"I wonder," said the Oldest Woman, "if he might be a victim, not a tool. Perhaps the Shing destroyed his mind as punishment for something he did or thought. Should we then finish their punishment?"

"It would be truer mercy," Metock said.

"Death is a false mercy," the Oldest Woman said bitterly.

So they discussed the matter back and forth for some while, equably but with a gravity that included both moral concern and a heavier, more anxious care, never stated but only hinted at whenever one of them spoke the word Shing. Parth took no part in the discussion, being only fifteen, but she listened intently. She was bound by sympathy to the stranger and wanted him to live.

Rayna and Kretyan joined the group; Rayna had been running what physiological tests she could on the stranger, with Kretyan standing by to catch any mental response. They had little to report as yet, other than that the stranger's nervous system and the sense areas and basic motor capacity of his brain seemed normal, though his physical responses and motor skill compared with those of a year-old child, perhaps, and no stimulus of localities in the speech area had got any response at all. "A man's strength, a baby's coordination, an empty mind," Ranya said.

"If we don't kill him like a wild beast," said Buckeye, "then we shall have to tame him like a wild beast…"

Kretyan's brother Kai spoke up. "It seems worth trying. Let some of us younger ones have charge of him; we'll see what we can do. We don't have to teach him the Inner Canons right away, after all. At least teaching him not to wet the bed comes first…I want to know if he's human. Do you think he is, Master?"

Zove spread out his big hands. "Who knows? Rayna's blood-tests may tell us. I never heard that any Shing had yellow eyes, or any visible differences from Terran men. But if he is neither Shing nor human, what is he? No being from the Other Worlds that once were known has walked on Earth for twelve hundred years. Like you, Kai, I think I would risk his presence here among us out of pure curiosity…"