“You tell me. According to your official record, you were born on Oberon, the son of a mining engineer who was pregnant when she went there. Correct?

“That s right.”

“So tell me about your mother. How old was she, what did she look like, what sort of woman was she?”

“I have told you several times. I have no memory of her. She was killed in an accident soon after I was born.”

“You have indeed told me that. And you have been lying to me.” Skrynol’s fleshy flipper came out to grip Mondrian by the shoulder. “Your mother is dead. That is true. But you remember exactly what she looked like. And you were not born on Oberon. You were born on Earth. And as a child, you were sold on Earth.”

“It wasn’t like — ”

“Do not try to deny it. I know. You were born on Earth, and as an infant you were sold on Earth, and you lived on Earth for the first eighteen years of your life. As a commoner, existing in misery and poverty until you found a chance to escape.”

“How can you know that?”

“How do you think? Today you are an educated and sophisticated man. You appreciate beauty, ideas, literature, great art, and great music. You love fine food and drink. But part of you was still shaped on Earth. Part of you is still locked into the dirt, ignorance, and violence of where you began. You nightmare began here, on this planet. And if it is to end, it must end here.”

Mondrian writhed in Skrynol’s grip. “You didn’t learn any of that from me. And you could search the solar system, and never find my background in any record. Only one other person knew. How did you ever make Tatty tell you?”

“Princess Tatiana did not tell me. You told me, in answer to my questions. Your self-control is phenomenal, Commander Mondrian, but it cannot be perfect. Every time the subject of Earth, or of people born on Earth, arose, half a dozen physical variables in your system changed. They did not run wild, but even a point or two of difference is enough for me. I deliberately added other questions, and integrated the answers. The conclusion was clear.”

“Who have you told this to?”

“No one.”

“Then let me give you an incentive for continued silence.” Mondrian was fumbling in the darkness for the shirt pocket of his uniform. He pulled out a thin packet and thrust it blindly in front of him. “Take a look at that.”

The packet was taken gently from his hands. There was a long silence. At the end of it came a soft clicking noise, and light slowly brightened in the chamber.

“Darkness will still be essential during questioning,” said Skrynol. “But it no longer serves a useful purpose at other times. Behold your tormentor — and helper.’

Crouched before Mondrian was a giant tubular shape. The pale lemon on the body bifurcation showed that Skrynol was a female Pipe-Rilla, but she was not of the usual form. Changes had been made to the long thorax, and one pair of forelimbs was augmented by fleshy appendages resembling human hands and arms.

Skrynol held out the package that Mondrian had given her. “To satisfy my curiosity, tell me when and how you managed to obtain these pictures.”

“On my first visit.” Mondrian touched the fire opal at his collar. “This holds a multiple-wavelength imaging device. I tried it in many spectral regions. Thermal infrared and microwave both proved satisfactory.”

“Ah.” Skrynol crouched nodding on her long, orange-black hind legs. “That was a failure on my part. I observed your apparently nervous manipulation of that gemstone, and thought it was oddly at variance with your general extraordinary control. But I was too naive to draw the conclusion. Mondrian, your strength of mind is astonishing, to think of such a test in the first session. But for our purposes, that strength is not good. We have a very tough struggle ahead. Will you tell me why you thought it necessary to make images?”

“You suggested that you were of a shape too hideous to be seen. I could not imagine such a form — I have seen almost every type of organism within the Perimeter, and some of those are strange indeed. It occurred to me to wonder, perhaps you were not too strange to be seen, but too familiar.”

“And when you saw the results of the imaging?” Skrynol stood upright, towering towards the root Dark compound eyes peered down at Mondrian. “Would it not have been more in keeping with your job to report your findings, rather than bringing those pictures here with you?”

“Report to whom?” Mondrian shrugged. “To myself, as head of Security? To Luther Brachis, so he could use it against me? Anyway, I had too many unanswerable questions. You resembled a Pipe-Rilla, but there were differences. You said that you were an Artefact, the product of a Needler lab. That could have been true.”

“Could have. Why do you reject that notion?”

“At first I didn’t. You could have been an Artefact of a type I had never before encountered, something new out of the Needler labs. Or you could be a Pipe-Rilla, surgically modified for an Earth environment and for more efficient human speech. It even occurred to me that perhaps you were some kind of renegade Pipe-Rilla, hiding here from her fellows.”

The hissing laugh came eight feet above Mondrian’s head. “A ‘criminal,’ as you call it, taking refuge on this world? Come now, Commander. What crime could a Pipe-Rilla commit, which required a punishment worse than banishment to this planet? What hideous act could match the surgical inflicting of these disfigurements?” Skrynol held out her fleshy forelimbs. “As your poet says, “Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it.”

“Let me tell you about Hell. But I also came to that conclusion. A Pipe-Rilla would only suffer such changes, and such exile, voluntarily. And that led me to another. You were modified and sent here with the knowledge and approval of your fellows and your government. You are a spy and observer for the Pipe-Rillas.”

Skrynol lowered herself with a cantilevering of long, multi-jointed limbs, until she was face to face with Mondrian. “It is not just Pipe-Rillas. All other members of the Stellar Group feel the same need to observe humans. You are too violent, too unpredictable, to be left unwatched. But if you are right, then why are you not now in danger? Presumably I must protect my secret.”

“You have been physically modified, but mentally you are still a Pipe-Rilla. You are not capable of violence. Whereas I …”

“… Accept and even relish it? A shrewd observation and one that I cannot dispute. But I am not without other means of persuasion. You still have your own needs. You could announce my presence here, true; but if you did, your own treatment with me would end. And we are making progress, approaching the heart of your problem. Do you realize that?”

“I am sure of it. Why else would I so dread these sessions with you, yet keep on coming?”

“In that case you must make your own evaluation. Am I a danger to humans so great that you must now reveal my existence, or does your personal need dominate the situation?”

“It is not so simple as that. I am convinced that you intended that I should discover your identity, even if not so quickly.”

“Most perceptive.” Skrynol laughed, that same high, twittering laugh. “So I have my own agenda. And there is your dilemma. You must balance your personal needs against the possible danger to humanity of my presence. This is, you realize, something unique to your species. As, indeed, is your term for it. You call it a ‘conflict of interest.’ A conflict — again, always you speak in terms of war, battle, fighting.”

“What would a Pipe-Rilla call it?”

“The situation could never arise. We possess group altruism. The good of the many always takes priority in us over the needs of the individual.”

“I admire your nobility.”