"I fail completely to perceive the use of, or the need for, such an organization," she stated flatly. "This altruism—what good is it? It is unthinkable that any other race would take any risks or exert any effort for us, any more than we would for them. Ignore and be ignored, as you must already know, is the Prime Tenet."
"But there is a little commerce between our worlds; your people did not ignore our psychologists; and you are not ignoring me," Samms pointed out.
"Oh, none of us is perfect," Pilinipsi replied, with a mental shrug and what seemed to be an airy wave of a multi-tentacled member. "That ideal, like any other, can only be approached asymptotically, never reached; and I, being somewhat foolish and silly, as well as weak and vacillant, am much less perfect than most."
Flabbergasted, Samms tried a new tack. "I might be able to make my position clearer if I knew you better. I know your name, and that you are a woman of Palain Seven"—it is a measure of Virgil Samms' real size that he actually thought "woman", and not merely "female"—"but all I can understand of your occupation is the name you have given it. What does a Chief Dexitroboper do?"
"She—or he—or, perhaps, it ... is a supervisor of the work of dexitroboping." The thought, while perfectly clear, was completely meaningless to Samms, and the Palainian knew it. She tried again. "Dexitroboping has to do with ... nourishment? No—with nutrients."
"Ah. Farming—agriculture," Samms thought; but this time it was the Palainian who could not grasp the concept. "Hunting? Fishing?" No better. "Show me, then, please."
She tried; but demonstration, too, was useless; for to Samms the Palainian's movements were pointless indeed. The peculiarly flowing subtly changing thing darted back and forth, rose and fell, appeared and disappeared; undergoing the while cyclic changes in shape and form and size, in aspect and texture. It was now spiny, now tentacular, now scaly, now covered with peculiarly repellent feather-like fronds, each oozing a crimson slime. But it apparently did not do anything whatever. The net result of all its activity was, apparently, zero.
"There, it is done." Pilinipsi's thought again came clear. "You observed and understood? You did not. That is strange—baffling. Since the Lens did improve communication and understanding tremendously, I hoped that it might extend to the physical as well. But there must be some basic, fundamental difference, the nature of which is at present obscure. I wonder ... if I had a Lens, too—but no...."
"But yes!" Samms broke in, eagerly. "Why don't you go to Arisia and be tested for one? You have a magnificent, a really tremendous mind. It is of Lensman grade in every respect except one—you simply don't want to use it!"
"Me? Go to Arisia?" The thought would have been, in a Tellurian, a laugh of scorn. "How utterly silly—how abysmally stupid! There would be personal discomfort, quite possibly personal danger, and two Lenses would be little or no better than one in resolving differences between our two continua, which are probably in fact incommensurable."