"You know," Philip Vinson went on, "I could kill you, very easily." The words would mean nothing to SK540; the tone might. He watched the beady eyes; there was nothing in them but intelligent attention, no flicker of fear.
"Or I could tie you up and take you to the laboratory and let them decide whether to keep you or kill you. We are all much bigger and stronger than you. Without your army you can't intimidate us."
There was, of course, no answer. But SK540 did a startling and touching thing. He reached out one front paw, as if in appeal.
Norah caught her breath in astonishment.
"He—he just wants to be free," she said in a choked whisper.
"You mean you're not afraid of him any more?"
"You said yourself he couldn't intimidate us without his army."
Philip thought a minute. Then he said slowly:
"I wonder if we had the right to do this to him in the first place. He would have been an ordinary laboratory rat, mindless and contented; we've made him into a neurotic alien in his world."