Some of the children graduated into the outside world and others took their places. Jason watched this process for a while before he realized that all of those from the original group he had entered with were gone. That same day he looked up the chief of the adaptation center.
"Brucco," Jason asked, "how long do you plan to keep me in this kindergarten shooting gallery?"
"You're not being 'kept' here," Brucco told him in his usual irritated tone. "You will be here until you qualify for the outside."
"Which I have a funny feeling will be never. I can now field strip and reassemble every one of your blasted gadgets in the dark. I am a dead shot with this cannon. At this present moment, if I had to, I could write a book on the Complete Flora and Fauna of Pyrrus, and How to Kill It. Perhaps I don't do as well as my six-year-old companions, but I have a hunch I do about as good a job now as I ever will. Is that true?"
Brucco squirmed with the effort to be evasive, yet didn't succeed. "I think, that is, you know you weren't born here, and—"
"Come, come," Jason said with glee, "a straight-faced old Pyrran like you shouldn't try to lie to one of the weaker races that specialize in that sort of thing. It goes without saying that I'll always be sluggish with this gravity, as well as having other inborn handicaps. I admit that. We're not talking about that now. The question is—will I improve with more training, or have I reached a peak of my own development now?"
Brucco sweated. "With the passage of time there will be improvement of course—"
"Sly devil!" Jason waggled a finger at him. "Yes or no, now. Will I improve now by more training now?"
"No," Brucco said, and still looked troubled. Jason sized him up like a poker hand.