 Why is Thig's return to Earth bittersweet?
QUEST OF THIG By BASIL WELLS Thig of Ortha was the vanguard of the conquering "HORDE." He had blasted across trackless space to subdue a defenseless world—only to meet on Earth emotions that were more deadly than weapons. Thig carefully smoothed the dark sand and seaweed of the lonely beach over the metal lid of the flexible ringed tunnel that linked the grubby ship from another planet with the upper air. 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. This latest planet, however, 72-P-3 on the chart, appeared to be an ideal world in every respect. 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. Tonight or tomorrow night at the latest he must contact his two fellows and report that Earth was a planetary paradise. No other world, including Ortha, was so well-favored and rich. An expeditionary force to wipe the grotesque civilizations of Earth out of existence would, of course, be necessary before the first units of new Hordes could be landed. For three months he had lived with people who loved, hated, wept and sacrificed for reasons that he had never known existed. Uncertainty added zest to every day's life. For a hundred thousand years the Orthan civilization had remained static, its energies directed into certain well-defined channels.
 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.