"Don't give me that! You know what I mean! Survey ships bring in samples of extraterrestial life—the kind of bug-eyed monsters that give a man nightmares even to think about. What they do to you if they get the chance shouldn't happen to a quontab."
A chill ran through Dane. "But I don't know—"
"Tell it to the bems!" Already, Pfaff was jamming his thumb down on a buzzer button. "You had your chance, you stabat! Now we'll play it my way. You and the narcoanalyst and that vidal Nelva Guthrie—you'll see who's got the answers!"
Dane's panic was like a light-lance beam twisting in his midriff. "Please—!" he choked. "Please...."
Pfaff laughed aloud.
Dane stopped short in mid-breath. The goading, the mockery, the pig-eyes, the harsh voice, the badgering—all these he'd taken.
But the laugh went one step beyond his limit of endurance.
In the fraction of a second his panic turned to roiling, boiling rage.
What did it matter if he didn't know who he was or from whence he came? Why should he care if his past was a blank, his future a question-mark?