tells of a small group of characters coming face-to-face with the essential meanings of their lives. The character who explains much of what happens is Philip Halvorsen, a counselor who helps people find jobs that suit them.

He is a linear, rational thinker who serves his clients by logically working out exactly what career best matches their talents and personalities. The alien scientists come close to killing him because he nearly figures out who they are and what they are up to.

Through Halvorsen, Sturgeon explores the issue of being an average person. Halvorsen assumes that being average is good; he wants to have the same interests and desires as every other man, and he believes himself to be average until Boff and Googie begin experimenting on him. They first disorient him while he gazes in the window of a pawn shop where old...