"Then bring him with you. What I keep telling you we came for--"
"Not as human-animal versus animal-animal," she said. "I love him. I
can't harm him."
"In the ship, Gelerie! For your old Daddy. Inside, girl. In--"
Gelerie was now close enough to permit her father's mind to transit.
From inside he spoke aloud, "Well, thank Homekind for that! Now get in
and we'll be off."
"What about one of the others?" she said, now pointing at the three men
who lay unconscious at her feet.
"That would be fine," Threlkeld replied. "Just toss Twitty in the drink
and bring Cadogan. He looks like good stock."
Twitty was suddenly stricken with fright. If he never believed before,
he believed now. "No. Cadogan has a wife and children. Don't take
him--take me, I'm unmarried."
"Well," Threlkeld said, "now it's all solved. Get on board, Gelerie."
"No, father. If I do that, I still become less than Twitty. Homekind
does not respect love affairs between separate types."
"Nor does it allow its missionaries to remain in the arena after the
battle is won. Gelerie, face it if you stay here you'll revert to type
the instant I leave."
Gelerie turned Twitty loose. She bent low and looked through the
opening of the vehicle at her father. "Do you think Homekind would do
that other thing?" She said it so Twitty would not guess right off.
"Nonsense. It would defeat the whole purpose of the mission," Threlkeld
said. "They want a human specimen. Taking him home and turning him
into one of us would not give them any new thing to study. You'll have
to do better than that."
"I meant here. Make him one of our kind and let him stay here."