"Not unless you turn out to be one of this outfit. And for the life of me I can't see just what you hope to learn from me that I didn't spill during their questionings."
"Did they—" he let the rest of the sentence hang because he didn't know just how to express it.
"They know everything I know," she said. "I've been filled to the gills with something they shot out of a needle that made me as happily loquacious as a babbling marmoset."
"Did they explain why they brought you back here? It seems to me they'd imprison you."
"That's for later. They're now comparing my tale with Howard's and after they get done comparing notes they'll bring Howard back and we'll take a little jaunt to what they call their 'Detention Planet' where I'll meet a certain number of other Solarians who have gotten a bit too sharp for their liking. It's in another stellar system, I believe, completely safe and far from home and as a last lever in this war they'll hold the lives of a few hundred thousand men and women over the heads of Terra."
Farradyne swore. "The stinking bastards!"
Norma shook her head coolly. "That's emotion, Charles. I don't know exactly what their purpose is, but I do understand that this is a conflict of eventual survival, and rule of an economic empire."
"But—"
Norma shook her head. "Try the shoe on the other foot, Charles. Suppose you had come upon these people with the rest of your kind—how would you see them?"
"As possible allies and friends."