(Here is the enemy, he thought. How do I know? I have been told ever since I can remember. But is it true? Does saying it make it true? But what else can I believe? One must believe something!) * * * * * She opened her eyes, stared at him uncomprehending. He waited patiently as she gathered her loose thoughts and tied them down. She smiled uncertainly, not yet recognizing him. Finally he could see understanding in her eyes. "Your mind is too weak to fight," he said. "If you try to shield I will kill you." Her lips curled. "What do you want?" "Don't try to shield," he warned. He studied her face and his chest was tight. He looked away from her face. "I've got to ask you some questions," he said. "After that, I'm going to kill you." There was no fear in Lauri's eyes. "Go ahead," she said calmly. "Kill me." "I ... I ... want to ask you something first," he said. "I've got to ask you some questions." Her lips glistened and he felt sympathy that he could not understand. And seeing her frown, he shielded the thoughts from her. "You're not ... quite like I thought you were," she said, very calmly. "I am!" he snarled. "I am what you thought!" He was ashamed of the sympathy he had let her sense, and then he was ashamed of being ashamed, and his mind was confusion. "Why did you--did you leave this planet as an unprotected flank, like this?" he said. It was a question, he knew, that had to be answered, before ... before ... what? "They weren't ready to join us," she said. "What do you mean?" "They were not developed enough to join us," she said. "Why didn't you conquer them!" he insisted. "You were strong enough. Why didn't you conquer them?" She said: "We couldn't do that. We don't have any right to do that." In that instant, it all became clear. Suddenly truth overwhelmed him, wave after wave, like a sickness. "No!" he cried. "No!" He dropped his head into his hands. "Lies," he murmured. "Lies, lies, lies!" He saw the wrongness, the terrible wrongness, and he searched desperately over his life for repudiation, an excuse. But he found none. They had come to him and said, This is the law of life. And they took him and trained him, and showed him nothing else. He had been scarcely a child at the first school of soldiery, and they had fashioned his mind, a pliant mind, and ground doubts out (if there had been any.) They told him that the law was strength, and strength was destiny, and destiny was to rule those below, obey those above, and destroy those who did not agree. There were no friends and enemies--only the rulers and the ruled. And the ruler must expand or die of admitted weakness. "It's all lies!" he said. He felt the crumbling away of the certainty he had lived by. And before the helpless Oholo he felt weak and defeated and suddenly he realized that his mind shield was down. She reached out gently to touch him. Below, a police siren wailed in the streets. A car for corpses.