"That's why I thought that they were the ones who spoke strangely. All but Angel."
"Yes, he has the same difficulties with dentate sounds like t's and d's that we do. Strange how much he resembles us physically too. It helped people to think of us as three freaks of a kind. Mentally, of course, there's all the difference in the world."
"Is there? I wonder if he isn't basically sound. I wonder how well he'd do if he weren't made to feel like a freak, if he were given a chance in our own System."
The smaller man's lips curled in a sneer. "Perhaps an inferior creature like him would fit in. I'm afraid I never will. I'll tell you what I'll do, Tlaxon. Once we take off from this planet I'll let you put me down in one of three places where I have friends. I'll give you your choice and promise you that no harm will come to you."
"The rat," muttered Angel hoarsely. "Look, Crusoe, I don't understand everything you fellows said. But I remember the Professor, the real Professor. He had a big head, just like me. He used to say a wrestler could be a highbrow too."
"A high forehead, such as our own. Yes," agreed the little man. "He had."
"And he didn't make fun of me because my face was kinda blue. Other people used to look at me like I was a freak. They didn't realize that after I stopped wrestlin' I had to go to work in some factory where the silver chemicals turned my skin blue. They just thought I was born that way."
"We were born that way," said Crusoe gently. "Can't you tell? Or are your eyes so very bad? That's one reason we would have been so conspicuous without you. That's why the people looked so strange to me. Not merely because most of them had low foreheads. But because none of them were blue. Pink and brown and white, and red and yellow and black, but no blue. I began to think of them all as freaks."
"You are as big a freak as any," interrupted the Professor. "I am giving you a chance for your life. And you prefer to discuss irrelevancies."