"Confound it, Tom, it isn't a matter of our permission! It's a matter of fact. It would ease things if Holly were married to one of us, but even so it wouldn't be entirely clear. It has to do with the invasion of privacy."
"Privacy? In this case the very idea is ridiculous."
"Maybe so," said Paul Wallach. "But I don't make the rules. They're natural laws. As immutable as the laws of gravity or the refraction of light. And Tom, even if I were making the laws I might not change things. Not even to save Holly Carter's life. Because, Tom, if telepathy and perception were as free and unbounded as some of their early proponents claimed, life would be a sheer, naked hell on earth."
"But what has privacy to do with it? This Harla isn't at all humanoid. A cat can look at a king—"
"Sure, Tom. But how long would the cat be permitted to read the king's mind?"
I grunted. "Has this Harla any mental block about examining the outside?"
He looked at me thoughtfully. "You're thinking about a scar or some sort of blemish?"
"Yes. Birthmark, maybe. No one is perfect."
"You know of any?"
I thought.