But they had given him plenty of books. They’d been nice about that, as soon as he had told them what he wanted, and he had told them that the moment he had learned that he was destined to spend the rest of his life alone in this room. The rest of his life, or as the Zan had quaintly expressed it, forever. Even a brilliant mind—and the Zan obviously had brilliant minds—has its idiosyncracies. The Zan had learned to speak Terrestrial English in a manner of hours but they persisted in separating syllables. But we disgress.
There was a knock on the door.
You’ve got it all now, except the three dots, the ellipsis, and I’m going to fill that in and show you that it wasn’t horrible at all.
Walter Phelan called out, “Come in,” and the door opened. It was of course, only a Zan. It looked exactly like the other Zan; if there was any way of telling one of them from another, Walter hadn’t found it. It was about four feet tall and it looked like nothing on earth—nothing, that is, that had been on Earth until the Zan came there.
Walter said, “Hello, George.” When he’d learned that none of them had names he decided to call them all George, and the Zan didn’t seem to mind.
This one said, “Hel-lo, Wal-ter.” That was ritual; the knock on the door and the greetings. Walter waited.
“Point one,” said the Zan “You will please henceforth sit with your chair turned the other way.”
Walter said, “I thought so, George. That plain wall is transparent from the other side, isn’t it?”
“It is trans-par-ent.”
“Just what I thought. I’m in a zoo Right?”