"Remember, Father?" Veena prodded. "Those arboreal cannibals Grandfather used to mention? They had a nomadic tribal culture based on brute strength."
Lang nodded somberly. "Good analogy. The most favorable extrapolation indicated a racial life expectancy of only ten thousand years. Their emotional stability index was nil, they would eventually have destroyed themselves. The first generation decided it would be more merciful to exterminate them. An unwise decision, I think."
He launched into a spirited ethnological discussion with Veena, and Saxon sat, numbly.
They had no emotional insecurity to feed, no power-hunger. No herd instinct to pervert, nothing to utilize as destruction potential.
No cultural weakness.
The room they gave him was small and comfortable. For a time he lay on the sleeping hammock, considering the situation. He was beginning to like them. That in itself, was dangerous.
The house was very still.
He got quietly out of the hammock and crept towards the door. He had to get back to the lifeboat, to feed facts into the monitor.
One thing disturbed him.
According to his agent's handbook, family-group anarchies didn't need inhibition.