"Yet you imprison the Throg there——" he remarked.
"Not so!" Her denial was instantaneous and vehement. "The other worlder fled into that place in spite of our calling. There he stays in hiding. Once we drew him out to the sea, but he broke the power and fled inside again."
"Broke free—" Shann pounced upon that. "From disk control?"
"But surely." Her reply held something of wonder. "Why do you ask, star voyager? Did you not also break free from the power of the disk when I led you by the underground ways, awaking in the river? Do you then rate this other one as less than your own breed that you think him incapable of the same action?"
"Of Throgs I know as much as this...." He held up his hand, measuring off a fraction of space between thumb and forefinger.
"Yet you knew them before you came to this world."
"My people have known them for long. We have met and fought many times among the stars."
"And never have you talked mind to mind?"
"Never. We have sought for that, but there has been no communication between us, neither of mind nor of voice."
"This one you name Throg is truly not as you," she assented. "And we are not as you, being alien and female. Yet, star man, you and I have shared a dream."