"Joshua has already given us his version of your request, and his issues with it." Gwedif said.

"When did he do that?" I said.

"Just now," Joshua said, and turned to me. "I used High Speech, Tom. One nicely pungent fart gets it all across."

"I'm glad my noseplugs were in," I said.

"You don't know how true that is," Joshua said.

"Now that Joshua has given his report, the ientcio would like to hear your request from you, and hopes you will be willing to answer some questions as well," Gwedif said.

"Of course." I said.

"Please begin whenever you are ready."

"All right," I said. I closed my eyes, said a little prayer to whomever might be listening, and opened my eyes. Then I began.

"The human you see in this stretcher is named Michelle Beck," I said, motioning to Michelle. "I was her agent, and also her friend. We were probably each other's best friends, though I don't think either of us realized it. As her agent, I helped to make her one of the most well-known actresses in Hollywood — people everywhere recognize her face.

"A few days ago, Michelle suffered severe and irreversible brain damage due to lack of oxygen to her brain. My friend is now for all purposes dead. Her body is being kept alive through the use of this respirator, but it will not sustain her body for much longer. Soon her body will be as dead as her mind already is.

"I mourn the passing of my friend, more than I can express. As I said, I don't think I appreciated what she meant to me when she was alive. Michelle was a good person — good in heart and in intention, which I think counts for something. I could be wrong. But I think it does.

"As much as I mourn Michelle, I see an opportunity in her passing, and opportunity that I think gives her death, which was as banal and meaningless as any death could be, some resonance. I have been asked by Carl Lupo to find a way to introduce the Yherajk to humanity, so that humanity can accept you as the friendly race you are, rather than for the terrifying creatures you appear to be.

"It occurs to me that one way to this — perhaps the best way — is to have Joshua inhabit Michelle's body. To be Michelle. Michelle is already known around the world. That much of the battle is already fought. What we can do now is to raise Michelle's profile even further, and give her a worldwide platform to be the spokesperson for the Yherajk. She can be the most effective bridge between our two peoples — someone that humans know and who is not only non-threatening, but the focus of admiration. She can be the human face of an inhuman race — the Trojan horse, if you will, that gets the Yherajk through the gate of humanity's fears.

"Joshua has several issues with inhabiting the body. The most objectionable of these has to do with her manner of death — not the actual moment itself, but the events leading up to it. Before any other issues can be raised, this one must be dealt with. We have to have a clear accounting of her death. That being the case, I'm asking that a Yherajk other than Joshua connect to Michelle's mind, and acting as a conduit, send the memory into the brain of a human. This would allow us to see more perfectly what Michelle was thinking in those last moments.

"Without this information, this opportunity for our peoples could be gone forever. And, as importantly for me, my friend, who I did not value as I should have in life, will be gone as well."

I bowed my head, and put my hand over my eyes. I didn't mean to choke myself up as much as I did. But saying how much someone means to you jackhammers into your head the fact of whether you mean it or not. I had meant it. I didn't realize how much.

"That was a very noble speech," Gwedif said, after a minute. "But we must hurry. Are you ready to answer questions?"

"Yes," I said, clearing my throat. "I'm ready."

"Very well. The ientcio will speak for the officers, and I of course will speak for him."

"All right."

"The ientcio wants to know what you think happened in those last minutes of your friend's life."

"If the ientcio will allow it," I said, "I'd rather hold off on that question, for reasons that I'll get into in just a minute. But I can say that, being a human, I suspect that the situation was not as clear-cut as Joshua saw it. Joshua was looking at Michelle's actions, but perhaps not her state of mind."

"What gives you the right to make this decision for your friend?"

"She gave me the right, if she were incapacitated such as she is, to make medical decisions for her. I believe this qualifies me to take this action."

"What will you do if we refuse your request, or if the results are such that Joshua is not able to inhabit your friend's body?"

"I don't know," I said. "I don't really have a backup plan."

"That's not very wise," Gwedif said.

"No, it's not," I agreed. "But giving her a chance here is better than her having no chance back on Earth."

"You realize that if Joshua inhabits your friend's body, your friend will still be dead."

"I understand that. At the same time, Joshua has told me that he has retained the memories and some of the personality traits of Ralph, the dog whose body he inhabited, and those traits are still with him even now. My hope would be that some of who Michelle was might still remain after Joshua inhabits her body. However, even if doesn't work out that way, from the practical purposes of having Joshua inhabit Michelle's body, it won't matter."

"It occurs to the ientcio that you might be proposing having Joshua inhabit your friend's body merely out of convenience."

I blinked. "I'm not sure I follow that," I said.

"You said that this course of action may be the best way to introduce the Yherajk to humanity."

"Right," I said.

"What are some other courses of action?"

"I didn't come up with any others that were as good as this one, I'm afraid," I said.

"That's what the ientcio means," Gwedif said. "This is, you'll admit, a rather extreme course, and your pressing for it may simply be a way to keep you from admitting that you couldn't figure out a more conventional or at least sane way of introducing the Yherajk to your people. How is the memory of your friend served well by what might be your instinct to save your own skin?"

I flushed. "I wouldn't deny that having Joshua in Michelle's body would keep me from having to admit total defeat," I said. "But with all due respect to the ientcio, if he or the rest of you had wanted to do this conventionally, you should have just dropped a cube down on the steps of the White House and gone in for the tour. This is an extreme course, yes. But it will give a Yherajk a chance to live as a human, to be a human. Joshua has human memories, but that's not enough. It's like watching a documentary of a war. You can watch it a thousand times, but you still can't say you've fought. If you want to understand humans, you have to be one. Here's a chance."

"Wouldn't her family know that your friend has changed?"

"She has no family," I said. "The only person who would have been close enough to note the change would have been me. And maybe her hairdresser. I don't know."

"You say that a Yherajk could send the memory to another human being, so they might see it. Which Yherajk? Which human?"

"The Yherajk would be Gwedif," I said. "He's worked with humans before, and he's the only Yherajk on the ship who didn't parent Joshua, so that makes him more impartial than any other Yherajk might be. As for the human, I had originally thought I could do it, but I'm biased towards my argument. So it would have to have been Miranda. Miranda is morally opposed to the idea of Joshua inhabiting Michelle's body, but I trust her not to let her own opinion color what she would experience in the memory. But now, as it turns out, we've happened to pick up someone who is totally unbiased, since he doesn't know the specifics of Michelle's event. So the human who sees the memory should be Jim Van Doren."