Starblood

same rejection, though even more swiftly and with more vehemence on the part of those expunging the undesirable element."
    Ti nodded, having reached the same conclusion some time ago, even before he had fully developed his psionic awareness through the PBT. Mentally deficient men were damned to lives of ridicule, forced into lives of loneliness in basement rooms or in institutions. Society ignored them and patted its own back for, at least, not chaining them in dungeons as once was done. Men falling into the upper limits of genius were scorned by those less fortunate in intellect who demeaned them and their opinions at every possible opportunity. They preferred the blandness of the average. The less-than-average was worthy only of disdain by the middle. The more-than-average was a target of jealous anger and petty accusations. It should not be that way, of course. But it was. And there was nothing he could do, even with his psionic powers, to change the thinking of an entire society.
    Then, as if his mind had just finished mulching the fodder of the alien's comments, he turned to other things and suddenly remembered a forgotten morsel, one phrase with more meaning than he had at first attributed to it: "… whether or not to go back…" Whether or not That implied that he had a choice of leaving the starship or remaining within its emerald metal walls.
    "But I can't stay here!" he said, the words far louder and sharper than they had been intended, ringing on the cold walls with an echo of the panic and excitement building in him.
    "Why not?"
    Why not…?
    He almost laughed at the whispered brevity of that. Why not? The alien had made it seem like a black-and-white question when there were so many shades of gray involved! Should a man retreat from a world because he fears that he cannot easily cope with it? Should a man deny his race, the nature of the soul within him, simply because there is an alternative that may lead to less heartache than continuing as he has continued in the past? Should a man relinquish all the material comforts which have required years to acquire, all the most lavish luxuries of his society, in return for some esoteric, intangible benefits of the intellect which might be gained in the exchange? Should a man leave that which he is certain of for that which is mysterious, unsure?
    Yes. His own calm and reasoned reply to the questions he had been posing startled him. Yes, a man should retreat from a world he fears he cannot cope with—if the reasons for his inability to cope lay with the nature of that world and not within himself. Yes, a man should deny his race and the heritage of it if his own race and its history deny him the right of that peace of mind. Yes, a man should exchange material possessions, no matter what the degree of status they represent, for intangible ones if joy lies with the latter and not the former. Yes, a man should tackle that which is mysterious and frightening, for only in that manner can a man ever find satisfaction in himself and in the personal world which he has constructed around him.
    "You would accept me?" he asked.
    "
It would be an easy matter on our part. We have accepted others of far stranger races than yours. Perhaps it would be difficult for you to accept us. You will have to learn and embrace our customs, language, and basic patterns of reasoning
—
which are all different than yours. It will be far more difficult for you to adjust than it was for me to adapt your language and cultural patterns. Our culture is far more complex. It is possible that, confronted with its intricacy, you could go mad
."
    "I doubt it," he said.
    "I agree."
    "But why do you want me? Why bother?"
    "There are cubes. They are empty. You are the first psionic of your race. You will make an excellent emissary when the time comes for us to meet the rest of your race. And what reasons, on the other hand, could be argued against your acceptance?"
    "But your shipmates—"
    "Have heard every word that has been spoken between us, heard with a part of their minds, either as a major focus or a minor point."
    "And they feel the same?"
    "They do."
    Timothy looked around the chamber at the hundreds of other dangling cubes, trapped between coppery strands of webbing, like surreal horses on an other-world merry-go-round. He was not frightened or repulsed by the prospect of spending centuries within one of those while his mind functioned in disembodiment on some far and nonhuman world.
    "I