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. But in his first few minutes he encountered several times that number of both sexes and all ages.
Third, he became dismally aware that he was being snubbed. People did not look at him, nor did they answer when he spoke; they walked right through him if he did not jump. The nearest he accomplished to social relations was with a female child, a toddler who regarded him with steady, grave eyes in answer to his overtures -- until snatched up by a woman who did not even glance at Thorby.
Thorby recognized the treatment; it was the way a noble treated one of Thorby's caste. A noble could not see him, he did not exist -- even a noble giving alms usually did so by handing it through a slave. Thorby had not been hurt by such treatment on Jubbul; that was natural, that was the way things had always been. It had made him neither lonely nor depressed; he had had plenty of warm company in his misery and had not known that it was misery.
But had he known ahead of time that the entire ship's company of the Sisu would behave like nobles he would never have shipped in her, snoopies or not. But he had not expected such treatment. Captain Krausa, once Baslim's message had been delivered, had been friendly and gruffly paternal; Thorby had expected the crew of the Sisu to reflect the attitude of her master.
He wandered the steel corridors, feeling like a ghost among living, and at last decided sadly to go back to the cubicle in which he had awakened
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