"Yet I must try," the old priest continued, "to teach you the difference between rightful pride and sinful, destructive arrogance. I must try to make you see that these Tellurians you profess to hate so...." Here Telis' eyes sought the girl, but her expression told him nothing. He looked back at the High Superior. "... that you profess to hate so are now Laurr's only chance for survival." "Words," Telis said coldly. The old man nodded slowly. "But true words. Words that can bring life instead of death. Better words than you will ever hear in that barbaric Maldia!" His old eyes seemed to bore through Telis now, stripping him bare of intellectual barriers and misunderstanding. "We could," the priest mused, "turn you over to our psychologists and let them drive the devils out of your mind...." He paused thoughtfully. "But no. That would not be the same. You, yourself, must come to understand. You must be allowed to learn of your mistaken ways without interference." Telis frowned. "Abduction, then, is not interference." "We regret the necessity. But the lack of time made it necessary. The attack on the camp had to be delayed and the Maldia chose to act almost too quickly," said the High Superior. "At least we have been able to cause a delay of that wanton act." "Now or later," said Telis carelessly. "It will come." "And with it death to those who offer us redemption and life?" "Redemption?" asked Telis hotly, his eyes full on the girl. "Slavery!" The High Superior sank back in his chair wearily. "I should have known," he muttered disgustedly. "Well, so be it, then. You will remain here in Dorliss until we are able to evolve some scheme for the protection of our friends. In time even you will see that we act for the best good of Laurr. "These other-worldlings have narrowly averted on their own world the catastrophe of atomic war that wrecked ours. Hence, they are no longer a warrior race. They have devoted themselves to science in ways that we never knew even in the golden haads. Their technics can be our salvation, if we are only intelligent enough to accept their offered hand of friendship!" Telis was listening with only half an ear now. A plan was forming in his mind. A plan of escape. "... remember that the races of both Terra and Laurr are sprung from the loins of a single great transgalactic people," the High Superior was saying, "and together they might one day rule the Solar System. Think of it, Telis of Lars! Even the knowledge of interplanetary travel will be ours if we join in brotherhood with Terra! All the might of our Temple science could not achieve that in the short haads left to us ... but the Tellurians offer it _now_! And the only payment they ask is some of the deadly iron that eats away our atmosphere and drains us of our precious water! "Think of these things, young sir, until next we speak."