alist distortion. Her skin was unstained.
She wore a clinging off-the-breast tunic. Quite a dish, Rolf decided. He
began to see that he might enjoy this party.
* * * * *
The other guests began to approach timidly, now that the initial shock
of his presence had worn off. They asked silly little questions about
space--questions which showed that they had only a superficial interest
in him and were treating him as a sort of talking dog. He answered as
many as he could, looking down at their little painted faces with
concealed contempt.
_They think as little of me as I do of them._ The thought hit him
suddenly and his broad face creased in a smile at the irony. Then the
music started.
* * * * *
The knot of Earthers slowly broke up and drifted away to dance. He
looked at Jonne, who had stood patiently at his side through all this.
"I don't dance," he said. "I never learned how." He watched the other
couples moving gracefully around the floor, looking for all the world
like an assemblage of puppets. He stared in the dim light, watching the
couples clinging to each other as they rocked through the motions of the
dance. He stood against the wall, wearing his ugliness like a shield. He
saw the great gulf which separated him from the Earthers spreading
before him, as he watched the dancers and the gay chatter and the empty
badinage and the furtive hand-holding, and everything else from which he
was cut off. The bizarre Individs were dancing together--he noticed one
man putting an extra arm to full advantage--and the almost identical
Conforms had formed their own group again. Rolf wondered how they told
each other apart when they all looked alike.
"Come on," Jonne said. "I'll show you how to dance." He turned to look
at her, with her glossy blonde hair and even features. She smiled
prettily, revealing white teeth. _Probably newly purchased?_ Rolf
wondered.
"Actually I do know how to dance," Rolf said. "But I do it so badly--"
"That doesn't matter," she said gaily. "Come on."
She took his arm. Maybe she doesn't think I look like an ape, he
thought. She doesn't treat me the way the others do. But why am I so
ugly, and why is she so pretty?
He looked at her and she looked at him, and he felt her glance on his
stubbly face with its ferocious teeth and burning yellowish eyes. He
didn't want her to see him at all; he wished he had no face.
He folded
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