B, captain of the mission, doesn’t believe that the “Silvers†are intelligent, and lets his crew experiment on them. But then he bonds with Imms, who seems different from the othersâ€"interested in learning, intrigued by human feelings. And B realizes that capturing, studying, and killing this planet’s natives has done incalculable damage.
When a fire aboard B’s ship kills most of the crew and endangers Imms, B decides to take him back to Earth. But the simplicity of the Silver Planet doesn’t follow them. Imms learns the full spectrum of human emotions, including a love B is frightened to return, and a mistrust of the bureaucracy that wants to treat Imms like a test subject, even if they have to eliminate B to do it.
(Note: This is a revised second edition, originally published elsewhere.)
