And the fear grew more oppressive as the ship forged onward toward the home world of the Lhari. And it did not lessen when, after they touched down, he was taken from the ship under guard.

He had only a glimpse, through dark glasses, of the terrible brilliance of the Lhari sun dazzling on crystal towers, before he was hustled into a closed surface car. It whisked him away to a building he did not see from the outside; he was taken up by private elevator to a suite of rooms which might—for all he could tell—have been a suite in a luxury hotel or a lunatic asylum. The walls were translucent, the furniture oddly colored, and so carefully padded that even a homicidal or suicidal person could not have hurt himself or anyone else on it or with it.

Food reached him often enough so that he never got hungry, but not often enough to keep him from being bored between meals, or from brooding. Two enormous Lhari came in to look at him every hour or so, but either they were deaf and dumb, did not understand his dialect of Lhari, or were under orders not to speak to him. It was the most frustrating time of his entire voyage.