your father."

"The murdering devils!"

Raynor sighed. "Your father and Briscoe's father were old friends.
Briscoe's father was dying with incurable heart disease; _his_ son was
dead, and old Briscoe had only one thought in his mind--to make sure he
didn't die for nothing. So he took your father's papers, knowing they
were as good as a death warrant, slipped away and boarded a Lhari ship
that led roundabout to stars where the message hadn't reached yet. He
led them a good chase. Did he die or did they track him down and kill
him?" Bart bowed his head and told the story.

"Meanwhile," Raynor Three continued, "your father came to me, knowing I
was sympathetic, knowing I was a Lhari-trained surgeon. He had just one
thought in his mind: to do, again, what David Briscoe had done, and make
sure the news got out this time. He cooked up a plan that was even
braver and more desperate. He decided to sign on a Lhari ship as a
member of the crew."

"As a Mentorian?" Bart asked, but something cold, like ice water
trickling down his back, told him this was not what Raynor meant. "The
brainwashing--"

"No," said Raynor, "not as a Mentorian; he couldn't have escaped the
psych-checking. _As a Lhari._"

Bart gasped. "How--"

"Men and Lhari are very much alike," Raynor Three said. "A few small
things--skin color, the shape of the ears, the hands and claws--keep
humans from seeing that the Lhari are men."

"Don't say that," Bart almost yelled. "Those filthy, murdering devils!
You call those monsters men?"

"I've lived among the Lhari all my life. They're not devils, Bart, they
have their reasons. Physiologically, the Lhari are--well, _humanoid_, if
you like that better. They're a lot more like a man than a man is like,
for instance, a gorilla. Your father convinced me that with minor
plastic and facial surgery, he could pass as a Lhari. And finally I gave
in, and did the surgery--"

"And it killed him!"

"Not really. It was a completely unforeseeable thing--a blood clot broke
loose in a vein, and lodged in his brain. He was dead in seconds. It
could have happened at any time," he said, "yet I feel responsible, even
though I keep telling myself I'm not. And I'll help you as much as I
can--for his sake, and for your mother's. The Lhari don't watch me too
closely--they figure that anything I do they'll catch in the
brainwashing. But I'm still one step ahead of them, as long as I can
erase my own memories."

Bart was sifting