"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.
"Why was Dad doing this? What could he gain?"
"You know we can build ships as good as the Lhari ships, but we don't
know anything about the rare catalyst they use for warp-drive fuel.
Captain Steele had hopes of being able to discover where they got it."
"But couldn't they find out where the Lhari ships go for fueling?"
"No. There's no way to trail a Lhari ship," he reminded Bart. "We can
follow them inside a star-system, but then they pop into warp-drive, and
we don't know where they go when they aren't running between _our_
stars.
"We've gathered together what information we _do_ have, and we know that
after a certain number of runs in our part of the galaxy, ships take off
in the direction of Antares. There's a ship, due to come in here in
about ten days, called the _Swiftwing_, which is just about due to make
the Antares run. Captain Steele had managed to arrange--I don't know
how, and I don't want to know how--for a vacancy on that ship, and
somehow he got credentials. You see, it's a very good spy system, a
network between the stars, but the weak link is this: everything, every
message, every man, has to travel back and forth by the Lhari ships
themselves."
He rose, shaking it all off impatiently. "Well, it's finished now. Your
father is dead. What are you going to do? If you want to go back to
Vega, you can probably convince the Lhari you're just an innocent
bystander. They _don't_ hurt bystanders or children, Bart. They aren't
bad people. They're just protecting their business monopoly.
"The safest way to handle it would be this: let me erase your memories
of what I've told you tonight. Then just let the Lhari capture you. They
won't kill you. They'll just give you a light psych-check. When they
find out you don't know anything, they'll send you back to Vega, and you
can spend the rest of your life in peace, running Vega Interplanet and
Eight Colors."
Bart turned on him furiously. "You mean, go home like a good little boy,
and pretend none of this ever happened? What do you think I am, anyhow?"
Bart's chin set in the new, hard line. "What I want is a chance to go on
where Dad left off!"
"It won't be easy, and it could be dangerous," Raynor Three said, "but
there's nothing else to be done. We had the arrangements all made; and
now somebody's got to take the dangerous risk of calling them off. Are
you game for a little plastic surgery--just enough to change your looks
again, with new forged papers? You can't go by the _Swiftwing_--it
doesn't carry passengers--but there's another route you can take."
Bart sprang up. "No," he said, "I know a better way. Let me go on the
_Swiftwing_--in Dad's place--_as a Lhari_!"
"Bart, no," Raynor Three said. "You'd never get away with it. It's too
dangerous." But his gold eyes glinted.
"Why not? I speak Lhari better than Dad ever did. And my eyes can stand
Lhari lights. You said yourself, it's going to be a dangerous job just
calling off all the arrangements. So let's _not_ call them off. Just let
me take Dad's place!"
"Bart, you're only a boy--"
"What was Dave Briscoe? No, Raynor. Dad left me a lot more than Vega
Interplanet, and you know it. I'll finish what he started, and then
maybe I'll begin to deserve what he left me."
Raynor Three gripped Bart's hand. He said, in a voice that shook, "All
right, Bart. You're your father's son. I can't say more than that. I
haven't any right to stop you."