"A Mentorian found him and didn't have the heart to turn him over to the Lhari. So he was smuggled clear again. But when that Mentorian underwent the routine brain-checks at the end of the voyage, the Lhari found out what had happened. They didn't know Briscoe's name, but they wrung that Mentorian out like a wet dishcloth and got a description that was as good as fingerprints. They tracked down young Briscoe and killed him. They killed the first man he'd talked to. They killed the second. The third was 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 it all, slowly, in his mind.