and what I'm going to say, is that--"