ry."

Kennon understood. He, too, had felt that sensation, that odd tightening
of the throat when he first saw a Varl on Santos. The Varl had been the
dominant life form there until men had come. Now they were just another
animal added to humanity's growing list of pets and livestock. The
little Varl with their soft-furred bodies and clever six-fingered hands
made excellent pets and precision workmen. The products of those clever
hands, the tiny instruments, the delicate microminiaturized control
circuits, the incredibly fine lacework and tapestries, formed the bulk
of Santos' interstellar trade.

He had owned a Varl once and had delighted in its almost human
intelligence. But the Varl weren't human and there lay their tragedy.
Two thousand years of human domination had left them completely
dependent on their conquerors. They were merely intelligent animals--and
that was all they would ever be until the human race changed its
cultural pattern or was overthrown. The one alternative was as unlikely
as the other. Humanity had met some fierce competitors, but none with
its explosive acquisitive nature, and none with its drive to conquer,
colonize, and rule. And probably it never would.

The little Varl were one race among hundreds that had fallen before the
fierceness and the greed of men. But unlike most others, the Varl were
not combative. Therefore they had survived.

Yet had it been necessary to reduce them to slavery? They would never
be a threat. Not only were they essentially gentle and noncombative, but
their delicate bodies could not stand the strains of spaceflight.
They were trapped on their world. Why should they be forced into so
subordinate a role?--Why was humanity so jealous of its dominance
that no other species could exist except by sufferance? Why after five
thousand years of exploration, invasion, and colonization did the human
race still consider the galaxy as its oyster, and themselves uniquely
qualified to hold the knife? He hadn't thought this way since he had
given the Varl to his girl friend of the moment, and had blasted off for
Beta. Now the questions returned to haunt him. As a Betan, the haunting
was even more acute, since Beta had a related problem that was already
troublesome and would become more acute as the years passed.

He shrugged and laid the thought aside as a slim, dark-haired Lani
entered pushing a service cart ahead of her. The two men ate silently,
each busy with his own thou