vening distance and
put him in touch with his own race again? How long would it be before he
could again hold discourse with reasonable beings? How much longer would
he have to be stranded on this planet, surrounded by an insane society
composed of degraded, insane beings?

The work was going incredibly slowly. He had known at the beginning that
his knowledge of the basic arts required to build a communicator was
incomplete, but he had not realized just how painfully inadequate it
was. Time after time, his instruments had simply refused to function
because of some basic flaw in their manufacture--some flaw that an
expert in that field could have pointed out at once. Time after time,
equipment had had to be rebuilt almost from the beginning. And, time
after time, only cut-and-try methods were available for correcting his
errors.

Not even his prodigious and accurate memory could hold all the
information that was necessary for the work, and there were no reference
tapes available, of course. They had all been destroyed when his ship
had crashed.

He had long since given up any attempt to understand the functioning of
the mad pseudo-civilization that surrounded him. He was quite certain
that the beings he had seen could not possibly be the real rulers of
this society, but he had no inkling, as yet, as to who the real rulers
were.

As to _where_ they were, that question seemed a little easier to answer.
It was highly probable that they were out in space, on the asteroids
that his instruments had detected when he was dropping in toward this
planet so many years before. He had made an error then in not landing in
the Belt, but at no time since had he experienced the emotion of regret
or wished he had done differently; both thoughts would have been
incomprehensible to the Nipe. He had made an error; the circumstances
had been checked and noted; he would not make that error again.

What further action could be taken by a logical mind?

None. The past was immutable and unchangeable. It existed only as a
memory in his own mind, and there was no way to change that indelible
record, even had the Nipe wished to do so insane a thing.

Surely, he thought, the real rulers must know of his existence. He had
tried, by his every action, to show that he was a reasoning,
intelligent, and civilized being. Why, then, had they taken no action?

There was, of course, the possibility that the rulers cared very little
for their subjects