“Captain!”

“What is it, Alaree!

He waddled up and stared gravely at me. “Your ship will be ready to leave soon. What was wrong is nearly right again.”

He paused, obviously uncertain of how to phrase his next statement, and I waited patiently. Finally he blurted out; “May I come back to your world with you?”

Automatically, the regulations flashed through my mind. I pride myself on my knowledge of the rules. And I knew this one.

And it listed a fine of more money than was ever dreamt of in my philosophy.

I shook my head. “Can’t take you, Alaree. This is your world, and you belong here.”

A ripple of agony ran over his face. Suddenly he ceased to be the cheerful, roly-poly creature it was so impossible to take seriously, and became a very worried entity indeed. “You cannot understand,” he said. “I no longer belong here.”

No matter how hard he pleaded, I remained adamant. And when to no one’s surprise Ketteridge and Willendorf announced, a day later, that their pooled labors had succeeded in repairing the feed network, I had to tell Alaree that we were going to leave—without him.

He nodded stiffly, accepting the fact, and without a word stalked tragically away, into the purple tangle of foliage that surrounded our clearing.

He returned a while later, or so I thought. He was not wearing the thought-converter. That surprised me. Alaree knew the helmet was a valuable item, and he had been cautioned to take good care of it.

I sent a man inside to get another helmet for him. I put it on him—this time tucking that wayward ear underneath properly—and looked at him sternly. “Where’s the other helmet, Alaree?”