"You don’t feel they bear any credit for détente?" This was Simon Afriel, a cold and practiced young militant already making his mark in the Shaper academic-military complex. He had confessed once to Lindsay that he had his sights set on an alien diplomatic assignment. So did they all: surely, out of nineteen known alien races, there would be one with which the Shapers could establish strong rapport. And the diplomat who returned sane from that assignment would have the world at his feet.