He might as well have dropped an atomic explosive capsule into the middle of the plane.

The first silent horror on every face turned rapidly into angry, bitter hostility that flamed at him. The man who had shared his seat rose stiffly and crowded into another, where the pair of occupants squeezed closely together to make room for him.

Faces turned away. Shoulders surrounded him, hemmed him in. For a moment Arvardan burned with indignation. Earthmen to treat him so. Earthmen! He had held out the hand of friendship to them. He, a Sirian, had condescended to treat with them and they had rebuffed him.

And then, with an effort, he relaxed. It was obvious that bigotry was never a one-way operation, that hatred bred hatred!

He was conscious of a presence beside him, and he turned toward it resentfully. "Yes?"

It was the young man with the cigarette. He was lighting a new one as he spoke. "Hello," he said. "My name's Creen… Don't let those jerks get you."

"No one's getting me," said Arvardan shortly. He was not too pleased with the company, nor was he in the mood for patronizing advice from an Earthman.

But Creen was not trained to the detection of the more delicate nuances. He puffed his cigarette to life in man-sized drags and tapped its ashes over the arm of the seat into the middle aisle.

"Provincials!" he whispered with contempt. "Just a bunch of farmers…They lack the Galactic view. Don't bother with them…Now you take me. I got a different philosophy. Live and let live, I say. I got nothing against Outsiders. If they want to be friendly with me, I'll be friendly with them. What the hell-They can't help being an Outsider just like I can't help being an Earthman. Don't you think I'm right?" And he tapped Arvardan familiarly on the wrist.

Arvardan nodded and felt a crawling sensation at the other's touch. Social contact with a man who felt resentful over losing a chance to bring about his uncle's death was not pleasant, quite regardless of planetary origin.

Creen leaned back. "Heading for Chica? What did you say your name was? Albadan?"

"Arvardan. Yes, I'm going to Chica."

"That's my home town. Best damned city on Earth. Going to stay there long?"

"Maybe. I haven't made any plans."

"Umm…Say, I hope you don't object to my saying that I've been noticing your shirt. Mind if I take a close look? Made in Sirius, huh?"

"Yes, it is."

"It's very good material. Can't get anything like that on Earth…Say, bud, you wouldn't have a spare shirt like that in your luggage, would you? I'd pay for it if you wanted to sell it. It's a snappy number."

Arvardan shook his head emphatically. "Sorry, but I don't have much of a wardrobe. I am planning to buy clothes here on Earth as I go along."

"I'll pay you fifty credits," said Creen…Silence. He added, with a touch of resentment, "That's a good price."

"A very good price," said Arvardan, "but, as I told you, I have no shirts to sell."

"Well…" Creen shrugged. "Expect to stay on Earth quite a while, I suppose?"

"Maybe."

"What's your line of business?"

The archaeologist allowed irritation to rise to the surface. "Look, Mr. Creen, if you don't mind, I'm a little tired and would like to take a nap. Is that all right with you?"

Creen frowned. "What's the matter with you? Don't your kind believe in being civil to people? I'm just asking you a polite question; no need to bite my ear off."

The conversation, hitherto conducted in a low voice, had suddenly amplified itself into a near shout. Hostile expressions turned Arvardan's way, and the archaeologist's lips compressed themselves into a thin line.

He had asked for it, he decided bitterly. He would not have gotten into this mess if he had held aloof from the beginning, if he hadn't felt the necessity of vaunting his damned tolerance and forcing it on people who didn't want it.

He said levelly, "Mr. Creen, I didn't ask you to join me, and I haven't been uncivil. I repeat, I am tired and would like to rest. I think there's nothing unusual in that."

"Listen"-the young man rose from his seat, threw his cigarette away with a violent gesture, and pointed a finger-"you don't have to treat me like I'm a dog or something. You stinking Outsiders come here with your fine talk and standoffishness and think it gives you the right to stamp all over us. We don't have to stand for it, see. If you don't like it here, you can go back where you came from, and it won't take much more of your lip to make me light into you, either. You think I'm afraid of you?"

Arvardan turned his head away and stared stonily out the window.

Creen said no more, but took his original seat once again. There was an excited buzz of conversation round and about the plane which Arvardan ignored. He felt, rather than saw, the sharpened and envenomed glances being cast at him. Until, gradually, it passed, as all things did.

He completed the journey, silent and alone.

The landing at the Chica airport was welcome. Arvardan smiled to himself at the first sight from the air of the "best damned city on Earth," but found it, nevertheless, an immense improvement over the thick, unfriendly atmosphere of the plane.

He supervised the unloading of his luggage and had it transferred into a biwheel cab. At least he would be the only passenger here, so that if he took care not to speak unnecessarily to the driver, he could scarcely get into trouble.

"State House," he told the cabby, and they were off.

Arvardan thus entered Chica for the first time, and he did so on the day that Joseph Schwartz escaped from his room at the Institute for Nuclear Research.

Creen watched Arvardan leave with a bitter half-smile. He took out his little book and studied it closely between puffs at his cigarette. He hadn't gotten much out of the passengers, despite his story about his uncle (which he had used often before to good effect). To be sure, the old guy had complained about a man living past his time and had blamed it on "pull" with the Ancients. That would come under the heading of slander against the Brotherhood. But then the geezer was heading for the Sixty in a month, anyway. No use putting his name down.

But this Outsider, that was different. He surveyed the item with a feeling of pleasure: "Bel Arvardan, Baronn, Sirius Sector-curious about the Sixty-secretive about own affairs-entered Chica by commercial plane 11 A.M. Chica time, 12 October-anti-Terrestrian attitude very marked."

This time maybe he had a real haul. Picking up these little squealers who made incautious remarks was dull work, but things like this made it payoff.

The Brotherhood would have his report before half an hour was up. He made his way leisurely off the field.

8. Convergence At Chica

For the twentieth time Dr. Shekt leafed through his latest volume of research notes, then looked up as Pola entered his office. She frowned as she slipped on her lab coat.

"Now, Father, haven't you eaten yet?"

"Eh? Certainly I have…Oh, what's this?"

"This is lunch. Or it was, once. What you ate must have been breakfast. Now there's no sense in my buying meals and bringing them here if you're not going to eat them. I'm just going to make you go home for them."

"Don't get excited. I'll eat it. I can't interrupt a vital experiment every time you think I ought to eat, you know."

He grew cheerful again over the dessert. "You have no idea," he said, "the kind of man this Schwartz is. Did I ever tell you about his skull sutures?"

"They're primitive. You told me."

"But that's not all. He's got thirty-two teeth: three molars up and down, left and right, counting one false one that must be homemade. At least I've never seen a bridge that has metal prongs hooking it onto adjacent teeth instead of being grafted to the jawbone…But have you ever seen anyone with thirty-two teeth?"