 Why is Thig's return to Earth bittersweet?
He had blasted across trackless space to subdue a defenseless world—only to meet on Earth emotions that were more deadly than weapons. His task now was to bring a native, intact if possible, back to the carefully buried space cruiser where his two fellows and himself would drain the creature's mentality of all its knowledge. Already they had charted over a hundred celestial bodies but of them all only three had proven worthy of consideration. For a week the typewriter mill that had ground out a thousand assorted yarns of the untamed West and the frigid desolation of the Northwoods had been silent. Feebly he had punched a key two days ago and a $ sign had appeared. "With a psychic relay we will transfer the Earthman's memories and meager store of knowledge to the brain of Thig! "For the good of the Horde," Thig intoned almost piously as he lifted Terry's body and headed for the laboratory. Twice, with subtle drugs they restored pseudo-life to his body and kept the electrical impulses throbbing from his tortured brain, but after the third suspension of life Thig removed his helmet. An hour later, his scars and altered cartilage already healed and painless, Thig again scraped sand over the entrance to the space ship and set out along the moonlit beach toward the nearest path running inland to his home. Men had no mates on Ortha, sex had been overthrown with all the other primitive impulses of barbarism; so he was incapable of understanding the emotions that swept through his acquired memory.
 Though he wants it, he'll never truly belong. He'll always be an otherworlder.
 His Orthan background will always be at odds with his new life.  It's grueling to remember what he did to Terry, and to always have to be him now.  Though he wants it, he'll never truly belong. He'll always be an otherworlder.  He misses his life as an Orthan, even though he's come to enjoy Earth.