"The answers should have occurred to you," Tanner said, his face a mask. "We're not the only ones who want this planet, Martin!"
Not the only ones! Stan relaxed his grip and let his arms hang limply at his side.
"Avis is an Aurelian," Tanner went on. "Her system and ours have fought many bloody battles for this planet. We're still fighting them—down here, now." He paused. "You haven't been told everything—operators are fed knowledge bit by bit, when they can fit it in. As a Thuscan agent, Martin, you're told just as much as the high command thinks necessary!"
His voice softened, became more persuasive. "We kill but not blindly, Stan. This is an important war—it's a war for an entire planet. We have to be brutal but the stakes are high. We're fighting to capture this planet for our own ... flesh and blood."
"I'm sorry," Stan whispered. "Forget what I did."
He wouldn't make the same mistake again, he thought. He'd do what he was told and he wouldn't forget that Avis and all of her kind were his implacable enemies, the enemies of his people.
But there was still something that bothered him.
In talking to him, Tanner had sounded like somebody he had heard once before....
CHAPTER IX