As Cemp had expected, he began his change en route.  By the time he was put aboard the Kibmadine ship he was already in a tank of water in his first compulsive change, which was to the fish state.

He would be a class-B Silkie for slightly more than two months.

As Di-isarinn came finally to the tiny ship in its remote orbit beyond Pluto, he noticed at once that the entrance mechanism had been tampered with, and he sensed the Cemp's presence aboard.

In the course of countless millenia, Di-isarinn's reflexes had fallen into disuse, so he had no anxiety.  But he did recognize that here were all the appearances of a trap.

In a flash, he checked to ensure that there was no source of energy aboard that could destroy him.  There was none - no relay; nothing.

A faint energy emanated from the tank, but it had no purpose that Di-isarinn could detect.
He wondered scathingly if these human beings somehow expected to work a bluff whereby he would be impelled by uncertainty to stay away from his own ship.

With that thought, he activated the entrance mechanism, entered, transformed to human form, walked over to the tank that stood in the center of the tiny cabin, and looked down at Cemp, who lay at the bottom.

Di-isarinn said, "If it's a bluff, I couldn't possibly yield to it because I have nowhere else to go."

In his fish state, Cemp could hear and understand human words, but he could not speak them.

Di-isarinn persisted.  "It's interesting that the one Silkie whom I now cannot read has taken the enormous risk of coming aboard.  Your computer helped you to adjust to me, but perhaps you were more affected by the desire I attempted to arouse in your home than appeared at the time.  Perhaps you long for the ecstasy and the anguish that I offered."

Cemp was thinking tensely, It's working.  He doesn't notice how he got onto that subject.

The logic of levels was beginning to take effect.  It was a strange world, the world of logic.  For nearly all his long history, man had been moved by unsuspected mechanisms in his brain and his nervous system.  A sleep center put him to sleep, a waking center woke him up, a rage mechanism mobilized him for attack, a fear complex propelled him in flight.  There were a hundred or more other mechanisms, each with its special task, each in itself a marvel of perfect functioning but degraded by man's uncomprehending obedience to a chance triggering of one or another.

During this period, all civilization consisted of codes of honor and conduct and of attempts noble and ignoble to rationalize the simplicities underneath.  Finally came a developing comprehension and control of the neural mechanisms - one, then another, then many.

The real Age of Reason began.  On the basis of that reason Cemp asked himself, was the Kibmadine level lower or higher than, for example, that of the shark?  It was lower, he decided.  The comparison would be, if man had brought cannibalism into civilization with him.  A lower level of logic applied to that.