“I’ve told you a thousand times that the radiation on this ship must have affected Ulf and Lyssa’s germ plasm. Can’t you understand that?” “I can understand it all right, but it does not change things. Ulf and Lyssa may have been human before they came here, but they were not when they landed. They were Lani, and their children were Lani.” “But they were of human stock.” “The law that lets men become our masters does not agree with you.” “Then the law is wrong. It should be changed.” Copper shrugged. “Two people cannot change a law.” “They can try--particularly if the law is unjust.” Copper sighed. “Is it not enough for us to love? Must you try to run through a wall?” “When the wall stands in the way of right and justice I must.” Copper looked at him with pity in her green eyes. “This I do not understand. I know nothing of right and justice. What are these things? Just words. Yet you will endanger our happiness for them. If it is my happiness you wish--then leave this foolishness alone. I have fifteen years I can live with you before I am old and you tire of me. With those years I can be content.” “But I can’t,” Kennon said. “Call me selfish if you wish, but I want you with me as long as I live. I don’t want to live my life without you.” “You want too much,” Copper said softly. “But if it makes you happy to try to get it, I shall help. And if we do not succeed you will at least be happier for trying. And if you are happy”--she shrugged--“then the rest makes little difference.” That was the crux of the matter, Kennon reflected bitterly. He was convinced she was human. She was not. And until her mind could be changed on that point she would help him but her heart wouldn’t be in it. And the only thing that would convince her that she was human would be a child--a child of his begetting. He could perhaps trick her with an artificial insemination of Lani sperm. There were drugs that could suspend consciousness, hypnotics that would make her believe anything she was told while under their influence. But in the end it would do no good. All witnesses in Brotherhood court actions were examined under psychoprobe, and a hypnotic was of no value against a lie detector that could extract the deepest buried truth. And he would be examined too. The truth would out--and nothing would be gained. In fact--everything would be lost. The attempt at trickery would prejudice any court against the honest evidence they had so painfully collected. He sighed. The only thing to do was to go on as they were--and hope that the evidence would hold. With Betan legal talent at their back it might. And, of course, they could try to produce a child as nature had intended. They could try--but Kennon knew it would not succeed. It never had. CHAPTER XV