The Security chief lifted a long-fingered hand. "It was my idea. All of it, from the beginning."
"Your ... idea—?"
"Precisely. My biochemical staff in the Mercury laboratories is superlative technically, but they need a broader, more incisive mind to shape their concepts. I gave them that—outlined the exact requirements they'd have to meet in developing the type of creature we'd need to send against the Kalquoi."
"The type of creature?"
"Of course. You didn't think you were human, surely?"
Dane's throat drew so tight he couldn't answer. Numbly, he dug his fingers into the dirt of the arena, trying to hide their trembling.
Jessup watched him for a moment, then threw back his head and laughed—jubilant, sadistic; the self-same laugh Dane had heard that other time, so many worlds away.
Only then, suddenly, Nelva Guthrie was on her feet—fists clenched, eyes blazing. "Stop it, you fiend!" she screamed. "Stop it! Stop it!"
Jessup's laugh cut off as if severed by a knife. "Oh, my dear! Have I disturbed you?" Mock solicitude flowed from him like oily vapor. "Really, I did have to handle it this way, though. I simply couldn't use a human. There was the matter of subconscious memory, inadverent knowledge. You have to consider those things when you're dealing with telepaths like the Kalquoi, you know."
Beside the Security chief, pig-eyed, smirking Pfaff moved smoothly into the conversation: "You didn't have much time, either, Mr. Jessup."