From the monochromatic light harmonies playing softly from the walls, from the abstract gentleness of music that never stopped filtering through the gardens and over the mists of fountains, from the ever-coruscating and subdued twilight that surrounded the school—from these things, Smith extracted the tone of decadence, the static, hidebound turning of a wheel upon itself.
The women from Bortinot stared oddly at him as his bulk, high and broad passed near. He heard their whispers ... "barbarian ... savage...."
His smile broadened. The cycle closed. Strange, how the old became decadent, and the young revolted and itself became sophisticated and sick, and the old became young again and the old values turned fresh and clear like a tree blooming out of winter's snow.
The sounds of voices died abruptly as Smith went in. Faces turned ... Brandog of Hulpin with the albino skin like alabaster; Luog the young, green-skinned Pandenian ... varieties of form and color ... the white, pink, orange and green brows. But there was the sameness of inversion and static culture.
Mouths gaped as Smith strode up to the front of the class room in transtellar history and looked curiously at the little man with the round gold face and green eyes that still blinked too much, and who, even now, smiled too much, too vacantly, as if he had been practicing a long time and had forgotten what it meant.
But Garnot of Jlob's smile was slightly strained now and his face had a pale look, under its sheath of gold.
"What a boorish intrusion," the instructor said. His voice got higher. "The entire school knows of course, Earth of Smith...."
"Smith of Earth," Smith said softly.
"Whatever it is, the entire school knows that already you have disgraced yourself and your planet—which was to be expected. And that I have recommended your withdrawal from the school as an inferior student."