we Mentorians were blind and selfish--this
privilege ought to belong to everyone, not just the Lhari. More and
more, the Lhari monopoly seemed wrong to me. But I was just a medic. And
if I involved myself in any conspiracy against the Lhari, they'd find it
out in the routine psych-checking.

"And then we worked out how it could be done. Before every trip, with
self-hypnosis and self-suggestion, I erase my own memories--a sort of
artificial amnesia--so that the Lhari can't find out any more than I
want them to find out. Of course, it also means that I have no memory,
while I'm on the Lhari ships, of what I've agreed to while I'm--" His
face suddenly worked, and his mouth moved without words, as if he had
run into some powerful barrier against speech.

It was a full minute, while Bart stared in dismay, before he found his
voice again, saying, "So far, it was just a sort of loose network,
trying to put together stray bits of information that the Lhari didn't
think important enough to censor.

"And then came the big breakthrough. There was a young Apprentice
astrogator named David Briscoe. He'd taken some runs in special test
ships, and read some extremely obscure research data from the early days
of the contact between men and Lhari, and he had a wild idea. He did the
bravest thing anyone has ever done. He stripped himself of all
identifying data--so that if he died, no one would be in trouble with
the Lhari--and stowed away on a Lhari ship."

"But--" Bart's lips were dry--"didn't he die in the warp-drive?"

Slowly, Raynor Three shook his head.

"No, he didn't. No drugs, no cold-sleep--but he didn't die. Don't you
see, Bart?" He leaned forward, urgently.

"_It's all a fake!_ The Lhari have just been saying that to justify
their refusal to give us the secret of the catalyst that generates the
warp-drive frequencies! Such a simple lie, and it's worked for all these
years!"

* * * * *

"A Mentorian found him and didn't have the heart to turn him over to the
Lhari. So he was smuggled clear again. But when that Mentorian underwent
the routine brain-checks at the end of the voyage, the Lhari found out
what had happened. They didn't know Briscoe's name, but they wrung that
Mentorian out like a wet dishcloth and got a description that was as
good as fingerprints. They tracked down young Briscoe and killed him.
They killed the first man he'd talked to. They killed the second. The
third was