Well, I made the call to bring the creature onto the ship, up outside the atmosphere of the planet. And after a little while, it transformed... back into a human. A man who had left our home planet three hundred years before. One of the original space explorers when we sent people up-- by themselves, practically in tin cans, our curiosity stronger than our technology.

[ This story actually has a sad end, but Jim's gonna skip that, probably. They can both relate sanitized tales to fit the mood. The important thing is - in his opinion - is that it's an incident that's meaningful to him, and illustrative of the work he does. ]

The way life progresses is fascinating to me. The way a race might see itself, its collective identity, and the way we interact with time.