"Mark, please—!"
"Forget it. It's my turn for questions." And then, tightening my grip: "Who's supplying those thrill-mills?"
A thin white line of pain had formed round her lips. But she spoke coolly, levelly: "The Kel, of course."
In spite of myself, I breathed in sharply. "And you—?"
"I survived Bejak II. The price was to help them."
"The thrill-mills—"
"They're part of a plan. Man's conditioned consistency was a bit difficult for the Kel to handle. They felt the simplest solution was to upset the conditioning." A pause. "Thanks to you, they'll probably succeed."
"Thanks to me—!"
"Yes. You see"—a smile, without mirth—"the Kel are shape-shifters. They can take any form. Tonight, an infiltration party will move into Rizal's defenses and take over the posts of the men you had seized. No one will know them from the originals. By morning, there'll be a Kel ship dropping down in the port without interference. After which, we'll all be utilized as laboratory animals for various experiments. The Kel feel we're ideal for that role."
"You know, and you didn't warn us? Your own race; your own people?" I stared at the girl in numb horror, her beauty turning to ashes before my eyes.