Watts flushed. "_I_ know what I'm talking about now, and I didn't get it out of books, either, I've lived with the buggers. You greenhorns read all this sob stuff in the high-brow magazines back on Earth about the noble Centaurans, and you figure we're a bunch of jerks because we don't slobber all over them too. Noble Centaurans! Jesus! Dirty, sneaking non-humans, that's what." He lifted the bottle and drank deeply, tilting back his head and letting his eyes rove. "There," he said abruptly. "There's your noble Centaurans, look at 'em!" A group of natives were coming up the alley--in Port Knakvik, natives did not walk in the street--shuffling along with downcast eyes. They were a small gray-skinned people, roughly humanoid, viviparous but not mammalian. There were five males followed half a dozen steps behind by a female carrying an infant on her hip. "You see that _kish_ there with her _fotin_?" Watts asked. "Lemme show you something, you probably wouldn't believe this if I told you, these grayskins are just like animals, they got no decency at all." He stood up and waved an arm in a beckoning gesture. "Hey, you _kish_, come over here," he called. The female Centauran paused uncertainly, looking at him with frightened eyes out of a small triangular noseless face. "Yes, you," Watts barked. "Come here!" She glanced at the males ahead of her, who had also stopped and were looking at Watts from the corners of their eyes. One mumbled something to her. She began to shuffle slowly across the yard toward Watts, looking at her feet. Watts took a steel five-dollar piece from his pocket and held it out toward her. "Here, you _kish_," he said, "feed baby, _viptiv fotin_, get money." The native took the coin and looked doubtfully at the three men. "_Viptiv?_" she asked in a light high voice. "That's right," Watts said. "_Viptiv fotin._" He grinned at Tallant. "Watch this, kid, you want to see your noble Centauran do something'll really make you gag." "Oh, for Pete's sake," Tallant said. "I _know_ these people feed their young by regurgitation. So it's disgusting to mammals? So what?" He jumped down from the stoop and took the Centauran mother's arm and turned her gently around. "No _viptiv_," he said. "Run along." Watts' face was almost purple now. "What the hell you think you're doing?" he shouted. He grasped the female's other arm. "_Viptiv_," he gritted in her face. "You took my money, now _viptiv_!" "Let go that woman," Tallant said, "or I'll push your face in." He turned toward the group of males, who still stood stupidly staring. "Come on over here," he called. "Take your woman and get out." One of them started reluctantly across the yard. Tallant dropped the native woman's arm and stepped past her to face Watts. "I told you to let go," he said. Watts thrust his face out. "Make me, wise guy." Tallant hit Watts in the face with his fist.