Volyendesta is a watery planet, with a large, rapidly circumgyrating moon afflicting its inhabitants with a vast variety of unstable moods; but the sheer effort needed to cope with these conditions has evolved a breed able to withstand rapid changes of emotional condition while ostensibly succumbing to them. On my first visit to this planet I was disenheartened by its inhabitants' violent reaction to everything, but soon came to see that these could be regarded, rather, as surface storms over a comparatively untouched interior. And I saw that few of the inhabitants had even been able to use this condition of constant stimulation to evolve and strengthen inner calm.